Intimidating? Me?

Picture the scene...

A crowded meeting room, twenty-five or thirty people sitting around a conference table discussing the planning and implementation of a large football tournament. Only three of those people are women, me included.

My fellow manager pipes up with a garbled piece of information about the parent of one of our boys volunteering his firm to be a possible sponsor for the tournament, that he'd forgotten to follow up on. So I nudge him, tell him not to worry about it and make a note that I need to contact said parent.

At this point the Chairman jokes, "I can't believe you've managed to get yourself a secretary."

A secretary.

A secretary.

I am not sure if I am proud or ashamed of the fact that I picked up an empty coke can, and threw it, hard, at the Chairman with an emphatic, "I'm not a fucking secretary!"

There was a combination of shocked silence and laughter around the room.

I don't think anyone who was at that meeting is going to mess with me now.