Life Kit - Surviving At Work As A Person Of Color

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Changing workplace culture isn't the job of marginalized employees. But knowing how to manage your boss or document your daily work can help employees of color — even if it just shows you when you've had enough. (This episode originally ran in Sept. 2020).Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Anjali Sastry. So there's this idea that I was raised on. If you work smarter, not harder at your job, you'll be rewarded. That if you're productive and play by the rules, you'll climb up that corporate ladder in no time at all. But who makes the rules? And who does the strategy actually work for? If you're a marginalized person in your office, finding success can be super hard. There might be some major invisible barriers in your way. So, for example, for a lot of people, let's say saying Thursday is my no-meeting Thursday.

I block out my entire calendar and I'm just going to focus on deep work on Thursday. That voice you're hearing is Alan Henry. He's the service editor at Wired, and he spent his journalism career writing about technology and productivity. He's recognized a double standard in office spaces. Some people would be praised for that kind of forward thinking, that kind of, you know, commitment to their actual work. Other people, you might be viewed as lazy, or you might be viewed as aggressive for denying or declining meeting requests. So guess who gets dinged for this kind of behavior? You guessed it. Henry says it's

marginalized employees. He says those employees are often viewed in a negative light. So a lot of that is determined basically not just on your race or ethnicity, but your gender, your gender representation, your sexuality, or anything else that puts you in a group that is in the minority to the majority at where you work. So for me, it's about finding and navigating those paths around the baggage that we unfortunately bring to our jobs and trying to find a way to succeed regardless. So in this episode of Life Kit, we talk with Henry about how marginalized employees can effectively push back against these stereotypes and learn how to thrive. It's an idea he calls productivity without privilege. Before we get started, it's important to acknowledge that the burden of creating equity and inclusion in the workplace can't fall solely on the shoulders of people of color and those with marginalized identities.

If you're a white ally who wants to do more to create diversity at their office, great. We've got episodes for you, one on mentorship, another on hiring and retention. We've linked those for you on the episode page. But for right now, we're going to focus on how marginalized groups can take back their power and better advocate for themselves at work. First, we're going to talk about some barriers to entry in the workplace. Where does this work start? I don't want to put responsibility for a lot of this on the individuals that have to suffer with it. But in many cases, it does have to start with us. And historically, it has to. Yes, absolutely. Like, I wish I could say that managers need to

take this seriously. Hiring managers need to take it seriously. That companies need to kind of decolonize their corporate cultures in order to show a little bit more respect and empathy for the people that they bring in, obviously valuing their experience and their thoughts. They bring them in as part of their corporate culture, but then instead of integrating them in their ideas, they then shun them and sideline them and then force them to assimilate or adapt to the existing culture. So while I wish I could say that managers need to take the first step here, in reality, the people who need the help the most are employees or people like you and me who have bosses and have deadlines and have responsibilities and still need to get things done, even though we have all of this social baggage along with us. And it's just crazy. Like you would think that you wouldn't want to shun those employees. You would want them to have a conversation with you and have like, have it be like a mutual discussion. You know, you're helping each other in the long run.

Like you should be working together for this ultimate goal. Absolutely. I mean, just as an example, you know, one of my previous jobs, I was courted by a senior official who saw the work that I had done and thought I was very valuable, and we both respected each other. But once I got into the organization and I was on the team, I realized that the team didn't seem to respect my expertise the way he did. And, you know, suddenly I was not invited to the right meetings. And the meetings I was invited to were things that were kind of cast off projects, things that weren't the type of projects that would advance my career,

or things that didn't create buzz, and that kind of buzz was required to advance. So instead, I wound up getting a different tier of work, the kind of work that I now like to call it office housework, the work that is required to keep the team running. Yeah. And I want to ask about that, actually. For listeners who may not know, can you tell me a little bit about the differences between office housekeeping and so-called glamour work, and who ends up falling into doing these types of roles? Yes. So office housekeeping is generally considered the kind of work that is required to get done in order for the team to keep doing whatever it does. So scheduling meetings, booking conference rooms, making sure everyone can attend, making sure the

computers are hooked up to the projectors, and everybody's on the phone, stuff like that. It even drills down to ordering lunch for the lunchtime meeting. That's the stuff that someone has to do it. And whether or not you're the one who has to do it depends largely on what your manager thinks of you and your role on the team. Glamour work, on the other hand, is the kind of work that gets your name in lights. That's the kind of work that gets you promotions or makes senior management notice that you're doing good stuff. The great example I like to give is office housework is leading a presentation in front of your team in, you know, a conference room, whereas GlamourWork is leading that same presentation at an industry conference in front of senior executives and VIPs

and other people who may take notice of your skills. And, you know, it's so interesting to me, like, a lot of this, like, personally, I can't,'t like generalize or speak for other people at my organization. But, you know, I have found that when you come into a group or a team, there is that person who might be at more of an entry level position who takes on this office housekeeping work. And you have to really fight for that glamour work, going to the conferences, like advocating for yourself. And again, like predominantly that falls on people of color to do that. And you see them in the office housekeeping roles, but also having to fight for the opportunities to do the glamour work. And like, I don't know if this is just because of the way companies historically look, but I see the same kinds of people doing the glamour work who often look like the people who are at the top in those leadership levels in the C-suite. There's nothing about you advocating for yourself. That's not a problem. The problem is the manager

who sees you advocating for yourself and says, everyone should be like that without taking into account that different people are different. And in many cases, in a lot of workplaces, the people who advocate for themselves the loudest are the people who don't have the social baggage that forces them to be perceived as less than if they do speak up, right? So like a white male in a corporate environment can be assertive, and everybody just thinks he's assertive. That's just his personality. We'll let it go that way. Right. A woman of any ethnicity could speak up and be aggressive, kind of off-putting. And especially a person of color, like a woman of color, could speak up in the same way. And suddenly she's the angry black woman or she's just she's sassy. It's she's the fiery Latina or something like that.

None of those things are OK. I think the default in the workplace is to judge workers who offended you by their intentions or what you think their intentions are, as opposed to their actions. And, you know, like, quote unquote, Bob isn't racist. That wasn't what he was trying to do. He's just eccentric or he is a genius. He's so good at his job. This is excusable, which is something even in public media that's coming out. And we're going to excuse this person's actions just because they're like good at their job. Yeah, it breaks my heart when I hear stories like that. Because I mean, I've been there. And a lot of times it takes a form of a microaggression. And other cases, like you're describing, it can take the form of like an actual aggression, somebody who is clearly

a jerk, and a jerk to other people. But they're so good at their job. They're brilliant. They're a wonderful programmer, journalist, developer, whatever. And so we're going to excuse them just, oh, they're just like that. That's not okay. I mean, it's stereotypical gaslighting. You're telling somebody, you're telling somebody, hey, that thing didn't happen the way you think it did. I know it happened to you, but their intentions weren't what you perceive them to be. And a lot of managers are guilty of this, mostly because, I mean, we're all human and we don't like conflict. We don't want to have a big blow up with everyone.

Right. No one likes conflict? No one does. Right, no one likes conflict. And especially when it comes to racism and sexism and things that we objectively as a society understand are bad and counterproductive to our group's success, we don't want to admit it because we don't want to have to deal with it. And that also speaks to another kind of point that is important to my heart is the difference between saying a person is racist and the thing they did is racist, is sexist, is homophobic, is transphobic. It's one thing to say that, hey, you did a thing that is wrong and not say I'm passing a character judgment on you. I find people are much more receptive when you say, hey, that thing you did isn't good. And that's much different than saying you're a bad person.

Now that we understand some of the barriers marginalized people face in the office, let's talk tips for success. If you're a marginalized person looking to take back your power, let's talk tips for success. If you're a marginalized person looking to take back your power, here's what you can do. One thing I always advise people do is to keep track of everything that's going on at work. I mean, I hate to add yet another job to everyone's job, but it's really helpful to keep a work diary

or even just some kind of running log of all of the things that you do. This data is your best friend because you can look back on all the things you did and then go to your boss at your annual review and say, look at all the stuff I accomplished. Look at all the stuff I did. It's written down. It's all written down. You remember in February when I did this thing. And it's good for you because you can keep track of all of the

responsibilities that are on your plate. So if new things come along, new opportunities, you can judge whether or not is this more housework that someone's asking me to do? Or is this something that might actually advance my career? And then you can choose based on your existing workload, whether or not it makes sense to pick one over the other. And that leads to the next kind of tip, which is learning to manage up. And this is, yeah, this is going to sound familiar to a lot of people. But managing up is this notion of making sure that everything that you do, everything you agree to do is aligned with your bosses priorities. So if your boss comes to you and says, Hey, I'd really like you to, to make sure we have the conference room for our weekly team meeting from now until whenever.

Can you find the conference room? That's empty. It would be really good for you to tell you, turn around and tell your boss, Hey, you know, this is kind of a thing that I think that rather than me doing every week or me doing all the time, maybe we can rotate this around the five people on our team. I'll do it this week and maybe Jeff can do it next week. And then it becomes a thing that everyone does. What are some templates in order to have those tough conversations? You kind of brought up some lines here, but I'm wondering if there's anything else that you would want to mention for listeners to

kind of take this back to their workplace and use? Yeah, well, for one, when it comes to glamour work versus housework, I'm a big fan of learning how to say no without ruining your career. Then a lot of times, it's not as simple as just saying no, it's saying no and or no but. So I'll order lunch this time, but can John do it next week? Or I have a lot of things on my plate that you know about, or you can even list them off if you're talking to your manager. I'm working on this project and that project and that project. Let me look at those and see if I have enough time to really do right by this new initiative you want to saddle me with.

So those kinds of those kinds of things will help you navigate the amount of work that you get assigned. Another thing that I am a big fan of is protecting your boundaries. Like I have had these conversations with lots of friends who feel like they have to take every project that comes their way. Oh, boy. Yep. Same. Yeah. And I mean, it's the lure of helping out, right? You want to be viewed as a go getter, you want to be viewed as as enthusiastic about saying yes to all the things you think, oh, that'll get me the promotion, it'll get me recognized when it's not always the

case. It's not always the case at all. And it took me, personally, it took me a long time to recognize that. I mean, I was a project manager a long, long time ago. And I learned very quickly that some projects matter more than others, but all of them take a certain level of work. And you can say yes to everything and only a quarter of it will actually mean something to someone important.

So taking time to say, this is what's on my plate right now. And if I add this, something else needs to come off is a very powerful thing to be able to say to your manager. And another part of this too, I think is the importance of finding your people. Oh, yes. And how does that factor into finding power and getting a seat at the table as a marginalized person? Well, for one, one of the biggest issues with being any marginalized identity in the workplace is the sense of utter and abject loneliness. This sense that no one really understands what you're going through, and you don't have anyone

to talk to about it. Most companies have some form of employee resource group. So joining one is a great first step. The value in those kinds of groups, they host kind of small, formal or informal gatherings where you can go share your experiences in a semi-safe space and have other people tell you whether or not what happened to you, yeah, that's really messed up, or maybe it's you. And I've gotten feedback from people who are like, you know what, Alan, you're great and you're so skilled at what you do, but you're terrible at standing up for yourself when it comes to talking to a manager. And I mean, that's, that's valid feedback that I had to go, I had to find my tribe to get, right? And, um,

and sometimes you're more comfortable hearing it from that tribe. It's the way you're communicating about it is also easier. Absolutely. Cause again, you can bring your whole self to the conversation, right? You can ask somebody. Yep, exactly. Is there a moment though, if that's not happening, if you're frustrated, if you're kind of at your wit's end, is there a moment where you as a marginalized person just need to leave? Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of people realize that there's a certain point where they just can't survive anymore in this environment. Their needs aren't being, their emotional needs aren't being met. They don't have the kind of psychological safety required to engage their employer or engage their manager on topics of diversity or inclusion or

anything like that. Like in my case, if I wanted to talk about the microaggressions I faced at one of my last jobs, I would have been an angry black man. And there would have been no recourse for me, that I would have gotten that label, and that would have been that. If you have the data to, if you've been keeping track of the things that you do and the work that you're assigned, and if you have that information, you have your feelings, and you know that both the work you do and the way you feel about your work are just not going to come around, then it's time to go. It's time to find another culture or another company that presumably will treat you a little better.

Thanks again to Alan Henry for talking with me for this episode. Keep an eye out for his upcoming book on this topic. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We've got an episode on how to be an anti-racist, another on forgiveness, and lots more. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. If you like Life Kit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash Life Kit newsletter. And as always, here's a completely random tip, this time from listener Emily Chambers. A fun random life hack that I use on a daily basis to remember if I did something important, for example, unplugging my hair straightener. I do something completely random that will help

me remember if I unplugged it, like jumping up and down five times or spinning in a circle. If I ask myself, for example, did I turn the oven off? Oh, yeah, I did. I remember doing the Macarena after I did it. Do you have a random tip? Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at lifekit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Andy Tagle. Megan Cain is the managing producer, and Beth Donovan is our senior editor. I'm Anjali Sastry. Thanks for listening.