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.
Inappropriate Behavior
When I worked for one of the country's largest banks I remember seeing Jesus screen savers on computer monitors and religious literature "just showing up" in the office kitchen, bathroom and conferenc
One of the executives had a pattern of yelling at people during meetings and using profane language beyond swearing.
One of my male colleagues would consistently forget to tell me that meetings were cancelled. I would have a three-hour commute to certain meetings and find out once I got there that it was cancelled.
When I was doing an internship at a large automobile manufacturing company a colleague placed a playboy magazine in front of me with the center fold open.
The partner has a reputation for hiring strictly women. He controlled the staff through a conquer and divide approach.
I joined a tech company as a marketing director and of the 4,000 employees at a similar level as mine, I can't recall another African-American female but I do recall this woman who couldn't stop slapping me in the butt.
I was given a lot of deference as the Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") of a huge electronics and media company.
As the Director of a community health clinic part of my job was to change the clinic culture and bring it in line with corporate culture. The community was supposedly a progressive, liberal inclusive community. The corporation located in a different city, was a conservative, white woman dominated reproductive health care company.
At one point I became gun shy about going to my supervisor. One time I had done something and she raised her voice and said to me, "IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, WHY DON'T YOU COME TO ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS?" At this point, I had been through so much that I had hired a coach to deal with it.
I showed up on my first day of work and a co-worker had put lines of coke on my desk. Later, he had had sex on my desk and he bragged about it. So I guess you could call that a hostile work environmen
