Why you shouldn't bring your full self to work

If you would ask me 15 years ago whether I brought my full self to work, I would have laughed in your face. Back when I was working at a motorcycle dealership or in the lingerie section of a big department store, I was barely even bringing my physical self to work. I wasn't exactly what you would call a star employee. And then things started to change a bit when my hobby, podcasting, became my job. All of a sudden, my personality, my likes and dislikes, the very core of my being. These were all front and center. The hours were long, and at times it always just so draining. Today, I like to think I've got a better balance, but it's worth thinking about. Are we putting more into work than we're getting out? Especially for workers like me, black women. The workplace is so often not friendly to us. How do we protect ourselves from burnout and disappointment? My friends at CodeSwitch got deep into this. What it means to put yourself first when you have to sell your labor for money? Either way, it's a great chap. Here it is. Hey everyone, you're listening to CodeSwitch, the show about race and identity from NPR, I'm BA Parker. And I'm Jean Demby. Okay, so Jean. Yes, friends. Okay, if I were to ask you to bring your full self to work, would you? No. Why? Because it's work, because we have to have some partition between who we are, you know what I mean? And this place, which is a love NPR, that's like, you know, it's paying our salaries, it's not. I think we should, there should be some space between some delineation between our lives and like the people who are compensating us and where we do labor. I don't know. Do you feel that way? Do you feel like you bring your full self to work? I try not to, but then it just gets a little bit pulled out of me though. I don't know. But then you look at like severance, which is, you know, a show about like your work self and your true self being like separated physically, like internally, to your brain. I don't know. It depends. It depends on the day and how tired I am or how enthusiastic I am. Somehow the rest of the world leads into the work. I get it. I think our job in particular is like we're trying to get people to talk about some very personal stuff. Yeah. Some stuff you got to like bring our own stuff to it to sort of like tease it out. I've evolved in it because I used to be like, oh, well, we should all be our full 100% of ourselves. No, man, actually, for everybody's sake, maybe we should all pump our breaks a little bit. For everybody's sake. How far apart do you feel on the mic Parker is from out in the streets Parker? Well, on the air Parker curses less, but like, I'd like to think that I have, oh, I probably don't have healthy boundaries between my work and myself, which is probably the problem. See this is bad. Now I'm realizing after reading this book called Authentic the Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, it's by this author, Jody Ambury, it made me really think more critically about how I am presenting myself at work because of the boundaries that I probably don't establish between myself and my job. What did she say in the book about the mythology of bringing your whole self to your personal appointment? She said, don't do it. Don't do it. It's a trap. It's a trap. Well, why did she say it was a trap? Well, the book focuses mainly on like black women being their full selves at work and why that's probably not the best idea because of the sort of workiness that comes with being a black woman in public spaces and in professional spaces and how that kind of contradicts with some of the ways in which we are taking care of ourselves, like to be your authentic self at work, is a level of like vulnerability and putting yourself forward when like you're sacrificing time with your family, with your community, mentally with yourself. And these jobs expect so much from you, but you are ultimately disposable. And that really got me thinking so this past year, the statistics around black female unemployment, especially for women with college degrees and above, has been disproportionately higher than for other populations. So I wanted to talk to Jody Ann because I wanted to reconcile these statistics around black female employment that are making the rounds right now, connected to just her idea like well you shouldn't be putting your full self at work anyway because this is how the job market is going to treat you, you know what I mean? So Jean, today on Code Switch we're going to talk about authenticity and what it means to bring your full self to work. To be real, gotcha, be real, alright, let's get into it. To heads up, this episode contains salty language and mentioned suicidal depression. If you are someone you know is in crisis, call a text 988 and just a reminder, we're coming to you Tuesdays and Fridays, okay, let's get into it. I spoke with author Jody Ann Burry about her book Authentic, The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, where she talks about the need to choose yourself over your job. And the idea first came to Jody Ann when she graduated from college. I think when you graduate in 2008, there is that promise of if you do the right things, then you will be rewarded for it. So you do well in school, you get to go to a good college, if you go to a good college you'll be able to have a great career. And so I did all those things, went to a great college, I graduated and I couldn't find a job. So I think you know my first kind of adult job, I already entered the workforce with this kind of jadedness or I think to put it more optimistically a sense of possibility that there are no rules, you know, you don't have to kind of do all of these steps to get the thing that you want, because I'm surrounded by people who either just have those things already, or they do all those steps and they still don't get it, they still don't get the raise, they still don't get the promotion, they still don't get the fancy office. And I think in all my career decisions, even as a teenager, I just wanted to do the thing that would help me achieve whatever that goal was without compromising myself in any way. Yeah. I mean, I, like I open your book and you have this quote by Tony Morrison that was like, I wanted to be a whole person, I wanted to be a good person, I wanted to be all those big things and none of that had anything to do with a job. And then immediately I was like, well, let me put that my bulletin board so I can see it every day. But why did you choose that quote, like what does it mean to choose yourself? I think it's everything, right? If you don't have yourself, who has you, and then what else do you have? I have a public health background, I wrote authentic as a public health intervention. And one of the things that I've seen and I've experienced is that we have our work cells and we've kind of attached it to the entirety of who we are. That if we're failing at work or if we're doing well at work, that is some indicator of who we are as people are worthiness as people. And I wanted to separate those things as much as possible. But we are working at these institutions that see us as a number or don't even acknowledge fully in their policies and practices of our full personhood, then why should we come with this whole, whole self to these spaces that are imposing all types of violence against us, particularly when you're marginalized in some type of way. And what I hope the reader experiences as they're reading it is that they can start separating this idea of work as being so heavily influenced of who they are. You proudly say that like, I am not a worker, I am a person at work. Yes. And I didn't think that that line would be so powerful for people, but it's the quotation that comes up a lot. And I've been living this very rich, robust professional life for 10 plus years. And then in my early 30s was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor. And so when I returned to work after four months of disability leave, now as a person with a visible disability and the identity as a disabled person, I got to experience work in a new way, this whole conversation around quote, quote, reasonable accommodations. And what is it that I need to not just be my best self at work, but to be safe, like to not physically hurt myself in the demands of my workplace. And so kind of being in the workplace, not just as a woman, as a black person and now the disabled person, you see all these layers of lies within the workplace of, you know, we're here to support you, we want to help you, but the very practices and policies of that workplace can be so hostile that negates their intention around my general well-being. And so when I had that interpersonal experience of me versus the institution and to see that echo throughout the different types of places that I was working in and also, you know, needing support from other disabled people and how to navigate that. Okay, I'm experiencing it. You're experiencing it. This is a systemic issue, so let's untangle that a little bit. Did you find that these institutions were empathetic and amenable to these boundaries you were setting and these things that you needed? It depends. It depends on the relationship, it depends on your own seniority, it depends on a lot of things. But one thing that was constant is that I always had to negotiate it. It was something that I always had to bring up. And so when I returned from disability leave, I was walking with a cane. When I had that cane, like that protected me more than anything else, because it was this constant visible reminder that the Jodian that you knew before is not the Jodian that is before you right now. And no, I cannot travel to allow your Liberals working internationally. Then no, I can't, you know, always get here on time. Like, there are all these things that I need, and so it was much easier to set up those boundaries when people were always reminded of the disability that I had. But when I did not have that cane anymore, but was still a disabled person, I always had to assert myself. Hey, I have a spinal cord injury. Yeah, I cannot travel. No, I cannot do that. Hey, Jodian, why are you late? Well, you know, I've got a lot of stuff going on, right? And so that was always really difficult to navigate. And it was important for me to always assert my disability because a lot of the ways that people were frustrated with my work, the performance of work, not my actual work, can overlap with biases against being a black woman. Well, Jodian, you look so angry in the meeting. Well, I have a spinal cord injury, so I'm actually a lot of pain right now. Jodian, you're always late. Well, you scheduled this meeting halfway across the campus, so I couldn't get here on time. Or so in those situations, I would work, quote, unquote, remotely. I would be in the office, but I would take the meeting remotely at my desk. Well, Jodian doesn't get along with other people because she doesn't want to come to the meetings. Well, I couldn't actually physically get to the meeting without hurting myself, so I don't know what to tell you. So I think it depends on what kind of culture you're in, your kind of social capital within those people and specifically what your disability is. So I also talk in the book about two episodes in my life where I was dealing with suicidal depression. And so that is really difficult to talk about in a workplace. It's not as easy or wasn't that easy for me to say, hey, suicidal leads oppressed right now. I need to work from home because I can't stop crying, but I can send these emails and stuff like at my house. So it also depends on the biases that we have against the particular condition. And for me, when I was managing other people, it was really important for me to set this boundary between myself and the people who worked for me is that if you need to work from home, if you're late or whatever, I don't really care about the reason because it is not up to me to determine the validity of that reason. It's not for me to say, is that a good reason? You're a great worker. You're an adult. I trust that you know the things that you need to get your job done. And I don't want to be put in a position where I'm evaluating whether or not your decision or your reason is good enough. Well, I wonder then, like, what does it mean to bring your authentic self to work? Is like being transparent part of that authenticity? So I don't think so. And I think that's the problem with how we talk about authenticity within a workplace. It's kind of coded for disclosure that in order to be authentic, then you have to reveal something about yourself to me. What I find interesting about the concept of authenticity is that it's very, it's textually vague. It doesn't really tell you anything about what something is. One of the examples that I use in the book is, I'm Jamaican, I have a huge family. So anytime we gather, a bunch of people have to make huge pots of rice and peas, right. But everyone makes it in like a different way. People might be a little bit more interested in whether my mom made that rice and peas or my aunties. Cynthia made it or my sister made it because they all have these like different things that they're doing. That's right. But there's no one there that is questioning whether or not this is an authentic dish. And so when I think about that example, for me, when we think about authenticity, it only really comes into play when you're not feeling safe. If I'm at my family home, every type of dish that comes out of this kitchen is Jamaican. It is authentic. If I go to someone else's house and they're Jamaican, it is still authentically Jamaican. But if I go to some restaurant and I don't know who's in the kitchen, I don't know who's going on. I don't know. I don't know. There's some questions here that I want more information to be able to assess is this authentic or not. So I used an example to say that there are a lot of myths around authenticity that I turn over and over in the book. And one of those things is that authenticity is just personal self-expression or authenticity is static and it doesn't change. For me, what we call "authentic within the workplace" is usually the thing that makes someone different. And what makes them different makes them antagonistic to the institution because institutions are not designed to change. And so we can hire a very bold woman saying that we want her ideas. We love the way that she pushes back. There's this authenticity to who she is. And then when she does those things, it's a problem. So for me, it's not whether one way of expressing yourself is more authentic than the other. And when it comes to black people specifically, and I talk about the key and peel sketch in the book with Obama when he's kind of going down the line and he has this more casual, more "black way of being" that is supposed to come across as being more authentic. And then he has this more professional kind of clean cut way of being with his white constituents than that is him being not authentic but professional. Nice to meet you. Mary Woodbury. Nice to meet you. Jay Martell. Nice to meet you. What I've noticed in that is both sides of the switch are of performance, right? It's all theater, right? So it's not what choice you make if we're thinking of as binary around code switching but it's the fact of the choice. One, it's your agency to be able to choose but also it's the environment that requires us to choose not only requires but we have different risks and rewards depending on how we show up. You know, I also talk about in this context of code switching the Molly character from Intocure and so they say she code switches with this kind of Obama like precision, right? Yeah, Molly is like an attorney who was in like in a corporate situation but also when she's around her friends, she may not talk in the same vernacular and in the same demeanor. Yeah, she is a different way of talking a different way of being a different way of posturing herself. Don't you just love the new summer associate class? Yeah, I better watch out or one of them is going to try and take my job. And so when another black woman like a summer associate comes into the firm, she's incredibly loud, Rashida. But for real, I was shadowed with Meryl and Johnson on the chair case and I had to send my self to HR because Johnson is very loud, very boisterous. I don't quote extra and a lot of times when black women are extra, that means we're not enough. And so there's this kind of pitting against the way Molly is showing up in the workplace as the way that is being rewarded and the way Rashida is showing up is the risk. But Rashida gets fired, right? Because she's so loud, because she's so extra. You know, sometimes you can be a little, are you not as white people are? And if you want to be successful here, you've got to know when to switch it up. But Molly being who she is doesn't actually protect her because then she finds out that she's being paid much less than her white male counterpart. And so a workplace that doesn't value black women doesn't actually care how you act, right? You know, Molly and Rashida, even though their experiences are different, their ways of being are different, the underlying devaluation of their labor is the same. One thing I've been thinking about during this conversation is that to even have this conversation may be a privilege. Yeah, you know in Brian - Right off the bat in the book, I tell people, hey, there's a limitation even in my own research and in my own kind of way of putting the book together because it does reflect the type of workplace of people that are like me. They went to college, they have these office jobs. There's a class dynamic and how we're talking about this. - Your focus is on race or rather racism. And how it disproportionately affects black women in the workplace. Can you break that down for us? - Well, I think as I'm a black disabled woman and in writing the book, a lot of my examples and the people that are interviewed also share that experience. But the work is more expansive than that. I talk to people who have disabilities that are different than mine. I talk to people across race and ethnicity, but everyone I interviewed for the book are all people of color. I connect with queer folks, trans folks, and within the US and outside of the US, people who worked in different industries. When it comes to authenticity and the narratives around authenticity, what's so politically useful about it is that it doesn't really mean anything, but there are these assumptions that it's only really applied to people who have some type of demographic difference, right? So when we think about, oh, we want you to be more authentic at work, that message is understood to be targeted towards people of color, women, queer folks, disabled folks, et cetera. When a cis-head straight white man is more authentic that's usually what the problem is. So for the book in order to engage a conversation around authenticity, I really did have to put the voices that for me are the normal and expected voice to the forefront of a conversation. - This is a slide aside, but when I read your book because a while back, I was stressed about something at work and a friend told me, they were like Parker, either be a bitch or get a chronic illness. - I am obsessed and I needed on a t-shirt. Because as a black woman in the workplace, there can be these overwhelming factors. And so that either it's either set a boundary, put your foot down, or you're gonna stay sick. - Pretty much, and what I love about that is that America has such a kind of macabre tolerance for black women's pain. The threshold for black women's pain is very, very high. It creates it, it feeds on it. It depends on our unwellness. I think the perfect example right now is like I feel like I've heard way more about this male loneliness epidemic than I've heard about black women's unemployment rates. Because black women in pain, black women's suffering is normal, it's normative. Black women being in an economic crisis or being in a health crisis, that's normal. And so in the book, as I was kind of going through all these stories of my interviewees and how their work stress contributed or exacerbated health issues. In really dramatic, drastic ways, but even that every dayness of I'm losing my hair, I'm losing sleep, irritable. I'm having all these issues on attributed infirmity. I'm sick and I don't know why. I'm stressed out and I'm hurting and I don't know why, right? Work is such a huge part of our lives that we have to be well, ideally, to do it. And it's the way that we access health care, but it's a thing that can be most damaging to our health, especially for black women. And so I want us to look at these stories, look at this book, see ourselves in it and set the line. Be a bitch or have a chronic illness. And even worse, be a bitch or die. That is what's happening. So when I think about, it's not that I'm sick. You are stealing from my life. My helpful years on this planet are directly impacted by your bullshit email. - Oh my gosh. - Like this conversation that I'm having with her right now, I can feel it in my empty womb. That whatever child I deliver will have. Like, you know, negative birth outcomes because of this conversation. These discriminatory stressors is called weathering. It's a concept developed by Dr. Arlene Geronimus. And so the ways that discriminatory stressors compound over time and worsen health outcomes. So black women who think of themselves as being protected by wealth, status, success, education, all those things, those are not protective factors against having these poor birth outcomes. And we know in America it's like, black women are three to four times more likely to die and travel birth. Is it worth it, right? If you're constantly in the hospital, if you're losing your hair, if you're struggling with fertility, can we change our ideas around status and success to ensure that we have more helpful years? I think being a black woman especially in America and particularly in a workforce because it's so concentrated and abusive relationship. Like I have to be here, I have to work. But in most environments, like you're hurting me. - Jillian. - So what happens when black women challenge workplace culture, it's like start making demands like saying like, this is what I need to do my job properly. What happens? - Well, usually we're punished for it. Usually we lose the job or don't get the promotion or our social capital is impacted in some type of way. I think when you're in an environment, whether it's like politically, culturally or even within that company. Because even when things are culturally a little bit more normative, you can work at places that are incredibly hostile to black people. And so if you're working within a system that is being supported by a larger culture within a country that has this kind of aggressive hastily towards black people, then I don't think there's that much tolerance for this individual advocacy for the things that you might need as a personal, even a small group. And I think that's another myth around authenticity that just by you being yourself is so potent that it'll be able to impact the entire institution. And unfortunately, that is not the case. I think the best case is to have more people and you need more people to actually start making some inroads in terms of what your work life is looking like. The things that you need to do your job. - One thing I've been thinking about is that, you know, I've done mostly creative work. But like, I've been told like to be more vulnerable in the work space. I've been encouraged to. And I know not just in creative spaces where this has come up, but how do you answer? Like how do you answer an employer who expects you to treat work as family? Like I call you more a mission rather than ultimately what a job is, which is like an exchange for work and service for money. - You gotta run, run girl. You're a danger girl. You hold the line. You hold the line. You hold the line. Your workplace is not your family. And your calling is larger than any particular employer. And often people use mission. I've worked mostly in mission-driven organizations, whether it's in nonprofits or in for-profit spaces. There's always this way that we're trying to do good in the world. And let me tell you something. These are probably most culturally incompetent people I've ever worked with in my life. And they will smile in your face and tell you that you're changing the world. And so one thing I want to press in the book around expanding our ideas of authenticity, our values are also part of who we are. I have people who work at companies that we see as being like, "V place," this is "V place" where that good, good work happens. And then you work there and you're like, "Damn, these people are wretched." (laughing) - Good. - They are brutal. They are not treating me well. They're not paying me well. And I'm supposed to just feel cozy and warm about the mission that we're doing. It's incredibly toxic. And I think to me is a more deeper portrayal within this kind of mission-driven spaces because when you go work at the place where good work gets done and you realize that that good work is not happening there or it's happening at the expense of the people who work there in a way that is unnecessary, then it can corrupt you to your own values. And so I think if you are working some place where mission is supposed to fill in [BLANK_AUDIO] or pay, it's supposed to fill in for time, it's supposed to fill in for your own health and well-being, then that is not a good place to work. It's a scam. - Fine, Jill, you're fine. - I'm sorry. - Coming up, we'll talk about excellence and achievement and how that's not even enough to protect Beyonce and Serena Williams. Stay with us. (upbeat music) - We talk about this a little bit, but I think about how, as Black women have been instilled with this idea of how education is encouraged, and there's like a stereotype of like a Black woman in her 30s being like, well, if she's, you know, overall maybe she'll just go get another degree. - Oh yeah. - We're so educated. - We're so educated. And this idea that like, yes, we have to work twice as hard, but, you know, ultimately there's this meritocracy that's working in our favor, but we've seen in recent labor statistics that college educated Black women have faced disproportionate employment losses in the last year and even longer unemployment compared to their peers. How do the current unemployment stats for Black women link to the argument that you're making about the dangers of being offered to get work? - We cannot protect ourselves with achievement. We can. That is heart-breaking because what was all of that for? But we can't. And so when I see Black women's unemployment, just like you said, particularly for college educated women, is so high, but the reality is it was already high. It's skyrocketing and now we're still not, you know, outside of other Black women, I don't really see a public conversation around that. I think we have to disentangle who we are, what we've achieved is kind of what's happening in our professional lives. Because when they're too close together, I think when there is a problem, we think we are the problem. If we can't name the obstacle, then we become the obstacle. We blame ourselves. We create these narratives around, and it needs to be more vulnerable, and need to be more approachable, and need to be more authentic. I just need to believe in myself, and I'm struggling with imposter syndrome. And it's just all these ways that we turn and start destroying ourselves in a way when there are very real structural things that are happening outside of us that's impacting our ability to have our education, our talent, our merit recognized. When I look at someone like Serena Williams, for example, who undeniably is the best. It was not enough to protect her. I look at Justice Katangi Brown Jackson, who is the best, right? Probably has the most achievements before coming into her position. More credentialed and more experienced in her peers, and watching her confirmation hearing, I was in tears for most of it. Her merit was not recognized. Her talents were not recognized. It did not protect her from that kind of like public humiliation of these people that are not smarter than her, assessing her talents. I look at Beyonce, who is the best, and there are these ways that she is not immune from seeking the validation of these institutions with that whole kind of tension around album of the year. And so when I see people both in pop culture, but even in my own professional life, people whose names you will never know, right? That I see are the best. These most talented, the most educated, the most poised, the most refined, the most dedicated. And it's not enough. Do you feel any grief when you realize that it's not enough? It's devastating. The grief is unending because it's not that it's only happening in our professional lives. It's happening particularly for black women in all realms of our existence. And I know it sounds so basic, but it's so tragic to me. And maybe the deeper grief is that particularly in America, we're sold this idea that if we just make all the right choices, then we will be safe. And it's just not true. And my only reprieve is to lean into the rage, which I think can be helpful. And lean into community to create possibilities for sites of possibilities for the type of world that we want, we have to practice that every day. And so just trying to create these moments of reprieve where I feel like I'm living the type of life or envisioning the type of future that I want with the people who actually care about me. Gosh. But it's devastating. I mean, you can't come to this work and expect like a good time. That's why listen, the entire cult switch podcast is quite depressing. - No, it's not. We're doing great. Everyone's feeling good. - Telling the truth is hard. It is uncomfortable. - All right, but okay, I have such a pragmatic question for you. - Okay, let's hear it. - Because, I don't know, because employment is so scarce at the moment, particularly for black women, there can be this inclination to be hyper vigilant to code switch and to frankly like do all the things that you would not recommend to get a job or keep a job. So how does one preserve her core identity and dignity when there's so much pressure to wear a proverbial mask just to get through the door? - Listen, I'm not recommending people do or do not do anything. I just want to make that clear. Do what you got to do. I will say though, what you do for your job is not who you are. It's not. Your self-worth is not tied to the validation of your boss like telling you that you did a good job. It's just not. And so the question is, how do we fortify our lives outside of the workplace that feels really good, affirming and helpful to us? We're all trying to survive capitalism. Ain't nobody getting out clean. And so I think when you have that kind of sensibility, this is who I am, this is who I am at work, there may come a point where whatever that gap is is outside of what you feel comfortable with, right? So if you're okay with who you are being over here and then you go 10 steps to the side and you're a different person at work and that 10 steps feels good to you, then do what you got to do. But as you become more of yourself, as you start feeling your life with things that support you, community that support you, maybe you're only comfortable with five steps. And so I think a lot of the friction of the ways that we're advocating for ourselves within the workplace as black women, we're trying to reduce the distance between those two things. And so for me, what that requires is this kind of intimate knowing of yourself. It requires this kind of deliberative remination of like who I am, what do I want, what are my values? Can I evidence those values in any type of way? Am I okay with the ways that I'm not? And checking in with yourself, because over time, that might change. - All right. - Is that does that feel unsatisfying to you? - No, no, no, it is satisfying. It is just like, life be like. - It's sad. It's so sad. But I think if we just be honest with each other, then maybe we can find a little key key in it, you know? - I mean, I don't know, like I grew up, I like, I come from like a working class family. My grandfather was a groundskeeper. My grandmother was like a homeic teacher. And I watched them work really hard, get their pensions so security, but also like my grandpa had bad knees from like, being a logger in his youth and like you can't walk and like things like that. And they worked so that I could have a better life, but I'm also still, I'm not what it's considered, a knowledge worker, which is like a person who thinks for a living. And I'm like, I'm still stressed out. And like I know that this is like a different form of labor, but I'm also like, now it's like, I need a hug. Like I need. But I think there's power in that recognition parker because I think usually what happened. And I also, my mom's a teacher, my dad, you know, is a truck driver. And I have friends who's parents are doctors. And I don't, I'm not supported. I don't, I did not come up in a way that was supported. Also, my family's not from this country. So even when I applied to college, I'm even know what college to apply to. And so when it comes to like the emergency, can dream on paper like, yes, good job. You know, my parents came to this country and we got a house and they worked really hard and I was able to go to school. All my siblings went to college and have multiple degrees. We did it. My parents job was to get us the things and my job is to be honest for myself and for other people that those things are not enough. Those things don't create happiness. They don't create protection and there's a deep, deep grief, depression, sadness, rage and all of that and still, right? What are we building? What can we do together? We're surviving in capitalism doesn't mean being really good at capitalism. It also means creating these pockets of possibility for something else. Does that mean one could argue that these issues are more about capitalism than anything else? The toxic culture of work you're describing is hurting everyone's health? It's hurting everyone's health, right? We don't like when people can't work but we need people to work, right? Such an abusive relationship. We, particularly in America, within capitalism, there's this like malignant productivity that is required. Growth, growth, growth, growth for growth sake and like that is a choice that we're making. It doesn't have to be that way. You know, and so how do you grow, grow, grow, grow, grow and also have babies and get pregnant, get sick and get old? Then you're disposable. You're not part of our growth strategy. Have you said any peace with that? Like you and I are disposable. Have you made peace with it? No, I mean, no, you should almost be disturbed by this. The parker, this should always bother you, right? There is no peace. But I think when it's like you're not disposable to me, parker, I need you. I need the work that you're dealing. I need the possibilities that you create in the work that you do because it helps me create possibilities for myself. I need that. And so yeah, we might be disposable, but you are not disposable to me. I am not disposable to myself. And so how do I move forward with that? And I think when you move within the workplace with that sense of self-worth, like literally I am worth something. It makes you a really difficult person to work with. And I think that's beautiful. And some places can tolerate that more than others. You know what people say? Like if you go there and there and there and there, and there's always the same problem, then you're the problem, right? Yeah. But also they're here and here and here. It's also racism. It's also capitalism. It's also ableism. It's also all of these things, right? And so for a really long time, I was like, man, maybe I am aggressive. Maybe I am like a really difficult person. I am contouring and I have a lot of opinions, right? So how can I take all of these things that I actually quite enjoy about myself that were inconvenient at times, most of the times for my institution, like places where I was working, and make it convenient for me. And just testing it out in really small ways and then seeing what happened with that. I couldn't plan my career, but it started with that seed, that this way of being, this way that I am does have a place, but it can't grow into anything within these particular types of roles or these particular types of companies. And just get a little creative. All right, Joanne, thank you. Ah, it's over. Sick. Oh my gosh, this was so great. We're just going to an influx of black women who did have jobs probably quit by then and they listened into this episode. Jody and Barry, author of Authentic, the myth of bringing your full self to work. Thank you, Jody and thank you so much, Parker. And that's our show. If you or someone you know needs emotional support, call our text 988. You can also subscribe to the Code Switch Newsletter by going to npr.org/code-switch-newsletter. This episode, your name is who was produced by Christina Colle, it was edited by Diane Mortata. And a big shout out to the rest of the Code Switch massive, Xavier Lopez, Jess Kong, Leah Denella, Courtney Stein, Barton Gurdwood, Elana Senguini, and Maya Dangerfield. I'm Gene Demby. I'm B.A. Parker. Be Ezekiel. Hi, Dre.