1
00:00:00,056 --> 00:00:06,439
I get this email from Michael Baisden's manager, Pam, and she says, I feel like Target
doesn't like black people.

2
00:00:06,439 --> 00:00:10,871
The way that your boss yelled at you, she said, it was the worst thing I've ever seen.

3
00:00:10,871 --> 00:00:13,138
I was humiliated for you.

4
00:00:13,634 --> 00:00:15,316
Hey guys, Felicia here.

5
00:00:15,316 --> 00:00:27,018
I'm currently out on a well-deserved vacation, but before I get too far into my
relaxation, I knew we needed to run this episode you're about to watch back because baby,

6
00:00:27,018 --> 00:00:29,470
I'm Target.

7
00:00:31,584 --> 00:00:32,754
told y'all.

8
00:00:32,754 --> 00:00:44,988
But even after Target announced eliminating all of its DEI policies months ago and
subsequent boycotts ensued, now their CEO is out here trying to do damage control on them

9
00:00:44,988 --> 00:00:47,198
quiet cash registers.

10
00:00:47,238 --> 00:00:52,260
Like meeting without Sharpton is supposed to fix the narrative.

11
00:00:53,220 --> 00:00:54,440
Whatever.

12
00:00:54,554 --> 00:00:56,521
But let me keep it real with you.

13
00:00:56,534 --> 00:01:00,642
I worked in Minnesota and that Minnesota Nights culture

14
00:01:00,782 --> 00:01:02,902
ain't nothing nice about it.

15
00:01:02,902 --> 00:01:13,222
It's passive aggressive, covert, and deeply racist in ways that are very hard to prove,
but it's always felt.

16
00:01:13,502 --> 00:01:21,822
And if you're a black woman in corporate in Minnesota, woo child, the emotional toll is
next level.

17
00:01:21,822 --> 00:01:26,476
And here's the pattern, especially at Target, they recruit.

18
00:01:26,476 --> 00:01:33,909
brilliant black women with MBAs and master's degrees and PhDs from top tier schools.

19
00:01:34,189 --> 00:01:40,852
Then they put them under white women who barely made it out of undergrad at the University
of Minnesota.

20
00:01:42,032 --> 00:01:46,954
And these managers have no cultural awareness.

21
00:01:47,595 --> 00:01:53,997
They have no black friends and they have a whole lot of unchecked insecurity.

22
00:01:54,277 --> 00:01:56,378
And the moment they feel threatened,

23
00:01:56,620 --> 00:02:07,419
The micro-aggressions start, the sabotage begins, and when the black woman stands up for
herself, y'all already know.

24
00:02:07,510 --> 00:02:15,926
HR gets called, white woman tears are fired, and suddenly this black woman is the
aggressor.

25
00:02:16,387 --> 00:02:25,714
Let's be clear, Target loves us spending money in its stores, but it clearly doesn't love
us working in its corporate headquarters.

26
00:02:25,998 --> 00:02:33,478
thus the rollback of DEI, supposedly as if that really helped us and not mostly the white
women that work there.

27
00:02:34,078 --> 00:02:40,898
But that's why today's replay hits so hard and is so on time once again.

28
00:02:40,898 --> 00:02:49,438
In this season eight episode, I sat down with Raslyn Wooten, a brilliant communication
strategist and ex-Target employee.

29
00:02:49,598 --> 00:02:56,214
She survived not one and not two, but three corrective action plans.

30
00:02:56,214 --> 00:03:07,583
and got off of every single one baby, her story is not just inspiring, it is simply a
master class in resilience, strategy, and knowing your worth.

31
00:03:07,583 --> 00:03:14,688
So while Target scrambles to clean up their image, let's revisit the truth behind the Red
Bull's eye.

32
00:03:14,728 --> 00:03:20,952
This is Surviving Target, how this ex-employee beat three corrective action plans.

33
00:03:21,033 --> 00:03:22,734
Roll that tape, Chris.

34
00:03:23,726 --> 00:03:32,006
Welcome to the Trill MBA Show, the career management podcast teaching black women how to
become unstoppable at work.

35
00:03:32,006 --> 00:03:46,342
I'm Felicia Ann Rose Enuha AKA the Trillest MBA, delivering the inspiring truth through
strategies and tactics so you feel protected, confident, and ready to conquer your career.

36
00:03:52,430 --> 00:03:53,650
Happy Sunday, everybody.

37
00:03:53,650 --> 00:03:55,670
Welcome back to the show.

38
00:03:55,670 --> 00:03:58,090
I am so excited.

39
00:03:58,090 --> 00:04:04,510
I have a badass, absolute badass guest today.

40
00:04:04,650 --> 00:04:11,830
And today is all about giving you hope of getting to the other side of corporate crazy.

41
00:04:11,830 --> 00:04:17,990
Because when Maya Angelou said, still I rise,

42
00:04:18,210 --> 00:04:20,861
This is what she meant and you're going to learn about it today.

43
00:04:20,861 --> 00:04:25,783
So I want to welcome to the show, Raslyn C.

44
00:04:25,783 --> 00:04:26,834
Wooten.

45
00:04:26,834 --> 00:04:29,695
Let me tell you, let me tell you about Raslyn.

46
00:04:29,695 --> 00:04:35,557
Before we jump into this, this is going to be a dope ass conversation.

47
00:04:36,137 --> 00:04:39,979
Raslyn is the owner of Bond and Trade Communications.

48
00:04:39,979 --> 00:04:44,081
She is a publicist extraordinaire.

49
00:04:44,081 --> 00:04:47,712
Not only is she a publicist, she's a creative.

50
00:04:47,712 --> 00:04:49,063
She's a writer.

51
00:04:49,063 --> 00:04:51,004
She's an image consultant.

52
00:04:51,204 --> 00:04:59,309
Raslyn is golden brained, which means she's both left analytical and right creative
brained.

53
00:04:59,309 --> 00:05:07,793
She's built a reputation for a deep understanding of the financial, fintech, energy,
professional and lifestyle industries.

54
00:05:07,833 --> 00:05:16,428
She's also well known for designing award winning communication campaigns that are bold,
insightful brand experiences.

55
00:05:16,494 --> 00:05:29,314
She began her career in the agency world, traveling from Washington, DC to Sydney,
Australia, and then took her talents to Target, US Bank, and Invesco before founding Citat

56
00:05:29,314 --> 00:05:34,108
Public Relations, now Bond and Trade Communications, LLC.

57
00:05:34,149 --> 00:05:46,126
Raslyn has strong media relationships and her work is featured in top tier outlets,
including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg.

58
00:05:46,126 --> 00:05:56,886
WWD, Ebony, Essence, Vogue, InStyle, Harper's Bazaar, CityWire, Investment News, NYFW,
Forbes, CNBC, Embarrassed.

59
00:05:56,886 --> 00:06:03,946
Listen, just all the publications, if they publicize it, Raslyn is right there, okay?

60
00:06:03,966 --> 00:06:12,506
And in her spare time, which is always fun, she travels, plays flag football, and she does
all the restaurants.

61
00:06:12,506 --> 00:06:16,446
Now listen, if you like to eat, that's an automatic friendship for me.

62
00:06:16,982 --> 00:06:19,805
Welcome to the show.

63
00:06:21,442 --> 00:06:23,356
Thank you so much for having me, Felicia.

64
00:06:23,356 --> 00:06:27,014
It is an honor to be here with you and your listeners.

65
00:06:27,014 --> 00:06:31,924
And I'm just so excited to be here to talk to you and connect with you today.

66
00:06:31,924 --> 00:06:33,076
So thank you.

67
00:06:33,246 --> 00:06:35,867
Listen, I'm gonna give the folks a sneak peek.

68
00:06:35,867 --> 00:06:45,628
The reason why you are here is because you are a resource for us and you are doing the
Lord's work and we're gonna get into that later.

69
00:06:45,628 --> 00:06:51,732
I'm gonna tell y'all exactly where to go to get the help that Raslyn has for us.

70
00:06:51,732 --> 00:06:59,654
But before we get into that, I want you to know about this dynamic force that's out here
and...

71
00:06:59,958 --> 00:07:07,404
The accolades speak for themselves, but I want you in your own words to tell the people
where you've been.

72
00:07:07,404 --> 00:07:16,912
Tell them about this journey because baby, you have been in the valleys to the mountains
back down, honey.

73
00:07:16,912 --> 00:07:24,928
And I need people to understand, you know what it is and you also understand what it is to
see the other side.

74
00:07:25,376 --> 00:07:29,958
Yes, I do know what it is and I think it's unfortunate, right?

75
00:07:29,958 --> 00:07:40,714
Because I have had a journey that has been painful, sad, debilitating in some ways.

76
00:07:40,714 --> 00:07:42,175
I've had some wins.

77
00:07:42,175 --> 00:07:48,278
I've had so many professional successes, like things that I've accomplished.

78
00:07:48,278 --> 00:07:55,150
But I think in terms of the environments that I was in, I would consider myself having
been abused.

79
00:07:55,150 --> 00:07:56,966
Mm-hmm.

80
00:07:57,290 --> 00:08:11,818
used, um gas lit, people tried to, you know, destroy my career in so many instances when I
didn't have performance problems.

81
00:08:11,818 --> 00:08:15,560
So that was always such a hard place for me to be.

82
00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:17,031
You know, I was thinking about this.

83
00:08:17,031 --> 00:08:20,034
So, right, my first issue, I think, at work

84
00:08:20,034 --> 00:08:23,037
in a work setting was when I worked at I Heart Radio.

85
00:08:23,037 --> 00:08:26,410
I was working in the media department.

86
00:08:26,410 --> 00:08:31,003
So I worked at different radio stations in Washington, D.C.

87
00:08:31,244 --> 00:08:38,090
And I used to have this professor at Howard that said, if you get into sales, that's where
all the money is.

88
00:08:38,090 --> 00:08:41,774
If you get into sales, could make some money, Brad, as you used to say.

89
00:08:41,774 --> 00:08:43,525
And I go and I get into sales.

90
00:08:43,525 --> 00:08:47,032
And I just remember like being the smart

91
00:08:47,032 --> 00:08:50,484
person, you know, degree and all these things.

92
00:08:50,484 --> 00:08:54,747
And the way you made money was by getting agency business.

93
00:08:54,747 --> 00:08:59,370
And none of the black girls really had the big agency business.

94
00:09:00,431 --> 00:09:02,292
They made you have to work for it.

95
00:09:02,292 --> 00:09:04,814
So you're basically like pounding the pavement.

96
00:09:04,814 --> 00:09:07,016
And I realize that's just how it goes.

97
00:09:07,016 --> 00:09:12,559
But who got the business was so not based on a meritocracy.

98
00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:16,362
they say things like, well, you're not ready to

99
00:09:16,994 --> 00:09:25,781
you know, work with an agency and basically working with agencies is girl who's a media
buyer buying for her agency, radio time.

100
00:09:25,781 --> 00:09:28,223
Why would I be able to work with an agency?

101
00:09:28,223 --> 00:09:32,337
And the girls that work with agencies made six figures immediately, you know?

102
00:09:32,337 --> 00:09:35,730
Oh, my boss was very kind to me.

103
00:09:35,730 --> 00:09:36,730
We're still cool.

104
00:09:36,730 --> 00:09:37,561
We're still friends.

105
00:09:37,561 --> 00:09:45,258
I don't think she even really understood what it felt like or what it meant to me and how
it ingrained in my mind.

106
00:09:45,258 --> 00:09:46,008
Like,

107
00:09:46,008 --> 00:09:48,099
I just have to work, work, work, work, work.

108
00:09:48,099 --> 00:09:54,461
And then this girl is like sitting here with her legs crossed, not doing anything because
she has agency business.

109
00:09:54,882 --> 00:09:56,923
I used to think it was so unfair.

110
00:09:56,923 --> 00:10:04,696
But then when I got into like corporate at Target, I remember feeling really good about
the job.

111
00:10:04,696 --> 00:10:09,123
Like I was the first black person that I know of who was in the communications department.

112
00:10:09,123 --> 00:10:13,910
It was like 50 people when they had just reorg and then I was it, right?

113
00:10:14,730 --> 00:10:18,750
internal, external speech writing just to give you an idea.

114
00:10:18,750 --> 00:10:21,956
It was the whole of communications.

115
00:10:21,956 --> 00:10:26,200
And I wanted to be on the speech writing team because I think I'm a writer.

116
00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:31,815
And what happened was they said, you have such a personality, you're so fun and easy to
get along with.

117
00:10:31,815 --> 00:10:33,346
You're so smart.

118
00:10:33,346 --> 00:10:35,468
You should be in public relations.

119
00:10:35,468 --> 00:10:37,049
You should be on the external side.

120
00:10:37,049 --> 00:10:38,000
That's not what I wanted.

121
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:43,234
I liked writing the speeches and doing, you know, I like to get in the weeds of stuff, you
know.

122
00:10:43,310 --> 00:10:48,621
So I get put in there and I'm like, I can do anything, but this isn't what I want to do.

123
00:10:48,621 --> 00:10:52,032
But this is how they see you, you know, you dress nice.

124
00:10:52,032 --> 00:10:53,123
you're always so put together.

125
00:10:53,123 --> 00:10:54,083
You should be here.

126
00:10:54,083 --> 00:11:01,655
So I'm there and I, my first project was the Target Harlem store opening and it was a big
deal.

127
00:11:01,655 --> 00:11:06,956
was there, you know, it had been 10 years in the making them trying to get this store in
New York.

128
00:11:07,697 --> 00:11:10,098
And we had just reorg.

129
00:11:10,098 --> 00:11:12,084
So I'm just now getting in.

130
00:11:12,084 --> 00:11:13,235
external relations.

131
00:11:13,235 --> 00:11:17,376
And initially it was this white guy that was handling the PR for it.

132
00:11:17,376 --> 00:11:23,999
So I get it and I get the PR plan and looking through it and I'm like, oh Lord, here we
go.

133
00:11:23,999 --> 00:11:28,451
They're going to have this media tour in the store with all the different media.

134
00:11:28,451 --> 00:11:34,884
So New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and then they had the black media.

135
00:11:34,884 --> 00:11:38,986
So the local community media and like, I think I put, you know,

136
00:11:38,986 --> 00:11:44,771
I ended up putting a black enterprise on the thing, know, stuff like the Ebony Essence,
whoever wanted to come.

137
00:11:44,771 --> 00:11:47,933
They were going to have a segregated media tour.

138
00:11:48,094 --> 00:11:54,840
So the white media or the mainstream media got to go with the executive vice president and
walk through the store.

139
00:11:54,840 --> 00:11:58,263
know, the executive vice president starts head is the head of real estate.

140
00:11:58,263 --> 00:12:01,005
He had the global vision for term.

141
00:12:01,025 --> 00:12:03,367
He's going to tell you where are we going next?

142
00:12:03,367 --> 00:12:04,428
What are our plans?

143
00:12:04,428 --> 00:12:06,590
How do we see ourselves?

144
00:12:06,592 --> 00:12:13,342
And the black media was going to go with the SVP of the Eastern region, who was this
fabulous, wonderful black guy.

145
00:12:13,508 --> 00:12:19,673
But he could only really talk about the stores that he oversaw in the Eastern region.

146
00:12:19,673 --> 00:12:30,542
And I said, why don't you think the black media wants a big picture of Target or that the
mainstream media wouldn't want to hear about his thoughts about the Eastern?

147
00:12:30,542 --> 00:12:33,202
Why is this segregated at the same time?

148
00:12:33,202 --> 00:12:34,762
So it wasn't a different time.

149
00:12:34,762 --> 00:12:40,662
So Ebony was going to show up and see the New York Times and then be like, you're going
here and you're going here.

150
00:12:40,662 --> 00:12:43,602
And I'm like, this can't work.

151
00:12:43,602 --> 00:12:48,902
That was the first time I knew I was going to have problems with my boss.

152
00:12:49,482 --> 00:12:53,762
And my boss, you know, she hired me and I didn't want to go be under her again.

153
00:12:53,762 --> 00:12:59,828
I already had a couple of months knowing this is not, you know, and she

154
00:12:59,828 --> 00:13:05,578
looked at me like I was crazy and I was like, why can't we just have one media tour?

155
00:13:05,578 --> 00:13:07,443
It's not even that many people.

156
00:13:07,443 --> 00:13:08,623
And they both do it.

157
00:13:08,623 --> 00:13:15,947
So one heads up the front and then the other heads up the back and then they switch and
then they do this and they're both there so they can cater to them.

158
00:13:15,947 --> 00:13:23,252
it's just everyone gets the big picture and everyone liked my idea of my boss.

159
00:13:23,252 --> 00:13:26,234
She basically said I was being a troublemaker.

160
00:13:31,534 --> 00:13:34,866
I told her, my job is to protect the company as a publicist.

161
00:13:34,866 --> 00:13:38,398
Like, why would I let you do that and get terrible backlash?

162
00:13:38,398 --> 00:13:44,061
Then I had said they'd never done black media before and they really wanted a big opening.

163
00:13:44,302 --> 00:13:52,086
So I um called up to Michael Baisden and I was like, can I get my SVP of stores on your
show to talk about opening?

164
00:13:52,086 --> 00:13:56,759
He said, we usually don't support these big box stores because they don't support the
community.

165
00:13:56,759 --> 00:13:59,170
They take away jobs.

166
00:13:59,170 --> 00:14:08,078
But Target's promise at the time was to hire a certain percentage of workers from the
local community so that it wasn't this displacement.

167
00:14:08,078 --> 00:14:10,340
The whole thing is we want to be a good neighbor.

168
00:14:10,921 --> 00:14:13,296
And so he goes on the show.

169
00:14:13,296 --> 00:14:16,166
He invites Michael Baisden into the community opening.

170
00:14:16,166 --> 00:14:18,429
Michael says, hey, I got something to do, but you know what?

171
00:14:18,429 --> 00:14:22,332
I'll change my flight and I will come and I want to support you.

172
00:14:22,332 --> 00:14:24,894
He talks about it on his show.

173
00:14:25,006 --> 00:14:28,046
It's this, you know, we three million listeners at the time.

174
00:14:28,046 --> 00:14:30,286
It was just a big good deal.

175
00:14:30,286 --> 00:14:31,246
Mm hmm.

176
00:14:31,246 --> 00:14:33,026
I'm to the store opening day.

177
00:14:33,026 --> 00:14:34,126
Michael Baisden is there.

178
00:14:34,126 --> 00:14:40,326
There's lines six o'clock in the morning of people trying to get his autograph, trying to
see the store.

179
00:14:40,326 --> 00:14:43,086
We weren't even expecting this turnout.

180
00:14:43,086 --> 00:14:45,706
It was like success.

181
00:14:45,706 --> 00:14:52,934
So the SVP says to Michael Baisden and come on, I want you to be behind the ribbon when we
do the ribbon cutting, because this is the community one.

182
00:14:53,100 --> 00:15:01,618
Michael says, okay, my boss, the white woman, Jen, Jen Glass, pulls me aside and she says,
Michael Baisden cannot be behind the ribbon.

183
00:15:01,618 --> 00:15:02,699
And I'm like, why?

184
00:15:02,699 --> 00:15:05,621
You know, He invited him, I didn't ask.

185
00:15:05,621 --> 00:15:08,643
He said, you have to tell him this is not about him.

186
00:15:08,724 --> 00:15:11,356
I said, no, but we carry his book in the store.

187
00:15:11,356 --> 00:15:13,778
People came to get the book signing.

188
00:15:13,778 --> 00:15:15,550
There's a synergy here.

189
00:15:15,598 --> 00:15:23,438
If you tell him he can't be behind the ribbon cutting, he's going to go on the radio and
be like, these people, I shouldn't even have supported them.

190
00:15:23,438 --> 00:15:24,818
Look how they treated me.

191
00:15:24,818 --> 00:15:33,878
His manager was looking at me like, so I go to the SVP and I say, my boss, Jen, is saying
he cannot be behind the ribbon cutting.

192
00:15:33,878 --> 00:15:35,298
He said, this is my store.

193
00:15:35,298 --> 00:15:36,538
They can do what I want.

194
00:15:36,538 --> 00:15:39,438
I said, well, you tell her that because I don't want it.

195
00:15:39,438 --> 00:15:41,158
I can't, you know.

196
00:15:42,017 --> 00:15:42,998
Right.

197
00:15:43,554 --> 00:15:44,734
You know how that goes right?

198
00:15:44,814 --> 00:15:46,315
I said you tell her.

199
00:15:46,575 --> 00:15:51,296
So he goes and he tells her and she glares at me.

200
00:15:52,537 --> 00:15:54,237
What do I have to do with it?

201
00:15:54,617 --> 00:16:09,742
So she yells at me crazy in front of Beth Ann Hardison, Michael Baisden and his manager and
all like she tries to humiliate me like like it was just I was like what?

202
00:16:09,742 --> 00:16:10,990
He

203
00:16:10,990 --> 00:16:13,731
told you, he's above your bar.

204
00:16:13,731 --> 00:16:15,531
I don't have anything to do with this.

205
00:16:15,531 --> 00:16:17,250
I told him what you said.

206
00:16:17,250 --> 00:16:18,910
I didn't invite the man.

207
00:16:18,910 --> 00:16:20,933
I don't even have anything to do with this.

208
00:16:20,933 --> 00:16:26,394
Long story short, I get back to Minnesota and I'm on corrective action.

209
00:16:26,514 --> 00:16:32,116
I'm basically accused of being insubordinate, disloyal.

210
00:16:32,116 --> 00:16:39,878
Even though I did what she asked me to do, I get this email from Michael Baisden's
manager, Pam, and she says,

211
00:16:40,148 --> 00:16:42,348
I feel like Target doesn't like black people.

212
00:16:42,348 --> 00:16:46,779
The way that your boss yelled at you, she said, it was the worst thing I've ever seen.

213
00:16:46,779 --> 00:16:48,980
I was humiliated for you.

214
00:16:48,980 --> 00:16:51,631
And that makes me feel like Target doesn't like black people.

215
00:16:51,631 --> 00:16:58,032
Of course, I later on had to show that to HR, you know, and I'm under corrective action.

216
00:16:58,032 --> 00:17:01,283
I've only been there six months and I'm on corrective action.

217
00:17:01,423 --> 00:17:03,934
And so I know and will help me.

218
00:17:03,934 --> 00:17:09,806
My HR person's young, you know, white girls, well you know, and I'm like,

219
00:17:09,806 --> 00:17:15,766
Now the VP of my department has called this meeting, said what a great job I did.

220
00:17:15,766 --> 00:17:19,746
It was the second highest store sales in Target history.

221
00:17:19,746 --> 00:17:22,966
We had touched media they had never thought of.

222
00:17:22,966 --> 00:17:25,666
Our grand opening was a success.

223
00:17:25,666 --> 00:17:29,346
Red carpet, everything amazing.

224
00:17:29,466 --> 00:17:33,786
She says, and I want to thank Raslyn, everyone's great job.

225
00:17:33,906 --> 00:17:35,746
I'm on Corrective Action.

226
00:17:39,018 --> 00:17:40,121
Only a target.

227
00:17:40,121 --> 00:17:41,926
uh

228
00:17:42,510 --> 00:17:45,290
That's an innovation girl.

229
00:17:45,290 --> 00:17:47,730
You're going to stand and ovate me?

230
00:17:48,581 --> 00:17:51,092
And then tell me my performance is bad.

231
00:17:51,126 --> 00:17:52,357
And I'm on a PIP

232
00:17:54,420 --> 00:17:58,988
We were like, Raslyn amazing, we've heard nothing but great, and I'm on a PIP.

233
00:17:58,988 --> 00:18:01,938
How do you Reconcile that.

234
00:18:03,938 --> 00:18:09,156
This is why I wanted you on the show because there is a black woman who is going to
listen.

235
00:18:09,156 --> 00:18:20,672
Either she gonna hear it when it come out or she might hear two years from now, but she's
going to know that she's not crazy.

236
00:18:20,706 --> 00:18:21,667
You're not crazy.

237
00:18:21,667 --> 00:18:24,168
But I thought, like, I'll be honest with you.

238
00:18:24,168 --> 00:18:32,552
I think because I went to an HBCU, no shade to you PWI Black women, I don't think of race
first.

239
00:18:33,193 --> 00:18:37,565
I did have this chance, this time to be who I am.

240
00:18:37,565 --> 00:18:39,216
unlike you wasn't because you were Black.

241
00:18:39,216 --> 00:18:41,067
Your teacher didn't call on you, wasn't because you were Black.

242
00:18:41,067 --> 00:18:41,798
She Black too.

243
00:18:41,798 --> 00:18:43,619
She just don't want to hear what you have to say.

244
00:18:43,619 --> 00:18:46,421
Them girls don't want to be your friend because they think you're dusty.

245
00:18:46,421 --> 00:18:48,122
That dude don't want to date you.

246
00:18:48,122 --> 00:18:49,502
You ain't his type.

247
00:18:49,710 --> 00:18:51,390
Wasn't because you were black.

248
00:18:51,950 --> 00:18:53,830
So I don't even think that at first.

249
00:18:53,830 --> 00:18:55,930
I'm just like, these people are fucking nuts.

250
00:18:55,930 --> 00:18:58,090
Or maybe I missed something, right?

251
00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:02,430
So anyway, one thing I can do is write an action plan, honey.

252
00:19:02,430 --> 00:19:06,550
But now all of a sudden I have performance problems that they're pulling out of nowhere.

253
00:19:07,110 --> 00:19:09,670
And one of them was I couldn't write a press release.

254
00:19:09,670 --> 00:19:11,050
That's it, first of all.

255
00:19:11,510 --> 00:19:15,730
OK, you could say a lot of things about me, but not that I can't write.

256
00:19:16,017 --> 00:19:18,678
So what was happening was I write a press release.

257
00:19:18,678 --> 00:19:20,738
Let's say you're my boss, Felicia.

258
00:19:20,738 --> 00:19:21,998
I send it.

259
00:19:21,998 --> 00:19:23,158
You correct it.

260
00:19:23,158 --> 00:19:24,118
You send it back to me.

261
00:19:24,118 --> 00:19:27,038
I accept your edits because I'm not about to be arguing with nobody.

262
00:19:27,038 --> 00:19:28,698
But then I send it to your boss.

263
00:19:28,698 --> 00:19:32,978
She going to edit it back to what I said because I knew what I was saying in the first
place.

264
00:19:32,978 --> 00:19:34,038
Give it back to me.

265
00:19:34,038 --> 00:19:35,978
I have to accept her edits.

266
00:19:35,978 --> 00:19:38,973
So that means what my boss edited got edited, correct?

267
00:19:38,973 --> 00:19:39,918
Right

268
00:19:39,918 --> 00:19:42,998
Then we send it up to her boss, to her boss, and her boss again.

269
00:19:42,998 --> 00:19:44,538
And I accept all these edits.

270
00:19:44,538 --> 00:19:49,018
It oftentimes gets re-backed to what I said it was in the first place.

271
00:19:49,298 --> 00:19:53,758
They have on there that I have, you know, my press releases are always edited.

272
00:19:53,758 --> 00:19:57,758
So when I get to HR, I'm said, her press releases are edited.

273
00:19:57,758 --> 00:20:03,790
And so is her bosses, and so is the director, and so is the VP, because the SVP was
editing the VP.

274
00:20:03,790 --> 00:20:07,310
I said, what I said was, don't I write it and send you right to the SVP?

275
00:20:07,310 --> 00:20:09,150
Cause that's who has the final say so.

276
00:20:09,150 --> 00:20:11,130
And that's who I need to learn.

277
00:20:11,210 --> 00:20:13,830
No, you have a performance problem.

278
00:20:13,830 --> 00:20:16,290
Girl, I wrote an action plan so cold.

279
00:20:16,290 --> 00:20:20,650
I tell you, if I don't do nothing else, honey, I can write an action plan.

280
00:20:20,650 --> 00:20:26,530
And I made it so my boss had to sign it every week to say that I met expectations.

281
00:20:27,670 --> 00:20:32,710
And I had to initial that she was available to help me.

282
00:20:32,878 --> 00:20:36,778
when I needed it because this is a too.

283
00:20:37,398 --> 00:20:39,618
He signs it for three weeks to get on the fourth week.

284
00:20:39,618 --> 00:20:40,938
You haven't met expectations.

285
00:20:40,938 --> 00:20:42,498
You're on your final 30 days.

286
00:20:42,498 --> 00:20:43,118
How?

287
00:20:43,118 --> 00:20:45,338
You don't sign down three weeks.

288
00:20:46,118 --> 00:20:51,898
Now we're going to kick it up to the director of HR in this department because y'all
playing with my face.

289
00:20:52,178 --> 00:20:53,878
Kick it up to her.

290
00:20:53,938 --> 00:20:56,878
She's like, but you signed down three weeks.

291
00:20:56,878 --> 00:20:58,158
Now you're saying she didn't meet it.

292
00:20:58,158 --> 00:20:59,598
How didn't she meet expectations?

293
00:20:59,598 --> 00:21:01,518
She just didn't meet expectations.

294
00:21:01,634 --> 00:21:05,295
The HR person was like, Raslyn, can you excuse us?

295
00:21:06,656 --> 00:21:11,318
Long story short, Raslyn was not put on her final 30 days.

296
00:21:12,019 --> 00:21:17,221
I was kind of like being watched, but my boss was already in trouble because now
everybody's watching you.

297
00:21:17,221 --> 00:21:20,182
Now you can't really do what you were trying to do to me.

298
00:21:20,262 --> 00:21:25,845
And it was like so many other things had happened during this time.

299
00:21:25,845 --> 00:21:28,334
Now, mind you, this is just me and my boss.

300
00:21:28,334 --> 00:21:34,219
but all the other people who were her friends were also trying to sabotage me at the same
time.

301
00:21:34,580 --> 00:21:39,494
So they would do things like, Lacia Ward was the head of the Target Foundation at the
time.

302
00:21:39,494 --> 00:21:41,406
That was just, think that was her title.

303
00:21:41,406 --> 00:21:44,479
She asked me to do something, send some research, something like that.

304
00:21:44,479 --> 00:21:48,303
And another woman, Amy, came and told me, what are you doing?

305
00:21:48,303 --> 00:21:50,275
And I said, Laysha asked me for this information.

306
00:21:50,275 --> 00:21:51,596
I'm just putting it together.

307
00:21:51,596 --> 00:21:54,338
She said, you don't have to do anything for that bitch.

308
00:21:56,364 --> 00:21:59,236
I said, you tell her that.

309
00:21:59,577 --> 00:22:07,764
So another coworker overheard her say that and she was like, you better do it anyway
because just do it.

310
00:22:07,764 --> 00:22:10,246
I said, you thought I wasn't gonna do it?

311
00:22:10,296 --> 00:22:12,825
Yeah, because I know Laysha.

312
00:22:13,198 --> 00:22:24,746
So I did it and I was like, so when all this was done, I told everything everybody did to
me, including that.

313
00:22:24,746 --> 00:22:34,573
Cause what happened was they then tried to say, I didn't send something to the head of the
foundation to Laysha and I made the team look bad, but I sent it.

314
00:22:34,738 --> 00:22:36,365
I just didn't say I sent it.

315
00:22:36,365 --> 00:22:38,216
Laisha didn't say nothing.

316
00:22:38,216 --> 00:22:39,177
I sent it.

317
00:22:39,177 --> 00:22:41,314
So I said, actually I sent it, but.

318
00:22:41,314 --> 00:22:43,145
You told me don't send it to that bitch.

319
00:22:43,145 --> 00:22:44,975
And those were your words.

320
00:22:45,215 --> 00:22:46,995
She's shocked.

321
00:22:47,176 --> 00:22:53,257
HR makes her apologize to me, apologize to Laysha because they told her.

322
00:22:54,158 --> 00:22:55,828
It became this, what?

323
00:22:55,828 --> 00:22:57,238
She didn't get fired.

324
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:02,640
All these things like I had daggers coming, coming, coming, but I'm still performing.

325
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:07,282
There was nothing wrong with my performance and there was nothing that they can say about
it.

326
00:23:07,282 --> 00:23:08,866
So they put me on leave.

327
00:23:08,866 --> 00:23:16,848
and they move me, they move that, my boss, to distribution, which we all know that's not
promotion.

328
00:23:16,908 --> 00:23:21,850
And now they put me on a leave and then they move me to another department.

329
00:23:21,850 --> 00:23:29,072
Now I just want to preface this to tell you that I was on corrective action three times at
Target and I got off every time, because can't nobody do an action plan like me.

330
00:23:29,072 --> 00:23:31,032
And I didn't have a performance problem.

331
00:23:31,032 --> 00:23:34,193
And so I get down to events now.

332
00:23:34,253 --> 00:23:38,478
I have another Amy, Amy Racer, who is just

333
00:23:38,478 --> 00:23:42,261
bothering me every chance she gets.

334
00:23:42,982 --> 00:23:50,889
I think the breaking point at Target for me was I think working with her.

335
00:23:50,910 --> 00:23:56,054
We had a tornado in Minnesota on the black side of town, which is where I grew up and
lived.

336
00:23:56,054 --> 00:23:58,496
So I'm originally from Minnesota.

337
00:23:58,817 --> 00:24:00,978
that's the end of that.

338
00:24:02,380 --> 00:24:04,256
had to be like 11, 12,

339
00:24:04,256 --> 00:24:05,667
Yeah, I was like, was there.

340
00:24:05,667 --> 00:24:10,510
I remember that because I was working for a company that I can't name due to documents I
signed.

341
00:24:10,510 --> 00:24:16,694
But I was working there and I remember this tornado was bad on like in North Minnesota.

342
00:24:16,706 --> 00:24:17,556
Yeah, North Minneapolis.

343
00:24:17,556 --> 00:24:22,468
So I had to stay out of the work from home for a week because we didn't have power.

344
00:24:22,468 --> 00:24:23,128
really didn't work.

345
00:24:23,128 --> 00:24:25,427
I just was like it was hazard time.

346
00:24:25,728 --> 00:24:35,141
I get back and I get pulled into a conference room and told that she watched the news and
saw all these ghetto black girls.

347
00:24:35,141 --> 00:24:36,231
These are her words.

348
00:24:36,231 --> 00:24:43,533
Shaniqua and, you know, Markita and, you know, they were, guess, being interviewed on the
news about the tornado.

349
00:24:43,573 --> 00:24:46,126
She said, Why do you live around them?

350
00:24:46,126 --> 00:24:49,666
when I know you make enough money to live somewhere else.

351
00:24:49,666 --> 00:24:51,366
And I said, what?

352
00:24:51,366 --> 00:24:52,886
I mean, I'm in a conference room.

353
00:24:52,886 --> 00:24:54,686
like, I just, what?

354
00:24:54,946 --> 00:25:01,226
I said, you know, I said, well, those are, I said, one of them was probably my babysitter,
because one of my babysitter's name is Shaniqua.

355
00:25:01,226 --> 00:25:03,586
I said, what do you want me to do about that?

356
00:25:03,586 --> 00:25:05,666
She said, well, you are better than that.

357
00:25:05,666 --> 00:25:08,266
I mean, what do want your son to get shot?

358
00:25:08,946 --> 00:25:10,486
I'm not even playing.

359
00:25:10,486 --> 00:25:12,066
So I said, what?

360
00:25:12,066 --> 00:25:13,416
You know, I just.

361
00:25:13,416 --> 00:25:15,107
What does that have to do with anything?

362
00:25:15,107 --> 00:25:19,751
So she says, you don't make good decisions in your personal life.

363
00:25:19,751 --> 00:25:22,423
I can see that by where you choose to live.

364
00:25:22,423 --> 00:25:27,777
So I don't know how I can trust you to make business decisions here at Target.

365
00:25:28,398 --> 00:25:30,272
Keep on coming.

366
00:25:31,512 --> 00:25:32,683
So I said, and that's it.

367
00:25:32,683 --> 00:25:33,964
And I'm going to HR.

368
00:25:33,964 --> 00:25:35,965
So now I already know the director of HR.

369
00:25:35,965 --> 00:25:37,326
I just go right to her.

370
00:25:37,326 --> 00:25:39,187
Do do do do do do.

371
00:25:39,548 --> 00:25:41,970
Like this shit is fucking nuts.

372
00:25:41,970 --> 00:25:46,793
We had to have these meetings like with me and my boss and the director of HR.

373
00:25:47,432 --> 00:25:51,666
And my boss was so out of line, the director was like this, like things she would say.

374
00:25:51,666 --> 00:25:56,259
And she'd say, but Amy, that's none of your business where Raslyn lives.

375
00:25:56,460 --> 00:25:58,351
I know, but I just know she can do better.

376
00:25:58,351 --> 00:25:59,912
She's not like them.

377
00:26:02,478 --> 00:26:09,938
So the head of HR was like, Razlitt, you go, Amy, you stay.

378
00:26:10,458 --> 00:26:14,018
They ended up having to have, you know, whatever their tete-a-tete.

379
00:26:14,018 --> 00:26:17,898
She had to go through like leadership training and a bunch of other shit.

380
00:26:18,178 --> 00:26:20,178
get a new director, she's a guy.

381
00:26:20,178 --> 00:26:21,218
She fucks with him.

382
00:26:21,218 --> 00:26:22,998
So he kicks her off the team, moves her.

383
00:26:22,998 --> 00:26:24,738
She doesn't get fired.

384
00:26:24,778 --> 00:26:26,018
She's watching him.

385
00:26:26,018 --> 00:26:27,618
She's talking about him like a dog.

386
00:26:27,618 --> 00:26:28,718
He finds out about it.

387
00:26:28,718 --> 00:26:30,754
She moves to another team.

388
00:26:30,754 --> 00:26:34,618
But he, you know, and I get along now, she's gone.

389
00:26:34,618 --> 00:26:37,099
So I report right to this director.

390
00:26:37,260 --> 00:26:38,721
We get along great.

391
00:26:38,721 --> 00:26:39,702
It's amazing.

392
00:26:39,702 --> 00:26:41,384
He's like, you're the smartest person on this team.

393
00:26:41,384 --> 00:26:43,076
He's like, what was Amy talking about?

394
00:26:43,076 --> 00:26:46,289
So now we know she's been sabotaged me this whole time.

395
00:26:46,289 --> 00:26:53,315
Now, everyone I come into contact with now that she's gone is like, well, Amy didn't do
you any favorites because you are really smart.

396
00:26:53,315 --> 00:26:56,588
Like you're fun to work with because I'm like, why?

397
00:26:56,588 --> 00:26:58,759
all these people like acted funny with me.

398
00:26:58,759 --> 00:26:59,639
They didn't even know me.

399
00:26:59,639 --> 00:27:02,750
I'm in a new department like what she was talking about me.

400
00:27:02,750 --> 00:27:05,740
She was down behind my back.

401
00:27:06,441 --> 00:27:09,962
And so Dan takes me off corrective action.

402
00:27:10,062 --> 00:27:13,843
Could be under this Jewish lady named Elizabeth who then reported to him.

403
00:27:13,843 --> 00:27:16,524
We have this huge project.

404
00:27:16,524 --> 00:27:20,385
Now, mind you, I have like a 20 million dollar budget and I wasn't even a manager.

405
00:27:21,325 --> 00:27:24,366
When I went to this team, I got

406
00:27:24,366 --> 00:27:26,246
demoted in title.

407
00:27:26,246 --> 00:27:27,366
They demoted my title.

408
00:27:27,366 --> 00:27:32,946
They kept my money, but they demoted me when they moved to the scene, even though they
said they were wrong.

409
00:27:32,946 --> 00:27:35,246
They made those people apologize to me.

410
00:27:35,246 --> 00:27:38,246
They said the only way they can move me was to demote me.

411
00:27:38,246 --> 00:27:45,546
So I went from a senior specialist to a specialist, which I already coming in as a senior
specialist was a demotion because I've been a director before.

412
00:27:45,546 --> 00:27:46,706
I already.

413
00:27:47,426 --> 00:27:50,146
So I get under this Jewish woman, Elizabeth.

414
00:27:50,146 --> 00:27:51,234
I saw her.

415
00:27:51,234 --> 00:27:53,715
Between her and Dan, we had this huge project.

416
00:27:53,715 --> 00:27:55,106
It was like a five million dollar project.

417
00:27:55,106 --> 00:28:04,469
We do this branded content movie with Nia Long and Kristen Bell, like this big thing, red
carpet, amazing, all this stuff.

418
00:28:04,469 --> 00:28:07,647
We get other industry awards, more stuff.

419
00:28:07,647 --> 00:28:11,086
And then they put someone between me and Elizabeth.

420
00:28:11,086 --> 00:28:12,198
Mmm.

421
00:28:12,630 --> 00:28:15,803
Mind you, I put back up to a senior specialist.

422
00:28:15,803 --> 00:28:24,002
I get a 19 % raise because I found out this white guy that was like, had no experience and
wasn't even a specialist.

423
00:28:24,002 --> 00:28:28,546
He was making a copy of his W-2s on the copy machine and I saw how much he made.

424
00:28:28,546 --> 00:28:32,370
I went to them and said, this nigga's making more money than me.

425
00:28:32,738 --> 00:28:33,640
Right.

426
00:28:36,735 --> 00:28:40,197
He's got a five hundred thousand dollar budget, I got a $20 million budget and he's making my money.

427
00:28:41,118 --> 00:28:42,279
You guys nuts?

428
00:28:42,279 --> 00:28:46,082
So even though I got a 19 % raise, it just put me where?

429
00:28:46,220 --> 00:28:48,097
You should have been the whole time.

430
00:28:48,510 --> 00:28:49,710
Exactly.

431
00:28:49,831 --> 00:28:55,614
So now I got Melissa Champine, bully of the year in between me and Elizabeth.

432
00:28:55,614 --> 00:29:05,419
Melissa used to go to Elizabeth's house and garden for her because Elizabeth's plants
always died and Melissa was so good at horticulture.

433
00:29:05,419 --> 00:29:11,512
So now I'm up against somebody who is at our boss's house on the weekends.

434
00:29:11,512 --> 00:29:12,270
Right.

435
00:29:13,134 --> 00:29:15,456
She is punking me every chance she gets.

436
00:29:15,456 --> 00:29:18,599
go to Elizabeth, who's now seeing how great I am.

437
00:29:18,599 --> 00:29:20,000
She's been my boss.

438
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,119
I got a perfect review.

439
00:29:22,119 --> 00:29:23,846
Performance review mmmhhh

440
00:29:25,014 --> 00:29:28,217
And she says, well, you're just going to have to learn how to work with her.

441
00:29:28,318 --> 00:29:35,827
I said, but she's bullying me and micromanaging me and she's being so disrespectful.

442
00:29:36,348 --> 00:29:38,430
Well, there's nothing I can do about it.

443
00:29:40,014 --> 00:29:43,937
I'm like, I can't, I said, I can't have another problem here.

444
00:29:43,937 --> 00:29:45,318
Like I just, can't do it.

445
00:29:45,318 --> 00:29:49,797
Like, and I know I think they thought I meant like, I can't have another problem.

446
00:29:49,797 --> 00:29:53,024
I meant, I'm about to tear everything down here.

447
00:29:53,024 --> 00:29:57,167
Now mind you, every time I got on corrective action, I told everybody.

448
00:29:57,167 --> 00:29:59,719
So some of you, I'd like, I'm on corrective action.

449
00:29:59,719 --> 00:30:01,931
So I don't know if I can do that, but you can ask my boss.

450
00:30:01,931 --> 00:30:04,292
I don't have any autonomy here.

451
00:30:05,173 --> 00:30:05,874
OH Raslyn,uuuhhh unnnn I'm on.

452
00:30:05,874 --> 00:30:06,854
Corrective action.

453
00:30:07,198 --> 00:30:08,219
You're corrective action

454
00:30:08,219 --> 00:30:10,298
It made people think my bosses were crazy.

455
00:30:10,298 --> 00:30:12,740
Yeah, I'm corrective action and I can't do it.

456
00:30:13,020 --> 00:30:18,282
I'll ask her to do it because I realized that's how they get you because you're
embarrassed.

457
00:30:18,282 --> 00:30:19,312
You're ashamed.

458
00:30:19,312 --> 00:30:20,433
You're humiliated.

459
00:30:20,433 --> 00:30:22,542
Like how can I be the top of the top?

460
00:30:22,542 --> 00:30:24,084
And I'm on a PIP.

461
00:30:24,124 --> 00:30:25,844
So I just tell everybody.

462
00:30:26,145 --> 00:30:30,304
So when Melissa comes, she goes to a meeting with me.

463
00:30:30,304 --> 00:30:33,326
about black women trying to target this demographic.

464
00:30:33,326 --> 00:30:34,627
They want to do this event.

465
00:30:34,627 --> 00:30:38,799
And I was like, I don't think it's going to have the response you wanted to have.

466
00:30:38,799 --> 00:30:40,720
But I still was tasked with doing the event.

467
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:42,642
I never said I'm not going to do this.

468
00:30:42,642 --> 00:30:46,864
I just said black women don't really respond like this.

469
00:30:46,864 --> 00:30:49,996
And, you know, it was this whole little

470
00:30:50,050 --> 00:30:51,611
girls night in thing.

471
00:30:51,611 --> 00:31:02,935
And I said, once you bring cameras to a girls night in and video cameras, and you could
use it for commercials, we're going to spend all our money on the upfront hair, nails.

472
00:31:02,935 --> 00:31:13,660
Oh you think I'm a be in a target commercial and someone cuts to me and I got a half side matted bun
and sweatpants on, which is really what our girls night ends look like.

473
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,802
I don't have money to spend thousands of dollars on target clothes after that.

474
00:31:18,956 --> 00:31:19,773
Right.

475
00:31:19,822 --> 00:31:29,162
So I got called into the office and got told that I talk in meetings like my opinion is
facts.

476
00:31:29,162 --> 00:31:34,142
And I said, well, somebody asked me my opinion and I'm the person who would execute the
event.

477
00:31:34,142 --> 00:31:44,282
So I have to say like, here's the problems I'm having with this, cause you're going to
bring this white stylist to style these black women and expect them to buy thousands of

478
00:31:44,282 --> 00:31:48,430
dollars worth of target clothes when we'd rather go to TJ Maxx or

479
00:31:48,430 --> 00:31:59,770
you know, Marshall's or Century 21 and buy, you know, a $500 outfit that's now $100 versus
$200 for an outfit at Target.

480
00:31:59,770 --> 00:32:03,950
Like it doesn't even correlate to how we dress.

481
00:32:03,950 --> 00:32:08,990
Like we will buy things at Target, but am I going to buy a wardrobe at Target?

482
00:32:08,990 --> 00:32:10,070
Likely not.

483
00:32:10,390 --> 00:32:17,996
Anyway, she told me I'm on corrective action for what I said in that meeting that I didn't
think they were going to get.

484
00:32:17,996 --> 00:32:20,448
you know, what they thought they were going to get out of it.

485
00:32:20,448 --> 00:32:27,432
And from now on, when I talk in meetings, I have to preface everything with as a focus
group of one.

486
00:32:27,693 --> 00:32:41,522
So, for example, Felicia, if I were to say, I love how your hair brings out that gold in
that top, I'd have to say as a focus group of one, I really like.

487
00:32:41,522 --> 00:32:47,046
*laughter*

488
00:32:48,362 --> 00:32:59,448
When I tell you I as a focus group to one them to death to the point where it one guy
said, OK, why do you keep saying this?

489
00:32:59,448 --> 00:33:01,449
Like, is it my being punked?

490
00:33:01,449 --> 00:33:04,881
And Melissa micromanaged and went to every meeting with me.

491
00:33:04,881 --> 00:33:06,202
I'd say you have to ask Melissa.

492
00:33:06,202 --> 00:33:10,064
She told me that when I give my opinion, you guys are too intimidated.

493
00:33:10,064 --> 00:33:17,318
So you don't talk in meetings if I talk so that you guys don't get confused that what I
say is an opinion and not fact.

494
00:33:18,146 --> 00:33:21,827
I have to start my conversations with as a focus group of one.

495
00:33:21,827 --> 00:33:26,548
And then I looked at Melissa, (Felicia: What did she do?) you know, mouth wide open. 

496
00:33:27,169 --> 00:33:30,498
(Felicia: Right) So of course, people say stuff to me like I'm under corrective action.

497
00:33:30,498 --> 00:33:33,320
You're going to have ask Melissa, I don't know what I'm able to do here.

498
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,491
And I'm not allowed to really give an opinion.

499
00:33:36,491 --> 00:33:40,012
I can only state facts and you guys don't have facts and I don't have facts.

500
00:33:40,012 --> 00:33:44,613
So I don't really know I can contribute to this because you can't have your cake and eat
it too.  (Felicia: Right)

501
00:33:45,134 --> 00:33:46,334
And so

502
00:33:46,648 --> 00:33:53,901
I ended up getting off corrective action because I told HR a action plan was so cold that
they hate me.

503
00:33:53,901 --> 00:33:56,002
My action plan worked for them.

504
00:33:56,002 --> 00:33:58,458
You know, hey, when I did this, were you happy with it?

505
00:33:58,458 --> 00:34:00,024
OK, can you initial here?

506
00:34:00,445 --> 00:34:04,866
They got to the point they just like, you did this.

507
00:34:05,907 --> 00:34:12,290
To have me being the only one messed up around here because I didn't do anything and they
did the fact.

508
00:34:12,290 --> 00:34:23,177
that they, you know, when I went to Elizabeth and Dan about Melissa, you know, I think
this was a lapse where I felt like I finally had two people who understood me, who could

509
00:34:23,177 --> 00:34:25,278
say like, this girl is on it.

510
00:34:25,278 --> 00:34:27,710
We give Raslyn a pass, we ain't got to worry about it.

511
00:34:27,710 --> 00:34:28,220
Right.

512
00:34:28,220 --> 00:34:33,373
And Elizabeth used to say, you know, if people don't want an honest answer, they shouldn't
ask the question.

513
00:34:33,373 --> 00:34:36,277
You know, like she supported you being honest and stuff.

514
00:34:36,277 --> 00:34:38,336
Now I have this goofball.

515
00:34:38,446 --> 00:34:40,506
you know, bothering me every day.

516
00:34:40,506 --> 00:34:44,226
It just, was like, why would you put her in between us?

517
00:34:44,226 --> 00:34:47,526
I went to the director and I was like, why would you do that? (Felicia: Yeah)

518
00:34:48,386 --> 00:34:53,146
Like, well, it's just how, you know, I reorg, just, you know, I don't have to explain to
you, blah, blah, blah, blah.

519
00:34:53,146 --> 00:34:56,246
And it was just like, they didn't care.

520
00:34:56,246 --> 00:34:59,326
Like, I don't know why I expected them to care.

521
00:34:59,326 --> 00:35:04,326
Like, I don't know why when I went to them, I honestly thought Dan would be like,

522
00:35:04,450 --> 00:35:04,990
That's it.

523
00:35:04,990 --> 00:35:06,191
Let me go talk to Melissa.

524
00:35:06,191 --> 00:35:07,111
This cannot happen.

525
00:35:07,111 --> 00:35:08,021
You are smart.

526
00:35:08,021 --> 00:35:08,972
You are amazing.

527
00:35:08,972 --> 00:35:10,412
Like she's the problem.

528
00:35:10,412 --> 00:35:11,813
You reported to me, no problem.

529
00:35:11,813 --> 00:35:13,293
You reported Elizabeth, no problem.

530
00:35:13,293 --> 00:35:16,825
Yes, you had this problem with Amy on this team, but I had a problem with Amy on the team.

531
00:35:16,825 --> 00:35:17,815
So I got rid of her.

532
00:35:17,815 --> 00:35:20,496
So to me, that's the logical thing.

533
00:35:20,496 --> 00:35:26,014
And it's like, I'm expecting common sense and logic to trump whiteness.

534
00:35:26,014 --> 00:35:26,917
Nope. No mmmnnnnn No

535
00:35:30,132 --> 00:35:32,724
There thing is to whiteness first.

536
00:35:37,944 --> 00:35:50,029
Yes, and that is what makes you feel crazy because it doesn't make any sense and you're
trying to figure out, okay, what did I do wrong?

537
00:35:50,029 --> 00:35:51,320
Can I do something differently?

538
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:51,870
Blah, blah.

539
00:35:51,870 --> 00:35:55,421
And I'm telling you right now, it doesn't matter what you do.

540
00:35:55,421 --> 00:36:01,224
Once that mindset is fixed on that team and that's how they operate, that's how they
operate.

541
00:36:01,224 --> 00:36:02,684
And you're not crazy.

542
00:36:02,684 --> 00:36:06,538
Now you just have to figure out how to survive so you can move forward.

543
00:36:06,538 --> 00:36:09,463
get the bullet points on your resume and get gone.

544
00:36:09,463 --> 00:36:18,444
Because once they decide they don't want you there or they've used you for whatever they
needed to use you for, then it's time to go.

545
00:36:18,444 --> 00:36:20,024
Yeah, but it wasn't that easy.

546
00:36:20,024 --> 00:36:27,907
I mean, if you lived there before, if you are having problems at Target, everybody at
General Mills knows about it.

547
00:36:27,907 --> 00:36:29,667
Everybody at 3M knows about it.

548
00:36:29,667 --> 00:36:37,109
Somebody at Target's husband works at 3M and she's pillow talking every night about you
and even you go and your resume comes up.

549
00:36:37,109 --> 00:36:40,320
It doesn't matter that it wasn't right or true.

550
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,661
It was really hard for me to find another role. (Felicia:Right)

551
00:36:44,421 --> 00:36:47,582
I ended up getting fired there, not for performance.

552
00:36:47,582 --> 00:36:48,692
They tried.

553
00:36:48,728 --> 00:36:51,260
They think, you know, I will give them credit.

554
00:36:51,260 --> 00:36:55,242
Three times they tried it.

555
00:36:55,583 --> 00:37:03,929
But I ended up getting fired because someone says that I said that my boss and the
director were having an affair.

556
00:37:03,929 --> 00:37:09,853
Now, while I heard that, I didn't start that rumor and I was traveling.

557
00:37:09,853 --> 00:37:14,936
I get back and I work from home on Fridays, the HR person who was black.

558
00:37:14,936 --> 00:37:17,137
So talk about seat at the table.

559
00:37:17,806 --> 00:37:20,446
He calls me and He tells me, can you come in today?

560
00:37:20,446 --> 00:37:22,486
I said, no, I'm off today.

561
00:37:22,486 --> 00:37:24,726
Like I'd been traveling for two weeks.

562
00:37:24,726 --> 00:37:27,126
Like I need to spend time with my son.

563
00:37:27,126 --> 00:37:31,546
Like, and I taught math at my son's school in the mornings on Fridays because I traveled
so much.

564
00:37:31,546 --> 00:37:32,926
had to give me something.

565
00:37:33,706 --> 00:37:35,946
And I came in on Monday.

566
00:37:36,626 --> 00:37:40,906
Like she pulls me in and was like, I heard you said this.

567
00:37:40,906 --> 00:37:44,406
Some girl went there and told them that.

568
00:37:44,406 --> 00:37:45,566
Why would she say that?

569
00:37:45,566 --> 00:37:46,742
I said, ask her.

570
00:37:46,742 --> 00:37:50,304
I said, someone had told me that, but I didn't start it.

571
00:37:50,304 --> 00:37:57,308
I mean, I said the way that he allowed her to treat people, I wouldn't doubt it, but I
didn't start it.

572
00:37:57,548 --> 00:38:00,790
And I said, but I don't know if they're having an affair or not.

573
00:38:00,790 --> 00:38:01,911
Like I'm not even here.

574
00:38:01,911 --> 00:38:03,171
don't even, and I don't care.

575
00:38:03,171 --> 00:38:05,872
Like everyone's having an affair at Target, who cares?

576
00:38:06,413 --> 00:38:12,847
So she said, if I didn't tell who told me they were going to fire me and I didn't, I
wouldn't tell.

577
00:38:12,847 --> 00:38:15,150
Cause I was like, I mean, like at that

578
00:38:15,150 --> 00:38:18,730
I was like, this is your best shot.

579
00:38:18,730 --> 00:38:20,590
I mean, you lived in Minnesota.

580
00:38:20,590 --> 00:38:21,750
There was nothing but

581
00:38:21,750 --> 00:38:24,890
Rumors circulating through Target all day, every day.

582
00:38:24,890 --> 00:38:29,570
That's what we're having coffee 50 times a day in that thing.

583
00:38:30,486 --> 00:38:32,250
Yeah, it's a lot of white women.

584
00:38:32,250 --> 00:38:38,914
um And before y'all come from me, not all white women are the same, but a lot of them are.

585
00:38:38,914 --> 00:38:40,334
Let's just be honest.

586
00:38:40,334 --> 00:38:43,234
There was lot of white women in their small town.

587
00:38:43,234 --> 00:38:43,474
Yeah.

588
00:38:43,474 --> 00:38:49,214
know, Wisconsin, you know, little northern towns.

589
00:38:49,214 --> 00:38:51,946
They had never been around people like us.

590
00:38:51,946 --> 00:38:53,147
No, and that was the thing.

591
00:38:53,147 --> 00:39:01,811
The pattern I saw at Target with either my friends who worked there in the past, other
black women I know that worked there.

592
00:39:01,811 --> 00:39:03,051
The pattern is this.

593
00:39:03,051 --> 00:39:06,493
You have to import the black talent most of the time.

594
00:39:06,493 --> 00:39:09,054
Like you happen to be from there.

595
00:39:09,054 --> 00:39:13,876
But the majority of the black people that worked at Target, they're not from Minnesota.

596
00:39:13,936 --> 00:39:17,868
So they import these highly educated.

597
00:39:17,870 --> 00:39:25,030
very much capable run circles around your I went to University of Minnesota.

598
00:39:25,030 --> 00:39:28,450
I grew up here and Target is the company to work for.

599
00:39:28,450 --> 00:39:31,650
It's just very much like Atlanta where Coke is the company to work for.

600
00:39:31,650 --> 00:39:32,210
Right.

601
00:39:32,210 --> 00:39:35,130
And so these white girls, they're from there.

602
00:39:35,130 --> 00:39:36,870
They don't want to leave home.

603
00:39:36,870 --> 00:39:43,850
They get married young if they get married, you know, at 25, because if not, you know,
it's an existential crisis.

604
00:39:43,850 --> 00:39:45,690
You 30 and you're not married for them.

605
00:39:45,690 --> 00:39:46,190
Right.

606
00:39:46,190 --> 00:39:47,124
But like

607
00:39:47,124 --> 00:39:48,045
All know each other.

608
00:39:48,045 --> 00:39:50,337
They went to elementary school, high school, junior high.

609
00:39:50,337 --> 00:39:56,342
And so their whole dream was I worked in the Target store and now I work for the corporate
office and I'm with the cool kids now.

610
00:39:56,342 --> 00:39:57,503
And it's a thing.

611
00:39:57,503 --> 00:40:04,928
So then you bring in these black women who run circles around them from outside of
Minnesota.

612
00:40:05,089 --> 00:40:17,078
When I tell you those white women's behavior in that company is atrocious, egregious,
nonsensical and diabolical. Absolutely

613
00:40:17,228 --> 00:40:24,843
Yeah, it's you know, shout out to the HR person that did the best she could for me and she
called it out.

614
00:40:24,843 --> 00:40:28,046
And I think she was just like, what is going on here?

615
00:40:28,046 --> 00:40:28,546
Right.

616
00:40:28,546 --> 00:40:34,230
And I think if I hadn't had the guts to bypass my HR business partner, like girl.

617
00:40:34,230 --> 00:40:36,692
And I said, I am done with you.

618
00:40:36,692 --> 00:40:38,023
I'm reporting you too.

619
00:40:38,023 --> 00:40:39,574
OK, like everybody's

620
00:40:39,726 --> 00:40:40,477
going down here.

621
00:40:40,477 --> 00:40:43,009
Like if I'm going down, we all going down.

622
00:40:43,009 --> 00:40:45,740
At first I was like, you said, what have I done wrong?

623
00:40:45,740 --> 00:40:47,522
You know, I was, what can I do differently?

624
00:40:47,522 --> 00:40:48,052
How?

625
00:40:48,052 --> 00:40:50,054
And then I was like, you know what?

626
00:40:50,054 --> 00:40:58,459
I'm done with this because these people don't care if I live or die, if me and my son are,
if I lose this job and I'm homeless, they don't care.

627
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:07,136
And so for me, I just was like, if you think that this is going to be easy,

628
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:08,535
You got another thing coming.

629
00:41:08,535 --> 00:41:10,382
Or like my mom said, you're to fuck with me.

630
00:41:10,382 --> 00:41:13,000
You better bring a lunch because we're going to be here all day.

631
00:41:13,356 --> 00:41:14,680
I know that's right.

632
00:41:14,956 --> 00:41:17,807
All day long and we were there all day.

633
00:41:17,807 --> 00:41:25,789
And when I tell you I didn't let up, they apologize and I'd be like, um not thank you, not
because you don't mean it.

634
00:41:25,789 --> 00:41:28,890
You just got told to do it or you were going to get fired.

635
00:41:28,890 --> 00:41:35,032
But I got apology after apology after apology after apology all day long because they were
wrong.

636
00:41:35,366 --> 00:41:41,134
And even when we went to mediation, like, you know, they were like, we're not here to talk
about her performance.

637
00:41:41,134 --> 00:41:42,824
Her performance was excellent.

638
00:41:45,813 --> 00:41:47,103
Ain't that?

639
00:41:47,158 --> 00:41:50,080
So we're here to talk about we don't like you.

640
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:53,622
You make us uncomfortable like you're doing too much.

641
00:41:53,622 --> 00:41:56,723
And so we need to take a quick break.

642
00:41:56,824 --> 00:42:15,778
I want to talk about the company that you sued when we get back, because when I read in
the filing your initial lawsuit that you had gotten press for these people, 400

643
00:42:15,778 --> 00:42:21,361
The typical was 20, you got 400 and then your boss told you it was too much.

644
00:42:21,361 --> 00:42:23,841
And so you had to bring it down the next year.

645
00:42:23,841 --> 00:42:28,194
I was like, this is insanely insulting.

646
00:42:28,194 --> 00:42:32,266
We're gonna talk about that when we come back from the break.

647
00:42:37,102 --> 00:42:39,043
All right guys, we are back.

648
00:42:39,043 --> 00:42:41,545
We are naming names.

649
00:42:41,545 --> 00:42:45,868
We are being super trill, Raslyn Wooten.

650
00:42:45,949 --> 00:42:54,054
Thank you for sharing your story because there's a lot of us that are gonna be like, amen,
uh-huh, I'm not crazy.

651
00:42:54,054 --> 00:42:56,136
And this is why I wanted you on the show.

652
00:42:56,136 --> 00:42:58,318
Well, one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show.

653
00:42:58,318 --> 00:43:04,962
We're still gonna get to the resource you've become, but we've gotta do the part two now.

654
00:43:04,994 --> 00:43:08,018
We talked about Target and your exit at Target.

655
00:43:08,018 --> 00:43:15,106
So when you left Target, did you go to Invesco or did you have another job in between?

656
00:43:15,642 --> 00:43:19,994
because I had done so much in fashion, like I had done all the Target fashion.

657
00:43:19,994 --> 00:43:21,324
I was at New York Fashion Week.

658
00:43:21,324 --> 00:43:22,125
I was doing stuff.

659
00:43:22,125 --> 00:43:24,806
ended up being a stylist for movies.  Oh cool!

660
00:43:25,906 --> 00:43:27,647
So I took a break.

661
00:43:27,647 --> 00:43:32,009
I was a stylist son for dear white people when they shot in Minnesota.

662
00:43:32,009 --> 00:43:35,890
So that was a really good like break from corporate.

663
00:43:35,990 --> 00:43:42,113
And I was just with a bunch of black people all day, Kiki and get yelled at, you know,
production problems.

664
00:43:42,113 --> 00:43:44,094
But it was just a different problems.

665
00:43:44,094 --> 00:43:45,164
And it was

666
00:43:45,806 --> 00:43:49,443
And like, I did something wrong there, I'd be like, okay, I'm sorry I own that.

667
00:43:49,443 --> 00:43:51,037
You know, like, okay.

668
00:43:51,037 --> 00:43:53,141
Like it was black direct.

669
00:43:53,141 --> 00:43:54,264
Don't do that again.

670
00:43:54,264 --> 00:43:55,255
You right, my bad.

671
00:43:55,255 --> 00:43:57,664
Okay, all right, all right, you know.

672
00:43:57,664 --> 00:44:01,660
Not, I'm going to put you on a PIP now, even though you've done everything right.

673
00:44:03,118 --> 00:44:03,778
Fair enough.

674
00:44:03,778 --> 00:44:04,459
You right.

675
00:44:04,459 --> 00:44:05,029
My bad.

676
00:44:05,029 --> 00:44:05,939
Yeah.

677
00:44:06,219 --> 00:44:15,083
And so after that, I got recruited to US bank and I remember saying to her, like, I've
been doing like fashion and corporate stuff.

678
00:44:15,083 --> 00:44:16,954
Like, are you sure you want me in finance?

679
00:44:16,954 --> 00:44:20,175
She's like, yes, your personality would be perfect for finance.

680
00:44:20,175 --> 00:44:21,626
And she was actually right.

681
00:44:21,626 --> 00:44:25,227
I did really well in finance, but I went in to US bank.

682
00:44:25,227 --> 00:44:31,950
was so distraught from corporate that I would go in as a

683
00:44:31,950 --> 00:44:32,810
employee.

684
00:44:32,810 --> 00:44:35,910
So they wanted a contractor in the beginning.

685
00:44:35,910 --> 00:44:39,030
Eventually, they kept saying, like, don't you want to be an employee?

686
00:44:39,030 --> 00:44:44,010
Like, and I was like, no, like, I can't have one more white woman reviewing me.

687
00:44:44,010 --> 00:44:45,190
Like, I can't do it.

688
00:44:45,190 --> 00:44:51,870
I left there, though, because I was a senior manager there, even though I was a, you know,
I guess a consultant, contractor, whatever.

689
00:44:51,870 --> 00:44:55,150
And then I went to Invesco because it was a director opportunity.

690
00:44:55,150 --> 00:44:59,910
And I just thought that as this is actually where I'm supposed to be anyway.

691
00:44:59,910 --> 00:45:01,050
And until

692
00:45:01,528 --> 00:45:04,049
get there, you know, it's going to be too hard.

693
00:45:04,049 --> 00:45:06,490
You know, I had another offer I chose Investco.

694
00:45:06,490 --> 00:45:10,762
I should have chose the other offer in hindsight, but what do you do?

695
00:45:10,862 --> 00:45:18,925
And so I ended up there working in, you know, with a bunch of investors, which I have to
say, I really liked my job.

696
00:45:18,925 --> 00:45:21,026
Like I was good at my job.

697
00:45:21,026 --> 00:45:24,787
I liked the people that I worked with aside from my boss.

698
00:45:25,308 --> 00:45:30,382
And she really wasn't that big of a problem problem because she was in New York.

699
00:45:30,382 --> 00:45:32,362
And I was in Houston.

700
00:45:33,282 --> 00:45:35,562
I didn't have to see her every day.

701
00:45:35,562 --> 00:45:40,622
You know, she really didn't call me or check up on me or anything, because I'm not really
that type of an employee.

702
00:45:40,622 --> 00:45:42,242
You tell me what needs to be done.

703
00:45:42,242 --> 00:45:44,582
I'm the one who created the strategy for the whole team.

704
00:45:44,582 --> 00:45:46,422
She couldn't get her strategy approved.

705
00:45:46,422 --> 00:45:47,982
My strategies were approved.

706
00:45:47,982 --> 00:45:49,802
I was there for what, three or four years.

707
00:45:49,802 --> 00:45:51,442
She never got a strategy approved.

708
00:45:51,442 --> 00:45:53,042
Mine were approved every year.

709
00:45:53,042 --> 00:45:56,562
So the part of, know, like you're talking about in court.

710
00:45:56,620 --> 00:46:00,716
I was validated because my attorney said, but aren't you still using Raslyn's strategy?

711
00:46:00,716 --> 00:46:02,017
She said, yeah.

712
00:46:05,774 --> 00:46:09,740
2018, it was 2020 by the time I went to court.

713
00:46:09,740 --> 00:46:10,271
Right.

714
00:46:10,271 --> 00:46:12,223
Well, actually, that was the pandemic.

715
00:46:12,223 --> 00:46:15,877
Yeah, that was in the midst of the pandemic.

716
00:46:16,078 --> 00:46:18,446
in June 2021, I think.

717
00:46:18,446 --> 00:46:19,746
I was 2021.

718
00:46:20,006 --> 00:46:23,306
And so actually was right at the end of May your trial started.

719
00:46:23,306 --> 00:46:25,286
I remember this is a jury trial.

720
00:46:25,286 --> 00:46:27,266
I was so fascinated.

721
00:46:27,266 --> 00:46:33,686
One, because not only I in situation, but I have friends who are in these situations.

722
00:46:33,686 --> 00:46:41,006
Like I'm getting so fascinated with fighting these companies in court.

723
00:46:41,006 --> 00:46:41,726
Yeah.

724
00:46:41,726 --> 00:46:43,758
I've been thinking about should I go to law school?

725
00:46:43,758 --> 00:46:46,818
I don't want to, and this is the black woman's thing.

726
00:46:46,818 --> 00:46:48,178
You lose your job, you go to school.

727
00:46:48,178 --> 00:46:50,158
You lose a boyfriend, you go to school.

728
00:46:50,158 --> 00:46:51,698
You want to be happy, you go to school.

729
00:46:51,698 --> 00:46:53,338
What is, I don't know why.

730
00:46:53,536 --> 00:47:02,774
Yeah, nothing is more dangerous than a bored black woman because we start a job, go to school, have a PhD from boredom.

731
00:47:03,214 --> 00:47:07,938
And so I'm like, I'm not going to law school, but it does fascinate me.

732
00:47:07,938 --> 00:47:11,781
You know, how is it that a jury can see?

733
00:47:11,781 --> 00:47:14,593
And I can only imagine the evidence, right?

734
00:47:14,593 --> 00:47:18,866
Because I am just literally reading what's public out there about your case.

735
00:47:18,866 --> 00:47:28,653
But a jury could see that one, so you were awarded punitive damages.

736
00:47:28,653 --> 00:47:30,764
You were also awarded back pay.

737
00:47:31,142 --> 00:47:37,494
One, you had gone on FMLA leave and the jury could see like, OK, they retaliated against
her because she went on a protected leave.

738
00:47:37,494 --> 00:47:39,285
So they said yes on that.

739
00:47:39,285 --> 00:47:51,788
But they also I thought it was very interesting that they said, you know, the question
was, did the defendant, which was Invesco, did the defendant did they try to prevent

740
00:47:51,788 --> 00:47:54,449
discrimination and all these things?

741
00:47:54,449 --> 00:47:58,590
And the jury said no, absolutely not.

742
00:47:58,696 --> 00:48:03,350
at the problem because under FMLA you can't get punitive damages.

743
00:48:03,390 --> 00:48:06,252
So they tried to take my punitive damages.

744
00:48:06,393 --> 00:48:10,176
And my attorney's defense was, what is it called?

745
00:48:10,176 --> 00:48:15,861
I can't think of the name, but anyway, the jury's given this yes, no, yes, no.

746
00:48:16,222 --> 00:48:25,960
And he said, well, they were confused because how could they say Invesco didn't protect me
from this and then say it wasn't racial discrimination?

747
00:48:26,095 --> 00:48:27,618
I thought that too.

748
00:48:27,618 --> 00:48:33,969
I found that very interesting, but they did say that they retaliate against you for your
FMLA.

749
00:48:34,382 --> 00:48:36,242
And you get more money under FMLA.

750
00:48:36,242 --> 00:48:37,242
So a win is a win?

751
00:48:37,242 --> 00:48:49,222
And I ended up because of there's this other thing that if it's so egregious that someone
does you an FMLA, you can get these other damages that double what your FMLA claim is.

752
00:48:49,222 --> 00:48:56,960
So I ended up getting over a million dollars anyway, but I would have had about two
million dollars if those punitive damages had stood.

753
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:57,854
Yeah.

754
00:48:59,082 --> 00:49:01,363
still fought for ever.

755
00:49:01,363 --> 00:49:05,884
So yeah, you know, court was made, we fought till December.

756
00:49:05,884 --> 00:49:08,625
Yeah, that, try to get it dismissed.

757
00:49:08,625 --> 00:49:10,006
They you know, all this stuff.

758
00:49:10,006 --> 00:49:21,042
So I think the judge to some degree did me a favor, because if he had allowed those
punitive damages to stand, my understanding is they would have had course to appeal.

759
00:49:21,042 --> 00:49:22,082
And then

760
00:49:22,082 --> 00:49:26,064
that would have had to go through an appellate process for another couple of years.

761
00:49:26,064 --> 00:49:34,589
And the fact that they even went to court tells you they really thought this is Texas,
it's pro, it's conservative, it's pro-business.

762
00:49:34,589 --> 00:49:37,010
Like they thought they had it in the bag.

763
00:49:37,010 --> 00:49:41,153
Like they weren't even really that prepared and they lied on the stand.

764
00:49:41,153 --> 00:49:42,283
Like they were caught.

765
00:49:42,283 --> 00:49:51,246
They lied so much that the judge had to sanction them several times because one of the
things they said was, when I,

766
00:49:51,246 --> 00:49:54,326
said I was being treated differently for my race.

767
00:49:54,326 --> 00:49:56,326
They were supposed to do an investigation.

768
00:49:57,506 --> 00:50:01,846
And they said that they did, but they didn't.

769
00:50:01,846 --> 00:50:12,646
What they did was an investigation on my claims of being put on a PIP unfairly, they
claimed, but they did not because the EEOC has like, if you're doing an investigation,

770
00:50:12,646 --> 00:50:14,046
like they didn't do none of that.

771
00:50:14,046 --> 00:50:17,806
But they kept saying to the jury, well, we conducted an investigation, found nothing.

772
00:50:17,806 --> 00:50:20,614
And the judge kept saying, stop saying that.

773
00:50:20,622 --> 00:50:24,222
Well, my attorney kept saying objection like you actually didn't do it.

774
00:50:24,222 --> 00:50:32,382
And when the head of HR got on the stand, he said, no, I didn't conduct an investigation
to her claims of racial discrimination.

775
00:50:32,382 --> 00:50:41,162
But their EEO claim, you know, when I put in my EEO claim and they responded, said that
they conducted an investigation and found nothing, but they lied.

776
00:50:41,742 --> 00:50:44,622
I mean, I was in federal court.

777
00:50:45,702 --> 00:50:47,942
It was nutszo.

778
00:50:47,942 --> 00:50:50,162
 am I on Matlock?

779
00:50:50,162 --> 00:50:50,722
Am I on SVU?

780
00:50:50,722 --> 00:50:51,943
Or 

781
00:50:51,943 --> 00:50:53,474
am I on LA 

782
00:50:53,474 --> 00:50:53,874
Law?

783
00:50:53,874 --> 00:50:57,647
Like, I don't know what I was on, but I was on something.

784
00:50:57,647 --> 00:50:58,948
It was nuts.

785
00:50:58,948 --> 00:50:59,358
Yeah.

786
00:50:59,358 --> 00:51:04,161
And I had a black male judge, a black federal judge, but he was a Republican.

787
00:51:04,161 --> 00:51:08,170
So I wasn't sure if I was going to get like Clarence Thomas.

788
00:51:08,170 --> 00:51:14,565
But even Clarence Thomas, as coon as he is, you had such a strong case.

789
00:51:14,565 --> 00:51:19,078
Like they just didn't do what they were supposed to do.

790
00:51:19,078 --> 00:51:25,302
And the craziest thing is the information around the wrongdoing made it worse.

791
00:51:25,302 --> 00:51:28,925
The context of your case actually makes everything worse.

792
00:51:28,925 --> 00:51:36,530
So the fact that you had gone so far above and beyond what they'd ever done before.

793
00:51:37,128 --> 00:51:44,545
left them open, left them so open for the scrutiny by just regular people.

794
00:51:44,545 --> 00:51:54,973
Because when in your filing where you listed out, I love whoever wrote your initial
complaint did a great job.

795
00:51:55,414 --> 00:52:04,702
They listed out, here's all the things that she's done that nobody's done at this company
and the previous directors before.

796
00:52:04,716 --> 00:52:14,185
When it said you got them over 400 press appearances in one year, I mean, I can't even
calculate how many a week.

797
00:52:14,510 --> 00:52:20,370
here is it was an underperforming company with underperforming funds.

798
00:52:20,650 --> 00:52:23,810
So they're not even the best of the best.

799
00:52:23,810 --> 00:52:34,150
As a matter of fact, by the time I went to court, they had, can't think of it was Barron's
or Wall Street Journal had a list of all the investment firms and out of 99, they were

800
00:52:34,150 --> 00:52:36,130
99th, the worst.

801
00:52:36,130 --> 00:52:39,654
So how hard was it to do?

802
00:52:39,894 --> 00:52:45,787
Now, I will say in their defense, you know, I had the media trained and I had a good
trainer.

803
00:52:45,787 --> 00:52:47,028
She trains like I do.

804
00:52:47,028 --> 00:52:50,870
So I you can't train them yourself because you can't get at them like you need to.

805
00:52:50,870 --> 00:52:53,541
You've got to have a cop come in.

806
00:52:53,822 --> 00:52:59,185
Like people always say, I can tell Raslyn trained you because my people are.

807
00:52:59,185 --> 00:52:59,985
Right.

808
00:52:59,985 --> 00:53:01,366
So they did the work.

809
00:53:01,366 --> 00:53:02,466
They were smart.

810
00:53:02,466 --> 00:53:04,868
They just had underperforming funds.

811
00:53:04,868 --> 00:53:09,670
But the main issue was that I got

812
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:14,944
people of color on television and in these places for Invesco.

813
00:53:14,944 --> 00:53:17,996
That's really what the problem was.

814
00:53:18,337 --> 00:53:22,661
So typically as a publicist, you hear from journalists all the time.

815
00:53:22,661 --> 00:53:26,143
I can't find black subject matter experts.

816
00:53:26,143 --> 00:53:28,025
can't find black people to interview.

817
00:53:28,025 --> 00:53:29,897
And we always say that's crazy.

818
00:53:29,897 --> 00:53:30,257
Right.

819
00:53:30,257 --> 00:53:31,028
We have.

820
00:53:31,028 --> 00:53:38,274
But what happens is what these companies do, including Invesco before I came, was they'll
say in Target did it too.

821
00:53:38,274 --> 00:53:48,070
That's why you never really heard from anybody, but these, know, because you have to be
SVP and above or in finance portfolio manager or CIO and above.

822
00:53:48,070 --> 00:53:49,460
Well, they're all white.

823
00:53:49,721 --> 00:53:52,108
So what I went to was the heads of these teams.

824
00:53:52,108 --> 00:53:57,085
And I will tell you the heads of my teams, they were all white, but they got it.

825
00:53:57,285 --> 00:54:02,027
I said, look, what you have to offer is your diversity here.

826
00:54:02,208 --> 00:54:05,200
And that fixed income team was actually really good.

827
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:06,348
I mean, they were.

828
00:54:06,348 --> 00:54:11,623
lot of underperforming funds, but they were good and they were charismatic guys.

829
00:54:12,625 --> 00:54:16,999
The CIO and the head of investment said, do whatever you need to do.

830
00:54:16,999 --> 00:54:20,814
If an analyst is the best person to answer this question, fine.

831
00:54:20,814 --> 00:54:23,676
If you know, whatever we trust you go.

832
00:54:23,837 --> 00:54:25,058
So I have black.

833
00:54:25,058 --> 00:54:37,268
people, people with Pakistani last names, Mexican last names, know, Hispanic last names, a
Jamaican guy with a Jamaican accent on Bloomberg and people were like, is anyone going to

834
00:54:37,268 --> 00:54:38,169
understand him?

835
00:54:38,169 --> 00:54:39,720
Yes, they'll understand him.

836
00:54:39,720 --> 00:54:41,292
Like stop it.

837
00:54:41,292 --> 00:54:44,374
And so that's really what the problem was.

838
00:54:44,374 --> 00:54:46,515
And that was a part of my complaint.

839
00:54:46,515 --> 00:54:52,797
It wasn't just that she was jealous, which she was because her teams were like, we're
never doing media because you're terrible.

840
00:54:52,797 --> 00:54:54,308
And my teams were over here.

841
00:54:54,308 --> 00:54:55,148
Her teams are over here.

842
00:54:55,148 --> 00:54:56,699
So she we didn't overlap.

843
00:54:56,699 --> 00:54:59,120
She didn't manage anything I did.

844
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,631
She did, you know, one part of the business.

845
00:55:01,631 --> 00:55:03,042
I did this part of the business.

846
00:55:03,042 --> 00:55:06,513
So we didn't even, you know, her teams were unhappy.

847
00:55:06,513 --> 00:55:09,924
My teams are like, oh, amazing.

848
00:55:09,924 --> 00:55:12,405
And so that was the problem.

849
00:55:12,405 --> 00:55:14,166
So she wanted to go back.

850
00:55:14,166 --> 00:55:17,748
to the system of only allowing the whites to talk.

851
00:55:18,068 --> 00:55:23,481
Even though we had all this success the way that I had constructed this strategy.

852
00:55:23,481 --> 00:55:34,608
So what happened was when I went out on FMLA before I went on FMLA, I got put on
corrective action and I almost had a breakdown because I'm telling you, I wanted to hit

853
00:55:34,608 --> 00:55:36,419
her in the HR meeting.

854
00:55:36,419 --> 00:55:41,643
That's how create like it was either pass out or get out of there.

855
00:55:41,643 --> 00:55:42,468
Bye.

856
00:55:42,794 --> 00:55:51,809
this meeting with her in HR and the night before she had taken me to dinner cried I'm
sorry I'm gonna make it right I'm sorry I lied to you while I tried to record it my

857
00:55:51,809 --> 00:56:04,100
fucking phone was fucking up trying to go to the bathroom can't get it to work girl and so
she says I'm gonna make this go away but when we get into the meeting with HR she goes in

858
00:56:04,100 --> 00:56:10,060
as you know you have a performance problem I said last night you took me to dinner you
cried you lied

859
00:56:10,060 --> 00:56:14,992
And I mean, I had the recording, but it was like, I'm I lied.

860
00:56:14,992 --> 00:56:21,876
I had to hold my air out of so angry with myself.

861
00:56:21,876 --> 00:56:25,317
But yet I'm sitting in this meeting and I'm like, are you nuts?

862
00:56:25,317 --> 00:56:28,209
Like you literally just girl.

863
00:56:28,209 --> 00:56:29,309
So was like, that's it.

864
00:56:29,309 --> 00:56:30,890
You know, I said, here's what's going to happen.

865
00:56:30,890 --> 00:56:35,566
I'm not about to sit here and let you tell me I have performance problem because you're
fucking lying.

866
00:56:35,566 --> 00:56:38,366
I said, I'm out of here and you decide what the fuck you want to do.

867
00:56:38,366 --> 00:56:42,846
I go out and I had the doctor's appointment anyway, cause this was some stupid meeting.

868
00:56:42,846 --> 00:56:44,426
I don't have high blood pressure.

869
00:56:44,426 --> 00:56:45,666
I don't have high cholesterol.

870
00:56:45,666 --> 00:56:46,126
I don't have nothing.

871
00:56:46,126 --> 00:56:47,826
Girl, my blood pressure was so crazy.

872
00:56:47,826 --> 00:56:49,566
And I already talked to my doctor about this.

873
00:56:49,566 --> 00:56:51,566
She was like, you got to get out of there.

874
00:56:51,566 --> 00:56:52,546
You're to have a stroke.

875
00:56:52,546 --> 00:56:54,686
And now mind you, my husband died of a heart attack.

876
00:56:54,686 --> 00:56:58,346
was my best friend died at 40.

877
00:56:58,346 --> 00:57:01,158
You know, like they weren't about to kill me.

878
00:57:01,750 --> 00:57:10,073
When I was off on FMLA, all the people they made me take off the list, they let talk while
I was gone.

879
00:57:10,074 --> 00:57:11,794
I thought that was so weird.

880
00:57:11,794 --> 00:57:13,355
I mean, I could see them on TV.

881
00:57:13,355 --> 00:57:15,826
I tried not to watch it, but obviously I would.

882
00:57:15,826 --> 00:57:17,977
I mean, I'm financier, you know.

883
00:57:17,997 --> 00:57:22,599
And so I'm like, oh, so the black girl can't talk when I'm there.

884
00:57:22,599 --> 00:57:30,612
But when I'm gone and the white girl is taking over my stuff so she can have numbers, you
let these people talk.

885
00:57:31,146 --> 00:57:36,506
my numbers don't look so good because, you know, she's in.

886
00:57:36,648 --> 00:57:38,648
But it was just messed up.

887
00:57:38,648 --> 00:57:44,670
So when I got back from FML, they were like, you need to stick to the plan we gave you
before from L.A.

888
00:57:44,670 --> 00:57:46,560
These people cannot talk, blah, blah.

889
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:48,891
So I was like, I don't even care if nobody talks.

890
00:57:48,891 --> 00:57:50,158
I don't care if nobody does.

891
00:57:50,158 --> 00:57:51,802
I've already proven who I am.

892
00:57:51,802 --> 00:57:52,719
I don't even care anymore.

893
00:57:52,719 --> 00:57:54,512
Like, was like, OK, cool, whatever.

894
00:57:54,512 --> 00:57:58,403
So one of the black women calls me and she gets this opportunity.

895
00:57:58,403 --> 00:58:00,748
And I was like, I'm sorry, but you're on the list of

896
00:58:00,748 --> 00:58:01,908
people who can't talk.

897
00:58:01,908 --> 00:58:04,619
So she's like, who said that?

898
00:58:04,619 --> 00:58:08,360
He's like, housewives.

899
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:10,360
Or who said that?

900
00:58:11,321 --> 00:58:17,223
I said, my boss, Janine said that she said, so she kicks it up her chain.

901
00:58:17,223 --> 00:58:18,983
Janine gets in trouble.

902
00:58:19,043 --> 00:58:21,023
They put her back on the list.

903
00:58:21,264 --> 00:58:23,984
And the white guys, because now white people got cut too.

904
00:58:23,984 --> 00:58:29,938
Now it's just like white people, like they don't want, you know, universal health care
because they don't want us to get it.

905
00:58:30,252 --> 00:58:32,383
People ain't gonna have health care too now.

906
00:58:32,682 --> 00:58:34,384
A white guy got cut.

907
00:58:34,384 --> 00:58:35,714
He's like, why am I cut?

908
00:58:35,714 --> 00:58:36,485
I said, I don't know.

909
00:58:36,485 --> 00:58:38,385
This happened while I was gone.

910
00:58:38,706 --> 00:58:40,736
So, but you're not on the list.

911
00:58:40,736 --> 00:58:42,147
I sent them the list.

912
00:58:42,147 --> 00:58:43,788
So you can't talk either.

913
00:58:43,788 --> 00:58:45,108
Gets it up the chain.

914
00:58:45,108 --> 00:58:47,009
He gets added back to the list.

915
00:58:47,129 --> 00:58:54,632
Now I'm getting blamed for them being angry at the changes they made when I was gone.

916
00:58:54,632 --> 00:58:59,234
Well, before I but that were implemented while I was gone for me.

917
00:58:59,288 --> 00:59:00,266
Mm-hmm.

918
00:59:00,866 --> 00:59:04,009
you know, she told me these, I mean, it was so crazy.

919
00:59:04,009 --> 00:59:05,130
I kept everything.

920
00:59:05,130 --> 00:59:08,172
And that's one of the things I want to tell people.

921
00:59:08,186 --> 00:59:12,397
I never delete anything to or from my boss or my boss's boss.

922
00:59:12,397 --> 00:59:16,119
I don't care if it's just me saying, OK.

923
00:59:16,821 --> 00:59:20,494
You might later on be like, well, I told her to do that and she never responded.

924
00:59:20,494 --> 00:59:21,995
You don't have the OK that says no.

925
00:59:21,995 --> 00:59:27,510
I said, OK, you don't know what they're going to pull out of their arsenal.

926
00:59:27,510 --> 00:59:28,951
and I had everything.

927
00:59:28,951 --> 00:59:35,205
And one of the reasons why they got in such troubles, like we would produce documents,
like actually, no, because here's this document.

928
00:59:35,205 --> 00:59:38,077
they'd like, that wasn't in discovery, your honor.

929
00:59:38,077 --> 00:59:40,919
He said, but it should have been because you should have provided it.

930
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:47,454
Why did you only provide 200 documents and you have the mainframe, the computer, all the
files?

931
00:59:47,454 --> 00:59:51,447
She don't have that stuff, but they've submitted a thousand pieces of paper.

932
00:59:51,447 --> 00:59:53,028
You've submitted 200.

933
00:59:53,028 --> 00:59:54,849
Why don't you have this?

934
00:59:55,369 --> 00:59:56,370
I mean,

935
00:59:56,430 --> 01:00:01,973
When I got hired there, I had to be interviewed by seven people before they would approve
me.

936
01:00:01,973 --> 01:00:07,875
The white girls that got hired after me only had to interview with my boss and her boss.

937
01:00:07,875 --> 01:00:20,741
But I had to interview with legal, HR, someone in marketing, someone on the investment
team, the head of investments at the time, like my boss and her boss, so like seven

938
01:00:20,741 --> 01:00:21,421
people.

939
01:00:21,421 --> 01:00:23,502
And so during the trial,

940
01:00:23,986 --> 01:00:26,789
The HR person and my boss, they lied together.

941
01:00:26,789 --> 01:00:29,081
They were in the satellite office in New York.

942
01:00:29,081 --> 01:00:36,847
Houston had the biggest employee count of any office that Invesco ever had, even though
the headquarters was in Atlanta.

943
01:00:36,847 --> 01:00:41,361
So I wasn't in the satellite office, I was in the main office.

944
01:00:42,663 --> 01:00:50,610
When my boss's boss, Graham, got on the stand and they asked him why I had to have seven
interviews and the white girls only had to have two.

945
01:00:50,610 --> 01:00:51,146
oh

946
01:00:51,146 --> 01:00:54,922
He said, "'cause we needed to make sure people were comfortable working with her.'"

947
01:00:54,922 --> 01:00:56,825
He said that in public?

948
01:00:56,846 --> 01:00:57,307
huh.

949
01:00:57,307 --> 01:00:59,330
Yeah, that's some bullshit.

950
01:00:59,724 --> 01:01:07,507
And when they asked him, did Raslyn have, this is my boss's boss, did Raslyn have a
performance problem?

951
01:01:07,507 --> 01:01:08,688
He said, no.

952
01:01:08,930 --> 01:01:12,015
They asked HR, did Raslyn have a performance problem?

953
01:01:12,015 --> 01:01:14,388
And he said, she didn't.

954
01:01:14,510 --> 01:01:18,337
So now the question is, why did you put her on a corrective action?

955
01:01:18,350 --> 01:01:24,395
Listen, May, when I got back from it, we won't even count February, January.

956
01:01:24,395 --> 01:01:25,676
So I was on it already then.

957
01:01:25,676 --> 01:01:33,032
Oh, let's say May, May, June, July, August, September when they finally fired me.

958
01:01:33,032 --> 01:01:38,777
So I was on corrective action for five months and I had to have weekly meetings on the
phone with HR and my boss.

959
01:01:38,777 --> 01:01:41,930
And I recorded every call every week.

960
01:01:41,930 --> 01:01:47,438
And I busted things like when I got back from FMLA, I could not

961
01:01:47,438 --> 01:01:51,338
leave my desk if we had a phone call like I couldn't take it in my car.

962
01:01:51,338 --> 01:01:52,598
I couldn't work from home.

963
01:01:52,598 --> 01:01:56,098
All the white girls would be like, oh, you hear the ambulances in the background.

964
01:01:56,098 --> 01:01:57,278
They're working from home.

965
01:01:57,278 --> 01:01:58,578
You can hear their dogs barking.

966
01:01:58,578 --> 01:02:02,498
I could only work from home on Friday, but they could work from home whenever they wanted
to.

967
01:02:02,498 --> 01:02:04,918
couldn't travel to see my teams anymore.

968
01:02:04,918 --> 01:02:09,238
But then they hired this white guy and he got to travel.

969
01:02:09,238 --> 01:02:12,378
And I was like, so Matt can travel, but I can't.

970
01:02:12,378 --> 01:02:14,318
So the black girl can't travel.

971
01:02:14,458 --> 01:02:17,478
Now they're, you know,

972
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:21,293
And they still were like, no, you my business partners are like, we'll pay for it.

973
01:02:21,293 --> 01:02:23,975
But we haven't seen her in like six months.

974
01:02:23,975 --> 01:02:25,166
We need to have meetings.

975
01:02:25,166 --> 01:02:31,281
And they were like, no, because they didn't want me face to face saying anything, you
know.

976
01:02:31,602 --> 01:02:40,049
And I remember one day I had these two business partners and we're on the phone and I just
started crying.

977
01:02:40,049 --> 01:02:41,660
You know, I wasn't a crier at work.

978
01:02:41,660 --> 01:02:46,284
I was like, I'm so tired.

979
01:02:46,518 --> 01:02:50,399
And I said, I'm not even really crying because I'm sad.

980
01:02:50,579 --> 01:02:57,381
I just want to take her head and ram it in to the cement.

981
01:02:57,381 --> 01:03:03,032
mean, it was so bad that my friends would be like, let's just go to New York and push her
off the bus.

982
01:03:03,032 --> 01:03:06,193
Like we were just like done with it because we've all been going.

983
01:03:06,193 --> 01:03:08,844
I she was just every white woman.

984
01:03:09,944 --> 01:03:13,675
It wasn't personal to her, personal.

985
01:03:13,675 --> 01:03:15,546
Same.

986
01:03:16,078 --> 01:03:21,418
And I was that kind of mad, like the nerve of you, like who the fuck do you think you are?

987
01:03:21,418 --> 01:03:29,778
You know, that's really, and I hate that we're in this place where we can't go off.

988
01:03:30,318 --> 01:03:32,317
You can't really do it yourself.

989
01:03:32,317 --> 01:03:39,298
Like I know I see people like when Coco was, you know, at the tennis match and she's, you
know, this is how you advocate for yourself.

990
01:03:39,298 --> 01:03:41,258
It's like, please stop.

991
01:03:41,258 --> 01:03:45,450
You will be kicked out of there, called aggressive, told you're not,

992
01:03:45,450 --> 01:03:51,575
accepting responsibility, you don't accept feedback, you cannot do that.

993
01:03:52,150 --> 01:03:54,172
You can't advocate for yourself.

994
01:03:54,172 --> 01:04:03,099
And I mean, let's be honest, the Coco thing, like she's 19, she's raised by two very
strong parents.

995
01:04:03,119 --> 01:04:05,521
She was beyond respectable.

996
01:04:05,521 --> 01:04:13,808
So like the thing is, what they want us to do is ignore our natural humanness to be upset,
to be angry.

997
01:04:13,808 --> 01:04:17,751
So then the white woman who did wrong, she could do all the crying, the tennis player.

998
01:04:17,751 --> 01:04:18,792
I don't even know who she was.

999
01:04:18,792 --> 01:04:20,574
And she got beat rightfully so.

1000
01:04:20,574 --> 01:04:21,368
But she was

1001
01:04:21,368 --> 01:04:24,639
doing dirty tactics by the way, game.

1002
01:04:24,639 --> 01:04:30,902
So she's crying like, and they booed me and I haven't done anything wrong and blah, blah,
blah.

1003
01:04:30,902 --> 01:04:39,765
And I'm just like, this plays out in corporate, but in corporate, the cocoa would have got
reprimanded action plan.

1004
01:04:40,785 --> 01:04:41,466
Yeah.

1005
01:04:41,466 --> 01:04:43,156
Because the white woman's crying.

1006
01:04:43,394 --> 01:04:51,494
Yeah, but not only that, I think what was missed for me in that narrative was how long
Coco let it go before she did anything.

1007
01:04:51,494 --> 01:04:52,579
Baby

1008
01:04:53,144 --> 01:04:56,065
See, I think we're all saying, this is how you advocate for yourself.

1009
01:04:56,065 --> 01:05:03,747
But see, if she had said something the first time, we don't know, but she would have felt
better.

1010
01:05:03,747 --> 01:05:09,479
Because see, what happens is the first time it happened, I can imagine, if she's anything
like us.

1011
01:05:10,099 --> 01:05:13,140
I'm like, OK, all right now.

1012
01:05:13,140 --> 01:05:15,221
I see you trying to play in my face.

1013
01:05:15,221 --> 01:05:16,551
Now I got this feeling.

1014
01:05:16,551 --> 01:05:18,582
Now I'm feeling away, right?

1015
01:05:19,234 --> 01:05:30,869
meeting with you and I'm like, okay, don't try to be nice now because you don't see I'm
already but if I was able to without being called aggressive or crazy or retaliating for

1016
01:05:30,869 --> 01:05:41,044
somebody complain or whatever, if I was able to say, you know, I didn't really like how
you talked to me in that meeting, you know, is there something going on between now see in

1017
01:05:41,044 --> 01:05:42,884
target you couldn't do that.

1018
01:05:43,525 --> 01:05:46,486
Or like, you know, confronting somebody.

1019
01:05:46,702 --> 01:05:52,286
But the point is that's why she had to wait till it was just so egregious.

1020
01:05:52,486 --> 01:05:54,287
That's the problem.

1021
01:05:55,269 --> 01:06:01,157
White men and women, hey, come on to the, I mean, they're just going off on these reps all
the time.

1022
01:06:01,157 --> 01:06:09,439
I I grew up watching tennis and white people went off on the reps, on their rackets, doing
all kinds of crazy stuff.

1023
01:06:09,539 --> 01:06:13,652
But see, we wait so long and I think.

1024
01:06:13,774 --> 01:06:20,054
what I would tell my younger self is they don't treat you better when you don't stand up
for yourself.

1025
01:06:20,414 --> 01:06:24,754
But you should do what you need to do to survive this in the best way possible.

1026
01:06:24,754 --> 01:06:27,314
And if that's saying, I don't like, don't talk to me like that.

1027
01:06:27,314 --> 01:06:28,454
I don't like that.

1028
01:06:28,454 --> 01:06:30,174
Cause they don't get rid of you anyway.

1029
01:06:30,474 --> 01:06:35,934
You know, if you're already feeling like this, you already know the writing's on the wall.

1030
01:06:35,934 --> 01:06:43,224
And I think that that's where we don't tell fast enough each other.

1031
01:06:43,224 --> 01:06:52,542
people because I did become like the underground railroad starting at Target where people
would come to me and people like, you want corrective action call rather than cause that

1032
01:06:52,542 --> 01:06:55,464
girl gets off corrective action everywhere she goes.

1033
01:06:55,464 --> 01:07:01,769
Even at Invesco, was to basically they were trying to keep me on corrective action for the
five months, but they really didn't.

1034
01:07:01,769 --> 01:07:04,231
mean, I didn't have any negative feedback.

1035
01:07:04,231 --> 01:07:05,923
And I'd be like, I don't have any negative feedback.

1036
01:07:05,923 --> 01:07:06,653
Why am I still on it?

1037
01:07:06,653 --> 01:07:10,256
You'll be on it as long as you want to, as long as she wants to.

1038
01:07:10,256 --> 01:07:12,650
And I listened to the tapes.

1039
01:07:12,650 --> 01:07:16,152
Again, one of the tapes again, because I recorded their conversation.

1040
01:07:16,173 --> 01:07:19,635
And she talked to me like I was nothing.

1041
01:07:19,775 --> 01:07:27,680
And the HR person is on the call and Jeaneen Terrio is getting nasty like she always
did, a little nasty self.

1042
01:07:28,041 --> 01:07:35,426
And I said to the HR person, Rick, said, you're just going to sit there and let her talk
to me like I'm a dog.

1043
01:07:36,026 --> 01:07:39,088
And he said, she can talk to you however she wants to.

1044
01:07:39,088 --> 01:07:41,530
She's your boss.

1045
01:07:41,974 --> 01:07:43,474
And that's not true, ladies.

1046
01:07:43,474 --> 01:07:45,816
I want y'all to know right now.

1047
01:07:46,210 --> 01:07:50,376
I thought to myself and if record that red button didn't get brighter.

1048
01:07:50,376 --> 01:07:52,380
You know, was like, yeah, yeah, keep going.

1049
01:07:52,380 --> 01:07:53,461
Yeah, yeah.

1050
01:07:53,461 --> 01:07:58,388
Because I'm still trying to appeal to some sense of humanity.

1051
01:07:59,731 --> 01:08:02,484
And you just said, fuck it.

1052
01:08:04,032 --> 01:08:06,540
Now did the jury hear any of these tapes?

1053
01:08:06,540 --> 01:08:13,033
The judge wouldn't let us play it, but we did have them read transcripts sometimes.

1054
01:08:14,674 --> 01:08:15,734
Ohh which makes it worse.  They lied.

1055
01:08:15,734 --> 01:08:23,198
They had to read the transcripts and it had to be the first step was the transcripts from
the depositions.

1056
01:08:23,198 --> 01:08:32,852
So we had depositions and since it was COVID everything was via Zoom and I'm there,
you know, they can like, they don't have my face on there.

1057
01:08:32,910 --> 01:08:34,971
but it says Raslyn Wooten on there.

1058
01:08:34,971 --> 01:08:36,953
So they know I was listening.

1059
01:08:37,153 --> 01:08:42,747
And they lied so much during the deposition that we would have to have them read it in
court.

1060
01:08:42,747 --> 01:08:53,466
So for example, the head of HR called me, and they're so fucking dumb, called me in his office,
sends me an email and says, I think we should meet and talk about your situation.

1061
01:08:53,466 --> 01:08:54,817
So he schedules this meeting.

1062
01:08:54,817 --> 01:08:55,957
I go meet him in his office.

1063
01:08:55,957 --> 01:08:58,349
I record the conversation, of course.

1064
01:08:58,790 --> 01:08:59,320
And

1065
01:08:59,320 --> 01:09:03,970
Basically, he says, you know, you should take a year's salary.

1066
01:09:03,970 --> 01:09:05,775
You know, why would I do that?

1067
01:09:05,775 --> 01:09:06,566
I like my job.

1068
01:09:06,566 --> 01:09:07,417
I'm good at my job.

1069
01:09:07,417 --> 01:09:13,141
Like, why don't you just move me or let me report like to my business partners?

1070
01:09:13,141 --> 01:09:14,863
Like they said they'll do that.

1071
01:09:14,863 --> 01:09:17,024
Like, why won't you let me do that?

1072
01:09:17,105 --> 01:09:18,325
And that's the thing.

1073
01:09:18,325 --> 01:09:22,149
Like, we're never transferable the same way other people are.

1074
01:09:22,149 --> 01:09:24,020
Like, everybody that did me wrong.

1075
01:09:24,020 --> 01:09:25,151
got moved.

1076
01:09:25,592 --> 01:09:26,362
I got moved.

1077
01:09:26,362 --> 01:09:27,793
Black people are like, how do you do that?

1078
01:09:27,793 --> 01:09:29,224
No one gets moved.

1079
01:09:29,239 --> 01:09:34,750
Like it was like, you know, did crazy, you know, how'd you do that?

1080
01:09:34,750 --> 01:09:38,871
You know, like the secret, you know, meeting how, what tell us what the secret is?

1081
01:09:38,871 --> 01:09:40,341
And I'm like, girl, I don't know.

1082
01:09:40,341 --> 01:09:45,092
And I was in two places that they didn't even let black people be, you know, really.

1083
01:09:45,552 --> 01:09:50,413
And I said, when do I have to take, like, do I have a timeframe where I have to accept
this?

1084
01:09:50,413 --> 01:09:51,973
This was like June.

1085
01:09:52,774 --> 01:09:54,434
And I said, is there a timeframe?

1086
01:09:54,434 --> 01:09:55,950
And he says, no.

1087
01:09:55,950 --> 01:09:56,670
take your time.

1088
01:09:56,670 --> 01:09:59,851
And I said, well, what happens if I don't accept it?

1089
01:09:59,911 --> 01:10:03,991
And he said, then we're just going to continue to treat you the way that we are.

1090
01:10:03,991 --> 01:10:05,073
And you're going to get fired.

1091
01:10:05,073 --> 01:10:08,994
Basically, he's like, I would just hope you'd want to get in front of the inevitable.

1092
01:10:08,994 --> 01:10:11,434
You I said, well, I'm off a couple of days.

1093
01:10:11,434 --> 01:10:14,195
went to my, you know, God sister's wedding.

1094
01:10:14,195 --> 01:10:16,576
said, and when I come back, we can meet again.

1095
01:10:16,576 --> 01:10:19,377
So he set up another meeting for us to meet.

1096
01:10:19,377 --> 01:10:24,898
And in that meeting, you know, I really was like, I just don't understand why you're not

1097
01:10:24,898 --> 01:10:25,798
fucking with her.

1098
01:10:25,798 --> 01:10:29,130
Why are you bothering me and making me have to leave my job?

1099
01:10:29,130 --> 01:10:40,767
Like, you know, and by the time I had gotten back, I had filed an EEO claim because that
first meeting he basically said nothing was going to change.

1100
01:10:40,767 --> 01:10:42,648
And so I filed my EEO claim.

1101
01:10:42,648 --> 01:10:48,951
when I came for the second meeting, he was like, we understand you filed your EEO claim,
you know, and I said yes.

1102
01:10:48,992 --> 01:10:52,038
And he was like, we don't do EEO claims here.

1103
01:10:52,038 --> 01:10:52,974
And I was like,

1104
01:10:52,974 --> 01:10:54,946
That's not how that works, but okay.

1105
01:10:54,946 --> 01:10:56,977
You're not really supposed to be talking to me about that.

1106
01:10:56,977 --> 01:10:59,279
Like, this is like not even appropriate.

1107
01:10:59,279 --> 01:11:03,633
And he was like, well, let me tell you that we don't do EEO here.

1108
01:11:03,633 --> 01:11:06,184
So you need, you know, take that claim back.

1109
01:11:06,184 --> 01:11:08,717
Like he was really like threatening me.

1110
01:11:08,717 --> 01:11:10,688
And I'm recording the whole conversation.

1111
01:11:10,688 --> 01:11:16,226
And I'm just like, and I said, you know, you sit on these calls and you let her treat me
like a dog.

1112
01:11:16,226 --> 01:11:18,027
You know, you don't have any humanity.

1113
01:11:18,027 --> 01:11:19,997
And I was like, you don't care anything about me.

1114
01:11:19,997 --> 01:11:21,958
Of course, I'm going to file this EEO claim.

1115
01:11:21,958 --> 01:11:24,638
Like one thing to just be like, hey, you're on.

1116
01:11:24,638 --> 01:11:27,429
said, but you just letting her just shit on me.

1117
01:11:27,429 --> 01:11:29,320
And you just you're hyping her up.

1118
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:32,981
Like now this is my boss had performance problems.

1119
01:11:32,981 --> 01:11:36,672
She had had people complaining about her night and day.

1120
01:11:36,692 --> 01:11:39,573
So much so her boss, she was always like, I'm going to get fired.

1121
01:11:39,573 --> 01:11:44,428
I'm going to get fired because when white people were saying stuff to her.

1122
01:11:44,428 --> 01:11:48,561
They were telling my boss, you better straighten up and get your shit together.

1123
01:11:48,561 --> 01:11:52,243
But when she had to complain about me, she got sympathy.

1124
01:11:52,243 --> 01:11:53,944
She got power.

1125
01:11:53,944 --> 01:12:01,068
She got, you know, like it was a totally different dimension for her because she was
considered terrible at her job.

1126
01:12:01,068 --> 01:12:02,569
Nobody liked her.

1127
01:12:02,569 --> 01:12:10,814
You know, she was always coming to me to solve her problems as usual, because they can't
never do anything without, know, you have to be the fat black help.

1128
01:12:10,814 --> 01:12:11,754
You know.

1129
01:12:11,958 --> 01:12:17,080
you heard Jennifer Hudson to her Carrie, you know, and help her sort her shit out.

1130
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:22,622
That's, know, and that's really how I felt all the time.

1131
01:12:22,622 --> 01:12:32,185
Like, so when the marketing person said my boss had a problem, you guys were like, oh, you
know, tell my boss, she needs to get it together.

1132
01:12:32,185 --> 01:12:35,896
But if I have a problem with her, I'm the problem.

1133
01:12:35,896 --> 01:12:36,775
Right.

1134
01:12:36,782 --> 01:12:43,538
was so easy for them to believe that about me because all this white girl is being
attacked by this black woman.

1135
01:12:43,538 --> 01:12:52,176
That's basically what she claimed that the start of this was we went to New York for a
business trip and she's in New York.

1136
01:12:52,176 --> 01:12:56,890
And I had this area of business that she made me take and I was like, it's too much work.

1137
01:12:56,890 --> 01:12:58,011
I can't take this.

1138
01:12:58,011 --> 01:12:59,012
Like it's too much.

1139
01:12:59,012 --> 01:13:03,306
But I told me to set up time to meet with the head of this department and I did.

1140
01:13:03,394 --> 01:13:05,155
Then she makes me cancel the meeting.

1141
01:13:05,155 --> 01:13:08,147
Like I had gone with his assistant to like find time.

1142
01:13:08,147 --> 01:13:09,999
Then she makes me cancel it.

1143
01:13:09,999 --> 01:13:15,663
So cut to I'm in New York and she goes and meets with the guy without me.

1144
01:13:15,663 --> 01:13:21,367
So I said, Jeaneen, and I only heard about it because we were in a meeting and somebody
brought it up.

1145
01:13:21,367 --> 01:13:27,422
It wasn't even she was going to say, and mind you, this is an area that the head of
investment was a priority for him.

1146
01:13:27,422 --> 01:13:29,063
And he kept saying, when are you going to meet with him?

1147
01:13:29,063 --> 01:13:30,114
When are you going to meet with him?

1148
01:13:30,114 --> 01:13:31,114
And I'm like,

1149
01:13:31,584 --> 01:13:34,235
had a meeting with him, but Jeaneen made me cancel it.

1150
01:13:34,235 --> 01:13:36,625
I don't know why it ain't my business.

1151
01:13:36,625 --> 01:13:38,796
You you'd call her and talked to her about it.

1152
01:13:38,796 --> 01:13:40,116
So she meets with the guy.

1153
01:13:40,116 --> 01:13:44,038
So I said to her, we're in a cab on our way to dinner.

1154
01:13:44,038 --> 01:13:47,948
Why are you meeting with him in this my area of business?

1155
01:13:47,948 --> 01:13:50,139
And you've already met him before he was new.

1156
01:13:50,139 --> 01:13:52,320
So I said, I've never even met the guy.

1157
01:13:52,320 --> 01:13:55,641
I said, and you embarrassed me, me cancel this meeting.

1158
01:13:55,641 --> 01:13:58,142
said, when I, she's like, well, he's not ready yet.

1159
01:13:58,142 --> 01:14:00,142
You know, they're not ready for PR yet.

1160
01:14:00,142 --> 01:14:05,182
I said, but I should have at least introduced myself because when he's ready, I'm his
publicist.

1161
01:14:05,182 --> 01:14:11,522
And because the head of investments is telling me you have to meet him, I'm asking you to
please go meet with him, find out what needs to be done.

1162
01:14:11,522 --> 01:14:15,242
I said, you're making it seem like I'm not doing my job.

1163
01:14:15,422 --> 01:14:16,722
I know, I'm sorry.

1164
01:14:16,722 --> 01:14:18,282
I don't know why I did that.

1165
01:14:18,582 --> 01:14:23,462
So I told her, was like, you do this all the time to me and it undermines me.

1166
01:14:23,462 --> 01:14:24,842
said, cause here's what happens.

1167
01:14:24,842 --> 01:14:27,602
You meet with the people cause you want to be the one.

1168
01:14:27,602 --> 01:14:28,344
Fine.

1169
01:14:28,344 --> 01:14:31,186
I said, but then you try to help them or work with them.

1170
01:14:31,186 --> 01:14:32,566
They don't want to work with you.

1171
01:14:32,566 --> 01:14:33,687
It doesn't work out.

1172
01:14:33,687 --> 01:14:36,749
And then you kick it down to me or you drop the ball.

1173
01:14:36,749 --> 01:14:38,500
You don't do, then you kick it to me.

1174
01:14:38,500 --> 01:14:47,325
I have to spend my first part of building relationship with them, fixing what you broke
and trying to develop trust in them that's been broken.

1175
01:14:47,325 --> 01:14:50,446
So now my task is even harder.

1176
01:14:51,147 --> 01:14:56,350
I'm already a black woman in this all white Southern investment firm.

1177
01:14:56,534 --> 01:14:58,694
is already hard for me.

1178
01:14:58,775 --> 01:15:00,515
You are supposed to be my boss.

1179
01:15:00,515 --> 01:15:09,338
You're supposed to protect me and pave the way for me, but you just keep leaving me like,
you know, plots of shit to step in over and over again.

1180
01:15:09,338 --> 01:15:11,498
And then you're like, Ras, you smell, what's up?

1181
01:15:11,498 --> 01:15:15,079
Because you keep leaving me piles of shit to step in.

1182
01:15:15,539 --> 01:15:19,120
So she's like, I'm sorry, like, I didn't know you felt that way, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1183
01:15:19,120 --> 01:15:23,342
And I was like, yeah, well, I've told you this several times, but you don't listen to me.

1184
01:15:23,342 --> 01:15:24,558
But whatever.

1185
01:15:24,558 --> 01:15:31,938
is that if you are going to keep meeting with him, then you should support that team
because you're only going to keep making me look bad.

1186
01:15:31,938 --> 01:15:35,438
So we get out of the cab and she's upset.

1187
01:15:35,438 --> 01:15:40,258
We get there and she goes, you know, I don't want to have dinner with you anymore.

1188
01:15:40,898 --> 01:15:42,618
And mind you, this is what she did.

1189
01:15:42,618 --> 01:15:44,958
I know this sounds small, but this was a little tactic.

1190
01:15:44,958 --> 01:15:49,070
Before I come into town, she'd say, let's go to dinner Tuesday night.

1191
01:15:49,070 --> 01:15:50,120
for the sake of discussion.

1192
01:15:50,120 --> 01:15:51,692
So I have tons of friends in New York.

1193
01:15:51,692 --> 01:15:54,876
So I'd be like, all right, y'all, I'm going to dinner with my boss Tuesday night.

1194
01:15:54,876 --> 01:15:56,917
Let's go to dinner Wednesday night.

1195
01:15:56,917 --> 01:16:01,111
And then my boss would get, I'd get there Monday, Tuesday she canceled.

1196
01:16:01,111 --> 01:16:02,953
And like she'd say, what do you have going on?

1197
01:16:02,953 --> 01:16:05,646
And I'd say, well, I have dinner with my friends on Wednesday.

1198
01:16:05,646 --> 01:16:09,479
So she canceled on Tuesday and make me change my plans on Wednesday.

1199
01:16:09,479 --> 01:16:15,014
So what I get slick is I would just tell her I have plans Wednesday with my friends and I
would really have them, know, on other days.

1200
01:16:15,128 --> 01:16:18,240
Cause she would do it to me every time to try to sabotage me.

1201
01:16:18,240 --> 01:16:27,306
and she would, like, if I said I had dinner with my friends, you know, Thursday, my last
day, she do this to me until Thursday and I learned it.

1202
01:16:27,687 --> 01:16:31,119
So she says to me, I don't want to have dinner anymore.

1203
01:16:31,119 --> 01:16:36,543
And I'm thinking, cool, cause this time I actually did have plans that she made me cancel.

1204
01:16:36,543 --> 01:16:38,755
Cause this was like my last night.

1205
01:16:38,995 --> 01:16:41,017
So I was like, Oh, bye.

1206
01:16:41,017 --> 01:16:42,388
So I call my friends.

1207
01:16:42,388 --> 01:16:42,990
I'm like,

1208
01:16:42,990 --> 01:16:46,053
come eat, lust me, they come scoot me, we go have dinner.

1209
01:16:46,053 --> 01:16:49,796
Then she texted me and she was like, I feel attacked.

1210
01:16:49,796 --> 01:16:54,130
You were disrespectful to me, like all this crazy stuff.

1211
01:16:54,130 --> 01:16:56,592
And I was like, it's like, feel attacked.

1212
01:16:56,592 --> 01:17:00,745
But I said to her, I did not attack you, period.

1213
01:17:00,745 --> 01:17:06,490
I explained to you how your management style is negatively impacting the business.

1214
01:17:06,956 --> 01:17:13,292
I said, the whole point of us going to dinner was to talk about things that are working
and things that aren't working.

1215
01:17:13,292 --> 01:17:21,239
I have the professional right to share with you how your actions are making me feel or
whatever the case may be.

1216
01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:25,786
So she writes back, okay, well, shall I come back and then we just go to dinner?

1217
01:17:25,786 --> 01:17:28,086
So I said, I'm already gone.

1218
01:17:28,086 --> 01:17:29,378
It's already ruined.

1219
01:17:29,378 --> 01:17:30,469
Just forget it.

1220
01:17:30,469 --> 01:17:31,950
So when I get back,

1221
01:17:31,950 --> 01:17:32,630
to work.

1222
01:17:32,630 --> 01:17:38,070
She calls a meeting with me and is like, I just want you to know that I didn't appreciate
like she goes back into it.

1223
01:17:38,070 --> 01:17:40,890
She tells HR that I attacked her.

1224
01:17:40,890 --> 01:17:43,710
I was disrespectful to her.

1225
01:17:43,710 --> 01:17:48,390
And I said to HR, if I had attacked her, I said we were in a cab.

1226
01:17:48,390 --> 01:17:57,910
The reason why I had that conversation in the cab was because if I was attacked, and you
think they let me beat up a white woman in the cab or attack her, I would have pulled over

1227
01:17:57,910 --> 01:18:01,170
and been like, hey, hey, hey, enough, enough.

1228
01:18:01,240 --> 01:18:04,052
I said I did not attack her and she's lying.

1229
01:18:04,052 --> 01:18:05,342
And that started it.

1230
01:18:05,342 --> 01:18:06,493
That was it.

1231
01:18:06,493 --> 01:18:11,636
After that, when she called me, she said, I don't know how I'm going to be able to move
forward from this.

1232
01:18:11,636 --> 01:18:14,677
I said, well, it happened on Thursday, today's Tuesday.

1233
01:18:14,677 --> 01:18:15,228
I'm at work.

1234
01:18:15,228 --> 01:18:16,628
I've obviously moved on from it.

1235
01:18:16,628 --> 01:18:17,659
I said, I'm used to it.

1236
01:18:17,659 --> 01:18:19,240
This is how you do me.

1237
01:18:19,320 --> 01:18:21,621
And after that, it was over.

1238
01:18:21,621 --> 01:18:28,024
But I think that what I noticed about her was the sabotage moves.

1239
01:18:28,025 --> 01:18:30,506
You know, she'd say one thing to me,

1240
01:18:30,656 --> 01:18:33,318
over the phone and something different in email.

1241
01:18:33,318 --> 01:18:35,869
And it took me a second to register it.

1242
01:18:35,869 --> 01:18:42,413
So she'd say, you know, Felicia, I know we said we were going to go to Beyonce tonight,
but we're just not going to do it.

1243
01:18:42,413 --> 01:18:43,033
not in the budget.

1244
01:18:43,033 --> 01:18:44,154
It's not something we can do.

1245
01:18:44,154 --> 01:18:45,374
So don't worry about it.

1246
01:18:45,374 --> 01:18:48,406
You don't have to go pick up the tickets because I've canceled it.

1247
01:18:48,406 --> 01:18:53,652
The next day, she'd be like, I'm so disappointed, Felicia.

1248
01:18:53,652 --> 01:18:57,341
We were all waiting to go to Beyonce and you didn't go pick up the tickets.

1249
01:18:57,341 --> 01:18:59,102
But she'd be saying this in email.

1250
01:19:01,208 --> 01:19:05,793
And then I'd be like, but you told me yesterday at 7 p.m.

1251
01:19:05,793 --> 01:19:08,767
that we weren't gonna go and not to pick up the tickets.

1252
01:19:08,767 --> 01:19:10,228
That's why I didn't.

1253
01:19:10,348 --> 01:19:11,239
Are you okay?

1254
01:19:11,239 --> 01:19:13,031
Like I'd say stuff like that.

1255
01:19:13,532 --> 01:19:15,598
I'd be like, this is, yeah.

1256
01:19:15,598 --> 01:19:16,450
That's the one.

1257
01:19:16,450 --> 01:19:17,162
Are you okay?

1258
01:19:17,162 --> 01:19:18,664
I want to point that out.

1259
01:19:20,856 --> 01:19:21,126
Yeah.

1260
01:19:21,126 --> 01:19:24,607
Then she called me on the phone and say, you're right.

1261
01:19:24,607 --> 01:19:25,517
I totally forgot.

1262
01:19:25,517 --> 01:19:35,730
I don't know what's wrong with me, but all we'd have in the exchange is her saying that I
didn't do something or they're thinking I'm pretending like I wasn't like we didn't have

1263
01:19:35,730 --> 01:19:36,441
this conversation.

1264
01:19:36,441 --> 01:19:38,991
Like me being like, you did, that's not what you said to me.

1265
01:19:38,991 --> 01:19:40,752
So it's her word against mine.

1266
01:19:40,752 --> 01:19:43,953
because she did respond to the, you okay?

1267
01:19:43,953 --> 01:19:46,233
Then saying, Hey, I messed up.

1268
01:19:46,233 --> 01:19:47,164
I wouldn't have that.

1269
01:19:47,164 --> 01:19:48,854
I would look crazy.

1270
01:19:49,838 --> 01:19:52,660
was thinking, she doing this on purpose or is the girl nuts?

1271
01:19:52,660 --> 01:19:54,071
No, she's doing it on purpose.

1272
01:19:54,071 --> 01:20:03,259
And so that's what I've coached my clients to then say if they pick up the phone and I've
coached them to record it according on the state they're in.

1273
01:20:03,259 --> 01:20:13,287
I've also coached them that afterwards, I want you now to send a recap because in court
what you'll have is the timestamp on the call on the phone because it's cell phone.

1274
01:20:13,287 --> 01:20:19,792
And then you recap, say at that same letter, thank you so much for picking up the phone
and talking through this.

1275
01:20:19,792 --> 01:20:21,894
I appreciate your apology.

1276
01:20:22,264 --> 01:20:23,588
Blah, blah, right?

1277
01:20:23,588 --> 01:20:25,127
And then send that.

1278
01:20:25,538 --> 01:20:32,556
Yeah, but not send that print that line your, you know, personal thing.

1279
01:20:32,556 --> 01:20:43,849
I mean, those are the kinds of things that if I hadn't had the amount of paperwork that I
did because that HR guy said in the deposition, I've never been to his office.

1280
01:20:43,849 --> 01:20:47,232
He never set up time and met with me and he'd never talked to me.

1281
01:20:51,086 --> 01:20:55,810
So we had all this stuff transcribed and my attorney said, okay, can you read this?

1282
01:20:56,110 --> 01:20:58,833
And he had to read the conversation we had in his office.

1283
01:20:58,833 --> 01:21:00,034
He said, where did you get this?

1284
01:21:00,034 --> 01:21:02,536
He said, Razzle and recorded the conversations.

1285
01:21:02,536 --> 01:21:08,581
Had I not had those recorded conversations, and I also had the email he sent me, let's
talk about what's going on.

1286
01:21:08,581 --> 01:21:10,482
And I had the meeting invites.

1287
01:21:10,623 --> 01:21:14,382
But if I hadn't had that, it's his work, it's mine.

1288
01:21:14,382 --> 01:21:15,502
Yeah.

1289
01:21:15,882 --> 01:21:18,342
Documentation beats conversation.

1290
01:21:18,722 --> 01:21:32,722
And if you listen to this show, I say that so many times, but I hope this is just the real
life example for you that if you are documenting and I mean documenting the good times,

1291
01:21:33,022 --> 01:21:42,322
because the documenting the good times is when they're pouring all the accolades, like
when you first start and you're the pet and you're great and all that goes in the file.

1292
01:21:42,710 --> 01:21:55,455
And not only that, I also had, which the other attorney was like, I had all my business
firms like, this is the best, you're the best, Brad, thank you so much.

1293
01:21:55,455 --> 01:21:56,076
my God.

1294
01:21:56,076 --> 01:22:00,998
We just got this $200 million client call us because they saw us on Bloomberg TV.

1295
01:22:00,998 --> 01:22:02,398
I had all that.

1296
01:22:03,419 --> 01:22:11,201
You know, the people on the jury, like, you know, had to think to themselves, do I even
have 50 emails of people saying how great I am?

1297
01:22:11,201 --> 01:22:12,318
Exactly.

1298
01:22:12,694 --> 01:22:22,167
And, you know, I would solicit that, you know, my business partners, my, these business
partners at Invesco, I didn't have to solicit that because they were just so sweet to me.

1299
01:22:22,167 --> 01:22:24,217
And I will be honest with you.

1300
01:22:24,298 --> 01:22:31,780
They told Invesco that if they try to call them on the stand, that they're going to tell
the truth and it's not going to bode well for Invesco.

1301
01:22:31,780 --> 01:22:38,592
So when I was at trial, they had no one to cooperate that I didn't have a good
performance.

1302
01:22:38,766 --> 01:22:39,622
Right.

1303
01:22:39,756 --> 01:22:48,791
Also, when I went out on my own, they all sent emails to their people they knew might need
a publicist.

1304
01:22:48,911 --> 01:22:52,593
When they left, they would pay me to their resumes.

1305
01:22:52,854 --> 01:23:02,779
One of my clients I have now is because of someone at Invesco sent them to me and said,
she's the best publicist we've ever had.

1306
01:23:02,919 --> 01:23:07,754
And so I will say that the white men there

1307
01:23:07,754 --> 01:23:08,610
Mm-hmm.

1308
01:23:08,610 --> 01:23:09,530
really tried.

1309
01:23:09,530 --> 01:23:11,381
mean, I think they did what they could do.

1310
01:23:11,381 --> 01:23:16,353
And I think by saying if you call us on the stand, you're not going to like what you hear.

1311
01:23:17,194 --> 01:23:26,258
Was to me like, you know, anything I'm mad at them about, like the guy who, you know, kept
calling me Roslyn and told me Raslyn wasn't sophisticated.

1312
01:23:26,258 --> 01:23:27,378
I'm mad at him.

1313
01:23:27,378 --> 01:23:31,340
But, you know, that was part of my lawsuit, too.

1314
01:23:31,340 --> 01:23:33,441
I, know, he kept calling me Roslyn.

1315
01:23:33,441 --> 01:23:34,711
And I said, it's Raslyn.

1316
01:23:34,711 --> 01:23:36,738
He said, I know what it is.

1317
01:23:36,738 --> 01:23:39,461
that name is just not sophisticated enough.

1318
01:23:39,883 --> 01:23:41,524
I said, says who?

1319
01:23:41,625 --> 01:23:45,551
I said, well, my dad's name is Ras and my name is Ras Lynn.

1320
01:23:45,551 --> 01:23:47,052
I'm a junior.

1321
01:23:47,333 --> 01:23:50,167
And I said, so, I mean, and why is that any of your business?

1322
01:23:50,167 --> 01:23:52,360
He said, I said, are you saying my name is ghetto?

1323
01:23:52,360 --> 01:23:53,802
And he said, yeah.

1324
01:23:54,488 --> 01:23:57,806
Girl, at oh lord have mercy, listen.

1325
01:23:57,806 --> 01:24:02,028
This looks so crazy, a white woman, Carolyn Gibbs, was there when he said it.

1326
01:24:02,028 --> 01:24:07,270
When she got the polls for that, she said she didn't remember, she didn't hear.

1327
01:24:07,270 --> 01:24:11,182
And she literally was like, shut up, stop it, to him.

1328
01:24:11,182 --> 01:24:13,753
Like was a group of people standing there when he said it.

1329
01:24:13,753 --> 01:24:21,956
When she got to her deposition, she said she didn't remember, she didn't, you know, and
everyone said, Carolyn's gonna tell the truth.

1330
01:24:21,956 --> 01:24:23,377
She's an advocate for women.

1331
01:24:23,377 --> 01:24:25,698
No, she's an advocate for whiteness.

1332
01:24:25,698 --> 01:24:27,298
we get for white women.

1333
01:24:27,298 --> 01:24:31,534
Carolyn got on that stand and loved.

1334
01:24:31,692 --> 01:24:34,044
Yeah, wow.

1335
01:24:34,226 --> 01:24:42,216
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, but I am glad you're on the other side.

1336
01:24:42,522 --> 01:24:43,528
OK.

1337
01:24:43,528 --> 01:24:45,109
Come back next week for part two.

1338
01:24:45,109 --> 01:24:50,621
We're going to finish out Rosalyn's story and corporate and also hear about her new
venture.

1339
01:24:50,621 --> 01:24:56,694
Well guys, that's a wrap on another great episode of the Career Management Podcast for
Black Women.

1340
01:24:56,694 --> 01:24:58,765
Yes, girl, this show is just for you.

1341
01:24:58,765 --> 01:25:09,410
We're here to tell you how to play that chessboard at work, So subscribe, comment, like,
follow us on social media at TrillinBA Show.

1342
01:25:09,410 --> 01:25:10,390
Listen,

1343
01:25:10,494 --> 01:25:21,383
Every time you tell one of your friends, you share this information, you share this
podcast, it helps us to grow and make even more dope content just for you.

1344
01:25:21,383 --> 01:25:24,526
Unapologetically, that's why we're here.

1345
01:25:24,566 --> 01:25:37,597
Now, if you are facing a workplace dilemma, such as a performance improvement plan, or
you're not able to secure your promotion and raise that you have worked for and you have

1346
01:25:37,597 --> 01:25:38,658
deserved,

1347
01:25:38,658 --> 01:25:44,101
Basically, if these people are play playing in your face, we are here to help.

1348
01:25:44,101 --> 01:25:54,326
Go to Trillinba.com slash coaching to schedule a one time, one-on-one call to workshop
your specific dilemma with me.

1349
01:25:54,447 --> 01:26:03,171
Or schedule a consult to get more information about the consulting packages that I do
offer on a longer term basis.

1350
01:26:03,392 --> 01:26:07,744
As always, you can reach out to us with your listener letters and your questions.

1351
01:26:07,744 --> 01:26:10,417
at trillmba.com.

1352
01:26:10,417 --> 01:26:14,961
Until next time guys, focus on your best possible outcome.

1353
01:26:14,961 --> 01:26:16,903
Ask for help when you need it.

1354
01:26:16,903 --> 01:26:19,085
Please, please, please ask for help.

1355
01:26:19,085 --> 01:26:21,768
And as always, keep it true.

1356
01:26:21,768 --> 01:26:23,429
I'll see y'all next week.

