Working in tech….can be so…

Fun

Annoying

Rewarding

Challanging

Homophobic, Sexist, Racist (you pick an ism)

Girl, when I tell you these companies be having us so fucked up…

In 2011 I moved back to the Chicagoland area because I’d been admitted to grad school at DePaul. It took me 5 years an a liberal arts degree to realize that I really loved working with technology. I found an IT help desk job on craigslist (yes a legit job) and that started my career as a techie.

In 2014 I completed my masters in information systems, all while having progressively gained more responsibility at the company I was working for. From help desk, to software support, to onsite tech support at conferences, to project manager. My tenure at that company ended when there was literally nothing else for me to do but become a manager or executive and at that time there were 0 black managers or executives at that organization so I had to go.

Desperate to make more money I took a contract job at a major bank with downtown Chicago headquarters. The contract was slated to last about a year, 10 months in I left that toxic environment to work at a small infrastructure firm. Just over a year in to that job the company was acquired and the entire project management team was laid off.

Cue my first networking hire, I figured consulting couldn’t be much different than contracting, and a friend of mine referred me over to the IT consulting firm she was working for. I couldn’t have been more wrong, IT consulting (and probably consulting in general) is a shark tank. Specifically, my experience as a black stud- a black American masculine presenting lesbian- made working in person onsite with clients awkward as fuck. Like, it is still hard for me to believe that I could be the first one of me people have ever seen but they sure seemed confused and with that confusion came hella disrespect.

And get this, I let the internal company leadership team know what was going on and the message I got back is that something was wrong with my documentation and the way I was running my projects. So, I’m mismanaging my projects, but they all end on time and on budget? So much so that you mother fuckers are cutting me a bonus every quarter for performance. Make it make fuckin’ sense. Then they had the nerve to “lay me off” after I complained about being mistreated by yet another client, good riddance fuck faces.

So then I take this job at a local start up right. They’re doing good work in the community helping people connect with government right. I’m like fuck yes lets do this, it doesn’t quite pay what I want, but who needs tons of money when you get the joy of helping underserved communities in Chicago?! Girl, fuckkkk that. I did’t even make it a year before I handed the HR lady my badge and my laptop after my manager tried to write me up for the exact items I told him I needed help with. I also later found some white supremacist adjacent shit on him on instagram after I quit but that’s neither here nor there.

That was it for me, I was good with staying in tech, but I was done with client facing work. I was tired of being abused by my managers and by my clients and free snacks and beer pong Fridays were not enough. I realized that these environments I’m working in and their severe lack of diversity exist for a reason. At first I was like okay, these are smaller companies their diversity numbers are in proportion to their company size. WRONG! If you walk in to an environment, a workplace, and there are little to no black or brown people there. THAT ENVIRONMENT IS HOSTILE TO BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE!! Girl, do you know for 7 of my 11 months at that company I had just quit before the pandemic, I was literally the only black woman in the entire company!!

There aren’t enough black history month programs, Diwali celebrations, or hispanic heritage month t-shirts to outdo a shitty ass hostile ass culture. I’ve also learned that I no longer do DEI work, at work, on top of my regular job FOR FREE. Nuh uh, fuck you, pay me.

So, what happens next, AJ? I’m so glad you asked. I walked out of that job in January 2020 and we all know what happened in the months that followed. Fortunately I landed a contract job at a large tech organization and I really felt like the culture was on point. Don’t get me wrong they had their problems, but I was finally working on a diverse team in an organization that was making solid attempt and not only diversity but inclusion. When that contract ended I realized that as much as that banking role a few years back made me hate large organizations. Large tech firms had a whole different vibe.

Most recently I’ve gone through another lay off at a mid sized local tech firm who was financially hurt by the pandemic and will probably never recover, but the experience was the same as the large tech firm. DEI was not just a banner, it was a real thing. And I was fortunate enough to have solid leadership at that company.

So, its April 2023 and I’m back on the job market, but not for long. I’m older and wiser and I’ve learned a lot on this career journey (mostly that being unemployed is the shit if you can afford it) and I really am looking forward to my next adventure.

Thanks for reading yall. Drop me a comment about your experiences in tech!