On Interview Questions, Nicholas Sparks, and Unrealistic Love

Image description: A scene from the film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel "The Notebook." Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, the film's two white co-stars, are kissing in the rain, both of them heavily drenched. Ryan Gosling is lifting Rachel McAdams up. Rachel's legs are wrapped around Ryan Gosling's waist.

I think it's time for us to collectively agree to stop asking candidates interviewing for positions the question, "Why do you want to work here?" (especially if you're asking that question because you seek candidates ready to enter into a "love affair" with your employer). Why should we all agree to stop asking this question?

1. You're looking for someone who's in love with your company. You're looking for someone to gush over how awesome your company is, not a candidate that could do a great job. Real talk? It's weird to expect someone to love your workplace without working for you for at least six months, which is usually when people know if they even like working for you (note: for marginalized folx, that timeframe is generally shorter). Just because a candidate loves the PR work your company did to put a positive image out on the internet and the DEIA blurbs and proclamations on your company website don't mean the reality of working for your company won't leave them wanting more.

2. You realize that many candidates who apply for positions with your company are applying because they have the skills and experience you claim you're seeking and are just looking for steady employment, right? Sometimes a job is just an end to a means. Sometimes it's doing what you need to do to survive and live a life with less stress and anxiety around job security and financial security. And that's OK. We need to normalize this. You and the candidate both have needs that you want to be met, and it's OK to hire folx who will do great work for your company but aren't in love with your company or go to your company game nights every week. You're hiring to fill a role, not to find a new buddy or "family member." By default, the "right fit" mentality is filled with bias and questions like this. By asking this question, you're making filling a position a popularity contest or an episode of The Bachelor.

You want a better question to ask candidates than "Why do you want to work here?" How about "When you saw this job posting, what was it about this position that made you want to apply?" This question de-centers your needs and hopefully allows the space for a candidate to share why the job interests them.

Stop looking for "love affairs." Your workplace is most definitely not a Nicholas Sparks novel.

Image description: A scene from the film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel "The Notebook." Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, the film's two white co-stars, are kissing in the rain, both of them heavily drenched. Ryan Gosling is lifting Rachel McAdams up. Rachel's legs are wrapped around Ryan Gosling's waist.

On Urgency and Making Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.

I made oatmeal raisin cookies the other day. Why? Because I had a hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies. So I set the oven to 350, made cookie dough, dolloped heaping globs of dough on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, and made two batches of oatmeal raisin cookies.

I made them while amid two virtual meetings.

I interrupted those meetings to check on my oatmeal raisin cookies' progress and put the second batch in the oven.

And I told the people I was in those meetings with why I was putting them on hold.

Some of y'all might consider that "unprofessional." Some of y'all might think that I wasn't present or focused on the content of those meetings. In response to those notions, I share two things:

1. What you call "unprofessional" I call refuting white supremacist workplace culture and white supremacist ideology. Sit down and unpack that on your time.

2. I was present and focused on the parts of those meetings that pertained to me and my work. It isn't my fault that those meetings were heavily bogged down with white supremacist urgency. White workplaces and their urgency, their need to make everything a DEFCON-5 situation, has nothing to do with me and my work. It's not my job to carry white supremacist workplace ideology in my brain, body, or soul. Real talk? Me making cookies was more important than their urgency. Why?

Me making those cookies symbolizes how we all need to work on not carrying the burden of every little thing happening at work and elevating them to urgent matters. Why is it so "urgent" now if this "urgent matter" wasn't urgent a week ago, a month ago, three months ago when it was at its apex? And why aren't y'all ever this urgent when homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, and intersectional hate is playing out in your workplace?

Do you know what was urgent, however?

Eating them oatmeal raisin cookies. Not only were they delicious, but I also enjoyed them with no stress in my body or weight on my mind.

Don't walk around with the random crises at your workplace on your shoulders or weighing down your mind. Most of what happens at work every day isn't a crisis: it's white supremacy and patriarchy in action. And if your workplace doesn't want to address these issues but wants to freak out over that report that is suddenly due in 48 hours?

Set your boundaries and make yourself some damn cookies.

[Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.]

On Painful Anniversaries, Anti-Asian Hate, and Solidarity in the Face of Hate

TW: Anti-Asian hate, violence, murder, fetishization.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long murdering eight people in a mass shooting spree at three Atlanta, Georgia, area spas, which Long claims happened due to his "sex addiction." Long's actions led to the senseless murders of Xiaojie "Emily" Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Delaina Yaun, 33; Paul Michels, 54; Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63.

The murders of these eight people, living their lives and trying to make a living, were not isolated incidents.

Attacks against Asian Americans have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic. The FBI reported an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes since 2019. The group Stop AAPI Hate has tracked nearly 11,000 hate incidents against Asian Americans from March 2020 to December 2021, with more occurring in 2021 than 2020. Most of those incidents targeted women from AAPI communities.

With racial attacks on the rise, AAPI communities are increasingly fearing for their safety with very little accountability for the actions of those initiating hate crimes. A recent survey published this month from the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF) found that 74% of Asian American and Pacific Islander women reported experiencing racism and/or discrimination over the last year. 53% said the perpetrator was a stranger or someone they didn't know. For East Asian respondents, in particular, 51% of women said they feel less safe today than at the start of the pandemic.

As we look at the anniversary of a violent and hateful act, I feel so much pain for my AAPI friends, family, and colleagues. As a person of color, a Black person, I feel this pain deeply because I know how terrifying it is to believe you might not make it home today. I know how horrifying it is to think that your loved ones might not make it to the dinner table tonight. But what I really feel, deep inside my soul, is exhaustion.

I'm tired. I've been tired. One thing I'm so tired of is watching as communities of color have to acknowledge painful and traumatizing anniversaries while asking for justice and safety that never come. Many of my AAPI friends, family, and colleagues are also tired. I know many of you are hurting, scared, still trying to reconcile why this has to be your reality and why there is so much hate in this world. I don't have answers. But you do have me – my support, care, and solidarity.

I stand with my AAPI friends, family, and colleagues on this painful anniversary and every other day of the year too. I stand with AAPI women and femmes on this painful anniversary and every other day of the year too. I will always stand with you and fight for your right to live, to exist, to thrive, not to be objectified and fetishized by white supremacy and hate. And we'll keep fighting together to make it so that the only anniversaries we're observing are celebrations, not trauma.

On Hot-Takes, Work Ethic, and Wealthy Reality TV "Stars"

If you're a person of privilege who scolds those who don't have the privilege that you have about what you perceive to be their work ethic?

You're legitimately out of touch with what 99% of people in the United States deal with every day.

If you're a multiracial woman with white privilege who has always had it easier than others due to your father's notoriety, family money, and your willingness to put every aspect of your life on television in return for celebrity and cash?

It would be best if you weren't sharing any hot takes about what you perceive as the work ethic of 99% of U.S. Americans.

And if your business advice to women who are starting or looking to start new chapters in their lives and be entrepreneurs is to "get their f---ing asses up and work," followed by "it seems like nobody wants to work these days"?

You're a tool. An insensitive, disconnected, patriarchal, elitist, classist tool. And you're another hurdle, another obstacle in the way of women in the United States having opportunity and equity.

I think it's time for entertainment media to stop interviewing wealthy reality TV stars whose only exposure to the 99% of us who don't have their wealth and privilege is their maid or nanny.