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.
Ethics
I know the primary reason I left corporate America was because I wanted to have my own company, but thinking back I remember when I was so astonished by the behavior of some of the people in Corporate America.
It got to the point where they were tagging some of my staff and asking me to write them up because they were thought of as below-average employees. It was a legal issue. The only reason they were writing this one woman up was because she was an older female who was content in her position.
One of the reasons I left involved an ethics issue. Something had happened in the morning and they wanted me to process one account a certain way in the morning. Then in the afternoon, the policy was completely reversed and "mum" was the word.
Now I've left that nonprofit too. They had a lot of doubt about me because I wasn't from the nonprofit sector. They would say, "You don't know how to do this. This is nonprofit."There were a lot of unethical things happening at this nonprofit.
Part of my responsibility was to hire people to manage some of our assets, so I would get bids from various companies. However, the division manager wanted to get involved in the process and to give business to some of his associates and friends.
The guy who promoted me interviewed every schmo in the world before giving me the promotion. He hired me for whatever reason. And then he came onto me. He talked to me about his affairs and tried to have an affair with me, but I didn't let him.
