“That's not fair!”

I remember back when I was in my very last year of high school when I was in my economics class with my friends at the time and we were learning about the tax brackets in Australia. The teacher showed us the chart and explained to us how it was calculated and I became so infuriated that I started a class discussion. “That’s not fair!” I remember angrily expressing as my teacher was halfway through explaining the table. She tried to explain that making it “fair” was the whole reason the taxable income brackets were like this in the first place. Now we were learning something about income inequality and about how the tax was one of the ways the government is able to even out everyone’s pay in Australia so that we won’t have such a large difference between incomes. I remember understanding that this was a good thing and that I am very grateful to live in a country that cares about its people, however that did not change my anger on the topic.

“No, that is not fair!” I still insisted after my teacher tried to explain to me that it was fair. I continued to express how I felt about the topic, how it wasn’t fair that when people who work hard to make the most money in Australia would eventually have to pay about half a dollar in tax for every dollar they earn (in the highest taxable bracket at $180,001 and over, the tax amount is $54,097 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000). My best friend at the time, Sasha, joined in the discussion and put me on the spot, “so you basically feel bad for the richest people in our country?” She questioned me and the whole class laughed. To that, I remember confidently replying, “that’s because I want to be in that percentage of people and if I work my ass off and the government eventually takes like half of what I earn, that is some b******t!” — or something between those lines. I remember getting angrier because that was the moment I realized, my best friend who always ranked in the top five students of our grade really doesn’t aim that high at all.

After we finished school we all took our own paths and I chose to get into sales. I was halfway through my business degree when I was offered an interview for a spot in the sales team of a travel company. I got the job and decided to drop out of university as I thought this would be my fast pass ticket to start climbing my way to the top.

The company that hired me was a very big company, they had about 6 different sales teams all competing with each other to see who could have the most clients by the end of each quarter. I was so excited to start, I am very driven by money, so when I started hearing about how much more money I would be able to make on top of my base salary from every client that I got on board, I had the most insane euphoric rush through me.

I was quick to show my significant work ethic in the team. There are six of us in my team including my team leader Matt. Matt is a very typical guy in a sales corporate job. You could just tell his ego was very high. He always had to take up space to initiate his presence, his stance and pose when talking or even listening is always very widespread. I started to notice that all the team leaders were this way and they all happened to be men.

I was performing very well in my team. It was my first quarter in joining the team and I already had two more clients for them. The usual amount of new clients for each team member was between one to three for every quarter of the year, therefore I was very proud. Matt was proud, after my first performance meeting he had a private conversation with me, congratulated me for performing well, and gave me the advice to be more assertive and speak up for myself when I was to present my work and when I’m approaching clients, Matt said that it would really help me perform even better!

I really took his advice and became much more confident at work. In my second quarter, I got four more clients aboard, I was ecstatic! I got the most clients in the team for that quarter, everyone was proud of me! I was very excited about the performance meeting and what advice Matt had to give me next. But to my shock, in the performance meeting for my second quarter, Matt did not mention me at all. He just proudly celebrated how our team outperformed all the others for the quarter, so I jokingly added, “all thanks to this newbie hey,” and laughed. After the meeting, I overheard Matt calling me an “annoying bitch” who likes to take all the credit that’s “only been here for a minute.”

I think that’s when it hit me what I’ve really gotten myself into. After five years in this company, Matt had been promoted to general manager from “his outstanding performance.” I got promoted to team leader when our performances were assessed after Matt was promoted and two of my team members left my team because I was too “bossy”.

I guess Sasha was right after all. I am starting to think that maybe I won’t be able to get there in the highest tax bracket no matter how hard I work. Women have to work twice as hard to get half as fair compared to men, especially in corporate jobs, and rarely ever get the respect we deserve. I guess I understand now, that yes people do work hard to get to the highest-paying jobs, but not all hard-working people get there, and maybe some people who are there don't work as hard to deserve to be there.