Who's to blame for the pink ceiling??? Really???

* I thought I'd be able to shout out my big, glorious news tonight, but alas, it has to wait until tomorrow.

Right now, I'm shaking my head. I really am.

Besides writing about lusty pirates, sexy swashbucklers, and to-die-for space captains, I also spend 40 hours a week chained to my desk for a charity in their customer service department.

There are 11 of us if you count our director. The only man among us is the director. We have no problems with this. We like him very much.

He thought since there were only ten people to manage he could get by without a manger, but now he's decided differently. He's also in charge of corporate training which is taking more and more of his time. So, he's announced that he's going to hire a manager - very soon.

That's cool. That's fine. At least with me. However, at least one of my coworkers thinks he thinks we need a "babysitter" and that is the sole reason he's appointing a manager.

Anyway, some of the women in my department are boggling my mind. On the one hand, they grouse that the company should hire and promote from within, and some have made it clear they want to move into management. On the other hand, they're blurting out loud that they think women behave better around a man and that it's easier to work for a man, and thus they hope that a man will be hired as our manager. One of my friends put her order in for a bald man. (She has a thing for bald-headed men.)

Am I going crazy? Am I hearing things?

Honestly, tell me if my logic is off. I can take it. Maybe I am the nutty one. But I don't think so...

My esteemed coworkers are contradicting themselves, right? They want to be promoted - themselves. Yet, they only want someone else to be promoted if it's a man.

Don't get me wrong - I like men. I LOVE men. Big, strong, strapping, sexy, half-naked (and naked) men. Read my books if you want proof. But I also believe women are just as capable and smart as men and deserve equal opportunity.

For years I've heard that it's the men holding women down, that there's this mystical invisible pink ceiling that prevents our climb to the top. I wasn't extremely happy about that. I was downright pissed years ago at my former employer when I found out they hired a young man with a lesser degree, lesser experience than myself but paid him more because he was a man. They said he had a wife and three children to support. I had a husband and four children to support. He had a bachelor's degree in accounting. I had my MBA on top of my bachelor's in accounting. I found out because I was doing budgets for the company so I was privy to this info.

But I digress.

Now it seems like we women are sabotaging ourselves. How smart is that?

I don't mind having a man for a boss - if he's the best person for the job. But I don't like it merely because he's a man or merely because he's not a woman.

Does anybody else reading this have an opinion on the matter?