Note to self: no one is coming to save you
The beginning of my notes to self series - lessons for powerful black women of every age.
No one is coming to save you.
You will be at your most empowered when you have the least support and encouragement. When it seems like there is no one who sees, hears or understands you or what must be done. When you realize that you are the only one who can or will. There is no mystical savior, no knight in shining armor, no benevolent benefactor that’s going to appear and solve all your problems, right all the wrongs done against you, or provide all that you need.
You are happily ever after.
You are the man of your dreams.
You are your own salvation.
So stop. Fucking. Waiting.
Read: ‘The Little Red Hen
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
Covid chronicles: The Digital workplace in the time of a pandemic
It should go without saying that as a member of Coca-Cola’s Digital Workplace team, my work life has immediately grown more hectic.
It should go without saying that as a member of Coca-Cola’s Digital Workplace team, my work life has immediately grown more hectic. Over the past few weeks, we’ve suddenly become the hottest ticket in the organization.
The Digital Workplace team owns and manages all of the web-based tools that allow employees to get work done in non-physical spaces. These tools include everything from the company intranet site, to email, to the videoconferencing system. But most importantly, it includes our collaboration and community-building platforms: Microsoft Teams and Yammer.
Enabling a global organization of knowledge workers to keep working while unable to leave their homes is a big ask, and many of our tools are brand spanking new. Plus, we’re a small team, so all of us are now wearing many hats, while dealing with a ton of new needs that we have to respond to quickly. In a way, it’s been kind of exciting. We’ve shifted from a slow-moving corporate department to a more scrappy, start-up like team. A welcome change for me with my unconventional career background.
Some of the ways I’ve seen the digital workplace change or be changed since the coronavirus pandemic began:
Metrics matter now more than ever.
I run the metrics and reporting function for Coke’s Digital Workplace team. Since the company mandated working from home, the demand for data, metrics and reports from my team has skyrocketed. Stakeholders in HR, IT, Public Affairs and the executive suite are keen to understand how employees are using our digital workplace tools, how much cross-functional collaboration is happening, are official messages reaching the right audiences? What are employees talking about and searching for? What’s the general sentiment at this time?
Innovation and experimentation are at an all time high.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. I’ve been amazed at the creative ways workers around the globe are using the existing digital workplace tools. The past month has seen us host the first company-wide town hall via Yammer livestream, create an internal classifieds tool to help identify and fill critical and shifting talent needs, create new client intake and feedback solutions….. People are using the digital workplace tools in new ways because they have to.
Team structures are more fluid. There’s less of the rigid organizational hierarchy and organizational politics at play. Priorities have shifted almost overnight, leaving some previously top-of-mind projects overstaffed, while other teams are struggling to keep up with new demands. The digital workplace infrastructure enables previously un-connected teams to quickly and easily create blended teams to meet these demands. Individual workers are proactively seeking out other teams and projects they can lend their talents to. Tools like chat, video calls, Sharepoint knowledge repositories, and digital whiteboards make the re-tooling and re-teaming frictionless and has eliminated many of the artificial barriers that have kept teams from collaborating more often.
The potential for message overwhelm is high.
Coke already sends out several employee surveys and lots of official announcements to the employee community on a regular basis. The surveying and messaging has probably doubled since the coronavirus pandemic started. While I think it’s always better to communicate more than less, it can be overwhelming for employees who are also dealing with anxiety, uncertainty and possible increased workloads. Where do I look for what? Where was that one message I saw that one day? The proliferation of 1:1 chats and meetings also adds to the communications overload some employees are experiencing right now.
Authentic storytelling is becoming more commonplace.
In a time when people really need to share and express more than just data and facts about their work, the digital workplace tools provide the media for this expression to happen. Sharing a peek into their non-work lives - anything from a funny meme, to a story about an elderly family member who contracted coronavirus and pulled through, to celebrating what small feat they’re most proud of accomplishing this week (and yes, getting dressed everyday counts!) - is helping employees mete out a little psychological comfort to themselves and their colleagues. This humanizes the experience of work - especially in uncertain times.
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
Easter in quarantine
It’s an odd Easter this year. But the religious season reminds me that this time is holy because it highlights a universal truth: death and life are 2 sides of the same coin.
Of the Christian holidays, Easter is my favorite.
Not only is it the most Christian - I mean the entire point of jesus being a big deal is the whole crucifixion and resurrection bit, right? - it is also the most pagan. Or at least the most syncretized.
At Easter, the themes of betrayal, sacrifice, death and rebirth play out in the foreground, while in the background, the Passover theme of being spared from plague and death by dutiful sacrifice underscores the mood and meaning of this time. Encompassing all of this is nature’s cycle of life-death-life that Spring reminds us of.... what has been silent and dark and dormant for months, is now returning to light and life.
From the Easter-Passover legends and rituals we extract the archetypal understanding that the sacrifice of a seemingly small, but not completely insignificant thing is often required for broader salvation, for the entire community to continue its existence. The Paschal lamb is a recurring symbol that embodies this notion of a demonstrable price that must be paid so that death knows it can claim nothing from those who have paid it.
It’s an odd Easter this year. Any other time, i would have already had my menu planned, my part-pagan, part-christian themed decor set up, the backyard trimmed and pretty, and a smattering of close friends with open invites to stop by as the spirit moves them. None of that will be going down this Sunday. Well, maybe not none of it. I still plan to make a nice spring-like meal for myself, but, given the current ‘plague’, the celebration will be a solitary one. I’ve got big plans to play in the dirt today, to participate in the life-bringing that the season calls for by planting new things around my backyard. There will certainly be music and plenty of light as Spring is already showing off here in Atlanta. And there will undoubtedly be sacrifice. The sacrifice of remaining in place, of giving up a little bit of my normal to help ensure that the entire community can continue its existence. It’s a small, but not insignificant price.
The religious season reminds me that this time is holy because it highlights a universal truth that extends beyond religion or denomination: death and life are 2 sides of the same coin. In celebrating one, we celebrate the other. And through our sacrifice, we ensure that life will continue for all of us... even as it transforms us and beckons us to continue our individual and collective evolution.
Happy Easter, chirren. 🙂
Covid chronicles: 5 ways my life has changed since the shutdown
I remember saying to more than one person during the initial weeks of quarantine, “My life hasn’t really changed that much…”. But after multiple weeks of sheltering-in-place orders, there have been some pretty interesting developments.
I remember saying to more than one person during the initial weeks of the Covid-19 quarantine, “My life hasn’t really changed that much since we’ve been on lockdown.”
In many ways that remains true. But after 4 weeks of following shelter-in-place orders, there have been some pretty interesting developments that would not have happened otherwise.
Back from a bike run to my neighborhood corner grocery story for wine and snacks.
Life is more ‘village like’. I have a much smaller footprint these days. I stay in my ‘hood, and when I can, I make my store runs on foot or bike. I haven’t been to a big box store since before the shutdown. I’ve been able to get all I need from the Dollar General down the block, the neighborhood ‘bodega’, and the discount grocery store that’s 6 minutes away by car. (Update: I finally broke down and went to Home Depot for plants last week. I stayed outside.)
2. I now have 2 cats. Sometime between the first and second weeks of quarantine, my cat showed up with a newfound friend at the back door for his morning feeding. ‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘even kitty is getting into the spirit of sharing and sacrifice for the greater good. We have extra. We can share for a few days.”
That was over 3 weeks ago.
3. My outdoor spaces are my sanity’s salvation. I rarely sat at my desk when I was working in an office, yet when I first started working from home full time, that’s exactly what I did. A few long work days of staying tied to my desk, and I not only had a literal pain in the neck, I felt like a caged mouse. After seeing one of my team leads join a call from the back porch of her cabin, I felt inspired to do the same. I started taking more and more calls from outside on my back porch. Thankfully, the area I live in has lots of birds and spring wildlife on display, so I now feel like I’m working from a park - I get lots of natural sunlight, fresh air, and get to do cool things like this while I’m working:
Hangin’ with the carpenter bees.
4. I’ve decided to go camping. I take 1-2 solo camping trips a year, and they’re one of my favorite ways to unplug and recharge. When I solo camp, I may be somewhat isolated, but I’m never cooped up. I spend a lot of the day near, but outside of the tent or yurt. So I’ve decided to take that perspective while being quarantined. I now do much more of my ‘daily living’ outside. I cook outside, have my morning coffee, read, work, listen to music, nap. And every day, almost all day, I keep multiple windows and doors in the house open. This keeps the inside air feeling fresh and allows me to easily move between inside and outside spaces. There’s less of a barrier to ‘going outside’. I feel like I’m just going to another room of the house.
A backyard fire is way better anxiety relief than watching TV indoors. Again.
5. I have an outfit. Week 1 of quarantine, I was so overwhelmed and sleep-deprived, that I essentially wore the exact same outfit 3 days in a row. Determined not to be that disgusting ever again, I did the most practical thing I could think of. I ordered 5 of the same outfit from Amazon that day. I’ve been calling it the ‘everyday ninja’ line. It consists of a pair of yoga pants with utility pockets, a sports bra and a track jacket paired with either black Reebok or Kenneth Cole sneakers. In fact, the whole ensemble is black. Except for the 1 green sports bra I wear when I’m feeling festive. In this simple, form-flattering, practical - and most importantly, stretchy - ensemble, I’m ready for anything from a marathon day of video calls (throw on a cute scarf for biz-cas ninja!), to a quick walk or bike ride between meetings, or a weekend of binge-watching Netflix while bingeing on wine and snacks. Fashion. But make it quarantine.
Obviously things are also a lot more lonely these days, even for an introvert like me. Aside from that, I feel like many of the personal changes I’ve experienced are actually kind of positive. I also know that makes me very lucky in a time like this. I still have a job. My provisions are well-stocked, and I have enough space to move around in without fear or restriction.
So, as the days in quarantine tick by, and repeatedly hearing the phrase ‘the new normal’ becomes the new normal, I often stop and ask myself, ‘What have I got to complain about?’
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
Covid Chronicles: Oh So You Thought You Were Just Gonna Work From Home?
As a single person with no kids, my work-from-home adjustment hasn’t been the same as my coworkers’, but it has come with its own challenges.
Look. I don’t have any kids. I don’t have a spouse or a live-in significant other or even a roommate. I have earned the right to be free of such encumbrances.
“This is a total change to our lives. It’s surreal.”
So all I know about the experiences that working parents with kids are having during the Covid-19 shutdown is through first- and second-hand accounts from my coworkers and friends.
One of my coworkers confessed today:
“Everyone at my house is stressed.” She doesn’t trust her two boys to go off on their own because they don’t get along and they have the shaky reasoning and judgment of pre-pubescent males. Her husband is getting irritated, even though he agreed to cover the kids while she attends to her work day. “This is not just working from home,”she laments. “This is a total change to our lives. It’s surreal.”
Things are slower. Priorities are different. You have been impacted.
On a regular work day, you’re focused on a variety of relationships - with your colleagues, your boss, your staff, the lady in the lunchroom. Your spouse and kids are in the background. They wait until you get home. You carve out space for them at the end of your work day, to make sure you give them the time and energy they deserve.
source: The New Yorker
Now that you are at home, this all has to shift. Your coworkers and all of those interactions are in the background. Your family and housemates are in the foreground. The people at your job may not only need to recognize that you are human, but that they are too.
Hell, you may even be having a hard time coming to that realization.
“The shape of work is changing… and it won’t be coming back.”
Another of my coworkers who has a toddler, has a block of time on her calendar titled, ‘toddler time’ (she uses her baby’s name instead). Not only has she prioritized and protected that precious time, now, when I look at her calendar, I’m aware of what’s really important to her, or at least, of what she needs to do to make her day work for her and the people she lives with.
As a single person with no kids, my work-from-home adjustment hasn’t been the same as my coworkers’, but it has come with its own challenges. Yes - all my snacks are my own to eat; No - I don’t have to worry about somebody doing or saying something weird in the background of a work call I’m on, nor do I have to feed, educate or entertain anyone in my household.
But, I am the only pair of hands in my house. Which means all of the extra work of work - the 9-to-5 days that are now more like 8-to-10, plus all the extra work of home - cooking multiple meals a day, doing dishes, grocery shopping, laundry, grooming, yardwork - are now mine and only mine to do.
Adjustments have definitely been made.
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
khaly comes to visit and prepares whole fish
I knew a Senegalese boy once. And like all raised-right West African boys, he knew how to cook.
I knew a Senegalese boy once. And like all raised-right West African boys, he knew how to cook.
The first time he came to visit, I made sure I had done the grocery shopping. When he arrived and opened the fridge stocked with a couple of whole fish and ice cold beer, he turned to me, smiled broadly and gave me a hug.
“Cheriiii...”
I had done good.
Like me, he loved fish. Our first meal together, on the day we met in Barcelona, he had taken me to a Senegalese restaurant. Unsure of what to order, I had figured the whole fish was a sure bet. When it came, perfectly fried and covered in a rich sauce over a bed of savory seasoned rice and slow-cooked veggies... I went to town.
He had been visibly impressed with my skill at navigating the tiny bones without wasting any of the tender, sweet flesh. And when, towards the end of the meal, I snapped the tailfin off and not only gobbled up the ‘booty meat’ but also nibbled on the thin, crispy-fried tailbones, he was tickled to death.
As an orphaned daughter of the continent, our shared fish fetish made me wonder if the country and people my ancestors had been stolen from were also his country, his people.
“I’m going to cook for you,” he informed me after the hug was finished. Yeah. I had done real good. Together, we moved around the kitchen in preparation for the meal - him asking me, “Do you have...?” and me, responding affirmatively then fetching the requested item, or in the negative and then offering some possible alternatives. The scavenger hunt finished, I watched as he chopped some whole ingredients: garlic, ginger, onion, tossed them in the little porcelain mortar I owned, then added some random assortment of liquids and powders: Maggi, mustard, chile sauce... and began pounding them with the pestle until it was a chunky emulsion. This mixture would eventually get stuffed into each of the diagonal slits he made on either side of each fish.
The art of grilling a whole fish over open flame is not one that i can say that ive consistently mastered, but one that i continually practice. This method of stuffing a powerful blend of aromatics and spices into is one that always brings a bit of nostalgia. A technique passed from one of the many teachers ive met on my travels.
What the big tree in my front yard taught me about being a woman
The big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about me.
Free women are offensive.
This is due to the social obligation that female-bodied humans have to conform, to be acceptable according to a narrow set of standards. To be quiet, polite, tucked in, soft, predictable and tamed.
The true nature of woman – just as it is with all of nature, all of creation – is wild. Women – because of their blood connection with the cycles of nature – the waxing and waning of the moon, the ebbing and flowing of tides, the blossoming, fruiting and shedding that their bodies pass through in a lifetime, are, in their natural state, more wild than men. So that I’m understood clearly, when I say wild, I don’t mean crazy, or dangerous or daring; I mean that which is unbound, untamed, uncivilized. Wild like birds that come and go according to some unseen rhythm, or wild like flowers that sprout and grow whenever and wherever they please. Or wild like the tree in my front yard.
The big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about me. It doesn’t give a fuck that I paid my yard guy to clear all its leaves away not even a week ago. Or that her leaves blanket not only my yard, but the yards of my 3 closest neighbors on both sides of the street (it’s a wonder they haven’t sent me their yard guys’ bills). It doesn’t give a fuck that the Uber Eats delivery driver has to pick her way carefully up the walkway to my front door, wading thru the latest deposit of fallen fall leaves and last-of-the-season seed pods. It doesn’t give a fuck that I nearly twist my ankle nearly once a week on said seed pods, or that I curse her like Yosemite Sam whenever I do. She has a tendency to grow moss up her right side when the weather is moist, and a penchant for dropping her scraggliest branches on my lawn and driveway when the wind picks up. No doubt, even now as I write this, her roots are snaking down into the ground, towards the pipes that carry my waste away from the house, seeking to break them open so she can better use my organic matter to fuel her slow and steady growth.
No, the big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. It simply exists. It abides by its nature. It flowers and lets fall according to the seasons. It provides abundantly and matter of factly - neither benevolently nor magnanimously - to all nature of organisms... squirrels, butterflies, hummingbirds, exotic seen-only-once-a-year moths. It almost certainly predates me, and will very likely survive me. It’s she who denotes the location of my simple blue cottage to first time visitors. More than the numbers affixed to my mailbox post. Certainly more than my almost-invisible driveway. I even bought a sparkling belt of lights to wrap around her mid-trunk, so that newcomers will know where to stop, where to turn. “It’s the house with the big tree out front with lights around it.” They arrive now without panic, confused texts or calls to ask, “where?” or, “which?” Her presence says unmistakably, “here”. It gives certainty to the would-be lost.
Why did no one ever think to cut her down? I wonder, as i sit on my front porch, sipping coffee, contemplating her grandness. Or at least prune her? She’s mine now, so that duty (aka, expense) falls to me, but who in the hell let her grow so wild and wide and wanton in the first place?
I meditate on this tree a lot. On how little of a fuck it gives and how much of a nuisance it is and how majestic and beautiful and necessary it is in spite of all that. Of how much, in its messy necessity, it reminds me of the wild women I know. The big tree women.
Of big tree women and bonsai women
Big trees like the one in my front yard are beautiful to us civilized folks only until they become a nuisance to our civilized lives. The tree is lovely and majestic until one of its branches reaches too far over our carefully constructed homes and threatens to damage what we’ve built. Or until its roots begin to creep and spread in their endless search for sustenance and start to buckle up the smooth pavement we’ve poured over them or until their leaves and seed pods begin to clutter up our perfectly manicured lawns and clog our straight, clean gutters.
This is how women are naturally. Lovely, majestic things whose wildness is an inconvenience for a civilized society. Their unpredictability is a threat to a stable, controlled way of living. As trees provide an essential element we need for life to exist, women provide the essential portals through which human life flows. We’ve not yet found a way to control the oxygen that trees provide us (though no doubt some scientist, somewhere is working on it), but we’ve found ways to control women and our collective access to the life force they hold within themselves.
In doing so, we’ve made these wild, inconvenient trees into bonsais. Beautiful still, yet dwarfed and carefully, meticulously deformed. The same tree that is made into a bonsai would naturally exist somewhere on the edge of a cliff, perhaps. Beautiful to behold, but unable to be possessed.
“If you set a bonsai in a window that overlooks a wild, untamed forest, would it feel jealousy? Would the forest silently long for the warm, homed comfort of the bonsai?”
So in order to take this unreachable, unattainable thing and make it an owned object, it is plucked from its natural state at an early age, placed in a small container and wrapped tightly with restrictive wires, pruned and clipped until it adopts a new shape and scale. One that can easily fit on a shelf or a table or a mantel and be pointed to while saying, “That is mine. See how lovely?”
Yet there are some women who, through magic or folly or lack of training, have escaped the small pot, the stiff wires, the sharp pruning shears. They remain full-sized. They live in plain sight, but in a state that makes them seem unattainable, unable to be possessed. And, while beautiful, they are also disturbing, even offensive to a world that has come to define tree as bonsai and woman as domesticated house pet.
It may be some time for these women to even become aware of the offensiveness of their particular brand of existence. They may go years or decades before even recognizing that there’s anything unique or different or unusual about them. But eventually, they find out. It usually comes to them first when they are shunned by other women. Bonsai women who look at them and proclaim, ‘Ugh. Too big!’ Too wide. Too all over the place. Taking up too much space. To the bonsai woman, the big-tree woman is grotesque.
It will later come to her when she decides that she wishes to be within a certain space – a shelf or a table or mantel she desires to be set upon and adored from. She will attempt to fit herself into these coveted spaces, but will soon realize that it is impossible. That she would need to cut off much of herself to even try to fit in and be accepted and admired by a lover, a group of colleagues or even the bonsai women who are her kin.
Some of these big-tree women will spend the rest of their lives trying to do just that, however, chopping off more and more of themselves, trying to fit their big roots into tiny pots that eventually break and shatter, or trying to balance their full-grown selves on top of tables and mantels that buckle under their weight. Ignoring the physics of the matter in a desperate need to be possessed by someone.
Those who figure things out ultimately discover that belonging to, rather than being possessed by is what differentiates the big-tree woman from the bonsai woman. That belonging to is really the only thing other than complete wildness that a big tree woman can aspire to. Since she will never be able to shrink herself to fit into a place of possession, she will instead need to seek out spaces where she simply belongs. Where she can exist as her full self, in ground that nurtures and keeps her in place. Where she can be tended to, admired, adored, appreciated and allowed to give freely of herself without being begrudged for branches that spread too wide or roots that buckle concrete or leaves that fall here, there and everywhere. Where she does not run the risk of being cut down and used up or consumed to be someone else’s shelter or warmth.
A big tree woman who finds such a space is lucky. A big tree woman who learns how to create such a space for herself is blessed. A big tree woman who shows bonsai women that it’s ok for them to become big tree women (if they so desire) and shows them how or encourages them to find their own way of breaking out of their pots and unwrapping the tight wires from their branches is magic. She is in league with the universe and an agent of both God and nature.
The Gift of the Magi - Attention Must Be Paid in 2020
The 3 wise men are a reminder that when we see a sign, we should not only sit up and take notice, but also take action.
So it’s officially the end of the Christmas season. Time to pull down the decorations, turn off the twinkling lights and live with the newfound knowledge that the spirit of God made flesh is among us and within us.
I particularly enjoy the mythology and meaning of the feast of the Epiphany, the story of the three wise kings – those men of ancient science and religion, in a time when there was little difference between the two – who saw an astrological sign that not only made them sit up and take notice, but also take action. To travel from their faraway homes to a place where they knew something significant had happened, and to make sure that they didn’t show up empty handed. To me, this story says a lot. It says that even though a thing may already be present, until it is acknowledged and honored… it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone other than those who brought it to life.
Something about that theme seems to be in line with the energy of this new year. I feel it within myself and I see it among those I’m closest to. There has been much labor, much uncertainty, much work going on over the past 12 months – most of it very personal. There have also been some serious assignments given out – tough things. Things we were not ready to accept, but had to, because the assignment itself was the readying. We were called upon to mature, to become, to fulfill the promise of the generations that came before us, to be the vessel for something new. There was little time to lament, to cry out to the universe, ‘whyyyy meeee!!?’ When God says go up to that mountain and sacrifice your son, when he says you’re pregnant and single, but I need you to have this kid, you don’t say, ‘why me’, you say, ‘ready!’
But that part is well behind us now, and the new thing is in its infancy. Through our struggle, we have brought it into being. And now… it’s time for that thing to be acknowledged and honored. Your job, of course, is not to seek out honor and acknowledgement, but to nurture this new thing, this new you. To make your star shine so fuckin’ bright that them what’s got good sense can’t help but sit up and take notice of it. It may be some time yet before the rest of the world catches on to your magic, but that matters little.
So shine, my darlings. And let those who have eyes to see bask in your glory. Just don’t get too caught up in the temptations of fame.
Because we have much yet to do.
Celebrate Your Own Damned Season - A Different Way Of Celebrating For A Different Kind Of Growth
Each of the past year’s losses came with a gift inside. A jewel of learning and of becoming that calls for a different kind of celebrating.
A younger coworker was doing her best to convince me to go to the company holiday party. I smiled at each of her reasons for why I should go, but was not moved in my decision. Another coworker closer to my age who had been observing our exchange joined in... “You’re just not there right now. You’re not in that space.” She said it with such knowing, such easy acceptance that I was not only grateful for but comforted by her understanding.
End of year is usually a time for celebrating. Celebrating what you achieved, what you survived, what you learned, how you grew. I’m usually the first to call out to my group of friends: “Who’s hosting?” Or, “Who wants to come over for...?” during the holiday season.
But this year... 2019 has been a different kind of year for me. And I feel the need for a different kind of celebrating. This year was one of many losses for me and for several people close to me. The losses themselves were a shock, emotional bombshells each one. But each loss came with a gift inside. A jewel of learning and of becoming that the loss necessitated. There was gain and growth this year as well, but not the flashy growth and gain of here-and-gone spring annuals, but the unfurling of a few leaves and a slow, upward stretching and outward thickening of a central trunk - the decidedly unshowy growth of evergreens and perennials.
Celebrating that kind of growth looks a little different. It looks like more intimate gatherings with smaller groups of friends - people who appreciate leaves as much as they do flowers. It looks like quiet time alone to reflect and sigh and smile and cry. It looks like notebooks filled with lessons learned from moments of confusion and hurt. It looks like opting out of the company party to go to a neighborhood gathering where the conversations will be more authentic, the hugs inappropriately long, the food cooked by hands I know.
When I look back and recall the ways i chose to celebrate the end of this year, this decade... I believe i’ll be glad that I consciously chose to not just celebrate the season as dictated by calendar or custom, but as dictated by my own life’s season.
Today, another coworker sent a text, “You missed out on a great party...”
I replied: “I didn’t miss out. I chose.”
.
The All-Too-Obvious Truth About Black People & Office Potlucks
PSA: Tis the season. The season... for office potlucks.
Or as I like to call them, the one time black people will gladly turn down free food.
PSA: Tis the season. The season... for office potlucks.
Or as I like to call them, the one time black people will gladly turn down free food.
Cuuuuz... in case you didn’t know...
Black people don’t eat out of everybody house.
Now, I know i may be telling ‘family tea’ right now, but I think it’s needed in this day and age where workforces are more diverse and radical candor is becoming a way of life.
The next time your office has a big potluck... pay attention to your African-American colleagues. Oh? You don’t even see half of them? Maybe, you think, they’re in a meeting right now, and they’ll stop by later. Nah, bro. They ain’t comin’. The moment the pot luck invite hit their inbox weeks ago, they made plans for lunch off-campus. Or! If they do show up, be very clear that they have already conducted a private survey of their fellow black coworkers to find out which of them brought a dish and have identified exactly WHICH dish in advance. At chow time, they will only eat those dishes and perhaps store-bought ones. The most diplomatic among us will surreptitiously invoke a ne’er-before-revealed food allergy or digestive disorder to explain why we skipped over certain dishes. Others prefer the approach of putting a small scoop of most everything on their plate - scoops that will remain untouched until they touch the trash bin.
Some might say this is racist. It can certainly be construed as such. But, this behavior is not only reserved for non-black colleagues. If u are a POC that owns a pet, you may also be on the receiving end of this behavior. Especially, if at any point in time you have revealed that you let your pet: sleep in your bed, walk on your counters, lick your face or eat out of ‘people plates’. You, may be a victim of Potluck Passover. Try not to take this personally. It really isn’t a personal attack, as these same folks will still hang out with you, look out for you and enjoy your other creative outputs. They just ain’t eatin’ out yo’ house.
Just thought I’d share this PSA as I make my way back to the office after off-campus lunch.
I hear there’s still plenty of chili left in the breakroom. 😏
Does your job define you? 4 Questions to ask yourself.
One of my colleagues pulled me aside a few days before my first corporate exit and gave me a good word: ‘This place didn’t make you who you are.’
I seem to have made a habit of leaving good jobs.
The first good job I left was 15+ years ago. It was my first job out of college, and it had taught me everything I knew about business in the real world. One of my then-colleagues, a member of the group I’d secretly dubbed my SOWs (Successful Older Women), pulled me aside a few days before my exit and gave me a good word: ‘This place didn’t make you who you are.’
It was perhaps the best parting gift I could have received.
Jobs take up a huge part of our lives. When people ask who we are, we often respond with an answer that describes what we do to make money. It is very easy, then, to begin to associate your worth, value, degree of success, your you-ness with the job you have. Especially when others around you continually re-affirm that by saying things like,
About your decision to leave: “Why would you ever leave that good job?”
About your working a non-traditional job or freelancing: “You’re not working a real job now, so you must have tons of free time.”
About your side project or self-imposed time off: “That sounds great, but when are you going to get back to work?”
For some, having a job that defines them is a perfectly acceptable state of affairs. But, if you have a worry or growing fear that you’ve lost yourself in your job and want to change that, ask yourself these questions to start:
What are you doing for yourself outside of what’s required for your job to help you learn, grow, and be of service to those around you?
How are you investing in yourself in ways that are not solely tied to how you can be a better worker or employee?
What personal goals and desires are you postponing because they interfere or conflict with your job?
What other social circles or communities do you belong to that represent who you are and offer a place for you to contribute?
The work of understanding yourself, defining yourself for yourself and finding ways to express yourself and improve upon how you engage with the world is continual. It’s this work that has helped me realize both my innate value and my very specific uniqueness. Armed with this self-awareness, I’m less hesitant to leave a so-called good job, and less receptive to questions from those who question why I would.
Once you make the commitment to work on yourself as your primary work… you come to realize 2 very important facts:
No job or title can give or take away the value you bring to the table.
You. Are the secret formula.
Practical Lessons for Thriving in Corporate America
Using the geisha as metaphor, I share lessons from my 20+ year career as a management consultant in a series of poignant and insightful essays.
The experienced corporate worker will relate to these narrative slices of consulting and corporate life. Those new to corporate life will find indispensable jewels of wisdom to help propel their careers to the next level.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank - The Airy Beauty Of Empty Space In My Home
One intentional design element I tried to incorporate was emptiness or negative space. My house is single-person sized and the main living space is open concept with lots of windows. I wanted to make sure that the space still felt light and uncluttered even with big furniture pieces - like a dining table, or chairs in front of the windows - in the main line of sight.
Here are some of the ways I worked in blank space to keep my main living area feeling light and airy, yet still substantial enough to be the center of my home’s daily activity.
It’s been a little over a year since I purchased my first ‘I-live-here’ home. I’d owned investment houses before, but always resisted the idea of owning my primary residence. Too much work for a young-ish single woman who liked to keep her options open, I thought. And I was right. It’s a lot of work. I half-jokingly say that i married a building. Still, it feels good to have set down root in red clay after floating around Europe on and off for a few years.
After my gypsy period, I had to start absolutely from scratch. I had sold all of my furniture, and only had a few decor and sentimental items tucked away in storage. A blank slate can be both daunting and inspiring, and a test of how creative a frugal diva can be while still expressing her style. My current design includes a mishmash of thrift store finds, budget retail buys, and splurge-y high-end pieces, accented by interesting souvenirs from my travels.
One intentional design element I tried to incorporate was emptiness or negative space. My house is single-person sized and the main living space is open concept with lots of windows. I wanted to make sure that the space still felt light and uncluttered even with big furniture pieces - like a dining table, or chairs in front of the windows - in the main line of sight.
Here are some of the ways I worked in blank space to keep my main living area feeling light and airy, yet still substantial enough to be the center of my home’s daily activity.
Blank Frames in a Picture Gallery
My entry wall is higher than the other walls in my home and leads to a dramatic vaulted ceiling. A perfect place for an eclectic wall gallery of photos and paintings. I originally intended to put smaller photos inside of these frames I found at Goodwill, but thought they looked good blank - more designer-y if you will. A good way to give the eye a rest while taking in the whole collection.
Source: My local Goodwill store
Transparent Louis Chairs
Or, as i like to call them: my Wonder-Woman chairs. The formal Louis style of these chairs make the space feel elegant. The clear acrylic construction lets light shine right through them. Since they’re placed in front of the bay window in my kitchen, I definitely appreciate the fact the it leaves both the incoming light and the outside view completely unobstructed.
Source: Amazon.com
Upcycled Vintage Dining Chairs
These are one of my favorite things in my space. I found these chairs on Craigslist for about $15 each. I’d been looking for some Art-deco style chairs with open backs and felt very lucky to find these for such a low price (everything else I found was just not what I wanted to spend at the time). There was just one problem: they were in terrible shape. Luckily, one of my new neighbors is pretty good at refinishing old furniture, so I gave her my ideas and some fabric remnants I’d purchased in Spain. She painted and reupholstered them for me, and I love how they turned out! The open woodwork on the backs of each chair wasn’t salvageable on all of the chairs, but I think that adds to the quirk and character of them.
Source: Craigslist
Glass Dining Table
I never considered a glass dining table before, but since my table sits dead in the middle of my living space, I knew I didn’t want some big, hulking object taking center stage. This very modern looking table actually pairs well with the vintage-modern dining chairs, and the flat plane of glass almost disappears when you’re looking across the room.
Source: Wayfair.com
Glass Terrarium Side Table
The fireplace feature in my living room (though, I call it the parlor) is really what sold me on my house. It really brings the original house details into the newly renovated look of the house. It’s non-functional, which means I could place things in front of it for a comfy seating area, but I still didn’t want to block this showpiece architectural feature. This glass table fit the bill perfectly, and even allowed me to incorporate some life into the space (though, I can’t guarantee how long these plants will survive with my luck at plant parenting).
Source: Amazon.com
Cane-back Armchair
Another local Goodwill find. I didn’t do anything to this beauty other than take off a piece of upholstery that was covering about 1/3 of the amazingly-intact canework on the back of the chair. The ugly-pretty upholstery was in good condition and worked well with my existing color scheme, so this was an easy win!
Source: Goodwill
Modern Hollowed-Out Side Chair
This was one of the very first items I bought for the house. For the simple fact that I needed somewhere other than the couch to sit, and these could easily be moved around the house until I got more furniture. The geometric cut-outs allowed me to place them anywhere - like this current-but-not-forever placement in front of my beloved Georgia map - and not worry about whether it was going to block something from view.
Source: Wayfair.com
Starburst Coffee Table
Definitely one of my splurge pieces - even though I caught it on sale. This is a statement piece that really helps define the mood and style of my space while still being functional and unobtrusive. A bit more Art-deco meets Hollywood Regency style to give grown-lady glam
Source: West Elm
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
When No One Knows The Way: 5 Steps To Make Your Mission Statement A Way Of Working
My client’s disappointed that the team hasn’t adopted or isn’t fully aware of the organization’s mission. How, she wonders, can she get her team to not only know what the mission is, but live it everyday?
Management Issue:
My client has been in her role as lead of her team for the past year or so. She’s put a good deal of her efforts into strengthening the team culture and creating a more collaborative and client-focused mindset within her department.
At the beginning of the year, she worked with other members of the organization’s executive team to develop a mission statement for her department. Shortly after it was finished, she proudly shared the new mission with the team in a town hall style meeting. Months later, she’s dismayed at how few people on the team have grasped the mission – she randomly polled a few of her staff about the mission statement a few days ago, and some didn’t even know that a mission statement existed!
Naturally, she’s disappointed that the team hasn’t adopted or isn’t fully aware of the mission. How, she wonders, can she get her team to not only know what the mission is, but live it everyday?
***
Training your team on your organization’s mission statement is not a once-and-done activity. Many organizational leaders put a great deal of effort and thought into the creation of their company or department mission statement, carefully crafting each word until it conveys a message that both inspires and succinctly describes what the organization does.
But once the hard work of creating the mission statement is done, the task of getting employees to learn and embody the words of the mission statement is the next big hurdle – one might rightfully conclude that this is the hardest work of all.
As a result, mission statements often end up being treated as canned corporate speak or a motivational poster without real-life impact. Organizations who move beyond this mindset and successfully instill the mission into their employees are poised to experience profound shifts in organizational culture.
So how do they do it? Here’s one approach for taking your company’s mission statement from words to action.
From Mission To Action
5 Steps to Turn Your Organization’s Mission Statement into a Way of Working
Step 1: De-construct the mission statement
Take action phrases from the mission statement and develop both marketing and training materials around them. Do the same for adjectives and descriptor words.
Step 2: Create marketing and training materials
Suggested marketing materials:
Wall posters of the mission statement with action phrases or descriptors highlighted and explained
3D toys, puzzles, games, figurines, etc. that demonstrate the action phrases or descriptors in some way or have action phrases or descriptors printed on them
Suggested training materials:
Self-directed eLearning modules – a la the security essentials training
Recorded video presentation of a member of leadership explaining the mission and its importance
Animated explainer videos
Step 3: Include mission statement in required annual training
Require that each employee attend an annual introduction or refresher training that includes or exclusively focuses on the mission statement. Require the training to be completed within the first 30 days of employment for new hires and once a year for existing employees.
Step 4: Provide and promote ongoing experiences
When launching a new or modified mission statement, provide 2-3 experiential learning activities or sessions within 6 weeks of revealing the new mission statement. Experiential training should be designed to create ‘a-ha’ moments that allow participants to act and reflect on the concepts of the mission statement.
After each training session or after all sessions are completed, recommend and regularly encourage activities for your team to continue ‘living the mission’, including:
Book clubs – read and discuss business-related books that focus on the action phrases and descriptors in the mission statement
Internal improvement projects - suggest and work on internal-facing improvement initiatives that embody the concepts of the action phrases and descriptors in the mission statement
Community service projects - plan and participate in external activities and hands-on projects that embody the concepts of the action phrases and descriptors in the mission statement
Informal social groups - encourage small group participation in fun, social activities that are aligned with or themed with the action phrases and descriptors of the mission statement
Step 5: Encourage and reward demonstration of the mission in action
Create a rewards and recognition program to identify, recognize and reward projects or teams that have demonstrated the action phrases and descriptors highlighted in Step 1. Be sure to focus rewards and recognition primarily or exclusively on team and group efforts, not individuals. This will serve to encourage teamwork, asking for help, collaborating and having shared experiences; and will discourage isolation, ‘hero’ behavior or the tendency to ‘pick favorites’.
Further reading:
https://blog.clickboarding.com/how-to-improve-employee-engagement-make-the-mission-clear
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat.