How Do You Let Something Go: A Series?
I held a position I wasn’t qualified for…
Sometimes on paper a job candidate doesn’t meet the criteria for the job they want to apply for, e.g. education level, time in a previous position and the like. The same candidate can be qualified for listed positions through job, life experience and passion, but the applicant may not have a Bachelor’s degree or are unable to obtain Government Clearance, or maybe they are overqualified.
Then there are those like me (because this is about me-when is it not about me, damn), who could do some parts of the job, but had obvious weaknesses for all to see. The salary and benefits were much grander, so I applied for the position-with reservations. I had a good relationship with one of the “system managers” for said company but I was so hesitant, that I called him and groaned…
“I’m pulling myself out of the application process.”
After some days of mulling it over, I changed my mind and entered the race again. I did get the position, but it was not the job nor the place for me. I place blame on myself for the miserable time spent and years wasted in an unfriendly and racially hostile environment. This subtle, quiet racism is as cold as anything I’ve ever experienced, but it could’ve all been avoided if I was bold enough to live a passionate truth of artistic creativity-something nurturing and native to me.
I’m really trying to tell a story without telling it all. I have regrets about taking a position and wasting my time and theirs. I gave my all, and my performance evaluations were always great with raises every year. The work I did came with compliments from my immediate supervisor even though initially I could tell he wasn’t all in on bringing me aboard. The customers-employees of the company, were the ones I felt racial vibrations from. It is in my opinion they felt I was a Diversity Hire.
Was I? Wasn’t I though?
I was the only Black Man to work in that section of the company. There was no one before me, and when I left there was no one Black after me. No one Black in the several departments or sections surrounding us worked in a supervisory or leadership position. There was myself and a custodian and one other enterprising young Black Man who shifted gears into a career position within the company. How can a company in the 2000s have a floor/section of a company where (before I arrived) I was the only Black skin around who did the kind of work in that area? My story within this story still baffles me because I both hated it there and I also should not have exposed myself to the toxicity of that kind of odd-energy; not to mention the weaknesses I had when it came to the parts of the job where I needed the most help.
The issue for me all these years later? I’m still bothered by it all, and I can’t seem to let it go. I don’t know why I tend to hold on to the past in this way. It’s like I’m so hard on myself, like this was some disastrous thing. Maybe that’s it-it affected my soul in a way that it will take work to rid myself of it, to know I’m good enough and that was just one period of my life and it doesn’t have to burden down the vision I have for me today or tomorrow. I must forgive myself, I think, even for this piece being all over the place. I am qualified to take the position for which I’m most qualified-I think I’ve always known what that was and fear kept me tethered to traditional ways of earning. That is solely on me, the journey of finding and letting go.
Michael Allen
Indie everything forever.
