Some Of...

Some of the most toxic people I’ve met throughout my career were other people. It’s funny how I’ve never been implicated in this way. I’m not an other, I’m me. To be fair, some weren’t people, but “agency pets” or “agency lunches” or “hanging wall art.” Many were my moral superiors, having studied in Tibet or college.

And it all makes perfect sense. 

America was built by and for other people. Not for me, since I wasn’t around at the time of the nation’s founding. What does this have to do with my upbringing or career? If you don’t get it, then you don’t get it.  

I have never been invited to the table. Once, while an intern, I walked into a conference room with the board of directors, only to notice every seat was occupied by people twice and sometimes three times my age. I wanted to sit in the back on a pillow. I had to settle for a dog bed, which only exacerbated my budding allergies. In my world, everyone gets a seat at the table. That includes dogs.

 

These other people have continued to do things that I don’t like. They rarely consult me when they do stuff, which is painfully insulting. Whenever I read about a billionaire’s path I think, “that’s not how I would’ve done it.” To me, that makes it wrong. I’m right here, waiting for the call. Why does it never come? Was it something I said? Or something I did?

Other people annoy me. They have called me out for being “cruel” and “petty.” For stealing pencils and paper from the supply closet, as if I haven’t earned a lifetime cache based on my path.

I’ve left every place that didn’t bow down to me right away and kiss my feet. Frankly, it’s why I wear sandals. It doesn’t always happen overnight, but it happens all the same. People have tried to silence me when I was yelling on a client call, screaming into the speaker. I’m not a smartphone. You can’t “put me on vibrate” or “airplane mode” or “plug me into the wall somewhere and forget about me.” 

I commit to the rest of my career to always being right and never backing down. Apologies are for other people, people who are constantly wrong. Not little old me. I am no longer worried about being likable. It’s why I take clearly marked food in the fridge that someone else brought from home. When I’m hungry, I eat what looks good. I was taught to share, weren’t you? I won’t be oppressed in the kitchen or anywhere else.    

And to anyone who disagrees with me about anything, allow me to say, stop it.