Misguidance Counselors: In the Middleness of Other
by Allison Moy Hayhurst
Happy Tuesday, Campers!
Today’s docket includes spreadsheets, a Zoom meeting that could have been an email, and being so cold that you consider using your PTO so you can spend the morning fusing your body to your warm comforter. Plus, everyone’s favorite coworker, Allison Moy Hayhurst, will be making a surprise stop by the virtual water cooler for some afternoon laughs and lowkey office gossip.
In this issue, our first-time contributor shares the folly of corporate’s definition of “culture.” Was it worth the free snacks to find herself in the middle yet again? Allison shares the reports in this exclusive Misguidance Counselors memo.
Thanks for getting lost with us!
LYLAS,
Misguidance Counselors, Marilyn and Sam
I work at a big corporate, tech gianty, kind of place. I started my tech career in a cute little start-up that was all, “Ohhh, we're tech beebees. We have all the free snacks, 72 different types of seltzer, and cold brew and kombucha on draft.” It was all the cliche tech things you’ve heard about, plus a mini indoor basketball court, bagels every morning, and free lunches on Fridays. But as with all things, they must come to an end, and in this case, it was through acquisition.
As part of this acquiring, these giant corporate people wanted to make a show of "caring about the people" and the "culture" of the company they acquired. So they stood up a "Culture Committee." I should state that I am a fan of committees. I love meeting new people. I love sitting around large tables and doodling in notebooks. I am highly motivated by free food, as seen above.
Committees are fun to me, but this “Culture Committee” was designed to help unify the corporate giant culture with our start-up culture. Which, to be honest, their company was all like cubicles and we're like open office plans. They were like fluorescents and we were like natural light from the atrium, brah. It was like apples and broccoli people! I mean, they both get the job done, but one is just hella sweeter. Keeps the doctor away. The other is broccoli: the intestinal scrub brush of vegetables.
Now, I'm not sure how many of you reading work in a more 9-5 environment but, also as humans, I hope people can relate to how absurd the idea of a "Culture Committee" is.
They chose to have 15, I repeat fifteen, people help shape… or more so… dictate what the culture should be at the company. So, FIFTEEN sounds like a massive number of inputs but, in a company of thousands, it is actually an inaccurate sample size.
All of this is to say, I get put on the committee because I'm fun. I’m quirky. I made my team put on that musical once! Well, really... it may’ve been because I've been at the company for many, many years. I’ll hold onto the fact that it was the funness, not the ageness.
Word gets round the company about this new committee. Corporate yes-people are all excited, my former co-workers are questioning its purpose and others are questioning who they chose to be in the group. One day, I get a message in a group company chat program about the committee. A Vice President, who is a person of color, is relaying some larger concerns about the make-up of the group—especially the representation of the group from our now-acquired company.
People were concerned because there were no people of color from our old company. It made me stop. I took a beat. Do I say something? Do I not? Am I not a person of color? Maybe they don’t know I’m on the committee? Do they see me? As I continued to debate on my response, I ended up opting for a gif of a person just slowly raising their hand from out of frame like “Me. I'm... uhm... well, I'm on the committee.”
I thought, ”Ha, that'll do it, she'll remember that I'm a person of color representing our former company in the group that is going to tell everyone what culture means! Ha!”
To my surprise, she instantly responded with "No, I meant brown people."
I was again totally taken by surprise because what I heard in that response was "you are not a person of color" which was an incredibly hard thing to process but also… something, when I thought about it, that I've been told my entire life.
My father is a 6’ tall Chinese man from Mississippi, and my Caucasian mother thinks she can never be racist because she married him.
There are no people of color in this group.
No, I meant brown people.
Those comments instantly pulled me back to my childhood. What must I look like? Because when I look in the mirror, I see a person of color. Was I Asian enough to audition for The King and I? I'm from Alabama, so the answer was, unequivocally, ”Yes.” It would save them on some eyeliner.
At the same time was I white enough to entertain the dream of being cast as little orphan Annie? That would be a resounding “No.” Although, later in life, I did buy a red wig and I thought it looked pretty sick. And, in writing this, I also realized I’ve dyed my hair red again recently—oh gah, this damage runs deep. But that’s another story for tomorrow… tomorrow… I’ll love ya…
Outside of my own musical theater trauma, that remark made me think of my father's background as well, growing up as a second-generation Chinese-American in the South. If you ever ask him and my aunt about what their childhood was like, one of the main points they make is that they "got to go to the white school."
Now, I think everyone has plenty of context on the history of racism in the South, but for some context on my family, My Grandfather immigrated and subsequently brought my grandmother, her adopted son, and most of her family over. They settled in Greenville, Mississippi, and opened a store. They were bold enough to open a grocery store that sat directly between a white and black neighborhood. The entire family lived in the back room, and they were one of the only stores in the neighborhood that would extend a line of credit to their black customers.
My dad and his siblings “were allowed to go to the white school." They were proud to go to the white school because people in the 1960s didn't know what to do with Asian kids. You are this, or you are that. I don’t know where to put you—because you are not this and you are not that.—but I ONLY HAVE TWO GROUPS TO PUT PEOPLE IN! There is no middle ground. What was so jarring to me was to hear that same sentiment coming from a vice president of a company in 2019, from my precious company, not from our new Corporate Daddy, and to have her invalidate my own self-perception in one swoop.
We had this group that was meant to act as a representation of the whole. Again, we can agree, horrible sample size, but these 15 people were tasked with being a conduit of feedback for our company culture… What happens if you look at the group that is supposed to represent you and don’t see yourself reflected back? Do you then have to decide if you’ll be put into the white school or the black? Or feel like you’ll never fit in? Is that part of why my father took pride in going to the white school because it at least meant he was in a bucket? Because to admit that he “wasn’t this or wasn’t that” fucks with his own self-identity?
That was my father’s childhood. That was most of my childhood, save the yellow power ranger and that one actor on the show California Dreaming. So, in actuality, I get her comment! She looked at that group and did not see herself reflected back. She looked at that group and felt unseen.
But her comment made me feel unseen. This isn’t some sort of anti-golden rule situation. We have far too much of that in our world currently as it is. We are far from a truly diverse and inclusive world. So how can we continue to fight to see ourselves reflected back while also lifting up those who are out there trying to represent us all?
There is no one putting us into two buckets. There is no reality that is actually THIS thing or THAT thing. We all live and writhe and thrive in the middle-ness of other. That is what strengthens us beyond a sample size. That is where our power lies.
“In the Middleness of Other” by Allison Moy Hayhurst, @haymoyhay
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 A fantastic piece
Thanks for reading! ❤️