Gidget Ignores Red Flags - Part 4

Welcome to The Way We Work: Tales from The Office

Hey! (in my Group Chat series voice - are you obsessed with that TikTok series like I am??),

To recap: The prior editions were full of info, but to be honest, it was a lot of work and I wasn’t being as efficient with creativity and storytelling — two areas I think we need to see more of in the workplace.

Our stories at work matter.

So, The Way We Work: Tales from The Office has been born. These are fictionalized stories of actual events — either things I’ve experienced or stories others have shared — reimagined by me so you can get a peek behind the corporate curtain. Or, if you’re already behind it, maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of a part of the stage you haven’t seen before.

I hope you enjoy them as they marry the two gifts I have: impactful work and writing.

Previously on Gidget Ignores Red Flags

• Part 1: The Interview Process

• Part 2: The First Few Weeks

• Part 3: The Offiste

Gidget Ignores Red Flags - Part 4

“I can literally drive down there Dominic Toretto style, do a few donuts in the parking lot, and you can jump in the car and we can speed off,” her best friend said.

“Mphfwing,” Gidget replied.

“What now?”

“Hence my offer,” Bri sighed. “Come to the entrepreneurial side! Work for yourself!”

“Will you give me startup money?” Gidget just remembered that she had to pay her mother’s health insurance, so she logged into her computer to do it while she had the time.

“I will give you support and exposure!” They both laughed because the running joke was that Bri — a business owner — was always being asked to work for support and exposure. Alex, their VC attorney brunch buddy, told her the next time someone asks, send them his way.

“As a white guy, I can tell you they get a little hesitant asking me the same question,” he told them on Sunday. Alex hated fake people and hypocrites. But he had the best business voice.

“I wish Alex could come here and take my place,” Gidget said.

“He doesn’t!” Bri laughed.

“Ok, I gotta go hype myself up,” Gidget replied, standing up and stretching her body — trying to find any ounce of energy she could find.

“Pew pew pew pew!!! Ladies and gentlemen! Y’all not ready! It’s the one and only! The only and the one! GIDGET!!!” Bri shouted into the phone. They both laughed and hung up.

Gidget played Beyoncé on her phone while she did downward dog — in her full dinner outfit.

They were in the shuttle headed to dinner and Gidget was pretending to listen to the COO tell yet another story about his daughter in college — he loved his daughter and that was great — but there were entirely too many stories about her. She was thinking of the effectiveness of offsites and how, in her opinion, there were either two kinds: one kind was usually bogged down by acronyms like OKRs and KPIs and SLAs, and everyone overwhelmingly throws every thought they have at the facilitator to plan out the whole year only to abandon all of that the next quarter because… well, business is unpredictable; and the other kind tended to be cringe, standing on the border of sharing too much personal information for the sake of collaboration and old-school corporate team bonding with exercises that felt like adult kindergarten and no business goals ever.

She was trying to remember if there was another kind and did remember once having a good offsite when she was a baby corporate leader. That leadership team didn’t overpack the day — they had maybe two sessions a day at two hours each? One session was practical skill sets–based: how do we share what we know to be prepared for the year to come? And the other session was: how can they be collectively agile to face the unknown? Everybody got 15 minutes to share in each. She loved that company. And then it was acquired by a behemoth that laid everyone off.

“What do you think, Gidget?” She heard her name and cursed because she was not listening.

“I’m so sorry! I only got part of that question,” she responded. Her mentor taught her that trick.

“Well, I can only speak as a newcomer, but I am really learning so much about everyone,” Gidget said. It was true. She learned the COO liked to play devil’s advocate on everything. The CEO was sometimes hyper engaged and sometimes lost in his phone and nobody said anything. The CFO seemed mildly annoyed at anything that was gonna cost money. The CTO got defensive when anyone mentioned needing to have the right tech to solve any problems. The Head of Product was excited about everything. The Head of Legal just seemed to not want to reveal anything about themselves at all and only spoke when called on. The Head of Communications was in sheer delight because this was his show and Gidget could tell that he didn’t have that much experience in leading an offsite for business goals. He was great at comms for sure because Gidget had seen the external impact, but inside, Gidget saw this was a mess.

“Oh, that’s so great to hear,” the Head of HR answered in a sing-songy voice. She reminded Gidget of her high school basketball coach who loved to mix sweatsuits and fur jackets (she was from Detroit after all). There was this perfect mix of contradictions that somehow worked. She didn’t quite rock the Patagonia like everyone else — she had a polo with the company logo on it, but also a motorcycle jacket, Golden Goose sneakers, and impeccable wide-leg pants that Gidget knew cost someone’s rent.

Upon hearing the Head of HR’s response, everyone who was listening in the shuttle nodded and smiled like they had passed the test of impressing the newcomer. It was like the one time Gidget went to a sorority RUSH party and they all stared at her with either “What are you doing here?” or “Come join us!” looks. She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell here either. So she smiled back.

At dinner she was seated nearest to the Head of Legal, the CTO, and the Head of Communications. It was like they made sure none of the women sat next to each other. The Head of HR made a point to tell her where her seat was. So she was the culprit.

Things started off fine. Wine was poured. The menu had already been selected with options for everyone’s meal requirements and preferences. And then the phone alerts buzzed.

“Oh shit,” the CEO — who was sitting at the head of the table furthest away from Gidget — said loudly and suddenly. They were in their own part of the restaurant so everyone could hear him. “They shot that guy.”

As if synchronized, everyone looked down at their phones. Gidget was the last person to do so because she wasn’t one to immediately respond to world events. She found them traumatic and hadn’t actually watched the news since the last election. Her best friend called her the President of the 92 Club because she had NO problem sitting out the constant barrage of bad news and how it was reported on.

“Oh wow,” she finally said amongst the murmurs as she looked at her phone. “That guy” was a divisive right-wing pundit who liked to say horrible things about LGBTQ people, Black people, Jewish people, women, immigrants, poor people — very few people were out of his purview of criticism. Gidget couldn’t stand him because he wore a cape of “Conservative Christian” but she didn’t find anything Christ-like about him.

“Poor guy,” said the CTO. “Sending thoughts and prayers to his family. I just can’t stand this environment where people just shoot you for being controversial.”

“Well, he was a bit more than controversial,” the Head of Legal said as he bit into his food. Gidget almost got whiplash turning his direction. The man had barely said two words the whole evening!

“I mean, he is a dad and a husband who just disagrees with people,” the CTO responded, kind of surprised he was being challenged. “What is the world coming to when we can’t have civil disagreements? I mean, I didn’t agree with everything he said.”

“I don’t agree with anything he says,” the Head of Legal said. “He is mean and purposeful in his attacks.”

“But that doesn’t mean you shoot him!” the CTO laughed incredulously.

Gidget felt like she was at Wimbledon because her head kept going from one side to the other. The Head of Communications was across from her and just said nothing. Really?!, Gidget thought. NOW you’re quiet?

“Listen, I don’t want anyone to get shot and that includes those two government officials a few weeks ago. But that man courts danger by saying terrible things about all kinds of people. Did we learn nothing from January 6th? I’m a vet and I just can’t stand where we are in this country right now.”

“And what if he dies?!?! What message does that send? Conservative Christians are in danger of voicing their opinions??” The CTO was fuming.

“You know I didn’t say any of that. And I hope nobody dies as someone who has seen people die. It’s awful,” he was chewing casually as he spoke but careful not to show his food. Skills. “Gidget, what do you think?”

Gidget was stunned. Was this a set-up? She remembered that saying about not wrestling with pigs, but was she doing that? Maybe in this instance is when she could let some of herself peek through.

“Well, first, I love people having different points of view. But if your point of view is full of vitriol and misinformation about me and my community, it’s not a different point of view. It’s an attack. And I don’t like when people use Conservative Christian as labels. My grandma from Mississippi was conservative and Christian. Conservative meaning I couldn’t wear anything around her that showed my knees, my belly, and certainly not anything below my clavicle. And we went to church every Sunday I was around her. But she fed people who were hungry, she gave people rides to job interviews, she didn’t understand what gay meant but she loved my uncle more than anything and extended that to his community… she did unto others. I don’t see much of that anymore.”

“Exactly,” the Head of Legal said, sipping his wine. She bet he won every debate in school.

“Amen,” the Head of Communications said. Gidget didn’t trust it though — it felt like a throwaway line in a bad movie. Like he really just wanted them to stop talking about this issue.

She looked at the CTO, his face red like he was holding his breath on purpose. He was just shaking his head and looked at the CEO, who was watching the whole thing. In fact, everyone was looking down at their end of the table. The Head of Legal was really into his dessert and Gidget didn’t know if that was a tactic he used or if he really loved the crème brûlée. Gidget picked up her phone and started typing.

“Did you get another alert?” the CEO asked, looking at his phone.

“Hmm? Me?” Gidget asked when the Head of Communications nudged her under the table. She looked up. Other people had gone back to talking to each other, though much more quietly. But the CEO and Head of HR were looking at her.

“Yeah, just the look on your face… I didn’t know if something else happened,” he said.

“Oh! No. I’m just drafting something for my team tomorrow.”

“Working even at dinner?” He laughed.

“Ha! No, I just want them to know if this is impacting them in any way, we should cancel any non-essential meetings. I know people get distracted over this stuff,” she said as she went back to the note. She didn’t notice that the whole table stopped and looked at her.

“What do you tell them?” This from the CFO who was in the middle of the table and hadn’t said one word to her before this.

“It’s something I picked up at my last place where they had a DEI Leader. She taught us how to communicate when world events happen in a way that doesn’t politicize but makes them know I’m here for them. We used it for like school shootings, police brutality, any kind of tragedies really. I notice people get more engaged after I started doing this so…” Gidget was running out of words so she trailed off.

The silence felt like an eternity. Some people nodded politely. Some were still looking at her. The CTO’s face got redder. THIS WAS AWKWARD. She moved her phone to her lap and texted her bestie:
GET THE MUSTANG READY.

Are we invested? What do you want to see in Part 5? Let me know! Hit reply!

Special Announcement!

I was lucky enough to be amongst some amazing HR voices recognized in The Most Inclusive HR Influencer List (huge thanks to Micole Garatti and her sponsors for putting this together!)

What I love is that this list is mostly made up of people who have done the work of HR and People strategies - not just thought leaders. Thought leaders because we have thought about how to make the work better while doing it. And some of these people I’m lucky enough to have in group chats and DMs!

Sponsors: Reimagine Organizational Development, Executive Women of Command (EWOC),  PartnerSpring, ASAD Ventures, Living Corporate, TRAP Recruiter, and MKG Ventures

Are you an organization or brand that wants to fix work? We help organizations get stronger by embedding equitable practices into their People Strategy which results in a stronger operational business model setting you up for a healthy business.

Disengagement? Challenging hiring processes? People not professionally developing? Overwhelmed managers?

We got you. Through specially designed programs, audits, contracts, or fractional services, you don’t have to guess at making your workforce strong.

Wanna see your name here? Contact us about sponsorships and promotions. Our target audience is everyone at work—from interns to CEOs.

We fundamentally believe that conversations need to happen across levels for real change. We’re just getting started, so join us.

Reply to this newsletter—we got you.