How did you spend your Black History Month? Was it acknowledged at your work place?
...by someone other than a black person. hmmmm. I celebrated by giving the predominately white staff a "Little Known Black History Facts" quiz as an icebreaker, to our "After Valentine's Day" Team Meeting. It was well-received. I asked basic questions about well-known black history figures and every-day gadgets that originated from the inventions of black history icons.
I've found that after school Black History Month kinda seems to disappears. I'm not sure if that's because I have left the securities of a diverse environment or just because ...hell who knows. After passing out the quiz I realized that had I not chosen that as' my icebreaker this month would have never been acknowledge. A co-worker actually said. "oh was that this month. As usual I just laughed because that was a true representation of how most treat it. I'm not sure if that's what Carter G. Woodson had in mind when he got the whole thing started.
I also find it funny that now I've somehow seemed to grasped the importance of Black History Month I've come to the realization that I'm sick of being black..... and being treated black. I know I could lose my membership card for this one but I really get sick of it. This is not to say I'm gonna pull a chalky Thriller move like SenorJackson but the way people come to me for the black opinion/perspective has exhausted me to the boarder of insanity. I just want to scream sometimes...in the middle of lunch or the office or the train. grrrrrr. I was not put on this earth to be the resident Obama for every poorly mixed gathering.
I hate reading into things or trying to figure out what people mean when they say things like "Your surprisingly articulate". or "do you and your brother have the same father". I also kind of feel like somewhat of a sellout when I say " No, I am Jamaican" when telling someone that I'm not eating collard greens. I just don't' really know how to feel. I guess I can pin-point frustration.
I think I love inappropriate and playful racial banter so much because I am uncomfortable with the issue of race itself. I think it's also the stereotypes and such. It's sad how the white middle-class psych student from Wisconsin is looked at strange for listening to Mos Def or the black intern from Atlanta loving Regina Spektor.
It makes me sad when I listen to how friends talk about white people period and when one amongst us is dating or is married to a white person...even worse for them. It just sucks, amongst my Spainish friends who talk bad about "los freaking Moros" not knowing that we're sitting with lebonese/spanish or arabic/spanish mixes, white people talking about hispanics not knowing my aunt and best friends are hispanics. We all do it. Yes stereotypes exist but it's our responsibilty as so-called people educated in life or the world to look past it. but just how i'm not really interested in polotics I guess a crap-load of folks aren't too interested in learning other people yet still claim the term...cultured.
I'm tired of the word black.. I am reminded of the track at the end of the foundation album by brand nubians were the guy is like " I hate black coffee... I hate the black keys on a piano... and most of all I hate that black ass Welsley Snipes"...okay so maybe i won't ever have a "black out" but I am weary nonetheless.
In my singing group our manager was telling us to think of reasons why we wanted to go to heaven. It would be the fuel for a particular song we sing, "Canon Land". Tired of being black is something I'm definitely going to put on my list. I just wanna be more proud of who and whom I belong rather than what I am. I just wanna go home...
Feb 27, 2007
Feb 8, 2007
dot. dot. dot.
Upon finishing my last blog I found out that the last few minutes of the meeting that I missed this morning was capped-off by my boss-lady saying, "I just wanted you guys to know that I really appreciate you and really love working with you...."
That only leaves me with the questions. Do You think IHOP is hiring? Can you think of a place that needs some more disgruntled workers? The government perhaps?
Damn
That only leaves me with the questions. Do You think IHOP is hiring? Can you think of a place that needs some more disgruntled workers? The government perhaps?
Damn
I Love My Job But...
Disclaimer: (This will be a long one because I've got about a week's worth of stuff for this submission...and I'm long-winded)
... apparently not for long. I got to thinking today that my workplace is anything but typical. From day to day we are wildly inappropriate in meetings, lunches, and water cooler(my corner cube) gatherings testing racial, religious, and other personal boundaries . As previously mentioned, I love my job but not for long. And today after a team meeting I got to thinking of the many reasons why.
Today in a staff meeting our boss was divulging some information that led towards,"get out while you can this ship is going down." She did of course do so in a much more subtle manner of passing out photo-copied newspaper clippings from the JOBS section of The Washington Post. The article was called Making the Right Moves. She went on to explain how she clipped out the article for herself but later thought, "you know my staff could benefit from this!" So there you go. "There she blows!!!" We're going down down do do do do do do....going down swinging" etc.
As she continued to talk about how it gave tips on how to make a great cover letter, the team continued to laugh about our now sooner approaching but planned departures.
We thought it might be a good idea to have a workshop or collectively participation in updating our colleagues' resumes and formatting cover letters. The funny things is that I'm sure some of us were seriously thinking (myself included), " Yeah, that would be great, get a couple laptops, have designated writers, have stuffers, we can work it like an assembly line...or a business on the side.. we could use some extra cash."
So, aside from the eminent demise of our organization. Today was rather a good day. And it made me think...I don't write nearly enough about the good things in my life anymore, so here are a couple more.
Couscous
Couscous is the name of my co-worker's soon-to-be-delivered child who got the name from the fact that he was only the size of a rice grain when his mother found out she was pregnant.
What's so awesome about my co-workers?? This same co-worker(Preggers) had her third baby shower today... at work. Because everyone either loves babies/pregnant moms or just feels uncomfortable and is there for the food and laughs. Baby showers at work are awesome! Chocolate Lover(she loves Negros) put it togehter and it went off without a hitch! Inappropriate comments were made in front of senior partners... repeatedly.... and everyone was okay with it. Oh the veil of the pregnant lady! Everything is OK under the safety-net which is a work-baby shower!!!!. We spoke of how one of our Buster-like charachter(resident funny guy) was the possible "baby-daddy" and everyone was okay with that. No " this is a no-tolerance establishment! There can be no fraternizing of employees, blah blah blah," just great. I wish everyone's jobs where that way.
I think comparing an inappropriate work relationship between employees to Grey's Anatomy is how all sexual harassment trainings should be started. We need more late night TV in our workplace and manditory seminars. The Director lady of the Legal Services, D.C. Employment Justice Center came by our staff meeting and told us about what is and isn't appropriate in the work place. She would trow in funny little diddies about inappropriate behavior that was meaningless (much like the our daily banter int he office) and highly offensive and just plain stupid shit people do. She used words like Quid Pro Quo and dummied stuff down for us. I appreciated how we made it clear that it's only sexual harassment if it's unwelcomed, which made most of us feel better, and I like how she lied to us and told us that it was made up by lawyer to sound good even thought I was pretty sure I knew these people called the Romans devised a quite complex language called Latin and that unless they were all lawyers too... it wasn't true. But I stayed up for most of the presentations and kept jokes to a minimum she captured our attention with terms like hypos for hypothetical situations and the slides transitions were AWESOME. I just appreciate the little things here at my organization and will really miss the sensation of knowing in how many ways I've daily offended other and crossed personal boundaries.
... apparently not for long. I got to thinking today that my workplace is anything but typical. From day to day we are wildly inappropriate in meetings, lunches, and water cooler(my corner cube) gatherings testing racial, religious, and other personal boundaries . As previously mentioned, I love my job but not for long. And today after a team meeting I got to thinking of the many reasons why.
Today in a staff meeting our boss was divulging some information that led towards,"get out while you can this ship is going down." She did of course do so in a much more subtle manner of passing out photo-copied newspaper clippings from the JOBS section of The Washington Post. The article was called Making the Right Moves. She went on to explain how she clipped out the article for herself but later thought, "you know my staff could benefit from this!" So there you go. "There she blows!!!" We're going down down do do do do do do....going down swinging" etc.
As she continued to talk about how it gave tips on how to make a great cover letter, the team continued to laugh about our now sooner approaching but planned departures.
We thought it might be a good idea to have a workshop or collectively participation in updating our colleagues' resumes and formatting cover letters. The funny things is that I'm sure some of us were seriously thinking (myself included), " Yeah, that would be great, get a couple laptops, have designated writers, have stuffers, we can work it like an assembly line...or a business on the side.. we could use some extra cash."
So, aside from the eminent demise of our organization. Today was rather a good day. And it made me think...I don't write nearly enough about the good things in my life anymore, so here are a couple more.
Couscous
Couscous is the name of my co-worker's soon-to-be-delivered child who got the name from the fact that he was only the size of a rice grain when his mother found out she was pregnant.
What's so awesome about my co-workers?? This same co-worker(Preggers) had her third baby shower today... at work. Because everyone either loves babies/pregnant moms or just feels uncomfortable and is there for the food and laughs. Baby showers at work are awesome! Chocolate Lover(she loves Negros) put it togehter and it went off without a hitch! Inappropriate comments were made in front of senior partners... repeatedly.... and everyone was okay with it. Oh the veil of the pregnant lady! Everything is OK under the safety-net which is a work-baby shower!!!!. We spoke of how one of our Buster-like charachter(resident funny guy) was the possible "baby-daddy" and everyone was okay with that. No " this is a no-tolerance establishment! There can be no fraternizing of employees, blah blah blah," just great. I wish everyone's jobs where that way.
I think Resident Funny Guy, Chocolate-Lover, and I are really gonna cry when Preggers goes into labor, for it will be the beginning of a long sabatical and things just seem so much funnier when people are pregnant.
Manditory Harassment TrainingI think comparing an inappropriate work relationship between employees to Grey's Anatomy is how all sexual harassment trainings should be started. We need more late night TV in our workplace and manditory seminars. The Director lady of the Legal Services, D.C. Employment Justice Center came by our staff meeting and told us about what is and isn't appropriate in the work place. She would trow in funny little diddies about inappropriate behavior that was meaningless (much like the our daily banter int he office) and highly offensive and just plain stupid shit people do. She used words like Quid Pro Quo and dummied stuff down for us. I appreciated how we made it clear that it's only sexual harassment if it's unwelcomed, which made most of us feel better, and I like how she lied to us and told us that it was made up by lawyer to sound good even thought I was pretty sure I knew these people called the Romans devised a quite complex language called Latin and that unless they were all lawyers too... it wasn't true. But I stayed up for most of the presentations and kept jokes to a minimum she captured our attention with terms like hypos for hypothetical situations and the slides transitions were AWESOME. I just appreciate the little things here at my organization and will really miss the sensation of knowing in how many ways I've daily offended other and crossed personal boundaries.
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