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.
Engineering
Out of 2,000 employees, I was the only Asian American engineering manager. There were a lot of bamboo ceiling issues that were hard to overcome.
The first and only time the organization had an Asian board member they made sure that the Asian board member saw the Asian employees before meetings.
I was recruited to help form the first Asian American employee group in our organization. When I went to speak to the general manager about it, he was very uncomfortable and really suspicious.
I had taken a graduate level engineering course at an Ivy League school and I went in to ask the professor a question. Now, I have an undergraduate major in physics and a minor in math. It wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing.
In our department we all went by first names. But when I was going to conferences, meeting people from a different department, they referred to other people by more formal titles, but no one every referred to me by doctor.
The managers from other departments always played basketball during lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'd be walking around and they'd invite me to play. So when I started to play, it made a huge difference.
I worked my way through the company for 14 years. I did everything from testing devices to billion dollar sales. I did this for 13 years. In the 14th year, they brought in a sales person, who had no experience in testing or processing.
What broke the camel's back: I became a director of the non-profit organization that deals with industry standards, an organization that I worked on in my own free time. My name came up to become VP of the prestigious non-profit.
