I get this email from Michael Baisden's manager, Pam, and she says, I feel like Target doesn't like black people.
The way that your boss yelled at you, she said, it was the worst thing I've ever seen.
I was humiliated for you.
Hey guys, Felicia here.
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,
I'm Target.
told y'all.
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
quiet cash registers.
Like meeting without Sharpton is supposed to fix the narrative.
Whatever.
But let me keep it real with you.
I worked in Minnesota and that Minnesota Nights culture
ain't nothing nice about it.
It's passive aggressive, covert, and deeply racist in ways that are very hard to prove, but it's always felt.
And if you're a black woman in corporate in Minnesota, woo child, the emotional toll is next level.
And here's the pattern, especially at Target, they recruit.
brilliant black women with MBAs and master's degrees and PhDs from top tier schools.
Then they put them under white women who barely made it out of undergrad at the University of Minnesota.
And these managers have no cultural awareness.
They have no black friends and they have a whole lot of unchecked insecurity.
And the moment they feel threatened,
The micro-aggressions start, the sabotage begins, and when the black woman stands up for herself, y'all already know.
HR gets called, white woman tears are fired, and suddenly this black woman is the aggressor.
Let's be clear, Target loves us spending money in its stores, but it clearly doesn't love us working in its corporate headquarters.
thus the rollback of DEI, supposedly as if that really helped us and not mostly the white women that work there.
But that's why today's replay hits so hard and is so on time once again.
In this season eight episode, I sat down with Raslyn Wooten, a brilliant communication strategist and ex-Target employee.
She survived not one and not two, but three corrective action plans.
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.
So while Target scrambles to clean up their image, let's revisit the truth behind the Red Bull's eye.
This is Surviving Target, how this ex-employee beat three corrective action plans.
Roll that tape, Chris.
Welcome to the Trill MBA Show, the career management podcast teaching black women how to become unstoppable at work.
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.
Happy Sunday, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
I am so excited.
I have a badass, absolute badass guest today.
And today is all about giving you hope of getting to the other side of corporate crazy.
Because when Maya Angelou said, still I rise,
This is what she meant and you're going to learn about it today.
So I want to welcome to the show, Raslyn C.
Wooten.
Let me tell you, let me tell you about Raslyn.
Before we jump into this, this is going to be a dope ass conversation.
Raslyn is the owner of Bond and Trade Communications.
She is a publicist extraordinaire.
Not only is she a publicist, she's a creative.
She's a writer.
She's an image consultant.
Raslyn is golden brained, which means she's both left analytical and right creative brained.
She's built a reputation for a deep understanding of the financial, fintech, energy, professional and lifestyle industries.
She's also well known for designing award winning communication campaigns that are bold, insightful brand experiences.
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
Public Relations, now Bond and Trade Communications, LLC.
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.
WWD, Ebony, Essence, Vogue, InStyle, Harper's Bazaar, CityWire, Investment News, NYFW, Forbes, CNBC, Embarrassed.
Listen, just all the publications, if they publicize it, Raslyn is right there, okay?
And in her spare time, which is always fun, she travels, plays flag football, and she does all the restaurants.
Now listen, if you like to eat, that's an automatic friendship for me.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me, Felicia.
It is an honor to be here with you and your listeners.
And I'm just so excited to be here to talk to you and connect with you today.
So thank you.
Listen, I'm gonna give the folks a sneak peek.
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.
I'm gonna tell y'all exactly where to go to get the help that Raslyn has for us.
But before we get into that, I want you to know about this dynamic force that's out here and...
The accolades speak for themselves, but I want you in your own words to tell the people where you've been.
Tell them about this journey because baby, you have been in the valleys to the mountains back down, honey.
And I need people to understand, you know what it is and you also understand what it is to see the other side.
Yes, I do know what it is and I think it's unfortunate, right?
Because I have had a journey that has been painful, sad, debilitating in some ways.
I've had some wins.
I've had so many professional successes, like things that I've accomplished.
But I think in terms of the environments that I was in, I would consider myself having been abused.
Mm-hmm.
used, um gas lit, people tried to, you know, destroy my career in so many instances when I didn't have performance problems.
So that was always such a hard place for me to be.
You know, I was thinking about this.
So, right, my first issue, I think, at work
in a work setting was when I worked at I Heart Radio.
I was working in the media department.
So I worked at different radio stations in Washington, D.C.
And I used to have this professor at Howard that said, if you get into sales, that's where all the money is.
If you get into sales, could make some money, Brad, as you used to say.
And I go and I get into sales.
And I just remember like being the smart
person, you know, degree and all these things.
And the way you made money was by getting agency business.
And none of the black girls really had the big agency business.
They made you have to work for it.
So you're basically like pounding the pavement.
And I realize that's just how it goes.
But who got the business was so not based on a meritocracy.
they say things like, well, you're not ready to
you know, work with an agency and basically working with agencies is girl who's a media buyer buying for her agency, radio time.
Why would I be able to work with an agency?
And the girls that work with agencies made six figures immediately, you know?
Oh, my boss was very kind to me.
We're still cool.
We're still friends.
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.
Like,
I just have to work, work, work, work, work.
And then this girl is like sitting here with her legs crossed, not doing anything because she has agency business.
I used to think it was so unfair.
But then when I got into like corporate at Target, I remember feeling really good about the job.
Like I was the first black person that I know of who was in the communications department.
It was like 50 people when they had just reorg and then I was it, right?
internal, external speech writing just to give you an idea.
It was the whole of communications.
And I wanted to be on the speech writing team because I think I'm a writer.
And what happened was they said, you have such a personality, you're so fun and easy to get along with.
You're so smart.
You should be in public relations.
You should be on the external side.
That's not what I wanted.
I liked writing the speeches and doing, you know, I like to get in the weeds of stuff, you know.
So I get put in there and I'm like, I can do anything, but this isn't what I want to do.
But this is how they see you, you know, you dress nice.
you're always so put together.
You should be here.
So I'm there and I, my first project was the Target Harlem store opening and it was a big deal.
was there, you know, it had been 10 years in the making them trying to get this store in New York.
And we had just reorg.
So I'm just now getting in.
external relations.
And initially it was this white guy that was handling the PR for it.
So I get it and I get the PR plan and looking through it and I'm like, oh Lord, here we go.
They're going to have this media tour in the store with all the different media.
So New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and then they had the black media.
So the local community media and like, I think I put, you know,
I ended up putting a black enterprise on the thing, know, stuff like the Ebony Essence, whoever wanted to come.
They were going to have a segregated media tour.
So the white media or the mainstream media got to go with the executive vice president and walk through the store.
know, the executive vice president starts head is the head of real estate.
He had the global vision for term.
He's going to tell you where are we going next?
What are our plans?
How do we see ourselves?
And the black media was going to go with the SVP of the Eastern region, who was this fabulous, wonderful black guy.
But he could only really talk about the stores that he oversaw in the Eastern region.
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?
Why is this segregated at the same time?
So it wasn't a different time.
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.
And I'm like, this can't work.
That was the first time I knew I was going to have problems with my boss.
And my boss, you know, she hired me and I didn't want to go be under her again.
I already had a couple of months knowing this is not, you know, and she
looked at me like I was crazy and I was like, why can't we just have one media tour?
It's not even that many people.
And they both do it.
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.
it's just everyone gets the big picture and everyone liked my idea of my boss.
She basically said I was being a troublemaker.
I told her, my job is to protect the company as a publicist.
Like, why would I let you do that and get terrible backlash?
Then I had said they'd never done black media before and they really wanted a big opening.
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?
He said, we usually don't support these big box stores because they don't support the community.
They take away jobs.
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.
The whole thing is we want to be a good neighbor.
And so he goes on the show.
He invites Michael Baisden into the community opening.
Michael says, hey, I got something to do, but you know what?
I'll change my flight and I will come and I want to support you.
He talks about it on his show.
It's this, you know, we three million listeners at the time.
It was just a big good deal.
Mm hmm.
I'm to the store opening day.
Michael Baisden is there.
There's lines six o'clock in the morning of people trying to get his autograph, trying to see the store.
We weren't even expecting this turnout.
It was like success.
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.
Michael says, okay, my boss, the white woman, Jen, Jen Glass, pulls me aside and she says, Michael Baisden cannot be behind the ribbon.
And I'm like, why?
You know, He invited him, I didn't ask.
He said, you have to tell him this is not about him.
I said, no, but we carry his book in the store.
People came to get the book signing.
There's a synergy here.
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.
Look how they treated me.
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.
He said, this is my store.
They can do what I want.
I said, well, you tell her that because I don't want it.
I can't, you know.
Right.
You know how that goes right?
I said you tell her.
So he goes and he tells her and she glares at me.
What do I have to do with it?
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?
He
told you, he's above your bar.
I don't have anything to do with this.
I told him what you said.
I didn't invite the man.
I don't even have anything to do with this.
Long story short, I get back to Minnesota and I'm on corrective action.
I'm basically accused of being insubordinate, disloyal.
Even though I did what she asked me to do, I get this email from Michael Baisden's manager, Pam, and she says,
I feel like Target doesn't like black people.
The way that your boss yelled at you, she said, it was the worst thing I've ever seen.
I was humiliated for you.
And that makes me feel like Target doesn't like black people.
Of course, I later on had to show that to HR, you know, and I'm under corrective action.
I've only been there six months and I'm on corrective action.
And so I know and will help me.
My HR person's young, you know, white girls, well you know, and I'm like,
Now the VP of my department has called this meeting, said what a great job I did.
It was the second highest store sales in Target history.
We had touched media they had never thought of.
Our grand opening was a success.
Red carpet, everything amazing.
She says, and I want to thank Raslyn, everyone's great job.
I'm on Corrective Action.
Only a target.
uh
That's an innovation girl.
You're going to stand and ovate me?
And then tell me my performance is bad.
And I'm on a PIP
We were like, Raslyn amazing, we've heard nothing but great, and I'm on a PIP.
How do you Reconcile that.
This is why I wanted you on the show because there is a black woman who is going to listen.
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.
You're not crazy.
But I thought, like, I'll be honest with you.
I think because I went to an HBCU, no shade to you PWI Black women, I don't think of race first.
I did have this chance, this time to be who I am.
unlike you wasn't because you were Black.
Your teacher didn't call on you, wasn't because you were Black.
She Black too.
She just don't want to hear what you have to say.
Them girls don't want to be your friend because they think you're dusty.
That dude don't want to date you.
You ain't his type.
Wasn't because you were black.
So I don't even think that at first.
I'm just like, these people are fucking nuts.
Or maybe I missed something, right?
So anyway, one thing I can do is write an action plan, honey.
But now all of a sudden I have performance problems that they're pulling out of nowhere.
And one of them was I couldn't write a press release.
That's it, first of all.
OK, you could say a lot of things about me, but not that I can't write.
So what was happening was I write a press release.
Let's say you're my boss, Felicia.
I send it.
You correct it.
You send it back to me.
I accept your edits because I'm not about to be arguing with nobody.
But then I send it to your boss.
She going to edit it back to what I said because I knew what I was saying in the first place.
Give it back to me.
I have to accept her edits.
So that means what my boss edited got edited, correct?
Right
Then we send it up to her boss, to her boss, and her boss again.
And I accept all these edits.
It oftentimes gets re-backed to what I said it was in the first place.
They have on there that I have, you know, my press releases are always edited.
So when I get to HR, I'm said, her press releases are edited.
And so is her bosses, and so is the director, and so is the VP, because the SVP was editing the VP.
I said, what I said was, don't I write it and send you right to the SVP?
Cause that's who has the final say so.
And that's who I need to learn.
No, you have a performance problem.
Girl, I wrote an action plan so cold.
I tell you, if I don't do nothing else, honey, I can write an action plan.
And I made it so my boss had to sign it every week to say that I met expectations.
And I had to initial that she was available to help me.
when I needed it because this is a too.
He signs it for three weeks to get on the fourth week.
You haven't met expectations.
You're on your final 30 days.
How?
You don't sign down three weeks.
Now we're going to kick it up to the director of HR in this department because y'all playing with my face.
Kick it up to her.
She's like, but you signed down three weeks.
Now you're saying she didn't meet it.
How didn't she meet expectations?
She just didn't meet expectations.
The HR person was like, Raslyn, can you excuse us?
Long story short, Raslyn was not put on her final 30 days.
I was kind of like being watched, but my boss was already in trouble because now everybody's watching you.
Now you can't really do what you were trying to do to me.
And it was like so many other things had happened during this time.
Now, mind you, this is just me and my boss.
but all the other people who were her friends were also trying to sabotage me at the same time.
So they would do things like, Lacia Ward was the head of the Target Foundation at the time.
That was just, think that was her title.
She asked me to do something, send some research, something like that.
And another woman, Amy, came and told me, what are you doing?
And I said, Laysha asked me for this information.
I'm just putting it together.
She said, you don't have to do anything for that bitch.
I said, you tell her that.
So another coworker overheard her say that and she was like, you better do it anyway because just do it.
I said, you thought I wasn't gonna do it?
Yeah, because I know Laysha.
So I did it and I was like, so when all this was done, I told everything everybody did to me, including that.
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.
I just didn't say I sent it.
Laisha didn't say nothing.
I sent it.
So I said, actually I sent it, but.
You told me don't send it to that bitch.
And those were your words.
She's shocked.
HR makes her apologize to me, apologize to Laysha because they told her.
It became this, what?
She didn't get fired.
All these things like I had daggers coming, coming, coming, but I'm still performing.
There was nothing wrong with my performance and there was nothing that they can say about it.
So they put me on leave.
and they move me, they move that, my boss, to distribution, which we all know that's not promotion.
And now they put me on a leave and then they move me to another department.
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.
And I didn't have a performance problem.
And so I get down to events now.
I have another Amy, Amy Racer, who is just
bothering me every chance she gets.
I think the breaking point at Target for me was I think working with her.
We had a tornado in Minnesota on the black side of town, which is where I grew up and lived.
So I'm originally from Minnesota.
that's the end of that.
had to be like 11, 12,
Yeah, I was like, was there.
I remember that because I was working for a company that I can't name due to documents I signed.
But I was working there and I remember this tornado was bad on like in North Minnesota.
Yeah, North Minneapolis.
So I had to stay out of the work from home for a week because we didn't have power.
really didn't work.
I just was like it was hazard time.
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.
These are her words.
Shaniqua and, you know, Markita and, you know, they were, guess, being interviewed on the news about the tornado.
She said, Why do you live around them?
when I know you make enough money to live somewhere else.
And I said, what?
I mean, I'm in a conference room.
like, I just, what?
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.
I said, what do you want me to do about that?
She said, well, you are better than that.
I mean, what do want your son to get shot?
I'm not even playing.
So I said, what?
You know, I just.
What does that have to do with anything?
So she says, you don't make good decisions in your personal life.
I can see that by where you choose to live.
So I don't know how I can trust you to make business decisions here at Target.
Keep on coming.
So I said, and that's it.
And I'm going to HR.
So now I already know the director of HR.
I just go right to her.
Do do do do do do.
Like this shit is fucking nuts.
We had to have these meetings like with me and my boss and the director of HR.
And my boss was so out of line, the director was like this, like things she would say.
And she'd say, but Amy, that's none of your business where Raslyn lives.
I know, but I just know she can do better.
She's not like them.
So the head of HR was like, Razlitt, you go, Amy, you stay.
They ended up having to have, you know, whatever their tete-a-tete.
She had to go through like leadership training and a bunch of other shit.
get a new director, she's a guy.
She fucks with him.
So he kicks her off the team, moves her.
She doesn't get fired.
She's watching him.
She's talking about him like a dog.
He finds out about it.
She moves to another team.
But he, you know, and I get along now, she's gone.
So I report right to this director.
We get along great.
It's amazing.
He's like, you're the smartest person on this team.
He's like, what was Amy talking about?
So now we know she's been sabotaged me this whole time.
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.
Like you're fun to work with because I'm like, why?
all these people like acted funny with me.
They didn't even know me.
I'm in a new department like what she was talking about me.
She was down behind my back.
And so Dan takes me off corrective action.
Could be under this Jewish lady named Elizabeth who then reported to him.
We have this huge project.
Now, mind you, I have like a 20 million dollar budget and I wasn't even a manager.
When I went to this team, I got
demoted in title.
They demoted my title.
They kept my money, but they demoted me when they moved to the scene, even though they said they were wrong.
They made those people apologize to me.
They said the only way they can move me was to demote me.
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.
I already.
So I get under this Jewish woman, Elizabeth.
I saw her.
Between her and Dan, we had this huge project.
It was like a five million dollar project.
We do this branded content movie with Nia Long and Kristen Bell, like this big thing, red carpet, amazing, all this stuff.
We get other industry awards, more stuff.
And then they put someone between me and Elizabeth.
Mmm.
Mind you, I put back up to a senior specialist.
I get a 19 % raise because I found out this white guy that was like, had no experience and wasn't even a specialist.
He was making a copy of his W-2s on the copy machine and I saw how much he made.
I went to them and said, this nigga's making more money than me.
Right.
He's got a five hundred thousand dollar budget, I got a $20 million budget and he's making my money.
You guys nuts?
So even though I got a 19 % raise, it just put me where?
You should have been the whole time.
Exactly.
So now I got Melissa Champine, bully of the year in between me and Elizabeth.
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.
So now I'm up against somebody who is at our boss's house on the weekends.
Right.
She is punking me every chance she gets.
go to Elizabeth, who's now seeing how great I am.
She's been my boss.
I got a perfect review.
Performance review mmmhhh
And she says, well, you're just going to have to learn how to work with her.
I said, but she's bullying me and micromanaging me and she's being so disrespectful.
Well, there's nothing I can do about it.
I'm like, I can't, I said, I can't have another problem here.
Like I just, can't do it.
Like, and I know I think they thought I meant like, I can't have another problem.
I meant, I'm about to tear everything down here.
Now mind you, every time I got on corrective action, I told everybody.
So some of you, I'd like, I'm on corrective action.
So I don't know if I can do that, but you can ask my boss.
I don't have any autonomy here.
OH Raslyn,uuuhhh unnnn I'm on.
Corrective action.
You're corrective action
It made people think my bosses were crazy.
Yeah, I'm corrective action and I can't do it.
I'll ask her to do it because I realized that's how they get you because you're embarrassed.
You're ashamed.
You're humiliated.
Like how can I be the top of the top?
And I'm on a PIP.
So I just tell everybody.
So when Melissa comes, she goes to a meeting with me.
about black women trying to target this demographic.
They want to do this event.
And I was like, I don't think it's going to have the response you wanted to have.
But I still was tasked with doing the event.
I never said I'm not going to do this.
I just said black women don't really respond like this.
And, you know, it was this whole little
girls night in thing.
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.
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.
I don't have money to spend thousands of dollars on target clothes after that.
Right.
So I got called into the office and got told that I talk in meetings like my opinion is facts.
And I said, well, somebody asked me my opinion and I'm the person who would execute the event.
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
dollars worth of target clothes when we'd rather go to TJ Maxx or
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.
Like it doesn't even correlate to how we dress.
Like we will buy things at Target, but am I going to buy a wardrobe at Target?
Likely not.
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.
you know, what they thought they were going to get out of it.
And from now on, when I talk in meetings, I have to preface everything with as a focus group of one.
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.
*laughter*
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?
Like, is it my being punked?
And Melissa micromanaged and went to every meeting with me.
I'd say you have to ask Melissa.
She told me that when I give my opinion, you guys are too intimidated.
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.
I have to start my conversations with as a focus group of one.
And then I looked at Melissa, (Felicia: What did she do?) you know, mouth wide open.
(Felicia: Right) So of course, people say stuff to me like I'm under corrective action.
You're going to have ask Melissa, I don't know what I'm able to do here.
And I'm not allowed to really give an opinion.
I can only state facts and you guys don't have facts and I don't have facts.
So I don't really know I can contribute to this because you can't have your cake and eat it too. (Felicia: Right)
And so
I ended up getting off corrective action because I told HR a action plan was so cold that they hate me.
My action plan worked for them.
You know, hey, when I did this, were you happy with it?
OK, can you initial here?
They got to the point they just like, you did this.
To have me being the only one messed up around here because I didn't do anything and they did the fact.
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
say like, this girl is on it.
We give Raslyn a pass, we ain't got to worry about it.
Right.
And Elizabeth used to say, you know, if people don't want an honest answer, they shouldn't ask the question.
You know, like she supported you being honest and stuff.
Now I have this goofball.
you know, bothering me every day.
It just, was like, why would you put her in between us?
I went to the director and I was like, why would you do that? (Felicia: Yeah)
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.
And it was just like, they didn't care.
Like, I don't know why I expected them to care.
Like, I don't know why when I went to them, I honestly thought Dan would be like,
That's it.
Let me go talk to Melissa.
This cannot happen.
You are smart.
You are amazing.
Like she's the problem.
You reported to me, no problem.
You reported Elizabeth, no problem.
Yes, you had this problem with Amy on this team, but I had a problem with Amy on the team.
So I got rid of her.
So to me, that's the logical thing.
And it's like, I'm expecting common sense and logic to trump whiteness.
Nope. No mmmnnnnn No
There thing is to whiteness first.
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?
Can I do something differently?
Blah, blah.
And I'm telling you right now, it doesn't matter what you do.
Once that mindset is fixed on that team and that's how they operate, that's how they operate.
And you're not crazy.
Now you just have to figure out how to survive so you can move forward.
get the bullet points on your resume and get gone.
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.
Yeah, but it wasn't that easy.
I mean, if you lived there before, if you are having problems at Target, everybody at General Mills knows about it.
Everybody at 3M knows about it.
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.
It doesn't matter that it wasn't right or true.
It was really hard for me to find another role. (Felicia:Right)
I ended up getting fired there, not for performance.
They tried.
They think, you know, I will give them credit.
Three times they tried it.
But I ended up getting fired because someone says that I said that my boss and the director were having an affair.
Now, while I heard that, I didn't start that rumor and I was traveling.
I get back and I work from home on Fridays, the HR person who was black.
So talk about seat at the table.
He calls me and He tells me, can you come in today?
I said, no, I'm off today.
Like I'd been traveling for two weeks.
Like I need to spend time with my son.
Like, and I taught math at my son's school in the mornings on Fridays because I traveled so much.
had to give me something.
And I came in on Monday.
Like she pulls me in and was like, I heard you said this.
Some girl went there and told them that.
Why would she say that?
I said, ask her.
I said, someone had told me that, but I didn't start it.
I mean, I said the way that he allowed her to treat people, I wouldn't doubt it, but I didn't start it.
And I said, but I don't know if they're having an affair or not.
Like I'm not even here.
don't even, and I don't care.
Like everyone's having an affair at Target, who cares?
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.
Cause I was like, I mean, like at that
I was like, this is your best shot.
I mean, you lived in Minnesota.
There was nothing but
Rumors circulating through Target all day, every day.
That's what we're having coffee 50 times a day in that thing.
Yeah, it's a lot of white women.
um And before y'all come from me, not all white women are the same, but a lot of them are.
Let's just be honest.
There was lot of white women in their small town.
Yeah.
know, Wisconsin, you know, little northern towns.
They had never been around people like us.
No, and that was the thing.
The pattern I saw at Target with either my friends who worked there in the past, other black women I know that worked there.
The pattern is this.
You have to import the black talent most of the time.
Like you happen to be from there.
But the majority of the black people that worked at Target, they're not from Minnesota.
So they import these highly educated.
very much capable run circles around your I went to University of Minnesota.
I grew up here and Target is the company to work for.
It's just very much like Atlanta where Coke is the company to work for.
Right.
And so these white girls, they're from there.
They don't want to leave home.
They get married young if they get married, you know, at 25, because if not, you know, it's an existential crisis.
You 30 and you're not married for them.
Right.
But like
All know each other.
They went to elementary school, high school, junior high.
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.
And it's a thing.
So then you bring in these black women who run circles around them from outside of Minnesota.
When I tell you those white women's behavior in that company is atrocious, egregious, nonsensical and diabolical. Absolutely
Yeah, it's you know, shout out to the HR person that did the best she could for me and she called it out.
And I think she was just like, what is going on here?
Right.
And I think if I hadn't had the guts to bypass my HR business partner, like girl.
And I said, I am done with you.
I'm reporting you too.
OK, like everybody's
going down here.
Like if I'm going down, we all going down.
At first I was like, you said, what have I done wrong?
You know, I was, what can I do differently?
How?
And then I was like, you know what?
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.
And so for me, I just was like, if you think that this is going to be easy,
You got another thing coming.
Or like my mom said, you're to fuck with me.
You better bring a lunch because we're going to be here all day.
I know that's right.
All day long and we were there all day.
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.
You just got told to do it or you were going to get fired.
But I got apology after apology after apology after apology all day long because they were wrong.
And even when we went to mediation, like, you know, they were like, we're not here to talk about her performance.
Her performance was excellent.
Ain't that?
So we're here to talk about we don't like you.
You make us uncomfortable like you're doing too much.
And so we need to take a quick break.
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
The typical was 20, you got 400 and then your boss told you it was too much.
And so you had to bring it down the next year.
I was like, this is insanely insulting.
We're gonna talk about that when we come back from the break.
All right guys, we are back.
We are naming names.
We are being super trill, Raslyn Wooten.
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.
And this is why I wanted you on the show.
Well, one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show.
We're still gonna get to the resource you've become, but we've gotta do the part two now.
We talked about Target and your exit at Target.
So when you left Target, did you go to Invesco or did you have another job in between?
because I had done so much in fashion, like I had done all the Target fashion.
I was at New York Fashion Week.
I was doing stuff.
ended up being a stylist for movies. Oh cool!
So I took a break.
I was a stylist son for dear white people when they shot in Minnesota.
So that was a really good like break from corporate.
And I was just with a bunch of black people all day, Kiki and get yelled at, you know, production problems.
But it was just a different problems.
And it was
And like, I did something wrong there, I'd be like, okay, I'm sorry I own that.
You know, like, okay.
Like it was black direct.
Don't do that again.
You right, my bad.
Okay, all right, all right, you know.
Not, I'm going to put you on a PIP now, even though you've done everything right.
Fair enough.
You right.
My bad.
Yeah.
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.
Like, are you sure you want me in finance?
She's like, yes, your personality would be perfect for finance.
And she was actually right.
I did really well in finance, but I went in to US bank.
was so distraught from corporate that I would go in as a
employee.
So they wanted a contractor in the beginning.
Eventually, they kept saying, like, don't you want to be an employee?
Like, and I was like, no, like, I can't have one more white woman reviewing me.
Like, I can't do it.
I left there, though, because I was a senior manager there, even though I was a, you know, I guess a consultant, contractor, whatever.
And then I went to Invesco because it was a director opportunity.
And I just thought that as this is actually where I'm supposed to be anyway.
And until
get there, you know, it's going to be too hard.
You know, I had another offer I chose Investco.
I should have chose the other offer in hindsight, but what do you do?
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.
Like I was good at my job.
I liked the people that I worked with aside from my boss.
And she really wasn't that big of a problem problem because she was in New York.
And I was in Houston.
I didn't have to see her every day.
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.
You tell me what needs to be done.
I'm the one who created the strategy for the whole team.
She couldn't get her strategy approved.
My strategies were approved.
I was there for what, three or four years.
She never got a strategy approved.
Mine were approved every year.
So the part of, know, like you're talking about in court.
I was validated because my attorney said, but aren't you still using Raslyn's strategy?
She said, yeah.
2018, it was 2020 by the time I went to court.
Right.
Well, actually, that was the pandemic.
Yeah, that was in the midst of the pandemic.
in June 2021, I think.
I was 2021.
And so actually was right at the end of May your trial started.
I remember this is a jury trial.
I was so fascinated.
One, because not only I in situation, but I have friends who are in these situations.
Like I'm getting so fascinated with fighting these companies in court.
Yeah.
I've been thinking about should I go to law school?
I don't want to, and this is the black woman's thing.
You lose your job, you go to school.
You lose a boyfriend, you go to school.
You want to be happy, you go to school.
What is, I don't know why.
Yeah, nothing is more dangerous than a bored black woman because we start a job, go to school, have a PhD from boredom.
And so I'm like, I'm not going to law school, but it does fascinate me.
You know, how is it that a jury can see?
And I can only imagine the evidence, right?
Because I am just literally reading what's public out there about your case.
But a jury could see that one, so you were awarded punitive damages.
You were also awarded back pay.
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.
So they said yes on that.
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
discrimination and all these things?
And the jury said no, absolutely not.
at the problem because under FMLA you can't get punitive damages.
So they tried to take my punitive damages.
And my attorney's defense was, what is it called?
I can't think of the name, but anyway, the jury's given this yes, no, yes, no.
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?
I thought that too.
I found that very interesting, but they did say that they retaliate against you for your FMLA.
And you get more money under FMLA.
So a win is a win?
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.
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.
Yeah.
still fought for ever.
So yeah, you know, court was made, we fought till December.
Yeah, that, try to get it dismissed.
They you know, all this stuff.
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.
And then
that would have had to go through an appellate process for another couple of years.
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.
Like they thought they had it in the bag.
Like they weren't even really that prepared and they lied on the stand.
Like they were caught.
They lied so much that the judge had to sanction them several times because one of the things they said was, when I,
said I was being treated differently for my race.
They were supposed to do an investigation.
And they said that they did, but they didn't.
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,
like they didn't do none of that.
But they kept saying to the jury, well, we conducted an investigation, found nothing.
And the judge kept saying, stop saying that.
Well, my attorney kept saying objection like you actually didn't do it.
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.
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.
I mean, I was in federal court.
It was nutszo.
am I on Matlock?
Am I on SVU?
Or
am I on LA
Law?
Like, I don't know what I was on, but I was on something.
It was nuts.
Yeah.
And I had a black male judge, a black federal judge, but he was a Republican.
So I wasn't sure if I was going to get like Clarence Thomas.
But even Clarence Thomas, as coon as he is, you had such a strong case.
Like they just didn't do what they were supposed to do.
And the craziest thing is the information around the wrongdoing made it worse.
The context of your case actually makes everything worse.
So the fact that you had gone so far above and beyond what they'd ever done before.
left them open, left them so open for the scrutiny by just regular people.
Because when in your filing where you listed out, I love whoever wrote your initial complaint did a great job.
They listed out, here's all the things that she's done that nobody's done at this company and the previous directors before.
When it said you got them over 400 press appearances in one year, I mean, I can't even calculate how many a week.
here is it was an underperforming company with underperforming funds.
So they're not even the best of the best.
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
99th, the worst.
So how hard was it to do?
Now, I will say in their defense, you know, I had the media trained and I had a good trainer.
She trains like I do.
So I you can't train them yourself because you can't get at them like you need to.
You've got to have a cop come in.
Like people always say, I can tell Raslyn trained you because my people are.
Right.
So they did the work.
They were smart.
They just had underperforming funds.
But the main issue was that I got
people of color on television and in these places for Invesco.
That's really what the problem was.
So typically as a publicist, you hear from journalists all the time.
I can't find black subject matter experts.
can't find black people to interview.
And we always say that's crazy.
Right.
We have.
But what happens is what these companies do, including Invesco before I came, was they'll say in Target did it too.
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.
Well, they're all white.
So what I went to was the heads of these teams.
And I will tell you the heads of my teams, they were all white, but they got it.
I said, look, what you have to offer is your diversity here.
And that fixed income team was actually really good.
I mean, they were.
lot of underperforming funds, but they were good and they were charismatic guys.
The CIO and the head of investment said, do whatever you need to do.
If an analyst is the best person to answer this question, fine.
If you know, whatever we trust you go.
So I have black.
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
understand him?
Yes, they'll understand him.
Like stop it.
And so that's really what the problem was.
And that was a part of my complaint.
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.
And my teams were over here.
Her teams are over here.
So she we didn't overlap.
She didn't manage anything I did.
She did, you know, one part of the business.
I did this part of the business.
So we didn't even, you know, her teams were unhappy.
My teams are like, oh, amazing.
And so that was the problem.
So she wanted to go back.
to the system of only allowing the whites to talk.
Even though we had all this success the way that I had constructed this strategy.
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
her in the HR meeting.
That's how create like it was either pass out or get out of there.
Bye.
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
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
as you know you have a performance problem I said last night you took me to dinner you cried you lied
And I mean, I had the recording, but it was like, I'm I lied.
I had to hold my air out of so angry with myself.
But yet I'm sitting in this meeting and I'm like, are you nuts?
Like you literally just girl.
So was like, that's it.
You know, I said, here's what's going to happen.
I'm not about to sit here and let you tell me I have performance problem because you're fucking lying.
I said, I'm out of here and you decide what the fuck you want to do.
I go out and I had the doctor's appointment anyway, cause this was some stupid meeting.
I don't have high blood pressure.
I don't have high cholesterol.
I don't have nothing.
Girl, my blood pressure was so crazy.
And I already talked to my doctor about this.
She was like, you got to get out of there.
You're to have a stroke.
And now mind you, my husband died of a heart attack.
was my best friend died at 40.
You know, like they weren't about to kill me.
When I was off on FMLA, all the people they made me take off the list, they let talk while I was gone.
I thought that was so weird.
I mean, I could see them on TV.
I tried not to watch it, but obviously I would.
I mean, I'm financier, you know.
And so I'm like, oh, so the black girl can't talk when I'm there.
But when I'm gone and the white girl is taking over my stuff so she can have numbers, you let these people talk.
my numbers don't look so good because, you know, she's in.
But it was just messed up.
So when I got back from FML, they were like, you need to stick to the plan we gave you before from L.A.
These people cannot talk, blah, blah.
So I was like, I don't even care if nobody talks.
I don't care if nobody does.
I've already proven who I am.
I don't even care anymore.
Like, was like, OK, cool, whatever.
So one of the black women calls me and she gets this opportunity.
And I was like, I'm sorry, but you're on the list of
people who can't talk.
So she's like, who said that?
He's like, housewives.
Or who said that?
I said, my boss, Janine said that she said, so she kicks it up her chain.
Janine gets in trouble.
They put her back on the list.
And the white guys, because now white people got cut too.
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.
People ain't gonna have health care too now.
A white guy got cut.
He's like, why am I cut?
I said, I don't know.
This happened while I was gone.
So, but you're not on the list.
I sent them the list.
So you can't talk either.
Gets it up the chain.
He gets added back to the list.
Now I'm getting blamed for them being angry at the changes they made when I was gone.
Well, before I but that were implemented while I was gone for me.
Mm-hmm.
you know, she told me these, I mean, it was so crazy.
I kept everything.
And that's one of the things I want to tell people.
I never delete anything to or from my boss or my boss's boss.
I don't care if it's just me saying, OK.
You might later on be like, well, I told her to do that and she never responded.
You don't have the OK that says no.
I said, OK, you don't know what they're going to pull out of their arsenal.
and I had everything.
And one of the reasons why they got in such troubles, like we would produce documents, like actually, no, because here's this document.
they'd like, that wasn't in discovery, your honor.
He said, but it should have been because you should have provided it.
Why did you only provide 200 documents and you have the mainframe, the computer, all the files?
She don't have that stuff, but they've submitted a thousand pieces of paper.
You've submitted 200.
Why don't you have this?
I mean,
When I got hired there, I had to be interviewed by seven people before they would approve me.
The white girls that got hired after me only had to interview with my boss and her boss.
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
people.
And so during the trial,
The HR person and my boss, they lied together.
They were in the satellite office in New York.
Houston had the biggest employee count of any office that Invesco ever had, even though the headquarters was in Atlanta.
So I wasn't in the satellite office, I was in the main office.
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.
oh
He said, "'cause we needed to make sure people were comfortable working with her.'"
He said that in public?
huh.
Yeah, that's some bullshit.
And when they asked him, did Raslyn have, this is my boss's boss, did Raslyn have a performance problem?
He said, no.
They asked HR, did Raslyn have a performance problem?
And he said, she didn't.
So now the question is, why did you put her on a corrective action?
Listen, May, when I got back from it, we won't even count February, January.
So I was on it already then.
Oh, let's say May, May, June, July, August, September when they finally fired me.
So I was on corrective action for five months and I had to have weekly meetings on the phone with HR and my boss.
And I recorded every call every week.
And I busted things like when I got back from FMLA, I could not
leave my desk if we had a phone call like I couldn't take it in my car.
I couldn't work from home.
All the white girls would be like, oh, you hear the ambulances in the background.
They're working from home.
You can hear their dogs barking.
I could only work from home on Friday, but they could work from home whenever they wanted to.
couldn't travel to see my teams anymore.
But then they hired this white guy and he got to travel.
And I was like, so Matt can travel, but I can't.
So the black girl can't travel.
Now they're, you know,
And they still were like, no, you my business partners are like, we'll pay for it.
But we haven't seen her in like six months.
We need to have meetings.
And they were like, no, because they didn't want me face to face saying anything, you know.
And I remember one day I had these two business partners and we're on the phone and I just started crying.
You know, I wasn't a crier at work.
I was like, I'm so tired.
And I said, I'm not even really crying because I'm sad.
I just want to take her head and ram it in to the cement.
mean, it was so bad that my friends would be like, let's just go to New York and push her off the bus.
Like we were just like done with it because we've all been going.
I she was just every white woman.
It wasn't personal to her, personal.
Same.
And I was that kind of mad, like the nerve of you, like who the fuck do you think you are?
You know, that's really, and I hate that we're in this place where we can't go off.
You can't really do it yourself.
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.
It's like, please stop.
You will be kicked out of there, called aggressive, told you're not,
accepting responsibility, you don't accept feedback, you cannot do that.
You can't advocate for yourself.
And I mean, let's be honest, the Coco thing, like she's 19, she's raised by two very strong parents.
She was beyond respectable.
So like the thing is, what they want us to do is ignore our natural humanness to be upset, to be angry.
So then the white woman who did wrong, she could do all the crying, the tennis player.
I don't even know who she was.
And she got beat rightfully so.
But she was
doing dirty tactics by the way, game.
So she's crying like, and they booed me and I haven't done anything wrong and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm just like, this plays out in corporate, but in corporate, the cocoa would have got reprimanded action plan.
Yeah.
Because the white woman's crying.
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.
Baby
See, I think we're all saying, this is how you advocate for yourself.
But see, if she had said something the first time, we don't know, but she would have felt better.
Because see, what happens is the first time it happened, I can imagine, if she's anything like us.
I'm like, OK, all right now.
I see you trying to play in my face.
Now I got this feeling.
Now I'm feeling away, right?
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
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
target you couldn't do that.
Or like, you know, confronting somebody.
But the point is that's why she had to wait till it was just so egregious.
That's the problem.
White men and women, hey, come on to the, I mean, they're just going off on these reps all the time.
I I grew up watching tennis and white people went off on the reps, on their rackets, doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
But see, we wait so long and I think.
what I would tell my younger self is they don't treat you better when you don't stand up for yourself.
But you should do what you need to do to survive this in the best way possible.
And if that's saying, I don't like, don't talk to me like that.
I don't like that.
Cause they don't get rid of you anyway.
You know, if you're already feeling like this, you already know the writing's on the wall.
And I think that that's where we don't tell fast enough each other.
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
girl gets off corrective action everywhere she goes.
Even at Invesco, was to basically they were trying to keep me on corrective action for the five months, but they really didn't.
mean, I didn't have any negative feedback.
And I'd be like, I don't have any negative feedback.
Why am I still on it?
You'll be on it as long as you want to, as long as she wants to.
And I listened to the tapes.
Again, one of the tapes again, because I recorded their conversation.
And she talked to me like I was nothing.
And the HR person is on the call and Jeaneen Terrio is getting nasty like she always did, a little nasty self.
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.
And he said, she can talk to you however she wants to.
She's your boss.
And that's not true, ladies.
I want y'all to know right now.
I thought to myself and if record that red button didn't get brighter.
You know, was like, yeah, yeah, keep going.
Yeah, yeah.
Because I'm still trying to appeal to some sense of humanity.
And you just said, fuck it.
Now did the jury hear any of these tapes?
The judge wouldn't let us play it, but we did have them read transcripts sometimes.
Ohh which makes it worse. They lied.
They had to read the transcripts and it had to be the first step was the transcripts from the depositions.
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.
but it says Raslyn Wooten on there.
So they know I was listening.
And they lied so much during the deposition that we would have to have them read it in court.
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.
So he schedules this meeting.
I go meet him in his office.
I record the conversation, of course.
And
Basically, he says, you know, you should take a year's salary.
You know, why would I do that?
I like my job.
I'm good at my job.
Like, why don't you just move me or let me report like to my business partners?
Like they said they'll do that.
Like, why won't you let me do that?
And that's the thing.
Like, we're never transferable the same way other people are.
Like, everybody that did me wrong.
got moved.
I got moved.
Black people are like, how do you do that?
No one gets moved.
Like it was like, you know, did crazy, you know, how'd you do that?
You know, like the secret, you know, meeting how, what tell us what the secret is?
And I'm like, girl, I don't know.
And I was in two places that they didn't even let black people be, you know, really.
And I said, when do I have to take, like, do I have a timeframe where I have to accept this?
This was like June.
And I said, is there a timeframe?
And he says, no.
take your time.
And I said, well, what happens if I don't accept it?
And he said, then we're just going to continue to treat you the way that we are.
And you're going to get fired.
Basically, he's like, I would just hope you'd want to get in front of the inevitable.
You I said, well, I'm off a couple of days.
went to my, you know, God sister's wedding.
said, and when I come back, we can meet again.
So he set up another meeting for us to meet.
And in that meeting, you know, I really was like, I just don't understand why you're not
fucking with her.
Why are you bothering me and making me have to leave my job?
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.
And so I filed my EEO claim.
when I came for the second meeting, he was like, we understand you filed your EEO claim, you know, and I said yes.
And he was like, we don't do EEO claims here.
And I was like,
That's not how that works, but okay.
You're not really supposed to be talking to me about that.
Like, this is like not even appropriate.
And he was like, well, let me tell you that we don't do EEO here.
So you need, you know, take that claim back.
Like he was really like threatening me.
And I'm recording the whole conversation.
And I'm just like, and I said, you know, you sit on these calls and you let her treat me like a dog.
You know, you don't have any humanity.
And I was like, you don't care anything about me.
Of course, I'm going to file this EEO claim.
Like one thing to just be like, hey, you're on.
said, but you just letting her just shit on me.
And you just you're hyping her up.
Like now this is my boss had performance problems.
She had had people complaining about her night and day.
So much so her boss, she was always like, I'm going to get fired.
I'm going to get fired because when white people were saying stuff to her.
They were telling my boss, you better straighten up and get your shit together.
But when she had to complain about me, she got sympathy.
She got power.
She got, you know, like it was a totally different dimension for her because she was considered terrible at her job.
Nobody liked her.
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.
You know.
you heard Jennifer Hudson to her Carrie, you know, and help her sort her shit out.
That's, know, and that's really how I felt all the time.
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.
But if I have a problem with her, I'm the problem.
Right.
was so easy for them to believe that about me because all this white girl is being attacked by this black woman.
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.
And I had this area of business that she made me take and I was like, it's too much work.
I can't take this.
Like it's too much.
But I told me to set up time to meet with the head of this department and I did.
Then she makes me cancel the meeting.
Like I had gone with his assistant to like find time.
Then she makes me cancel it.
So cut to I'm in New York and she goes and meets with the guy without me.
So I said, Jeaneen, and I only heard about it because we were in a meeting and somebody brought it up.
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.
And he kept saying, when are you going to meet with him?
When are you going to meet with him?
And I'm like,
had a meeting with him, but Jeaneen made me cancel it.
I don't know why it ain't my business.
You you'd call her and talked to her about it.
So she meets with the guy.
So I said to her, we're in a cab on our way to dinner.
Why are you meeting with him in this my area of business?
And you've already met him before he was new.
So I said, I've never even met the guy.
I said, and you embarrassed me, me cancel this meeting.
said, when I, she's like, well, he's not ready yet.
You know, they're not ready for PR yet.
I said, but I should have at least introduced myself because when he's ready, I'm his publicist.
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.
I said, you're making it seem like I'm not doing my job.
I know, I'm sorry.
I don't know why I did that.
So I told her, was like, you do this all the time to me and it undermines me.
said, cause here's what happens.
You meet with the people cause you want to be the one.
Fine.
I said, but then you try to help them or work with them.
They don't want to work with you.
It doesn't work out.
And then you kick it down to me or you drop the ball.
You don't do, then you kick it to me.
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.
So now my task is even harder.
I'm already a black woman in this all white Southern investment firm.
is already hard for me.
You are supposed to be my boss.
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.
And then you're like, Ras, you smell, what's up?
Because you keep leaving me piles of shit to step in.
So she's like, I'm sorry, like, I didn't know you felt that way, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, yeah, well, I've told you this several times, but you don't listen to me.
But whatever.
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.
So we get out of the cab and she's upset.
We get there and she goes, you know, I don't want to have dinner with you anymore.
And mind you, this is what she did.
I know this sounds small, but this was a little tactic.
Before I come into town, she'd say, let's go to dinner Tuesday night.
for the sake of discussion.
So I have tons of friends in New York.
So I'd be like, all right, y'all, I'm going to dinner with my boss Tuesday night.
Let's go to dinner Wednesday night.
And then my boss would get, I'd get there Monday, Tuesday she canceled.
And like she'd say, what do you have going on?
And I'd say, well, I have dinner with my friends on Wednesday.
So she canceled on Tuesday and make me change my plans on Wednesday.
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.
Cause she would do it to me every time to try to sabotage me.
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.
So she says to me, I don't want to have dinner anymore.
And I'm thinking, cool, cause this time I actually did have plans that she made me cancel.
Cause this was like my last night.
So I was like, Oh, bye.
So I call my friends.
I'm like,
come eat, lust me, they come scoot me, we go have dinner.
Then she texted me and she was like, I feel attacked.
You were disrespectful to me, like all this crazy stuff.
And I was like, it's like, feel attacked.
But I said to her, I did not attack you, period.
I explained to you how your management style is negatively impacting the business.
I said, the whole point of us going to dinner was to talk about things that are working and things that aren't working.
I have the professional right to share with you how your actions are making me feel or whatever the case may be.
So she writes back, okay, well, shall I come back and then we just go to dinner?
So I said, I'm already gone.
It's already ruined.
Just forget it.
So when I get back,
to work.
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.
She tells HR that I attacked her.
I was disrespectful to her.
And I said to HR, if I had attacked her, I said we were in a cab.
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
and been like, hey, hey, hey, enough, enough.
I said I did not attack her and she's lying.
And that started it.
That was it.
After that, when she called me, she said, I don't know how I'm going to be able to move forward from this.
I said, well, it happened on Thursday, today's Tuesday.
I'm at work.
I've obviously moved on from it.
I said, I'm used to it.
This is how you do me.
And after that, it was over.
But I think that what I noticed about her was the sabotage moves.
You know, she'd say one thing to me,
over the phone and something different in email.
And it took me a second to register it.
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.
not in the budget.
It's not something we can do.
So don't worry about it.
You don't have to go pick up the tickets because I've canceled it.
The next day, she'd be like, I'm so disappointed, Felicia.
We were all waiting to go to Beyonce and you didn't go pick up the tickets.
But she'd be saying this in email.
And then I'd be like, but you told me yesterday at 7 p.m.
that we weren't gonna go and not to pick up the tickets.
That's why I didn't.
Are you okay?
Like I'd say stuff like that.
I'd be like, this is, yeah.
That's the one.
Are you okay?
I want to point that out.
Yeah.
Then she called me on the phone and say, you're right.
I totally forgot.
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
this conversation.
Like me being like, you did, that's not what you said to me.
So it's her word against mine.
because she did respond to the, you okay?
Then saying, Hey, I messed up.
I wouldn't have that.
I would look crazy.
was thinking, she doing this on purpose or is the girl nuts?
No, she's doing it on purpose.
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.
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.
And then you recap, say at that same letter, thank you so much for picking up the phone and talking through this.
I appreciate your apology.
Blah, blah, right?
And then send that.
Yeah, but not send that print that line your, you know, personal thing.
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.
He never set up time and met with me and he'd never talked to me.
So we had all this stuff transcribed and my attorney said, okay, can you read this?
And he had to read the conversation we had in his office.
He said, where did you get this?
He said, Razzle and recorded the conversations.
Had I not had those recorded conversations, and I also had the email he sent me, let's talk about what's going on.
And I had the meeting invites.
But if I hadn't had that, it's his work, it's mine.
Yeah.
Documentation beats conversation.
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,
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.
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.
my God.
We just got this $200 million client call us because they saw us on Bloomberg TV.
I had all that.
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?
Exactly.
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.
And I will be honest with you.
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.
So when I was at trial, they had no one to cooperate that I didn't have a good performance.
Right.
Also, when I went out on my own, they all sent emails to their people they knew might need a publicist.
When they left, they would pay me to their resumes.
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.
And so I will say that the white men there
Mm-hmm.
really tried.
mean, I think they did what they could do.
And I think by saying if you call us on the stand, you're not going to like what you hear.
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.
I'm mad at him.
But, you know, that was part of my lawsuit, too.
I, know, he kept calling me Roslyn.
And I said, it's Raslyn.
He said, I know what it is.
that name is just not sophisticated enough.
I said, says who?
I said, well, my dad's name is Ras and my name is Ras Lynn.
I'm a junior.
And I said, so, I mean, and why is that any of your business?
He said, I said, are you saying my name is ghetto?
And he said, yeah.
Girl, at oh lord have mercy, listen.
This looks so crazy, a white woman, Carolyn Gibbs, was there when he said it.
When she got the polls for that, she said she didn't remember, she didn't hear.
And she literally was like, shut up, stop it, to him.
Like was a group of people standing there when he said it.
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.
She's an advocate for women.
No, she's an advocate for whiteness.
we get for white women.
Carolyn got on that stand and loved.
Yeah, wow.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, but I am glad you're on the other side.
OK.
Come back next week for part two.
We're going to finish out Rosalyn's story and corporate and also hear about her new venture.
Well guys, that's a wrap on another great episode of the Career Management Podcast for Black Women.
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