The longer your journey in the corporate world, the more you’ll realize that it is strikingly similar to high school. Unless you’re in one of the most structurally evolved corporate structures known to Mankind (which I have yet to witness the existence of), you’ve probably landed in some version of Corporate-Meets-High-School, the musical version!
Your boss is the nice or downright wicked principal, your co-workers are all members of some corporate clique with special interests, there is the unmistakable nerd, the gossip-queen (or king), and your other usual suspects…
And you, the corporate sister on the block, are left to take sides or forever keep your peace. As if you weren’t already struggling with figuring out your professional identity as a Black woman, or how to fit your generous 34DD chest size into anything that remotely looks like a white button-down shirt…For the record, keeping your peace is a viable option only for a limited amount of time, after which you eventually will be assigned to a side or another. In the process, you will probably get really closely acquainted with what I’ve come to call the “only” syndrome. Through my years in corporate, as saddening as this may sound, I’ve learnt to expect to be the “only” woman in the room, and unfortunately, the “only” Black woman in the group…
See, the interesting thing about the corporate jungle is while it claims left and right that employee initiative and innovation are key to career success, it also fosters a generalized groupthink type of mentality that, left uncontrolled, stifles that very spirit…
And you, my dear, happen to be at the very edge of this double-edge sword of a conversation. With very few role models or mentors to identify with, and limited resources for sisters on a corporate mission, you are like that kid, you know, the newbie who stands alone at recess…that is, until they decide to walk over and make their way into one of the groups, after having carefully weighed the pros, cons and extent of their involvement…
Just like high school, except that even if you’re at a disadvantage in this real-life popularity contest, you still need to know the rules of the game…
The Corporate Sister.
