Hi all,
Long story short, I'm a black director working under a middle eastern executive in a large nonprofit. I have experienced an outrageous amount of disrespect from white people of all salaries and titles while working at this company but after speaking with my boss about it (the first time) he tried telling me “Sometimes they do it to me” to make me feel like the disrespect and micro-aggression I was getting was okay. His advice the second and third times was to keep my distance and try to stay professional. I thought was weird advice given the nonprofit being all about diversity in their office décor and on their website, but I just kept on pushing through because it’s a six-figure job and I’m not above taking money from racists. However, given my past experiences with racism, I knew to keep documenting and saving emails.
Here comes the funny part, last month my boss tried to make me drive 50 miles out of the way just to meet him in a random office, and when I told him I couldn’t do it he threatened me with HR but had them contact me to “check-in”.
I thought it was a coincidence, but they told me that they were hearing from my colleagues that I was feeling burned out. I knew it was my boss going to them because he literally told me not to talk to anyone. The kicker is that I work in compliance, and his reasoning for telling me to avoid venting or discussing workplace issues with anyone from work is he would hate for me to substantiate anything false that I hear from other employees (aka racism that I hear from other employees would probably be believed quicker if they are heard by a black compliance director than the complainants' direct supervisor, and he can’t have any of his white VP buddies getting caught up)
This random HR check-in was weird because I never had a negative remark or any complaints made about me. Anyway, when the day of the 1on1 meeting comes up I bring in my 60+ emails including positive ones that show me going hard to get shit done and receiving compliments from my boss and many others. I explain to them everything and all that I’ve seen they seem shocked but take all these notes and tell me they must do an investigation.
So today after about a week they tell me the investigation is pretty much still going but they’d like to do peer mediation where there is a sit-down with me and my boss. I thought this was weird because they didn’t give me anything in writing. It was weird but I let them talk and they set us up to meet on December 1st.
My nonprofit is large so there are a few offices throughout NY so I’m guessing my boss will avoid me until then. In the meantime, to prep for the big sit-down, I have copied the pages of the employee handbook regarding the complaint process and code of conduct. I don’t plan on getting rowdy or anything I just want to continue laying out facts and calling out inconsistencies like I’ve been doing.
So now I want to try to negotiate a severance. I want to make them feel like it’s easier to give me a severance of 3 months and have me sign something than have me go through with a lawsuit.
I’d like to let them know that I’ll continue working and documenting but would much rather part ways amicably with me receiving a severance rather than drag out a lawsuit process.
Can anyone tell me if they’ve heard of anyone doing this successfully or have done this themselves? The difference is that I’m nowhere near being fired but I'm just looking to leverage this situation into a nice severance package. If anyone has any experience, please share your wisdom.