Just Because You Could Be A Manager Doesn't Mean You Should Be A Manager

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Image description: A white man in a business suit is cowering on the left side of a room while a gigantic suit jacket-covered right arm with a clenched fist comes toward him from the right side of the room.

Some people shouldn’t be managers, supervisors, senior leaders, or decision-makers for your company or organization.

If you’re thinking of promoting someone into a leadership role after working for your company for years - or you currently have folx who have been “locked into” management positions for years - and they:

  • Regularly use the wrong pronouns when referring to employees, even after being corrected on multiple occasions;

  • Consistently make sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, ableist, and body-shaming comments or swiftly defend others in the organization who make similar comments;

  •  Exhibit that they are unwilling or unable to receive feedback or take responsibility for issues in the workplace with direct correlation to them and their management style;

  •  Have a multitude of employee-submitted grievances or employee complaints on file;

  •  Have shown an unwillingness to do their work and process their beliefs and views around racism, white supremacy, misogyny, hate, and oppressive states and how all of the aforementioned do harm to others;

  •  Make an ordeal and power play out of employees needing time off or flexible scheduling to take care of themselves and their families;

  •  Shame or belittle employees who ask for support or accommodations at work;

  •  Gleefully gossips about others in the company, especially those in their department, and often with derogatory comments about their appearance or what they perceive as the person’s work ethic;

  •  Regularly responds to emails from Global Majority folx by ignoring the content of said emails and sending them a list of “corrections”;

  • Routinely participates in or facilitates gaslighting and invalidation activities toward employees from marginalized communities who speak up, call in, and call out;

Then this person shouldn’t be a manager, supervisor, senior leader, or decision-maker for your company or organization. And if you think they should, and that none of the above should factor into your decision to make them a leader or decision-maker?

All of the above likely fits you like a glove as well.

YOU probably shouldn’t be a manager, supervisor, senior leader, or decision-maker for your company or organization.

On Talking "Like a Portlander," Microaggressions, and White Advice

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Someone in a senior leadership role recently told me that I wasn't connecting with white people in a particular workplace around the topics of racism and white supremacy because I wasn't from the Pacific Northwest. They said that because I'm from Michigan, Detroit to be exact, my communication style was different. This difference, they said, was in direct opposition to how white Portlanders communicate and "build relationships" in the workplace. This senior leader told me that if I made an effort to communicate in a more "Pacific Northwest" style and "put in the extra effort" to be more likable and approachable, I would be successful.

I'm glad I wasn't holding a LaCroix™ at the time because I would've sure enough spilled it. After all, the winds from the hurricane of microaggressions in their "advice" should've blown me over and washed me away.

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What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: April 19, 2022 Edition

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In today's edition of "What In the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?", we find ourselves in the world of non-fiction books where a white cis female theologian who is known for writing about Quakers received grant money and secured a publishing deal for her book about trap feminism.

You read that right.

A white woman wrote a book about trap feminism.

And she's mad that Black women are angry about this nonsense she wrote, to the point where she's blocking Black women on social media and deleting their reviews of her toxic piece of watered-down literature.

You can't make this stuff up, y'all, even if you wanted to. And if you're going to? You should probably seek some counseling.

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What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: April 10, 2022 Edition

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In today’s edition of “What In the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?”, we find ourselves in Illinois, where a church and its congregation have decided on a “fast from whiteness” for Lent.

You read that right.

“Fasting from whiteness.”

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On Urgency and Making Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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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.]