A pet peeve of mine is looking for a job. I hate looking for a job. People have this theory that if you carry negativity with you, you will carry that negativity into your job, therefore don't think about the odds stacked against you, bring your best and you will impress.
Can I say bull****? Look when we introduce ourselves to one another, we introduce who we are. When you introduce yourself to a person and you're trying to impress them, you come off phony. So why do people think this mentality of impressing someone in an interview is any better?
Put yourself in the shoes of the manager. Lets say you're the first person they've seen. You have lots more candidates to go. Let's say you're the last person they've seen. Thank god this is almost over. And while it shouldn't, the thing that makes the entire process drag is the phony people, the overdoing people, the people seeking to please.
So let's say you impress them. Does that mean you can get the job done? If you can get the job done, then how long will it be before you want to move up, and they have to find someone else to get the job done? But I haven't even discussed your feelings.
What happens when your interviewer is not of your race? When I went in for an interview, I found myself being more assertive, more aggressive in my demands when interviewed by a black guy. I stayed at that job longer than all other jobs. I tried that same tactic at another interview, and the interviewer was more aggressive with me before I could even tell them about myself. Saying, "we don't tolerate laziness, we have to get a job done, we set that expectation high or we let people go".
Anyway, we (black people) need to take on the world. There's a need for us to stop working for these companies and bring on the responsibilities of running our own. The benefits of doing that is pulling the people in our communities up out of the bad spots, ruts, or "ok" areas. Everyday there is a black person saying we need to open up our own businesses. But this is a cry for more than that.
We need think tanks to address every level of success to drive more success and set that precedent as a standard to achieve as a race. These think tanks want to address uniformity, unity, education, qualifications, and growth. I guess you might think of this like a house of representatives, and senate. But we really need something like that.
Its a structured system. I remember as a kid seeing "Each one Teach one". While the idea is good, its flawed because of the lack of unity. "Everyone Teach. Everyone Learn." would eliminate all possibilities of failure. Because we're all listening and we speak. The need is, without a doubt, there.
We have networks like Centric, TVone, BET, and OWN. Huge step, but low threshold of success. We have Black Enterprise, The Root, and some other site I can't remember, but none of them are owned by black people. Right here is where some arguments come in, but trust me none are black owned. Maybe OWN is, but no one else. Sorry for my lack of investigative journalism on that.
We are a $1.1 trillion spending race. What we do, the world imitates. Chuck Berry invented the Beach Boys. Black performances invented Elvis. James Brown invented McJagger. The Jackson 5 invented so many groups I won't even go on. However, we create it, the buy it and imitate it. So if we created something of actual value, by time they're creating the cheap imitations we've already got the world moving to something better. That's what a think tank will do.
The reason we are so far behind, is because we succeed, and we are offered money to do for others. While loyalties lie in our heart, the brain convinces us to betray for beneficial reasons. Think tanks would cut us off at the offer. Think tanks would see that you're offered a new position and counsel you on staying or leaving. Think tanks would keep the culture moving if you decide to leave, and advance your influence if you decide to stay.
With black owned businesses, interviewing changes. You interview with people like-minded. Being like-minded isn't a crime, and never let someone convince you that if you work with like-minded people you'll fail. As long as like-minded people challenge each other, how can you fail? That interview that you have, with that black owned businesses changes your attitude. They're not looking at my skin the whole time, they're looking at my skill. They know how we talk, so they're not testing my oral presentation. The only thing I have to convince them of is my will to get the job done. That's easy on both of us.
Incomplete thought...will return if I think of more. Suggestions accepted.
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