by Don Hall

From the New York Times:

My white, middle-aged co-worker is a scammer. I’ve talked to the people in charge but because they aren’t here day to day, they only know what I tell them. I’m a 24-year-old Black lady. You can best believe there’s a racial dynamic to why I’m not being heard. She’s been late, refused to come in and almost quit because she felt she “needed to.” She’s such a bad employee I received a raise. She has knowingly been around people with Covid-19. I know she has lied because her timeline is off.

She can’t keep up with her lies. Our supervisor asked that she be tested for coronavirus and let her off when she said her symptoms didn’t qualify to be tested. If the roles were reversed, I would have been fired a long time ago. What’s the best way to navigate racial politics in the workplace?

— Anonymous

We all love binary thinking because it's easy. She's white, you're black. She's old, you're young. She's incompetent, you're competent. She's a liar, you are honest.

I like to use a different binary in these situations. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who focus on themselves, their work, their responsibilities and those who focus on the work and responsibilities of others.

You're twenty-four so you've only been out of school for a year (assuming you did four years in college). School and work are not the same universes.

While it can be self-defeating, at least it's acceptable to spend time focusing on the progress of your classmates in school because you're all being graded on performance. Students in the same grade are looking to be graded higher than others, the competition is as much with others as it is with yourself. In the workplace this behavior makes you the company busybody.

If I'm your supervisor, I'd first wonder how you manage to spend so much time doing my job assessing the work practices of a co-worker and still manage to do your job. This having absolutely nothing to do with your age or skin color but the fact that nowhere in your job description is "General Assessment of Co-worker's Weaknesses" written or implied.

High school is required and is generally paid for by the State. College is optional and is paid for by you or your parents or through a scholarship or grant. Work is not something you consume. It is something you do to get paid for doing.

Your co-worker's timeline? None of your business.
Your co-worker's time clock? None of your business.
Your co-worker's lies to your boss? None of your business.

Do your job. Do it as well as you can. Be a team player, show up on time, do your work as excellently as you can. Focus on improving, on meeting deadlines, on providing value for the wage you are being paid. You aren't being paid to look at Instagram, or offer your opinion on someone's clothing choices, or complain about someone else.

Oh, by the way, it's not a racial thing unless you can demonstrate it. Your gut feeling that if the roles were reversed you would have been fired is not only vague, it's wholly unsubstantiated with anything but your uninformed opinion of the situation.

Sort of like that white woman’s assessment of that black kid in the swimming pool. NONE OF HER BUSINESS.