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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
I sucked it up
- Workplace Unfairness
- Male
- African-American
- Education
- Considering Leaving
- Engineering
- Career Development
- Coworker
- Double Standards
- Insubordination
- Promotion
I worked my way through the company for 14 years. I did everything from testing devices to billion dollar sales. I did this for 13 years. In the 14th year, they brought in a sales person, who had no experience in testing or processing. He just sold the machines. They didn't make him a manager, they made him a team leader, which was more like a peer-level position, technically, so we couldn't accuse them of doing something they shouldn't do by giving seniority to this guy who wasn't as qualified as me. But we (my coworkers and I) knew what they were trying to do. I was an expert. I wrote and published papers. I presented at conferences. They tried to replace me with a sales person, who was one of the old boys network, who I had to report to. I sucked it up so they would leave me alone. But after awhile he overstepped his bounds, trying to tell me what to do and how to do it.