Ever accidentally get copied on an email that was not meant for you?
Yeah. Me too.
Like today. When one of my clients casually mentioned he was replacing me “with a new gal in a few months.”
A new gal.
I read it twice, just to make sure my decaf coffee hadn’t spiked itself.
Apparently this gal got old. Expired. Past her best-by date. Should’ve come with a sticker: Consume within three fiscal quarters.
We’ve worked together for a few years. I’ve referred him business. We’ve sat in meetings, traded ideas, laughed about clients, built campaigns that went legitimately viral. Not marketing-viral. Real viral. The kind where strangers comment things like, whoever runs this account deserves a raise.
And yet. Here we are.
Tossed aside with the breezy efficiency of a seasonal throw pillow.
I think what surprised me most wasn’t the replacement. Marketing is a carousel. Everyone’s chasing the newest thing, the shiniest strategy, the younger algorithm whisperer. I get that. This industry has the emotional stability of a toddler on a sugar crash.
It was the word.
Gal.
Somewhere between 1952 and now, that word survived like a cockroach. Men in business still reach for it when they want a woman to sound smaller. Friendlier. Replaceable. A gal is interchangeable. A gal is decorative. A gal is… temporary.
A professional is not.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth I don’t love admitting: being a woman has opened doors for me in marketing. It has. I walk into rooms I might not get into otherwise. People underestimate you when you’re a gal. And sometimes that underestimation is a Trojan horse — you slip in, do excellent work, and suddenly they’re shocked you have a brain and a strategy.
But the girl card has a limit.
Apparently mine has an expiration date.
I’ve been sitting with this all morning, trying to figure out why it hit so hard. It’s not the lost account. I’ll get another one. I always do. Work is renewable. Skills are renewable.
It’s the disposable feeling.
That quiet realization that in some corners of business, loyalty is thinner than the paper your contract was printed on. Years of work can be summarized in one sentence: we’ll swap her out for a new gal.
No conversation. No transition. No acknowledgment.
Just… next.
And if I’m honest, the part that stings isn’t even about him.
It’s the mirror.
Because how often do we do this to ourselves? Tie our worth to how useful we are to someone else? To how long we stay shiny? To whether we’re the current favorite flavor?
The lesson, I think, is this:
Do excellent work. But never confuse proximity with friendship.
Be warm. But don’t build your identity on being chosen.
And for the love of all things holy, don’t shrink yourself into a “gal” to stay likable.
I am not a gal.
I am a professional business owner who built something valuable. If someone can’t see the value anymore, that doesn’t make it disappear. It just means my work is meant for a room with better lighting.
And maybe the real expiration date here isn’t me.
It’s the version of me that thought being indispensable to someone else was the goal.
It’s not.
Being indispensable to myself is.
