THE ONLY BLACK GUY IN THE OFFICE
The Unique Frustration of Being Black and in Charge
How am I supposed to run a team if my co-workers are scared of direct conversations?
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
Whether sitting in a conference room or on my couch, I’ve never been one to beat around the bush at work. As far as I’m concerned, you get a whole lot less gray hairs when you put everything on Front Street — what you expect, what you need, and what you don’t. Unfortunately, my co-workers haven’t quite caught on yet.
Virtually interacting with my co-workers has its perks (prayer hand emojis to the end of deskside drive-bys), but it’s also magnified their lack of straightforward communication skills. That’s bad enough when some of my non-Black cohorts take the long way around an issue — or around me — but it’s doubly frustrating when it comes to projects that we’re all involved in.
On my marketing team, we’ve got copywriters, graphic designers, and UX people all working on a big campaign with lots of moving parts; I assist with project managing it all. It’s an exercise in juggling. One minute, everything’s going through email, but the next, other…
