It is 2 something in the afternoon, and I am struggling to get through this work day.
My head has been spinning for the last couple of days as I have replayed a conversation over and over in my head. I have WAAAAY too many things on my plate, and my husband asked about one of them. He asked if I was letting things fall to the back burner. And I think he was surprised when I said…
YES! DEFINITELY, YES!
He seemed taken aback by my answer and then asked me why I took on so much. In a reasonable, ideal world….it is a valid question. But I had to inform him that I am trying to dig myself out of debt, work a full-time job, have a side hustle (that I hope turns to a full-time job), a passion project (that I hope turns to a side hustle), be a halfway okay mom and wife (because I am too tired to be superwife/mom), and somehow get to the gym so I can lose a hundred pounds.
Everything is spilling off of my plate. The only thing that is pushing me forward is coffee and delusion. However, there is something whispering in the back of my mind that I am finally on my way to making big things happen for myself; I just have to keep all of this shit on my plate in the meantime.
As I search for my next cup of coffee, I hope you will take the time to indulge in the latest chapter of my passion project: The Ebony Alpha. You can find it on Wattpad and the Dreame app.
This weekend, I wrote about posting every day, and the second day I already failed.
In my defense, I did start to post but was distracted. In the past, I would have easily thrown the whole idea away; I refuse to do that again now. The whole purpose of this “experiment” is to push myself and see where I will be at the end of it.
It is Monday, and I am already drowning in a to-do list that I can never complete. But my goal this week is to complete a couple of chapters for The Ebony Alpha and to organize my life a bit to get 2023 off to a smoother, more productive start.
There are also a couple of office stories I plan to share this week, but I am working on giving them a proper delivery.
When I started this blog a few years ago, I intended to talk about my experiences as the only black woman in my department. If you know, you know.
But it was also for those who didn’t know. Being a black woman in the corporate world, especially the only woman of color in a department or even a whole company, is an experience, to say the least.
However, since the creation of this blog, I have since been laid off from that job, and I have found myself in several other work environments where the color of my skin has provoked awkward conversations. While I plan to share those stories here, I decided to mark this point as my day of change.
I recently saw a TikToker post about their one-year anniversary since they decided to start posting every day and how their life changed since then. And it made me think about how different my life might be if I had been consistent in the projects I pursued (and enjoyed) or if I didn’t just prioritize things to help dig myself out of debt.
So today is day one of me posting every day and seeing where my life will be in a year. I won’t lie, the content will probably be random, but I feel like that is appropriate. The black woman in your office has more going on than what you see every day, so here is a sneak peek into my thoughts, life, and the awkward moments of being The Office Black Girl
Per the previous email that you cc’d the most irrelevant people on…
Per the previous email that I ignored due to ignorance…
Per my previous email I am done putting up with your shit…
Navigating the waters of office politics is already a labor of self preservation. Dealing with the lowly drama of fellow coworkers and stroking the fragile egos of Target loving managers is enough to make anyone hate their work environment. However, successful navigation can go off track when it comes to an office email.
Prior to this job, my experience with work emails was limited. There was either no communication done by email or the few emails exchanged left little room for ignorance. However, these days I swear it is hard not to intentionally and untentionally hit the land mine of email foolishness.
My most recent travels into the land of email insensitivity involved a coworker (we will call her Pen) finding something wrong in a campaign that was being worked on. Beyond the fact that she reached out to the wrong person, she also decided to CC me on the email along with another manager.
Of course the email didn’t include sufficient information and the “wrong person” (we will call her Ms. Direction) responded with the fact that she needed more details to (not) be helpful. Then comes the direct question to me in this group email: “Can you help with this?”
Now before I continue with my story, I did recently apologize to Pen for my email (I started typing this post weeks ago). Not because I truly felt bad about it but because I know most of my response was fueled by the annoyances of the day and Pen is honestly not the type to try and be an intentional asshole about work. So I felt I should apologize out of self awareness, because I was trying to be an asshole at the time.
Now, after I was asked to help, I deleted the email because I refused to have people add on to my already full plate. In my mind, I felt if someone had the time to find mistakes that were not directly my fault, they had time to find a resolution. So the next day, Ms. Direction sent me an email asking if I had found the information. I quickly responded with “No. But I would be happy to give the spreadsheets to Pen and she can locate the products.”
Apparently, my response didn’t go over well with management. The inactive manager on the email responded that she would locate the products herself. Which I felt like she was doing it in defense of Pen and told her it was ridiculous for her to take on more work when it was not her burden.
Then when I got up and went to the breakroom, Ms. Direction decided to have a conversation with the inactive manager about my response. It appears that some people viewed my response as harsh.
The email was even brought up to the Devil herself and she talked to other people, who were not even on the email, about it. But amusingly enough she never addressed me about it and Pen never spoke about it either.
But that is the thing about emails, it is so easy to offend someone or for others to talk to you too boldly and bring witnesses to your slaughter.
One manager (we will call her Humpty Dumpty, name inspired by a coworker) in particular would send emails to me about stuff that she thought I did wrong and cc people on it like the Devil (my direct boss), Ms. Direction (former manager and usually irrelevant on any emails sent to me), and other randoms. But I keep receipts, and I enthusiastically responded to Humpty with straight facts every time.
What is funny is that Humpty would respond back with an apology and all of those CC’d people would be removed. Being the amateur petty queen that I am, I would acknowledge the apologies……after adding all of those removed CC’d people back to the email.
Emails feel like a game to me at times and a test of my patience. From people spelling my name wrong and me fighting the urge to respond back with the misspelling of their name to just blatant disrespect. I walk close to the line at times: a manager misspelled my name in multiple emails and I started to respond back with the misspelling of his name (he eventually stopped responding with my name in the greeting). But I know where the line is and where the petty has to stop.
Tomorrow is a new day and I am sure my inbox is overdue for some new foolishness. Only time will tell…
In today’s post, I want to share the recipe for making a turkey baster baby with a married man.
Step One: take two lesbians who want to have a baby. Make sure one of the lesbians is possibly foolish and willing to bleed in her pursuit of securing the turkey baster full of sperm.
Step Two: have the foolish lesbian ask her coworker if she could have his sperm. For a little extra excitement to the process, make sure the lesbian barely knows the coworker, he has at least one kid, and is married to a woman who can come unhinged if provoked.
Step Three: abandon the whole recipe cause the wife will kill the lesbian and possibly the husband if any of his sperm makes it to a turkey baster.
Now, I have no moral or religious convictions that cause me to judge a same sex couple from trying to produce a child with a blood line tied to one of the parents. With that said, I have many judgments about my husband’s coworker asking for his sperm.
Now, my husband said no of course, but not before considering his mother’s feelings about the situation. The fact that his mother somehow played any primary factor in his decision making only fueled my annoyance with the the sperm request. But I’ve decided to (finally) let that go and focus my judgement on his coworker and not his incorrect priorities..
Women get knocked up by one
night stands from all walks of life, so maybe his coworker figured she didn’t
have to know anything about her sperm donor in order to get pregnant.
Maybe she thought negative stereotypes of black men abandoning their children would allow for her to have a child with a man and him be okay with not being involved.
Or maybe she must have thought that her working at the same job as him would somehow provoke the idea that she could somehow afford the sperm of a married man (trust she is not even close).
But all of that is irrelevant, because at the end of the day what it is comes down to is simple: that sperm is mine. Mine to disappointment my mother in law with when I tell her I don’t want to have more kids. Mine to fear when I forget to take my birth control. Mine to spit up, gag on, or fuck up my good sheets.
In conclusion…
This recipe pairs well with slashed tires, hostile side eye, possible assault charges, and crushed dreams. Wash it down with some hot tea and enjoy!
Yesterday, I meet with my manager for our weekly meeting. As always, I was expecting to be blindsided by her turn of attitude. Her persona changing from the forced smile of undersexed, dance mom to that of the Devil wears Target.
She didn’t disappoint…
I stared at this control freak of a woman, who sat across from me, with what I can only hope was a neutral expression on my face. All the while, I was already mentally checked out of the meeting when she started up with, “Now for the negative…” half way through this unproductive conversation.
As she began to relay concerns from people ranging from her boss and my coworkers in regards to my “bad attitude”, I could only think of comedians who “shucked and jived” on stage, demonstrating the joke of having to appease a white person for some sort of gain.
Then my own caricature popped in my head. An unreal version of myself that was created for the survival of being a black face in the white corporate world. Her once long straight hair, which had been slowly curling, was now natural and almost wild. The fake, broad smile that stayed plastered on her face was now gone. What remained was her full lips curled up on one side, silently making the black woman sound of disapproval, “Hmmm.”
But the most noticeable thing about my caricature, she wasn’t dancing. She was standing there with her hand at her hip looking at me. Waiting on me. Judging me.
I tuned back into the one-sided conversational assault just in time to make a small defense for myself that wasn’t worth the effort. In my mind’s eye, I could see my caricature shake her head and walk away into the darkness of my brain.
The request, demand, or statement of telling a black woman to fix her attitude feels like an attack based on a false narrative rather than constructive criticism. When I, as a black woman, sit in a department meeting full of white faces I feel like my face is the only one picked on since it sticks out. While the room is full of expressionless, somber, or focused faces, somehow only mine seems to be deemed as something different and threatening to the team dynamic.
Why is it when I speak as honestly as my white counterpart, my words are seen as laced with attitude and hostility but not hers? She is thanked for her honesty and allowed to continue on with her work while I am pulled into private meetings with management to address my attitude. Once again, I am forced to swallow my pride and who I am because something about me seems bothersome to my white superiors.
“Just Smile…”
Such a simple action. But why do I have to smile when I am not happy? Why do I have to smile when my determine expression should be all you need to know I am here to work? Why do I have to smile when no one else is?
After my meeting, I decide it is time to look for another job. It is disappointing because when I started with this company I was excited that I was joining a company where there was female leadership and a sea full of black women with natural hair. Black women who came in all shapes and sizes and seem to not put on a persona to fit some image.
But I realized, many had their own stories of being told they were “bullies” or had “negative attitudes.” They too took the beating until some left and other are left behind waiting for their exit plan to take effect as well. Now it was my turn to find some place that wouldn’t demand a smile, but would create an environment worthy of one.
As I started to think about the things I would have to do to fit in at a new company or at least to interview, my caricature started to emerge from the darkness. She was flat ironing her hair and stretching her mouth in preparation for a massive smile. But what kept me staring at her the longest were her shoes. They were tap shoes and on the side in white paint were the words “Shuck” and “Jive.”
The Office Black Girl 