I have a co-worker whose office is next to mine. We both have braids in our hair and are dark-skinned. However, she is about 4 inches taller than I am. I have been mistaken for her on numerous occasions by people within our organization. I usually state that I am myself and not her. I have thought about changing my hairstyle but decided that even when our hair was straight we were still mistaken for each other.
Monica Carob, an African-American female in government
I expected good performance and results to count at my new workplace, especially because we demanded similar principles in the firms we invested in. However, venture capital funds are mostly white, Anglo-Saxon, East Coast, Ivy League, heterosexual, type A men. To succeed in the venture capital environment all must adopt the values of the pinnacle species: white, heterosexual men. In September of 2002 I received a glowing employee review and was told I was being considered for partner and was a shoe-in. On December 16, 2002, minutes before I was to leave the office for my Christmas holidays I was summoned to the office of the same partner who had done my September review. He notified me that the firm thought I might find more success elsewhere. Why? I will never know for sure. But, I have always suspected the major factor was that I was gay. I did not quite fit in. Is it the lavender ceiling?
Frank Dell, a Gay Male in the investment industry
In my last performance review my supervisor told me, “You’re doing a great job and I don’t have any issues with your performance but you need to better manage perceptions.” On another occasion I was told, “You really need to learn to play golf.” The suggestions that I started to receive were not even performance related, rather they were based on perceptions and conformity. No one could explain why my bonus was reduced by 2/3 even though I had my best year ever. It seemed like people of color had to conform to move up the ladder.
Brian Walters, an African-American male in the real estate industry
I had a coworker who consistently asked me out on dates (despite my telling him I wasn’t interested). One night I was working late and he showed up in my cubicle, drunk, and trying to force himself on me.
Samantha Song, an Asian American female in the finance industry
This one white male associate was taking off for vacation and dumped his half written brief on me an hour before he was leaving. The brief was a complete mess and I started from scratch and rewrote the whole thing. When he returned and saw the brief in the computer system, he had the audacity to re-save it under his own name. I think he thought I would just take it and dutifully complete it without complaint. I was fortunate that the partner he was working with saw his draft and thought it was equally horrible. When I started working for this partner more and more the male associate started saying the partner only liked working with me because I was a girl. When I confronted him, he offered me what he thought was a compliment by saying, “If I was partner I would only want to work with all the girls too.” What’s the point of working hard to get ahead when everyone will only think you slept your way to the top? If you don’t do well, they say you can’t handle the work because you’re a girl and yet if you do well and people want to work with you, it’s still just because you’re a girl.
Karen Moon, an Asian American female lawyer
As the Chair of a non-profit, I experienced discrimination for having dreadlocks. One of our funders – a Latino man – indicated that our organization would not be funded again unless I resigned because he considered dreadlocks to be disrespectful. I had originally planned to get rid of them, however when I had heard what the funder had said, I changed my mind and kept my dreads. The thing the funder didn’t know was that the woman he made his comment to and I are close and also her husband is black – so she felt insulted, but didn’t say anything to him.
Darren Silvers, an African-American male in the investment banking industry
I was promoted only half a level, and worked with my manager to develop a plan for full promotion to director. I was told that if I am successful in different initiatives, I would have management’s full support, however they refused to put this statement in writing. After excelling at my objectives over the next year, I met with my new manager and was told that I didn’t advertise my successes enough and that to consider changing jobs to get a promotion. This made me feel devalued because many white colleagues were given promotions for doing the same job and had the same backgrounds and experiences as I had.
Erika Freeman, an African-American female in the hospitality/tourism industry
When I worked at the stock exchange, I noticed a not so subtle division of engineers into an ‘A’ team and a ‘B’ team. And as far as I could see, the immigrants or minorities were in the ‘B’ Team, irrespective of brilliance. Being black, I was initially on team ‘B’ but when I got to team ‘A’ everyone was so shocked to see me. I was the only black person there, ever. The other team members constantly asked me about being black. I never realized that they had never met anyone that was black.
Theodore Winters, an African-American male portfolio manager for a mutual fund company
In my last performance review my supervisor told me, “You’re doing a great job and I don’t have any issues with your performance but you need to better manage perceptions.” On another occasion I was told, “You really need to learn to play golf.” The suggestions that I started to receive were not [...]
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