Treatmebetta

One of my best friends is constantly telling me to advocate for myself on jobs. She says I take way too much nonsense on the job, and that I don’t stick up for myself when the heaux sh$! is coming down. She’s right. I do.

I usually don’t say a word when a boss or a client is acting up because the few times throughout my career that I did stuck up for myself, I was either immediately, or strategically, released to the marketplace. And unless you have your money and mind all the way together, that is traumatizing as hell. 

The money piece is obvious. These bills come around every 28 days like clockwork, and the way my grocery bill is set up — I eat organic — you see where I’m going with this. And the mind part, well. That’s the real kicker, isn’t it? 

Having and keeping one’s mind together, is the real job. In work situations like the one I just described, even when you know you’ve been treated poorly or unfairly, you still wonder: Was it me? What did I do to bring this on? Could I have done something differently?

And those are good questions to ask, you know? Sometimes there might be something going on that you need to address in your presentation, communication or image to elevate perception or ensure greater clarity. There may be some new skills that you may need to acquire, or even some coaching that would help to smooth out any rough edges. 

In my experience, Black women get less grooming than others in traditional work spaces. So, smoothing out those rough edges is a thing. And the data bears that out. Consider, one of the foundational pillars behind career-oriented grooming is feedback. 

A 2022 Forbes article cited research stating that “Black women are nine times more likely to receive non-actionable feedback at work,” and we’re not the only ones. “Other underrepresented groups, such as Latina women, and Black men, also were more likely to get “low-quality” feedback. Actionable feedback is specific feedback that gives recipients examples to learn from and advice to act on in the future, according to the report.” 

Now, I think the fine print there is, we’re getting a lot of subjective feedback that is somehow biased and/or rooted in someone’s intangible ideas, beliefs and perceptions, rather than an accurate reflection or recitation of a specific issue, situation or concern.

But at the end of the day, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Especially not if we have to deal with nonsense on the job for any length of protracted time. That situation right there is where we can step up and take our power back.

Women should celebrate every win — and maybe the losses too

I saw a social media post recently talking about how sometimes a rejection is God’s protection. Have you heard that? Then I saw another post discussing how Black women celebrate every single win, no matter how small, or how seemingly ordinary. The influencer posited that we do this because we’re succeeding in various areas of life despite the odds. For instance, we have the highest divorce rates. We’re the most educated but among the least well paid. We have the highest maternal death rates, etc. Yet, despite these substantial obstacles we continue to excel in droves. That is worth celebrating.

A win is a win, as they say, and when you have added pressures from various isms to add bricks to your bag, why not lean into them? Certainly there’s little to no upside in being modest or ignoring these milestones when they occur.

So, if rejection can be a form of protection, and we should celebrate every win, maybe there’s something to celebrate in rejection as well.

When things go wrong on the job, or in life, there are a few things I recommend to help you get out of your head and back on the proverbial house. They are:

Do not dwell overlong. Shit happens. But you should not ruminate excessively, turning the situation over and over and over again and dissecting every little piece to death. That’s just going to spike your anxiety, and it’s more than likely that no real solutions will come of the activity. 

Give yourself time to grieve. I don’t see the value in shaking things off too quickly. If you don’t take the time to thoroughly consider, process, and potentially identify what may have gone wrong in a situation, it’s almost certain to come back in some shape or fashion later, and bite you in the butt. And usually that second visitation is more destructive than the first because the whole thing’s been festering like an infected wound you covered up and tried to forget about. Not.

Give yourself time to be sad. To have regret, even to wish that things had been different. There’s no magic time limit here, but if you fall into a loop where you start regurgitating the same conversation, and no new insights have come to light in a while, that’s usually a sign that it’s time to move on.

Move on. I wanted to say move the f$#% on, well, I guess I did say it. But the emphasis is warranted! Most Black women do not have the time, money, energy, or the mental bandwidth to remain in a pity pool too long. There’s life to deal with, and then there’s life to deal with as a Black woman, which is its own specially added, spiky layer of heaux sh$!. But even if we did have the support we needed to safely wallow a bit longer without negative impacts, for real, what’s the point?

Moving on and leveling up in the face of adversity is the epitome of boss babe behavior

Moving on is definitely not always as easily done as said, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make every Herculean effort to do it anyway. Try over and over and over again if you have to, feeling all the feels, and talking it out either with trusted friends, coaches or therapists along the way. 

In my experience, if you linger too long in a bad spot, you miss out on things, and that’s like losing twice! You dwell too long in the dark, and you can’t see new opportunities, perspectives, or lessons when they arise or arrive. And the reason you may not see them is because they’re in front of you, not behind you where the drama happened.

At work, when we fight to stay in rooms where we are not celebrated or valued, often despite our best efforts we will eventually find ourselves on the outside looking in. Whether or not you allow these setbacks, insults, mistreatments, situations or what have you to impact you in a substantive way, is up to you.

Now, I’m not saying don’t react. Or that you should downplay or minimize your feelings. We’re human. When bad things happen we naturally get upset. We may even act out, and that’s okay to a certain extent because again, we’re human. We’re allowed to have negative reactions. 

I’d love to think we’re all capable of stoic, unflappable strength in the face of workplace nonsense, but that’s simply not always possible. However, moving on, having the presence of mind to do what you need to do to repair that which has been broken, whether it’s your career, your self-esteem, a relationship, whatever, that’s real power, and you have some control over that. Use it. 

Don’t let the powers, or pseudo powers that be, win in the battle for your mind and spirit. Do your best. Focus, Heal. Learn. Grow. Fall. Fail. Do all the things at once if need be. Then get up and keep it moving. If you do that it’s much more likely that you will find spaces where you are celebrated and appreciated. And in those environments you will thrive.