Not a Black Chair

https://medium.com/@amelielamont/not-a-black-chair-8a8e7e2b9140

by mikeevans • 9 years ago

15 10 9 years ago

kafkaesq2• 9 years ago

She stared at me for a few seconds and remarked, “Oh. I didn’t see you. You blended in. You’re so black, you blend into the chair.” I didn’t believe what I was hearing and I didn’t know what to do. I looked at my arm, compared it to the chair in front of her.

“Nope, my arm is brown and the chair is black,” I quipped awkwardly.

She replied, “No. They’re the same color.”

The room was silent.

Yowzers. So is "Kelly" still working at Squarespace? I'm not sure I could take someone seriously as a co-worker - and certainly not as a manger - after saying something like that in a meeting.

legostormtroopr• 9 years ago

Did you see the chair? Did you see the authors skin tone? Are you aware of the lighting in the room they were in? Perhaps Kelly was distracted because she thought she saw the author at the back of the room, or Kelly has poor colour perception.

Given how subjective and variable human sight is, its perfectly reasonable that Kelly may just not have seen her there.

astrodust• 9 years ago

What's with the rush to justify this behaviour? Seriously?

Your comments are why working in tech is so hard for people. No matter what happens there's someone there to defend the status-quo.

khedoros12• 9 years ago

- The chair was black. We know what various black chairs look like.

- The author's skin tone: http://amelielamont.com/about/

That woman, wearing a blue shirt, isn't someone that I'd reasonably expect to blend into a black chair, even with a room darkened to make a projector more visible and a half-blind manager.

Keep in mind that the author had also spoken up earlier in the meeting, offering to take on another supervisor's project during his vacation.

gmarx• 9 years ago

That is such strange behavior my first instinct is to wonder if Kelly was having a brain health issue. Could she be having a stroke or a seizure?

kafkaesq2• 9 years ago

It takes a while to consider what you're saying. But actually yes, that's a very distinct possibility.

steve_adams_86• 9 years ago

It sounds like a very dramatic series of events on all accounts. The Guy, Amélie, Kelly, they were all up to weird and bad behaviour. I would say the way she handled things wasn't anywhere near ideal, but that doesn't justify her improper treatment at all. The chair incident is just bizarre.

I would say what went wrong here is that the others weren't fired as well - not that she shouldn't have been. That sounds shitty, but I think the most egregious inequality here is that the others got to stay employed. No one did anything right.

Unfortunately I think this is just tech for you. I've witnessed so much sexism in this industry, I just don't know what to do anymore (besides ask people to stop it).

in_cahoots• 9 years ago

I appreciate that she didn't sugar-coat her own behavior here; drunkenly slapping a coworker at a company event (or even in one's free time) is enough to get you fired at most businesses.

Still, the major theme here seems to be a complete lack of professionalism from all involved (seriously, who tries to set up two new coworkers?) To me that screams "culture problems" coming from the top, not handful of bad apples. When your department is run like a Greek house, don't be surprised when the employees act like frat boys and sorority girls.

Not a Black Chair

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