Career Advice for Barbie

Barbie holds an important position at SE2. Specifically, she is stuck to the outside of the women’s room to signify that it’s not the men’s room (which has Ken doll).

This is not just any Barbie – this is the original Barbie, or at least she looks like one.

The women in the office have created a subtle system for signifying that the bathroom is occupied, leaving one of Barbie’s legs pointed out at a 90-degree angle. Occasionally, the occupant who raised Barbie’s leg forgets to put it down after she exits the lavatory. After a couple of hours, the other women in the office start looking very uncomfortable.

My seven-year-old daughter, Charlotte, provides replacement parts from her Barbie collection when needed. When the SE2 Barbie lost her shoes, Charlotte provided not-so-original blue sparkly high-heeled shoes. And when we concluded that the original Ken’s snug bathing suit could get us (or at least him) arrested for obscenity in several states, Charlotte donated a more modest pair of swim trunks.

Of course, Barbie holds an important place in American culture, too. (Recently, I met a woman named Barbie. Unfortunately, I then referred to her as Bambi and that was awkward.)

I was concerned, however, when I heard that Barbie’s newest career path is journalism.

Talk about bad timing.

Journalist Barbie? That’s like announcing blacksmith Barbie. It was a noble career but the emphasis is on “was.”

Newspapers are announcing layoffs and closures seemingly on a daily basis and the University of Colorado is considering closing its journalism school.

And it doesn’t even matter that this Barbie is a TV news anchor, not a print reporter. While the TV news industry does far less public handwringing than newspapers, it’s gone through the same wrenching budget cutting.

The typical TV news reporter of today fits the so-called “20, 20, 20 rule” – 20 year olds working 20 hours a day for $20,000 a year. And, as “backpack reporters,” they’re likely to be lugging their own equipment, which tends to tough in Barbie’s high heels, and standing on the side of a snowy highway at 5 a.m.

Now, if Mattel were thinking, they’d create PR flack Barbie. The PR industry is growing and it’s a profession where women thrive, holding about 70% of the jobs. (At SE2, men are an even smaller minority.) And – if our office is any guide – they wear really nice shoes.