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.
Checked Out
I immediately left the company after coming to my realization.
I was always professional to everyone I worked with. The stress did take its toll, and caused me to leave.
Upper management, supervisors, (men in the workplace when women got catty with me) did more to step in.
I was given accounts that represented, in my view, an indirect conflict of interest. Basically, this firm, like so many others in its field, was undiscriminating when it came to the clients it would accept.
I was a recent college graduated when I found this part-time job. Because I was only 22, my boss assumed that my parents were still supporting me (they weren't), and declared he only needed to pay me $12/hour with no benefits.
What was the point of working my butt off if there was never going to be any benefit? I left the lab and went back to school.
Irrespective of my opinion of how the firm was run, I never let my true feelings show in public (i.e.
I worked for a large consumer goods organization about 4 years ago and quit because I was literally the lowest paid employee in a department of 25 despite the fact that I had a degree and my counterparts in the same position did not.
My desire to do a good job waned over that year and a half, as I felt my talents were underappreciated (along with the rest of the work staff) and the manager was often quick tempered, unreasonable, and unpleasant.
I had a horrible boss who was too caught up in her own world and didn't care about developing the team or working to help us succeed.
