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.
Mentors
There are a lot of people that are gay at my office and they are wide open about it. Most of them are guys so I thought I would fit in but I realized that most of these guys end up self-segregating themselves because the corporate air in my industry puts a whole set of stereotypes if you are gay, which is unspoken, of course.
I would have stayed if they had respected that my expertise as a communications professional was fully translatable into working on the oilfield side of the business.
It was insufficient for me to just be excellent in the performance of my position, it was also necessary to be aligned with a rising star and to test my proposals within the context of the current political climate.
If you are a woman, find a lead male partner and make him your mentor. The only way to succeed in the male dominated environment is to have someone that acts like a father figure.
We had a mentor program but the mentors choose you and of course they choose people they are most comfortable with, people most like them.
In the elevator of an international hotel one man assumed I was a flight attendant over any of the thousands of other occupations that exist. How odd that he would guess flight attendant over lawyer, business woman, even hotel manager. He had a preconceived notion of the careers a young female in a suit could have and a flight attendant was the most I could amount to. My male, Caucasian colleagues thought it was hilarious and laughed. A few even thought it was an honest and legitimate mistake.
Look for mentors inside and outside the company. And make sure that you have regular contact with peers and mentors outside your company who can give you a realistic perspective.
I needed a mentor or someone who I knew was backing me. I never felt like I had someone to back me.
It was all about unwritten rules. I didn't know the rules. I felt like a fish out of water. I always felt as though they would have loved me if I could have overcome the stigma.
The few jobs that they let us have we're trying to beat out each other for it. By creating competition amongst us they discourage us to mentor one another.
