Read My Feelings Episode 1: Black Girl, White Work | A 3-part blog series about working in Corporate America.

I’m The Boss 

by @shantellewrites on Friday, September 16th 

After finishing the 1st week of a 6-wk sales training

Class Diva

“You’re the boss, and Randy is the local sales rep.“ Immediately, my brain plays Beyoncé’s “A Diva is a female version of a hustler ”—real quick, maybe just that line, and I chuckle on the inside and smirk on the outside. Ha-ha, I had faith in God, whatever challenge was to come walking up here, so He showed me just how specially he’d prepared me to over-come it. He delivered this exact customer visit scenario in my last position (the one that didn’t work out). All I had to do was remember…to channel John.

Take the Lead

What did John used to say and how did he used to say it? I’d truly admired him. His work ethic, authentic blackness, and kindness was unmatched. I walked up just as confidently as he would and just as well-dressed. I grabbed the national account manager’s hand into a warm executive shake. “Nice to meet you again!”, I say, immediately assuming the power in the role play.

Uncooperatively, he pulls it, and his hand, back, and starts off with an unnecessary challenge. “We’ve never met before!”, he laughs, and I hear the satisfied rumblings of ridicule rise from the audience. Today, they get to prove that all my smart-ass answers don’t make me better than them. They suspect I’m no better at sales than them: The audience is unaware, however, of the numerous times I’ve battled role play butterflies and white men’s tests. We actually have met before, such that his move does not phase me. In fact, only the inability to describe it later will upset me. His subtlety will make me question myself.

“Oh yeah, we spoke on the phone a few times. It’s nice to finally meet in person.” 

I continue…

“I’m the regional manager for _____ <insert the most recognizable brand in the world>, and I’m checking in with our highest priority customers. This is your new local sales rep, Randy.” Randy goes in for his handshake in perfect timing. Randy is smart enough to follow my lead and to wait for his introduction. He submits to his boss—ME— like I used to.

“What happened to Kate?!”, the manager counters again, but again this is a scenario I’ve encountered before. I get excited as his slow pitch makes contact with my bat. I channel Babe Ruth and point out the home run before my tongue swings, “Kate was so good, she got promoted! We’re so excited for her, and Randy is on the same path to exceed your expectations!” 

I continue…

Addressing the Problem 

“Randy will be your go-to and he’ll be here to serve all of your needs. Before we go on to discuss anything further, what was the issue you had getting that product you mentioned earlier?”

The importance here is I’m addressing his problem first; not mine. I’m so in tune with his needs, I remembered not only his name, but also his pain. He says something about sugar so I let Randy get some shine. Randy starts rattling off the features of the product, like all the other amateur salespeople in the room. A real salesperson could care less about the product stats.

Life Stats


Not like that. I want a good product, but I concern myself only with facts that I can use to elicit an emotional response. I only care if it fits my story. My statistics professor said, “Stats aren’t facts!” Stats tell a story about the data; you can make it look however you want.



Here’s a quick example, compare the bar graphs above. The second graph turns nothing into something by making the visual intervals bigger than the numeric ones.

Here’s a fun one, I can influence my perception of my weight progress on MyFitnessPal depending on the length of time I’m looking at. I’ve been using this app for eleven years! I can compare, side by side, how my body looks at any weight.

I’m BOSSY

A true veteran, I ask for the sale and close him on 5 amazing products before he even realizes it, making the executive decision to ignore the product I was actually assigned. Afterwards, a classmate will critique me for skipping my product and the national accounts manager will support my decision. I didn’t need him to validate my choice; they do.

I played point well and I set the alley-oop for my co-star, Randy. Slam dunk! The crowd cheers!. They raise their hands to call me strong and to finally thank me for teaching them something. They may never realize that many of my questions in class are asked with an intent to share what I know, and to expose what our instructors don’t realize we need to know.

“I can’t pick 5 different flavors,” he says after he’s already been closed. I’m confused because we were talking about products, not the variations of 1. I choose not to correct him cause it’s not real, and I’ve already shown the class how it should go.

“You’re a busy man, I don’t want to take up too much of your time.” I always give white men that praise, perhaps believing I’m not worth their time.

I continue…

“Do you do the purchasing yourself, because I don’t want to bore you with the small stuff, or do you have someone I should contact to get the final order in?”

He plays right into my lesson on the difference between decision-maker and purchaser. He plays into my hand even better than I thought.

“Yeah, Linda handles all the orders on the app.”

“Great!” I say, “Did you know it archives orders for two years?” That researched fact impressed the director at my interview so much that she asked if I had insider information by knowing someone at the company. I sold her on my ability to influence customers to use the app.

I continue…

“In the near future, we’ll find the time for all of us to sit down and make sure you’re getting the most out of the app and to uncover insights to grow your profit.” Yeah, I did THAT!—made the sale and preempted a Quarterly Review…and it was natural.

Servant Leadership

He asks if we can set up a table to try out the flavors first. I say, “Of course, Randy is always available!” And the class erupts in gut-wrenching laughter. I guess I’m most funny when I’m not trying, because I just responded as his boss.

Randy isn’t insecure about the laughing. His inside is deep and his outside is Chinese. Hell, his name probably ain’t even Randy. His submission to me is characteristic of Asian-American culture, though uncharacteristically to a black woman. However, you can tell Randy’s been immersed in black culture, so perhaps this is less of a mental reach for him.

I’ve volunteered my whole life. I give freely and completely like my mom, but not at work; not at school. Blame it on my early reading of Tom Sawyer. I’m always trying to trick the other kids into whitewashing the fence.

It was my daughter who taught me to be open minded. She forced me to adjust my core beliefs to the changing present times. She flagged my arrogance, so I’m on a daily.. hourly…minute to minute quest for a humble balance.

After this win, my thoughts go straight to approaching the national accounts manager and telling him I want to be on his team. The truth is the first week of training is too soon to ask. Also, I’m aware of the tension I described during the role play . He knows I’m talented, but that doesn’t mean he’s bought into me. I can be intimidating. I can be unruly and abusive to authority, because I’m a boss too.

I continue…

So I’ll practice taking out my clothes the night before work and getting there on time. My current life’s experiment is to test the need to obey in order to lead.

Conclusion: Everyone Has The Same Amount Of Suffering So Be Your Own Boss

We do our own stats on our problems. At YouTube University last night, the teacher said to imagine everyone dropped off their problems in the town’s center, such that there was a big pile of grotesque suffering. In true comparison, next to each other’s problems, you’d go pick yours back up.

The next sales training exercise did that. A black woman instructor introduced herself and her objective to teach us to create meaningful bonds through vulnerability, Just like the Tik Toks where people are asked questions and respond by holding up a finger if they’ve done it (like a sober game of ”Never have I ever”), we stood up from our seats. Her questions inspired, humored, and made people cry. For once, the boss didn’t need to show off. For once, I felt I’d achieved more than I suffered. Even better, my dreams are in action. I sat in my seat and listened, grateful for my strengths.

I don’t need to be the boss. I have to be. I owe it.

“You need people like me so you can point your fingers and say that’s the bad guy. So what does that make you? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. I always tell the truth, even when I lie. So say goodnight to the bad guy.”

                                          -Tony Montana, Scarface



I Got Fired (2nd Read)

@shantellewrites Case of the Mondays[1], October 24, 2022

You may wanna listen to the YouTube in the footnote first…

First time I ever got fired and didn’t shed a tear. I’ve felt relief after dismissal before, but there’s usually a piercing twang of regret, woes of dread and abandonment.

 “Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger you learn how glib condolences can feel. The pain is not surprising but its physicality is. Grief is forcing new skins on me, scraping scales from my eyes.” - Chimamanda Adichie[2] 

I feel nothing. I hated those people because they hated me without reason, and yet I loved them for honing some humility in me. It was okay to have all different outsides, but not all different insides. Fake diversity. The pinnacle of what could go wrong. I just realized, it’s my colors nations[a] chapter in Invisible Man. The part where all the pictures of colors on the wall means more than the true message and pain beneath it.

“Nothin from nothin leaves nothin. Had to do some-thin, motherfucker punched you in the mouth!” - Eddie Murphy, Raw

I got fired for calling someone a colonizer; rightfully so. He paraded those black folks like every other exec I’d seen. This fake black overseer leadership was like betrayal on infinity. The last personal development video I watched last night said that leaders keep a safe space at work so the dangers are external. If that’s not the case, there is back-biting and turmoil and anxiety. Today, the woman in front of me was so scared she was fired because her headset and company apps wouldn’t work. I assured her that wasn’t the case, but I really wasn’t sure.The first thing she told me when I walked in today was that 21 people had been fired since we started 6 weeks ago. Tomorrow, everyone will get the boilerplate email with my name in red.

And as my own Southern gentleman told me, “You always show them you’re smart too quick.” Can you blame me? Up North, that’s how we survive. Down here, you don’t show an unqualified business analyst you understand databases and backend APIs, and you certainly don’t pull a new sales manager aside, who doesn’t understand what a customer[b] testimonial is. I was supposed to fall in line like a frat boy pledge, and ignore the real power circles. I used to have access to those circles of white men; admitted by my mind.

When Master likes you, he ignores the Mistress’s complaining. When he’s ambivalent, you’re subject to her insecurities and abuse. -@shantellewrites

I read Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity and I tried to slow down to their frame of reference. Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics[3] spoke to my situation in this passage:

“In other words, to calculate how fast this passenger moves relative to us, we add his velocity to the velocity of his co-ordinate system if he is walking in the same direction that it is moving…and we subtract his velocity from the velocity of his co-ordinate system if he is walking in the opposite direction.This calculation is called the classical (Galilean) transformation. Knowing that uniform relative motion of our two frames of reference, we can transform the passenger’s velocity in reference to his own co-ordinate system into his velocity…into his velocity in reference to our co-ordinate system.”

So last night, I created a velocity-space-time schedule. I will slow down to their frame of reference from 8-5. I will speak less. I commit to getting to work on time, but I refuse to put that I’m going to the bathroom in the group chat. I refuse to adopt their common phrases, like “Keep me honest, _____<insert teammate that could tell on me>”, when I wasn’t sure about a policy. I’ll never say “You’re okay”, when someone makes a mistake, instead of “It’s ok”.

 But did I in fact speed up my fate by being too aware? Too in time with the metaphors that engulfed me? My boss was a black lesbian named Ras–”the destroyer” I had started to wonder? I knew that actually listening to Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blue, that actually searching for the song on YouTube and playing it would be too powerful. My vibrations couldn’t deflect another minute, another second. I could not subdue the light. The Invisible Man had 1,369 lights[4]...Numbers…Numbers…Numbers…

# 2-10 is my birthday

# Starts with 21

# Lucky 7 times Trinity 3

# 10-23 my daughter’s birthday

# Me BACKWARDS with Luck

And that’s the real reason I won’t tell my daughter; not just to save her financial worries, but because she’ll tell me I’m wrong. It’s the reason I just lied to my mentor to avoid him thinking I self-sabotaged. I got in trouble for my words, but my words weren’t wrong. I shouldn’t have to watch exploited African children commercials at work if I don’t have to watch them at home anymore. I haven’t seen a Feed the Children[5] commercial with flies walking around the corners of black eyes in years.

I have plenty of Indian friends, and I have worked with many engineers in software. My favorite marketing guru in the world is Neil Patel. So, I mention his name and teach anyone who calls the customer care center about him, that shares his last name. I tell them because it’s okay to make fun of people with his last name here. It’s okay to say you don’t want to talk to them openly.

But I’m the racist. By category, not by action. I got fired by category, not by action.

"The aristocracy and authority of talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names and material power" - Balzac, 1830

It seems we living the

American Dream

But the people highest up got

the lowest self esteem

The prettiest people do the

ugliest things

For the road to riches and

diamond rings

We shine because they hate us,

floss ‘cause they degrade us

We tryna buy back our 40

acres

And for that paper, look how

low we a’stoop

Even if you in a Benz, you still a

nigga in a coupe.

 Kanye West, All Falls Down

[2] Chimamanda’s “If we lived in a more fair world…”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emocpBaLZRA 

[3] Book citation

[4] LISTEN TO THIS FIRST: Ralph Ellison’s, Prologue to Invisible Man, read to perfection by Joseph Weber Invisible Man: Prologue

[5] Harland Williams talks about the flies in the Feed The Children commercials outside ArcLight Theatre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbOuCpKMgs 

[a]audio

[b]audio


I Woke Up To My Dreams (3rd Read)

@shantellewritesTuesday, October 25, 2022

Like literally woke up to my dreams, a blog to read that I wrote last night. Something to share instead of my woes and fears. People don’t know how to deal with that shit anyways. Listening to my own words read back to me, I understand Chimimanda[1] when she says the physicality of grief, the grip that anger has on you, makes anything anyone could possibly say to you meaningless. It’s like that TikTok (or Reels I don’t know): “You gon’ buy it for me? I ain’t think so, wit ur broke ass!”

“Spend Five Minutes Complaining And You Will Have Wasted Five And You May Have Begun What’s Known As Economic Cancer Of The Bone. They Will Soon Haul You Off Into A Financial Desert And There Let You Choke On The Dust Of Your Own Regret.” - Jim Rohn, Diseases of Attitude

What the hell do I have to be sad about today? I don’t have to pay an Uber to get somewhere I don’t wanna be, and eat snacks and drink soda all day, then promise myself to find some energy to run when I get home and not do it cause my soul was dying. I was too tired to go into work because I’d be up all night too anxious to sleep.

I’m scared of telling other people–only the ones who will judge me, or who depend on me. Their stake is in me working so they will not let me get away with my joy, guilt-free. And I have found joy, back here in my room alone. I have started the mental gratitude list, reflecting on how perfect the timing is. In my isolation, I am overjoyed by the free time.

I got up to write, not sure if I was journaling, blogging, or making a gratitude list.[2] I turned off the Kardashians, thinking it might be okay to watch the seriousness of the news. Why? I needed an educational backdrop to read a paper sent to me by the Democratic party in North Carolina. It lays out, in their words, the candidates we can vote for. I’m bringing my daughter out to vote as part of her turning 18[3], because I’m raising a citizen–an activist. I did not know what the paper was and it would have gone in the trash by this evening if I went to work. But instead, yesterday, I found a highlighter at work. And it’s the highlighter I’m using to go through this paper. I’m shocked by some of their beliefs and scared for them to have power! I realize that I can learn much about their personalities from these short autobiographies.

I’m grateful I have time to think. I’m grateful I have time to create. I’m grateful that I bought a ticket to Wade Bryant’s stretch class[4]–a major goal on my vision board. I’m grateful that I have more because I have ME.

Later today, I told my daughter with all assurance that I wasn’t scared so neither should she…be. I told her I’d already been at work and had an interview coming up. She came back slick like me, “Is it gonna happen again?” Then I finally broke down, wondering if I’m not suited to work in society. Am I just like my mom, always fighting the good fight for a Utopian workforce? If it wasn’t for Dr. Kaplan’s, Don’t blame Mother[5], I would not have tried what made it all better. I called my mom. And when I needed a break, I still calmed her back to check-in. See I realized if it were me, I’d be worried about my daughter and need some closure. And mom somehow did make it all better. Talking to my cousin too. And telling my man this morning, even though I felt so much closer to him since I started working, but

I AM NOT MY JOB. I am ME. Everyone’s just gonna have to love me for that. Or don’t![6]

4th Read:  Who's The Boss?©

[1] Link to Blog I got Fired:

[2] Link to Blog The Magic Trick to Gratitude Lists:

[4] Wade Bryant’s website or Instagram: waiting on his recommendation

[5] 

[6] Link to Jordan Peterson: The Simple Reason Why Being Alone Will Make You The Most Powerful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfKKXHlmICw 


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