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.
Coworker
There were a lot of men of color who were fabulous. I told them that I wanted to start my own company. The day after I gave notice, the stock market crashed. So one man of color called me in and said, "I don't want to know your personal situation but it may not be the best time to go out on your own.
I was in a meeting with Condeleeza Rice. I was the only other black person at the meeting. After the meeting was over she came straight to me. She ignored everyone else in the room and introduced herself.
I worked with a contractor who I had worked with for three years. But it was always over the phone. One day, we finally met and she saw me. She said, "You didn't sound black."
The last few years at the company, I didn't want to go any further up, I didn't want my boss' job and I didn't want my boss' boss' job. It just wasn't interesting to me. And then when they merged us, it was a bloodbath.
My last straw came when they took this guy who was sort of my counterpart who was pretty incompetent and they made him my boss. So that, in combination with the fact that I could get a severance package, was convincing.
I left a month ago and I am going through this trauma. They were doing things to harass me and I didn't report it. I didn't have the energy to fight. I didn't want to make things more complicated for myself.
When I went back to work, at the first meeting, my co-worker asked me, "Are you happy to come back? You're lying. You're not happy to come back." He put words in my mouth.
If I trusted someone and I would say to them, "I'm tired of living in the Bay Area. I want to move to warmer weather." Then my director would hear about it and the next time I saw him he'd say, "We'll
I worked with someone who wouldn't say hi to me for a year. He is Jewish and his initial reaction was that he didn't even want to know me. Now we play golf every other weekend together. We'll go to se
I think speaking offsite, not at work, not at a bar, allows you to open up and talk about a lot of issues. It builds a great team and makes the team function a lot better. Whereas, at work, if someone is pouring you a drink and asks if you want a drink and you say no, sometimes there is a follow-up question, or, "oh...you don't drink." But when you aren't at work or at someone's house, they might ask why you don't drink. You can say, "Oh, it's a religious thing" and you can explain what you mean. Whereas at the office happy hour, they don't care whether you drink or not.
