Life Story: Intersectionality Is Stressful

So I was aggressively laid off in October. I know, you’re like what the fuck is an aggressive layoff? So picture it, Chicago, September 2018.

I’m working as a project lead at an IT consulting firm. I was sold on the fact that I thought this company I was working for was liberal. They have a lot of that modern workplace shit going on. Fridge full of La Croix, occasional beer in the office, company sponsored happy hours. They even give tons of money to the boys and girls clubs in Chicago (which majority supports underprivileged black and brown youth). So I was like yay!

Girl, these motherfuckers hit me with the bait and switch so hard. I went to a client’s office to do a kickoff meeting right, and they stared at me the whole time. Okay, fine, I’m hosting a meeting people should be staring at me? Girl they were staring at me so hard I dont even think they heard my speech that I so delicately prepared and put in PowerPoint form.

I don’t think, I’ve ever been so uncomfortable in a meeting in my life. This is coming from a gay black woman who has given speeches to high school kids about going to college. Not to mention one of the guys from the client low key insulted me by asking me if I “understood what was going on”. In my head I was like “nigga do you understand, with yo bitch ass?!” But I’m a professional, and I can’t use the N-word at work so I just said ” Oh yes, I very much enjoy the technical details”

So long story short, this shit was awkward, and its not the first time clients have treated me like I was from outer space.

This time I decided to take a chance, and see if I could get some support from my internal team. So I had. My regular 1:1 with my boss and told her the short version of the story. She was all like I’m so sorry you have to go through that, its terrible, as women in IT blah blah blah. I’m like yeah I actually dont think they’re woman haters I think their either racist or homophobic ( said this to myself).

this ho tells me to let her know if it happens again, and that I should say something to the client about it. At first i was like fuck that I’m not going back, but then I was like nah these motherfuckers need to see me.

Roughly 3 weeks later I was terminated. Not a single bad performance review, I had just closed a project $130k under budget. AKA I just more than paid my own salary and y’all are letting me go?

So I call it an aggressive lay off because they laid me off aggressively lol. I was invited to a meeting with my boss and her boss (my boss didn’t show up) and the HR director was sitting in the room when I walked in. I was terminated the same day, and told my health insurance would expire at midnight. The reason I was given was “Company Financial Performance” but my theory is that I, being a person who fits in so many minority categories, presented too much of a liability and the company didn’t know how to support me, nor did they care enough to figure it out.

You can draw your own conclusions. Let me know what y’all think.