Write with Kare

You ever hear the saying that the common denominator in all your shitty situations is you? You were there for all of it and thereby likely contributed to the chaos and malfunction in some way. This statement is usually meant to help a person reflect on their relationship patterns, how dating a bunch of assholes only means you either like assholes or you have the capacity to send every human you date into madness. The same can be said for jobs. Every job I’ve ever worked has me in common. And I’m not saying I deserved any of the insanity, but perhaps I unconsciously went after it, found comfort in the work spaces that I entered because the people and their attitudes were familiar. I can attest that I like my men a bit misogynist. I like my women to be moody, unpredictable, and a bit ragey. Like my parents. A man who has no respect for women will have no surprises for me and a woman who resides on the spectrum of irritable to enraged, will incite me to decipher and decode until I think I’ve circumvented her wrath only to incur it by my neediness and desperation to please.

In order to help you understand just what was toxic about the places where I’ve worked, I need to show you my foundations. Where I came from so you can understand where I kept finding myself and why. I’ve chosen the four most notable experiences and ranked them from least to most harrowing, though the criteria for what makes them so is inconsistent.

Drug deals and prostitution. That was the kind of work to which I was exposed daily while playing outside in front of the apartment that my family lived in for most of my childhood. And then at night, I learned to sleep through the sounds of sirens and fights over money and revelrous screams when the drugs were real good. 

I grew up on Blue Hill Ave, a busy bustling street in greater Boston that connected the suburbs to the commercial center of the city. White men in their sparkling black Mercedes would drive slowly through my neighborhood looking to spend their money on some weekday debauchery on the way home. I know in my bones the feeling of being sized up and physically assessed. Time stood still each time this happened to me. I didn’t even know what any of it was for, but I knew something about being looked at that way felt violent. When the men stopped for me, I wondered what about me looked like I was someone who had what they wanted? My little preteen brain wondered if they knew something about me that I didn’t. How could I know then that they weren’t quite so discerning. I was a Black girl on Blue Hill Ave, and poor enough to see some old man’s dick as an opportunity to feed my family.

My dad’s religion justified corporal punishment and that got my siblings and me put into foster care for a few months. There was food insecurity, because my dad wasn’t great at holding a job and my mom stayed at home raising her six children. She did manage to get me into private schools on scholarship and go to nursing school and work as a nurse. Then she died when I was 16. 

My senior year at Spelman College in Atlanta, when other classmates were taking the next steps to their career goals, I realized I didn’t know what mine were. My only goal was to never live the way I grew up again, and it’s hard to chart a career path around this fear. There are no pamphlets in the college career center to allay my fears. 

After combing the internet for jobs, I found one as a transcriptionist. It was part time work for a one man company. I interviewed at his office and was hired. My new boss agreed to pick me up from home and drive me to work. This predates the post covid era of working from home. I still remember what I was wearing when he showed up at the house I was renting with my 3 friends. It was a business casual outfit: navy blue wide leg slacks and a blue and white striped button up shirt with puffed sleeves. I kept giggling and singing “puffed sleeves” dreamily, the way Anne of Green Gables did from that Canadian television show from the 90s. 

He knocked. I answered the door. He took one look at me and was taken aback. “I can’t do this,” he said with a shake of his head. He said I was too good looking, then turned around and left. 

I was devastated. I needed a job. I went back to my room and ruminated, though I did not cry. I remember lying on top of my sheets in my outfit for most of the day, wondering if it was my outfit’s fault. I was angry at myself. Stupid! Stupid! I should’ve known that I liked the way I looked too much. Upon reflection, he was really awkward during our interview. What’s worse, the way he assessed me with one look was reminiscent of the men cruising down my childhood street. The old white men in their cars, seeing something in me that I couldn’t see. This is the least toxic work situation because it was so short lived, but it had a huge impact. It confirmed fears about employability and that maybe I would be poor forever. 

Next was a job where I experienced a touch of casual racism. There was downtime between shifts. Or maybe we were all hanging out on our day off, chatting it up when we came in to get our paychecks. My manager, a Korean American who was born in Greater Atlanta, said she was glad to discover that I wasn’t “Black Black” when I showed up with my resume. This was some years after college. I didn’t graduate. I dropped out. At some point I had given up on finding a “good job” in an office, and was trying to enter into the restaurant industry. 

Actually, I’m not sure if she said “Black Black” or “that Black” and I decided not to inquire, because both phrases meant the same thing. Black as a liability is not a new concept to me. My Dad will tell you that he and my mom chose the name “Karen,” for me so hiring managers wouldn’t know I was Black. How profoundly fearful. It was an attempt at nominal racial ambiguity whose rightness has been confirmed by the meme. My Dad also coached my siblings and me on our “phone voice”. Phone voice: speaking formally so that a caller wouldn’t assume I was Black. I could be free of racism and unconscious bias while on the phone and with the name Karen. People would be assured by my diction and my name that I was not the kind of Black to be feared, denied, or ostracized. Phone voice is a strategy that was effectively satirized in the movie “Sorry to Bother You” in which the workers at a call center find that using what they call “white voice” will lead to more sales. 

Being told that shedding my Blaccent, which had alienated me from my neighborhood peers and irritated my family as a kid, had amounted to the grand prize of being able to wait tables at a shit dive bar made me wonder if any of it was worth it. Yes, my Dad wanted me to use phone voice. But when I unconsciously incorporated the vocal inflections of my private school peers, he teased me for it. I was accused of forgetting where I was from, despite the fact that it has proven to be unforgettable. The kids on the block made fun of me. I was already awkward and unpopular. But the way I spoke, meant that I wasn’t comfortable speaking around other Black people for fear that they would shun me. I felt that my people didn’t want me around. It wasn’t until I got into Spelman, an HBCU, with a full scholarship again, that I felt safe in my voice. In college, we expressed the full spectrum of Blackness. Some girls had deep country accents, the cutest southern lilts, New York brass, Obama style midwestern inflections, and (my absolute favorite) the staunch unplaceable dialect of a private school girl. Going to school in the South, my comparably educated Black sisters all said “you speak proper” which made me giggle. It was how they understood my Bostonness.

When I walked into that dank restaurant, I had already reconciled the way I speak, but it was painful to be reminded that the hours I spent commuting to my private school, completing homework assignments that my parents couldn’t help me with, and having no friends to play with in the summers didn’t amount to the kind of wealth and prestige that I was hoping to garner. It had merely neutralized the threat of my Blackness. What a fucking waste. I shrugged off her comment, because I expected people to think and believe that way. That’s the problem with choosing the name Karen for the reasons my parents did, though I know they were doing what they believed was best. I always approached my identity as something to overcome. 

My third most toxic work situation was when I biked for Jimmy Johns delivering sandwiches. This is still one of my favorite jobs. I showed up in a vintage cotton voile dress riding a single speed bike. I was hired on the spot. I had a resume. It included that I went to college. Even though I didn’t have a degree, I figured “some college” would neutralize my blackness. The job was simple. I rode my bike up and down Midtown during the lunch rush, made a bunch of tips and went home. I rode as hard and fast as the boys. I threw around dirty jokes with them. Drank beers and knocked back sandwiches like them too. 

One day after work I learned from a coworker, a Georgia Tech graduate, that our manager was an ex-con. He killed his girlfriend while high on heroin and did 10 years for her murder. The guy who told me soon quit, but I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. I liked this job. I rode my bike for several hours a day and then took all that dopamine home with me.

The day I dropped out of college, I didn’t quite plan it. I had been having panic attacks in my last semester. I saw an on campus therapist who mentioned capital G god so I didn’t trust her. On the day of my final test for my final class, I was on my bike heading from the house I shared to campus. I could feel a panic attack trying to overwhelm me, like a powerful sedative. My brain was shutting down and my vision was getting blurry. I tried to stave it off, but the lights were going out and I was losing control. So I kept riding. I kept riding until I could breathe again. Then I rode until I felt good. I felt like riding my bike saved my life. I loved my Jimmy John’s job and I didn’t care that I was barely making enough money to cover my bills. I was happy. 

We had a company Christmas party. My boss lived close to me, so we planned to share a cab. I’m fuzzy on the details. I think it happened on the way there, he kissed me in the cab. I remember disappearing from myself. My brain shut down, my vision went dark and I waited for it to be safe to reenter my body. I went to the Christmas party. I had a good time. I got ridiculously drunk and took an uber home. 

On Monday, I ignored my phone and lay in bed. I couldn’t get myself to go to work. I told my boyfriend what happened and he got pissed. “You kissed your boss!?” No. Defending my inaction wasn’t helping. I remember taking a long hot shower. Maybe if I cleaned my body, I could get to work. I could not. When I thought about going, my vision went blurry and my mind went quiet the way it has learned to protest when my body gets defiant. Eventually I called into work and told the new manager, “Ed kissed me.” and I can’t come back.

I remember asking Google why he thought he could kiss me. Was it my fault? What did I do? I don’t remember flirting with or encouraging him. The internet says it was because I was behaving like one of the boys.

On Blue Hill Ave, the sex workers were loud, brass, and seemed fearless. My mommy was demure, polite and soft spoken, except when she was angry enough to defend herself against my dad. Soft women get hit. Loud women are strong and scary and men know not to mess with them. But I guess I didn’t do it right, because Ed kissed me and I had to leave my favorite job.

Alright, my most toxic job was at a restaurant affectionately known as Hipster Hooters. They only hired the most beautiful girls. Piercings, tattoos and a ballsy demeanor were all assets. The owner was foreign and brown. The manager was an ethereal Ethiopian woman with massive Bette Davis eyes and a slick smile. When I came looking for a job, I wondered if she meant that they looked favorably on hiring a Black American woman or did they consider Black and African to be two different species of worthiness. I was hired to my great relief. The place was always busy, so the tips would be good.

After some months working there, I was switched to only weekday shifts which was not good for my coffers. My boss was a stern man and I was too afraid to ask him why I was no longer working the busier night and brunch shifts and what I could do to improve. Men scare me. And this one was almost more terrifying because he did none of the line blurring that I had learned to navigate and maneuver. He didn’t flirt or do locker room talk. He was no nonsense. And while sexual harassment is dangerous, it is also the space where I am most comfortable with men. I know what to expect from them. I say something cheeky and then ask for a day off.

Working day shifts was a drag. It was so slow. Sometimes I would bring my knitting or read a book on my phone to pass the time. The day manager, Charles, disappeared for most of his shift to smoke cigarettes on a bench outside of the restaurant or surf the internet in the office. He gossiped with the employees he liked and talked shit about the ones he didn’t like or didn’t know. And I just kept to myself and counted my coins. As the day manager, he was the only one who was supposed to handle alcohol. My customer would order a mimosa and then I needed to go searching for Charles to make the mimosa and then hope to god they didn’t want seconds because it would take so long they’d get pissed at me and then stiff me for my tip. Or worse, they would assume my incompetence and then close their tab with me and move to the bar where Charles would make more money off of them because I would make their drinks but not ring them in. I started learning to bartend for myself which, I also learned, is how Charles preferred it. He’d rather do nothing. And because I made his job easier, warmed up to me, taught me to make the more complicated drinks, and started sharing shots of Jameson with me throughout the shift. 

It was fun getting buzzed on the clock. I would spin around my customers, not take it personally when they were impolite, and take my meager earnings home. I would even take care of Charles’ customers and then give him his tips. Show me an alcoholic and I will find a way to enable him. 

It took a few months to learn the extent of Charles’ drinking. Let me pause to say that I adore Charles. We had fun. We went to a gay bar on Wednesdays and were drunk before the sun went down. He helped teach me how to drive. He let me live in his home after a breakup and I skinny dipped in his pool and luxuriated in his house when he and his partner were at work. There was always a handle of vodka in the freezer and two shot glasses on the counter underneath where they hung their keys. At first, the getting drunk was absolute fun. I was living the dream of a beautiful girl with two fabulous dads who loved her and made her miserable life fun. It was my fairy tale rescue. 

Too much alcohol isn’t fun for long. Charles took a shot every morning before leaving for work. He carried a flask. He took shots throughout the day. He took a shot soon as he arrived home and then drank into the evening until bedtime. After a few days of that, I grew tired of his offers for more vodka. I learned to never let my cup get empty, because he would only refill it. Charles was drunk all the time, and sometimes he said cruel things. Nothing too cruel. He never hurt me. One time he tried coming into work sober and he had the shakes. I’ve heard the term “the shakes”, but thought little of it. But its like a medical emergency in slow motion. “Charles,” I said, “I think you need a shot.” 

“Yeah,” chimed in another coworker. “You’re scaring the customers.”

After some months of the day shifts, I was back on some nights at the Hipster Hooters. I even started bartending which is a promotion in the restaurant industry. Sunday nights we got the let out from an AA meeting that would close the restaurant knocking back pitcher after pitcher of sweet tea and diet cokes. One evening I saw a friend who I’d known for years. I only knew her as a hot DJ and fashion maven who didn’t drink. But this day, she was so strung out she didn’t recognize me. She was falling over herself and barely cognizant of who or where she was. I was relieved to know that she’d been with the AA group. Maybe that meant she would be ok. I helped her regain her balance as she headed home mumbling incoherently to herself. Some months later she was found dead behind a dumpster. Hers was a star studded funeral. Politicians and legends in the music and arts industry came. 

When I was a kid, a woman named Tawanna died. She was a sex worker, the mother of over a dozen children, an addict, a former model and one of my best friends. My other best friend was my mother, so I’m sure you don’t understand I didn’t have many. Tawanna had velvet black skin, and even under the sheen of heavy drug use, she was wildly beautiful. She wore red lipstick and had brilliant white teeth. At night, I could hear her through my first floor bedroom window screaming at motherfuckers to give her her money. But in the daytime, when she was sober she was magnanimous and polite. A lady. “Sing me some Whitney Houston,” she’d ask and I would oblige. She seemed to see that I craved attention. She died. AIDs. It was the 90s. I wasn’t allowed to go to her funeral.

I was a high schooler the year it was trendy for girls in my neighborhood to wear their hair in a ponytail skewed to one side like the sex workers on my street used to do years ago. I found it strange that suddenly everyone was rocking a prostitute ponytail. And the day my sister tried the style, I had someone to talk to about it which annoyed her. And then I realized that I hadn’t seen many of them in a while. The loose women, and as I recall one man. The street had gone quiet. Less energetic. There weren’t many drug dealers either. I asked my older sister what happened to the women. And she answered in the exasperated tone of an older sibling sick of answering dumb baby sibling questions, “They died.” I can still hear the way she said it and vibrate with the numb sense of shock that I felt. In my self centered haze of my early teens, I had been blind to the effects of a localized AIDs epidemic that swept our street. So many people were dead or in jail.

The year I got close to Charles was my last at the Hipster Hooters. I tried other restaurants. But as I approached thirty, it was hard to ignore that this isn’t the life that my mom and I had plotted for myself. It was approaching fifteen years since she died, and it was time to pick up my dreams and reshape them without my mom there.

The thing about these toxic work environments is that they offered me the opportunity to hide, to be indignant about the way the world works rather than acknowledge that I had allowed myself to abandon…myself. I could enter into spaces that reminded me of home, and then believe that there was nothing better for me. 

I’m writing again. This was my childhood dream. And as long as I love on myself and write with honesty, this is the safest work environment I can ever be in.