Women in the workplace: "Diversity hire"
I would like to tell you a story today. A story that chronicles the events from my friend's life. Mind you, this is not a fairy tale. It is something that is normalised by society, and it appalls me because it is so horrifying. It shows how much dysfunction prevails today. Read on.
Let me set the stage. Roughly six months ago, my friend C was looking for jobs. During one such search, she had three people interview her continuously without a break, the whole process lasting for around five hours. It was long past lunch when the last interview was done, and C was exhausted and hungry. She just wanted to go home. Imagine five hours of functioning at an intellectual peak without a break-- it drains you out to the point where you feel a bone-deep weariness. I have myself been here several times.
C introspected over the three interviews. She felt the first and second ones had gone really well. However, the third one she felt she'd screwed up-- her interviewer had been quite intimidating, and she felt her performance hadn't been good enough. She reasoned that the interviews must have been in the increasing order of complexity, and since she felt she hadn't made the last round, she wouldn't get the job.
A few points that I would like to emphasise here: C's evaluation of her performance was made in a state of mental and physical exhaustion, and it need not have been the most objective. Secondly, several people have impossibly high standards for themselves. Having known C, I can vouch that she is one of them, and in these cases, there is a huge gap between how people perceive such individuals versus how they perceive themselves. Thirdly, C's self-evaluation was biased by the peaks and ends phenomenon--she placed more importance on her last interview and undermined the first two that had gone well.
Getting back to the story, the interviewer asked her to have lunch at the cafeteria, but C refused and said that she wanted to go home. She left, and within ten minutes, she got a call from HR asking her to come back. On reaching the office, she was greeted by the HR and the hiring manager, who congratulated her and offered her the job. C was still in her state of exhaustion, and she couldn't quite comprehend reality right then. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: I screwed up the interview, didn't I? Why are you offering me the job?
The HR and the manager stared at her as if she'd grown two heads. Do people really ask such questions? It took them half a minute to recover, and the manager laughed and told her I think you should leave that for us to decide. C realised how she'd sounded, and mentally chided herself for being so naive.She was happy with the job though, and accepted it.
Fast forward to six months, she's working in the same company and for the same manager and happens to be one of the top performers on her team. A couple of days back, while she's at lunch with her teammates(a group comprising entirely of men), the conversation goes back to her hiring. She learns that her manager had recounted her naive question to the entire team long ago, and that they'd all laughed over it. As if that itself isn't weird enough, he offers to take them through the anecdote again. He does so, and at the end, they all laugh again wondering aloud how someone could ask such a question. One of her teammates who interviewed her says "Honestly, I don't know why you felt that way. I think your interviews went really well, everyone agreed on that."
The manager says with a poker face: So the company had this diversity hiring thing going on, and I hired you as part of that. The rest of the team listens to that, and after a short pause, there's scattered laughter. C is in a state of shock. The words hit her like a tsunami, and she struggles to maintain her footing. She asks again: So...you mean to say that I am a diversity hire? He replies with the same expressionless face Yes. Again, there's scattered laughter.
C feels like she's drowning. Did he really mean that? Am I here just because of a statistic?-- did they hire me just because they needed the numbers? She again recollects her interview, and despite all that she heard otherwise, she can't help but feel that she didn't do well. She agonises over it the entire night, in a state close to tears. Over and over the episode plays in her mind, and she struggles to put it in context. Was that a joke? Or did he really mean it? I don't know if you quite get the impact of that single comment on C. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that it broke her. She questioned her entire existence, going off into self-deprecating spirals of wondering how much she deserved by merit alone.
Finally, she decides that she needs to ask someone else about this. So she writes to a colleague who was present, explains her perspective, and asks him what he thought of the whole incident.
He says: I wouldn't have made such a joke, but yes I shouldn't have stood there without objecting to it as well.. I am not trying to justify what's clearly unacceptable, but here's what I think happened to me and probably for others as well--You are one of the good performers among all who joined our team in the past few months. Everyone knows that, and that made it very obvious that it is a joke.
More important, and the core issue being that no one among us were able to really empathize with that particular issue. I guess that's the equivalent of the white privilege.
And that's how I found my friend yesterday, lost and wounded. Traumatised by a thoughtless comment from an insensitive man and the further justification and normalization of it as a joke by several other such men. She asked of me with despair in her voice: Why did no one say anything, P? I stood there in shock when he said that, and I hoped at least one of them would object and say: Don't say such things, it's not right. But no one did. They all had a hearty laugh. Am I weird for taking this so seriously? It seems such a small thing, P. I've been through so much in life, and God knows this is nothing in comparison. Yet, it shattered me. I've never felt more miserable or depressed. Am I overreacting? Do you really think this was okay?
I am very protective of the people I love, and this whole incident made me furious. The number of levels on which this is wrong and unprofessional-- I can't comprehend how this can be normalized. First, what sort of a manager discusses an interview of a candidate with the entire team and laughs about an innocent question? As if that weren't already enough, he makes this comment about C being a diversity hire. Can people not see how wrong this is? Even if he meant it as a joke, it sets the precedent for it to be okay. For the entire team to joke about it. It questions someone's competence, and it is clearly offensive. If you're still not able to see it, imagine this comment being made instead with caste or race in mind. If he told a man, I hired you because you belong to caste X, would the man have stood there silent? Would everyone else have found it normal? How does this sound to you?
Thirdly, the brushing off of something serious as a joke. It's amazing how people can say anything and later refuse to take responsibility by putting in this disclaimer: Oh, I meant it as a joke. Obviously, that wasn't a serious comment. Lastly and most importantly, how her entire team except my friend found this behavior normal. This shows how dysfunctional we are as a society. This is clearly unprofessional and unacceptable in my perspective, and if the majority doesn't see it that way, it's high time we woke them up and changed society. No individual should have the right to say such a thing and walk away from the consequences of his/her words. You cannot shatter a person with your words and refuse to take responsibility for it-- it's as good as driving over someone without stopping.
I dedicate this article to my amazing friend C
, who is an incredibly talented and industrious individual. She is one of the best human beings I have ever known, and she does not deserve any of the self-doubt and questioning that this thoughtless comment inflicted on her. My dear C, if you still have any remaining doubts about how good you are, ask anyone who reads this article and knows you. They will vouch for your competence and intelligence, and rest assured, you are where you are solely because you deserve to be. Anyone who implies otherwise(even as a "joke") is dead wrong, and in my opinion, they need to know it. While it is important for you to first reassure yourself, I strongly feel you need to confront someone who questions your abilities--they shouldn't be able to say such a thing and walk away scott-free. Again, it is very easy for me to say these things as a third person, and I understand and acknowledge how distressing it must be for you to relive the whole thing again when you can easily bury it and pretend everything is fine. But I ask this of you because you are up to it, because you deserve the closure and catharsis that it will bring you. Because the rest of the world needs courageous women like you!
P.S: I have more to say on the subject of diversity hiring, but I will reserve that for a future article.
Let me set the stage. Roughly six months ago, my friend C was looking for jobs. During one such search, she had three people interview her continuously without a break, the whole process lasting for around five hours. It was long past lunch when the last interview was done, and C was exhausted and hungry. She just wanted to go home. Imagine five hours of functioning at an intellectual peak without a break-- it drains you out to the point where you feel a bone-deep weariness. I have myself been here several times.
Image taken from here
A few points that I would like to emphasise here: C's evaluation of her performance was made in a state of mental and physical exhaustion, and it need not have been the most objective. Secondly, several people have impossibly high standards for themselves. Having known C, I can vouch that she is one of them, and in these cases, there is a huge gap between how people perceive such individuals versus how they perceive themselves. Thirdly, C's self-evaluation was biased by the peaks and ends phenomenon--she placed more importance on her last interview and undermined the first two that had gone well.
Getting back to the story, the interviewer asked her to have lunch at the cafeteria, but C refused and said that she wanted to go home. She left, and within ten minutes, she got a call from HR asking her to come back. On reaching the office, she was greeted by the HR and the hiring manager, who congratulated her and offered her the job. C was still in her state of exhaustion, and she couldn't quite comprehend reality right then. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: I screwed up the interview, didn't I? Why are you offering me the job?
The HR and the manager stared at her as if she'd grown two heads. Do people really ask such questions? It took them half a minute to recover, and the manager laughed and told her I think you should leave that for us to decide. C realised how she'd sounded, and mentally chided herself for being so naive.She was happy with the job though, and accepted it.
Fast forward to six months, she's working in the same company and for the same manager and happens to be one of the top performers on her team. A couple of days back, while she's at lunch with her teammates(a group comprising entirely of men), the conversation goes back to her hiring. She learns that her manager had recounted her naive question to the entire team long ago, and that they'd all laughed over it. As if that itself isn't weird enough, he offers to take them through the anecdote again. He does so, and at the end, they all laugh again wondering aloud how someone could ask such a question. One of her teammates who interviewed her says "Honestly, I don't know why you felt that way. I think your interviews went really well, everyone agreed on that."
The manager says with a poker face: So the company had this diversity hiring thing going on, and I hired you as part of that. The rest of the team listens to that, and after a short pause, there's scattered laughter. C is in a state of shock. The words hit her like a tsunami, and she struggles to maintain her footing. She asks again: So...you mean to say that I am a diversity hire? He replies with the same expressionless face Yes. Again, there's scattered laughter.
C feels like she's drowning. Did he really mean that? Am I here just because of a statistic?-- did they hire me just because they needed the numbers? She again recollects her interview, and despite all that she heard otherwise, she can't help but feel that she didn't do well. She agonises over it the entire night, in a state close to tears. Over and over the episode plays in her mind, and she struggles to put it in context. Was that a joke? Or did he really mean it? I don't know if you quite get the impact of that single comment on C. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that it broke her. She questioned her entire existence, going off into self-deprecating spirals of wondering how much she deserved by merit alone.
Finally, she decides that she needs to ask someone else about this. So she writes to a colleague who was present, explains her perspective, and asks him what he thought of the whole incident.
He says: I wouldn't have made such a joke, but yes I shouldn't have stood there without objecting to it as well.. I am not trying to justify what's clearly unacceptable, but here's what I think happened to me and probably for others as well--You are one of the good performers among all who joined our team in the past few months. Everyone knows that, and that made it very obvious that it is a joke.
More important, and the core issue being that no one among us were able to really empathize with that particular issue. I guess that's the equivalent of the white privilege.
And that's how I found my friend yesterday, lost and wounded. Traumatised by a thoughtless comment from an insensitive man and the further justification and normalization of it as a joke by several other such men. She asked of me with despair in her voice: Why did no one say anything, P? I stood there in shock when he said that, and I hoped at least one of them would object and say: Don't say such things, it's not right. But no one did. They all had a hearty laugh. Am I weird for taking this so seriously? It seems such a small thing, P. I've been through so much in life, and God knows this is nothing in comparison. Yet, it shattered me. I've never felt more miserable or depressed. Am I overreacting? Do you really think this was okay?
I am very protective of the people I love, and this whole incident made me furious. The number of levels on which this is wrong and unprofessional-- I can't comprehend how this can be normalized. First, what sort of a manager discusses an interview of a candidate with the entire team and laughs about an innocent question? As if that weren't already enough, he makes this comment about C being a diversity hire. Can people not see how wrong this is? Even if he meant it as a joke, it sets the precedent for it to be okay. For the entire team to joke about it. It questions someone's competence, and it is clearly offensive. If you're still not able to see it, imagine this comment being made instead with caste or race in mind. If he told a man, I hired you because you belong to caste X, would the man have stood there silent? Would everyone else have found it normal? How does this sound to you?
Thirdly, the brushing off of something serious as a joke. It's amazing how people can say anything and later refuse to take responsibility by putting in this disclaimer: Oh, I meant it as a joke. Obviously, that wasn't a serious comment. Lastly and most importantly, how her entire team except my friend found this behavior normal. This shows how dysfunctional we are as a society. This is clearly unprofessional and unacceptable in my perspective, and if the majority doesn't see it that way, it's high time we woke them up and changed society. No individual should have the right to say such a thing and walk away from the consequences of his/her words. You cannot shatter a person with your words and refuse to take responsibility for it-- it's as good as driving over someone without stopping.
I dedicate this article to my amazing friend C
, who is an incredibly talented and industrious individual. She is one of the best human beings I have ever known, and she does not deserve any of the self-doubt and questioning that this thoughtless comment inflicted on her. My dear C, if you still have any remaining doubts about how good you are, ask anyone who reads this article and knows you. They will vouch for your competence and intelligence, and rest assured, you are where you are solely because you deserve to be. Anyone who implies otherwise(even as a "joke") is dead wrong, and in my opinion, they need to know it. While it is important for you to first reassure yourself, I strongly feel you need to confront someone who questions your abilities--they shouldn't be able to say such a thing and walk away scott-free. Again, it is very easy for me to say these things as a third person, and I understand and acknowledge how distressing it must be for you to relive the whole thing again when you can easily bury it and pretend everything is fine. But I ask this of you because you are up to it, because you deserve the closure and catharsis that it will bring you. Because the rest of the world needs courageous women like you!
P.S: I have more to say on the subject of diversity hiring, but I will reserve that for a future article.
Article has conveyed a lot and many people are having similar understanding which need to be addressed. Good article
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading! :)
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