Alas, we’ve made it—it’s the third and final part in this post. It’s the takeaway. And perhaps it’s the most important. Actually, nope – I’ll take that back. There’s no perhaps to it. To me, the takeaway or lesson we can learn from this situation, is the most important. After all, this isn’t our lives we’re talking about, it’s someone else’s, and what’s the point of talking about it if we can’t learn from it, or try to relate it back to our lives in some way? So let’s do that, eh!
What initially fascinated me about this story, and still does, is the whole office politics and contract negotiation aspect of it, because I honestly don’t think I’d ever heard of Maria Taylor or Rachel Nichols before this.
Office politics has never been my forte. I know how it works, I just don’t know how to work it—one of the major reasons why I believe I never advanced on most jobs I’ve had. As such, I was drawn to this story to see how someone else faired when caught up in the sticky situation of navigating workplace waters.
While ultimately Maria Taylor seemed to fair pretty well, for every Maria Taylor out there, there are thousands of other black women who have far less desirable outcomes. I say thousands like I know for sure, that’s only a guess. There could be more, there could be less (though I seriously doubt less). The point I’m trying to make is from my experience, and what I’ve seen and heard, Maria’s situation is atypical, it’s an anomaly, it’s not the norm.
While being black and female presents its own set of additional challenges in the workplace, whatever your race or gender, if you’re one of the one’s receiving a check instead of writing the checks, one can still never be to secure.
So what’s the major takeaway from this story? It’s something so obvious, yet so easy to forget and so it bears repeating – your company doesn’t give a fuck about you!
There, that’s it in a nutshell. Sure there are other little ancillary lessons stemming from this theme, but ultimately, that’s what it all boils down to. Your company doesn’t give a fuck about you.
I don’t care what you’re title is, how much money you make, how extensively they courted you to join their team, how much you’re immediate supervisor rides for you, how big your expense account is or if you’re one of the ones punching a clock and they look at you crazy if you so much as come back a minute from your 30-minute lunch late. Your company doesn’t give a fuck about you.
You are simply a tool they use to make more money and advance whatever system they have in place. The moment you disturb that, you’re out. In one way or another you’ll be out. Maybe you’re not out of a job, but you are out of a promotion, you get demoted, you get the crappy assignments – any or all of the above.
What Maria Taylor’s situation teaches us, or reminds us rather, is that you have to go into these jobs looking out for yourself. You have to go into these jobs with a strategy and a plan.
From what I can tell, Maria Taylor had a plan, Rachel Nichols did not. Rachel Nichols seemed to put all her trust in ESPN, and she even at a contract to back her up, or so she thought. Yet she still found herself out of a job she thought she was promised. Again, one can never be too secure.
Now that’s not to say you get on these jobs and do whatever you want. You do have to do your best, give it you’re all, basically you’re in service to your employer and there is honor in that. But your service to them should also serve you and your career goals. And the only way your service to your employer can also serve you is if you have goals and a plan.
Now a word to the companies out there, because there is a lesson in this for you too. And that simply is your employees are becoming increasingly aware that you don’t give a fuck about them. You’re losing loyalty.
As much as it may be hard to for your employees to come to terms with this, the truth of the matter is you’re their employer not their momma, you can’t afford to give a fuck about them outside of the transactional relationship you have. After all, you’re there to make money, not to support someone’s family, or pay their rent, or buy them a house. Ultimately, it’s the employee’s job to figure that out.
However, treating employees with respect and dignity they deserve like the thinking, feeling human capital they are is also a currency that pays dividends.
Okay, there you have it. That’s all I got. On to a new subject…until this one comes up again.
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