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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.
They hired an HR person just to deal with one executive
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- Caucasian
- Information Technology/Internet
- Non-Profit
- Bad Boss
- Human Resources
- Inappropriate Behavior
One of the executives had a pattern of yelling at people during meetings and using profane language beyond swearing. He used such mean and horrible metaphors that they hired an HR person just to deal with him. Once, we were in a meeting and there was an argument about whether our system could handle the daylight savings change automatically or whether we had to shut down the system and fix it. He got up during the meeting and said, "You guys are just going to roll over and take it up your ass." We were all so startled. One person went and called someone from HR and the HR representative came and ended the meeting.