On Conflation and the Universal Workplace Experience Myth

There aren't enough people willing to comprehend and admit that just because they feel safe and supported at work doesn't mean everyone feels safe and supported at work. This goes double for the place you currently work.

Just because you're having a good time at work doesn't mean everyone you work with is having a blast.

There is no such thing as a common or universal workplace experience. And if you think there is?

You're conflating your experience as the only experience that matters.

You also might need to evaluate your relationships with white supremacy and “professionalism” and the perks your lack of melanin or willingness to engage in homogenization or assimilation to erase your skin tone provides.

On Work, Safe Places, Safer Places, and White Supremacist Workplace Culture

I am 41 years old and have never felt safe in a workplace.

I have held down a job in some capacity since I was 13 years old, and I have yet to work in an environment where I’ve felt safe.

Not safe. Not safer. Nothing.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, and can share an opinion or viewpoint contrary to what white societal norms deem acceptable and not have the sword of Damocles swinging over my head.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, enough not to have to make sure I’m carefully wording my counsel and advice to others in ways that will not have anyone calling me racist to white people or “unwilling to understand what white people are going through.”

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, enough to do the work that I went and obtained student loans and a degree for in a way that centers the humanity and mental, physical, and emotional well-being of others and challenges leaders to lead with empathy without having one or all members of the senior leadership team question my skillset or “fit” for “their” organization.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I see other melanated, under-represented, unserved communities feel safe, hell, safer, enough to seek support when they are being harmed, they’re witnessing someone being hurt, or their needs aren’t being met without someone asserting they are “trying to stir the pot” or being told that they are the issue, not the workplace culture.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, around the idea that accountability is expected of everyone, not just those impacted by not having power, privilege, positionality, and proximity to or assimilation of white supremacist hierarchal ideology.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel like I’m doing anything but putting together survival plans and trying to make it to Friday.

Before the white “professionals” and those who covet the comfort and faux safety of white supremacist ideology chime in with their advice, I want to let you know that I’ve heard your advice, often unsolicited, since I’ve been a part of the workforce. It is always centered around assimilation or options with a history of not benefiting the melanated and marginalized. So, I’ll pass. I’ll also pass on the notion that, somehow, I’m the reason I don’t feel safer in the workplace, like my existence and unwillingness to sit idly by and allow myself or others to be harmed in “the problem.” I’m not “the problem.” People who look like me, talk like me, and bring their embodied identities to work like me are not “the problem.”

“The problem” is the systems and structures of whiteness created as the foundations of work that present us with the boxes we’re forced to fit into.

”The problem” is that so many people do not feel safe, hell, safer, anywhere, yet we have to get up every day, try to earn a living, and survive in another space where we cannot rely on safety and stability.

At 21, I began understanding that workplace culture in the United States works as designed.

At 31, I intimately understood that workplaces were not designed for someone like me.

At 41, I firmly understand that I will never inhabit a space designed for someone like me.

And I know that if I want any form of safety, it will be up to me to build it because I will never work anywhere that will dismantle or create a new design because of the whiteness-driven revolt that would ensue.

Challenge accepted.

On Professionalism, Games, and Neo

What Western culture likes to call professionalism is more of a tenuous game of restraint and mindfulness the further you are from whiteness.

For many melanated folx, it takes a lot of energy, therapy, mindfulness, and understanding the impacts of generational trauma, situational trauma, and white societal consequences not to shake some of y'all like a Polaroid picture.

And that's not a list of considerations for a work week.

Most of the time, all these tools and considerations go through our heads on a workday.

And sometimes, we're already in this headspace of maintaining and sustaining our peace and holding on to our careers by 9:30 a.m. on a workday.

White Western ideology would make you think professionalism is like a chess game.

That's because white people and people with privilege, power, and positionality don't have to play chess while dodging bullets like Neo.

A Mid-Week Leadership Tip

Hey, leader folx! Happy Wednesday! Here's a leadership tip (that you should not need someone to give you because it should be a given) to guide the rest of your week: Show gratitude to your team members every day.

Yes. Seriously. Show gratitude to your team members. Every. Day.

They are bustin' their asses for you and your organization, putting in work that makes you and your organization look good in every arena. They give your team and organization their energy, insights, and skills daily. A chunk of their life is spent in your workplace, and this is time they will never get back to spend with their friends, families, and communities or even dedicate to their passions and healing. Please show them some respect every damn day. Thank them for all the work they do for you and everything they contribute to your organization, even the "basic" things that most of us easily take for granted. Let it be known to every other senior leader you work with that your success is team success, and your team should be thanked for their work. And if you're going to say thank you?

Mean it.

Don't be out here going through the motions and acting like someone is twisting your arm. Don't say thank you because "that's what you're supposed to do." You're not an automaton. You're a human being with a heart and soul. You have feelings. You know what it feels like not to be given respect or gratitude for the things you've done that you don't expect respect and appreciation for. You know what it feels like to bust your ass and have a leader not show you gratitude and take credit for your energy and effort. Take those feelings, handle them with humility and empathy, and don't pass them on to those you lead.

If you think you're leading with humanity, gratitude should be easy, like Sunday morning. And if it's difficult, like dodging a truck while wearing ankle weights?

It would be best if you got your weight up.

On Clothes, Comfort, Identity, White Supremacist Workplace Culture, and "Professional" Attire

It's wild to me that people who consider themselves "high-level professionals" still throw out "advice" around "professional" attire. Y'all ain't got nothin' better to do with your time? Don't you have a meaningless seminar to conduct somewhere for a bunch of "professionals" who don't want to be challenged but want to act as they have been for clout?

At the beginning of my career in Human Resources, I used to "dress the part": business casual from head to toe: polo shirts, khakis, dress shoes, short haircuts, no facial hair. I did it because I was keen on being taken seriously.

I hated that sh--.

Every morning I looked in the mirror, I could see it eating away at my soul. It made me feel inauthentic, like a caricature of myself. And I still wasn't being taken seriously. If anything, I was being treated like a token, which made me constantly sad and angry. I don't know what my breaking point was, but I got up one morning, and instead of grabbing a striped polo shirt, I grabbed a Batman t-shirt.

And I've never looked back.

The moment I stopped dressing like a corporate HR goon was when my career changed, for better and worse. But I would've never been able to embrace the better if I stayed in the space of conformity. I've lost opportunities, left money on the table, and endured trauma and harm because I don't fit the "professional" image that white supremacist workplace culture almost demands from melanated folx. But I'd rather have a few fewer dollars in my pocket than cosplay as a" professional" daily. And real talk?

Who cares about this clothing thing at this point?

Why is this nonsense still important to people?

For the past few years, we all have lived through a collective trauma event, and we're still coming out of the worst of it and trying to take care of ourselves, earn a living, and maintain a job or career. Why does anyone care if someone's wearing a Care Bears shirt and some pajama pants while doing their job? Did the work get done? If it did, what's the problem? Regardless of your positionality in a workplace, if you're spending time and energy judging somebody wearing flip-flops and board shorts, you need to see that this is a "you" problem. It sounds like you need to sit and unpack your ingrained white supremacist patriarchal need to police others and maybe look into why you want homogeneity and conformity in the workplace.

And don't pull out that "you represent [insert company here] and you should dress as such" defense. That's weak and archaic. Most companies don't have a dress code or enforce the ones they have. Most weren't verbalizing this "concern" until a damn pandemic found many of us at home sitting in our comfy clothing, realizing we don't need to be in business clothes and uniformity all the damn time to be considered good at what we do.

Sheesh. Let it go, y'all. It is not the key to success some of y’all act like it is.

One of these “business gurus” recently posted, "Dress not as who you are but who you want to be." The first thing that popped into my head was, "Well, I wanna be a happy, healthy, comfortable, joyful, thicc Black man who wears t-shirts that display my voice and interests."

I'd say I'm nailing it.

Let's make the space for others to nail it too.