Learning Linode
To talk about leaving Linode after a vigorous year & three quarters, it’s important to contextualize why & how We joined in the first place. It certainly wasn’t out of a naive belief that a for profit company owned by one singular person was ever going to be an ally in progressing diversity & inclusion in meaningfully systemic ways. It was, however, with a willingness to hold them accountable for what they said their intentions were, by providing the resource they said they were missing in order to accomplish their goals.
We had just submitted Our resignation with Ring, refusing to work for Amazon who had just acquired the company. We have a deep commitment to making people’s lives truly better, being supportive of them living whole, authentic lives, improving the systems in which they are required to interact to survive. We wanted a healthier environment in which to help & support people, a small company We could grow with from a place of value alignment toward a common goal. We updated Our LinkedIn with more focus on Our personal values & real passion: people.That’s when Linode’s then recruiter reached out to Us.
We were transparent about having a short track record in the tech industry, a complete lack of Linux experience & a deep seated concern about the monochromatic, male dominated collection of employees willing to list Linode as their employer on LinkedIn. Did anyone know they had a white dude problem? Did anyone care or consider it a problem? Was anything being done? Despite discovering apparent value alignment with their Support Department & moving through the interview rounds by showcasing communication skills & problem solving, We were ready to walk away if We didn’t like the answers.
We had the opportunity to ask them to the then Director of Support. The answers were honest & transparent. They knew it was a problem & were two years in to developing improvements. They had collaborated with community organizations to improve their community relationships & looked forward to expanding on diversifying educational & recruiting opportunities having just moved their headquarters to Philadelphia. A partnership with CultureAmp meant they were taking feedback surveys to engage employees. They knew there was a very long way to go but lacked insight into the paths forward. Seeing some indications of hope, We pried further. What was the biggest challenge they faced in making improvements? What would help most? We were told that no-one had taken it on as a primary focus, that expertise was missing & needed.
This presented an opportunity to make meaningful contributions in an environment where they might actually be given a supportive reception. We could work for a small company where we know everyone’s name, providing direct support to Our coworker’s. We could lend Our expertise, skillset & dedication to maximizing Linode’s potential to be the best place to work for every employee. It also had clear professional growth potential for a more formal role filling this need, that We might actually be able to take advantage of. We accepted the challenge, along with Our offer.
Learning Linux
We survived in-house training on Linode, Linux, networking, & other technical skills needed before moving deftly through mentorship to being onboarded. The kind of work that needed to be done to hold Linode accountable for their proclaimed commitments would be more challenging. Experience has taught Us the best “protections” while doing that kind of advocacy work: over-performing when compared to Our peers & not giving a shit about job security so We were never afraid to show up authentically speaking truth to power despite lacking the financial stability to support the privilege.
Our performance saw higher than average CSAT scores, produced a higher than average number of ticket responses, answered more phone calls than most, completed Our in-house certification requirements, & made a lot of friends. We were even given a formal Thank You from the leadership team for providing additional support to them & team members whenever possible. By the end of the year, another queer folk of color had been hired as an engineer with an active & vocal interest in addressing the white dude problem, along with all the smaller ones that come along with it. A support group had formed by & for women & non-binary staff that was being well attended. Human resources approved of us moving forward with bringing the issues into formal public discussion. Our real work began.
Leading Landscaping
Along with the systems engineer & support group, we held interest meetings about why it was important to talk about the lack of diversity. We issued a survey to engage each employee in the assessment of collective values, pitfalls they feared, emerging visions, participation interests & recommendations for actions to take to begin developing a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Despite 90% of respondents stating that they had thought about the state of diversity at Linode in the past, 35.5% had not shared those thoughts before. A company-wide meeting on The State of Culture of Diversity Equity & Inclusion was held to discuss & begin developing changes.
Some vital foundational improvements were made as a result of this meeting & collective feedback. Rather than a committee, we formed a decentralized Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Collective for each employee to hold the freedom and empowerment to be as intimately involved as they desired with flexibility for workload. Objectives were agreed upon, along with key results. Intersect, the support group for non-men staff, was formally recognized as an Employee Resource Group.
Shortly after, an LGBTQIA Employee Resource Group had formed, a field for pronouns was added to Slack profiles, the first company sponsored Pride Party was thrown, & budget approvals were issued to add gender inclusive signage to the restrooms, (all of which were single occupant, or fully walled in single restrooms around a communal sink). We began integrating DEI into everyday tools like Slack, Jira and the internal knowledge base. Morale was high, the company was slowly growing, We were publicly praised & thanked by the leadership. There were a lot of small wins by Our first anniversary at the company. They signaled folks to raise their voices, to go for bigger, more meaningful wins.
Old Linode Lives Strong
The first big fish came from Intersect, who prepared a research project & proposal to increase parental leave time benefits, as well as extending them to non-birthing parents. They also wanted more inclusive, gender neutral language with equal benefits across genders. After meetings with individual executives, they were told their proposal would be discussed in the C.E.O’s executive meeting. Without Intersect representation. Approximately 75% of their proposed increases were cut, along with equal benefits for non-birthing parents without gender distinctions in exchange for basic consolation benefits that failed to even put them on modern or competitive par with other organizations of Linode’s size in the city of Philadelphia.
All of us frustrated, many were ready to give up after months of arguing for their basic rights & industry value. Instead, representatives were chosen to request a meeting with Chris Aker, the C.E.O. to discuss how the specifics were determined, objections to the proposal that was submitted, or a third party comparison of the proposal with local industry standards (despite that being included in the original research report). After messages & emails went unanswered, Chris was finally asked in person about the meeting. He agreed to a date & time. The meeting was added to his calendar.
When the day of the meeting came, we were instead informed that Chris Aker wouldn’t meet with us & the HR director would inform us of the policy updates Chris had decided on. They still were not even half of the industry standard, let alone what was requested. When We asked to instead reschedule, as we had requested & prepared for a conversation, the HR director told us it was inappropriate — he was perfectly capable of repeating what Chris had said & explaining the material. Linode’s Leaders lauded it as a Win. Progress was made, but power was solidified rather than shared.
Voices continued to rise. As a result, when the annual day for lunch from Chik-fil-A came around, folks found they weren’t the only ones with objections in the new public D.E.I slack channel. Sentiments ranged from infuriation or disappointment to have the vendor to personal offenses taken since lunch is not a legally required benefit for employees, or indignation that folks would dare complain so blatantly in the only space for them to do so. Once again, we found a powerful executive, the director of HR, taking a classic, privileged, disconnected approach. We also found an opportunity to educate, advocate & relationship build by emailing the HR director:
I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the discussion in slack from last week that you initiated regarding chik fil a. I cycled through a lot of feeling and thoughts and knew that I needed to be considerate in what I chose to share. Some of those feelings included frustration and mistrust towards you. So I would take time away from it, come back when I could do so with as clear a mind as I could conjure, and then read through it again with a renewed sense of positive intent and the benefit of all the things that I appreciate about you at the forefront of my mind.
After several readings, I do have some thoughts and feelings I believe I would resent not sharing with you because it is important to us to continue collaborating for everyones benefit and because collaborators talk. Below those thoughts and the statements that evoked them are listed. I hope, but don’t expect, that you’ll read through them and I welcome a response or an invitation for further discussion one on one.
It seems like several people felt there was a real benefit to having a more realtime, in person discussion about not only the issue of chik-fil-a but about how we approach these important conversations and issues. It seems like a great opportunity for a town hall to facilitate that discussion, to introduce and discuss communication guidelines to have more productive conversations moving forward, and to put our beliefs into praxis in a meaningful way so that people can see we are committed to them. I would appreciate your help scheduling and facilitating that discussion in the next two weeks as I expect it’d be a sizable group. Is that something you would help with, please?
(Quoted lines that follow are taken out of context but Our responses to them may imply context. This will inherently come with some bias).
The email continues…
“We need to clearly separate inclusion from activism and think about the organization at large.” -H.R Director
Inclusion can only be separated from activism when it’s achieved and it’s maintenance is inextricable from the continuation of the organization. Until then, this *is* about activism that’s needed in order to bring inclusion to the organization at large. We don’t have it, we’ve never had it, we’re trying to fix it.
“What I’ve seen in the past few months is us taking a purposeful approach to diversity and inclusion — by creating exclusive groups, and excluding, or creating the feeling of exclusion, from others, including majority groups.” -H.R Director
I don’t think that there is anything exclusive about providing opportunities for people to come together to discuss things important to them and get support from their peers. Intersect has had people participate in their programming who don’t fall into the category of women and non-binary people, and the LGBTQIA meeting was explicitly opened to everyone. The channel this message is in is open to the entire company. It feels to us that by amplifying the voices of those who have felt excluded and unsafe for a duration of time in a public space, they have been relieved of some of those feelings (of exclusion) in knowing they weren’t the only ones and that some of those feelings have transferred to employees who were privileged to be free of them previously. Honestly, this is a normal and important part of eliminating that feeling for everyone. It was anticipated and we’ve invested a lot of time and energy into crafting everything we have done and said to make sure we’re addressing that in advance and building the removal of feelings of exclusion into the structures and processes that we create. It doesn’t go away all at once but if we aren’t willing to go through the process, we can’t get to the outcomes.
“This to me isn’t inclusion — it’s important to some, maybe important to all.” -H.R Director
The problem is that the company is using money that all of us help make to pay a vendor that wants to use it to strip basic human and civil rights away from a portion of us making that money. THAT SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO ALL BECAUSE WE SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO EACH OTHER. And if it’s not, it should at least be important enough to the company to find a different vendor (who won’t do that) to give the money to. Everyone at the company should care about one another at least to the extent that they’d like their basic rights protected. If the company doesn’t value that, then they have no right employing people in the first place.
“To be totally honest, as a heterosexual white male, I feel like I don’t have a voice in this arena, even though this is a major part of my profession, and that’s the environment that we’ve created here over the past months.” -H.R. Director
You very much do have a voice. You used it to make these statements in the public channel we created specifically to facilitate you sharing your voice on these issues. That feeling of not having a voice when you do is the reality that many have and continue to live in and that you are only just now dealing with (in this context). It’s how they’ve felt every time we’ve had this vendor. It’s how they’ve felt anytime the company may have proclaimed to support the LGBTQIA community or that everyone at the company is cared about while simultaneously supporting this vendor. You can’t give other’s a voice without utilizing (or in some contexts quieting) your own and I hope you’ll realize how much power yours has.
“It’s about the bigger message. This was a small example, and the effects it can have on people. Someone was upset by it. That’s enough for me.” -H.R. Director
So why isn’t having people not just upset about this, but many who have been upset about this for multiple years in varying degrees of silence and isolation not enough? Why aren’t LGBTQIa employees human rights being threatened by our actions enough?
“My intent with irl conversation isn’t to hide behind closed doors, btw. It’s to have a more productive conversation about the matter.” -H.R. Director
Why is being accurate about what chik-fil-a does and how it impacts us being considered as an unproductive conversation? It feels like it’s related to the fact that we’re upset and it makes others uncomfortable. What exactly qualifies a conversation as productive in your opinion?
“When we talk about things like Chick Fil A’s beliefs as an organization, what are the business outcomes that we’re seeking at Linode? Influencing a careful vendor selection process? Perfect. Linode, the business, then we should revisit our vendor vetting process and make sure that All of our vendors are in line with our own values” -H.R. Director
What steps, if any, have been taken to actually *do* anything of this nature? What can we do now to start this process of improving vendor selection? If we just talk about this being a solution or a contribution to improvement and then do nothing, that’s ally theater and is a very real and important fear of the employees we’re trying to support.
A meeting was scheduled without any return email, followed by employee feedback collection & discussion of vendor relations ultimately culminating in … no changes to vendor selection requirements or process that employees at large were ever informed of. Our response did not go unnoticed, as well as changes in the Director. We developed (as we tend to, eventually, in most spaces) a reputation as a safe confidante. Confide in Us, they did.
We were approached in private Slack messages, at employee events, as well as beyond the company walls. We shadowed other departments to gain insight into their experiences, their complaints, their challenges. We joined the budding Community Expert team to help build inclusive, culturally competent processes & extend relationship advocacy into public facing social media communications.
We discovered that, beginning with Chris Aker, several executives had a history of screaming at, chastising, cursing out and gaslighting not just individual employees but entire Dev teams. Leadership could be seen in slack channels making disparaging remarks about women in the format of saying what they weren’t supposed to say about them… exactly what they would say next. Non-Men Managers were being told by Chris Aker himself they should never have been promoted in the first place, questioning competency despite positive team performance. Women of color were being given gendered feedback from managers that directly impacted their inability to be promoted doing work they were already contributing to with positive feedback from the teams that supported the promotion. Staff and Leadership who were beloved by employees, as well as newer marginalized employees, began to leave Linode consistently, often without much notice or information as to whether they had resigned or were fired. Entire departments effectively collapsed in their absences, later filled with new folks — they were gone before We were. ERG participation began waning under the unreasonable workloads that resulted. Those picking up the slack, as well as their workloads, suffered. The biggest department, Support, changed policies with the result of Support staff having new restrictions to participating in E.R.G’s as a matter of policy. We lost Our partner in DEI facilitation to the exodus. A schedule change meant We were no longer working on days most of the staff was in office, slowing relationship building.
We spent innumerable hours on Our nights, weekends, & days off to keep momentum forward on projects, to continue providing updates, to remain connected to the staff at large as a confidante & advocate. We got their blessing to quit without leaving behind feelings of abandonment. They encouraged Us to not let up if We chose to stay. Tired, feeling lonely, & feeling Our depression begin to worsen with the sudden change of season, We kept at the work that so desperately needed doing.
We managed to facilitate bringing in an outside consultant to do training & encouraging new ERG creation while developing other DEI leads in the process. We continued as a consistent presence in Philadelphia’s tech community, often hearing We were a well known “face of Linode” when seeing the same folks at multiple events a week. We held on to hope, until it was thrown back in Our face.
A Leader Lashes Out
In early October, We attempted to breath new life into the office, to show that we were still moving forward, we could push through the slump. We dropped a reminder in a public #Staff channel to post about some upcoming meetings with information about existing slack channels while offering Ourself as a resource for those with questions. We had made posts of a similar nature several times before, not to mention having presented company wide on the same topics several times, all which had consistently garnered public praise from leadership. This time, it didn’t.
Despite him being out of the office when the reminder preview was issued, the then Director of Human Resources sent Us a private slack message:
Hi Tara, questions about culture and/or culture development at Linode should most certainly not be routed through you. I understand your intent is good, but who sanctioned you as the point person and/or gave an ok to hold a discussion in public channels during working hours?
We felt smacked in the figurative face. Suddenly We were de-legitimized in Our right to speak as an informed & trusted peer about the extensive amount of work We have coordinated & supported, initiated first and foremost by employees willingness to share with Us. Every other post We have made, discussion We have started, educational link that We have provided, and offer We’ve made to donate Our time, attention, emotional energy, & expertise was suddenly irrelevant & devalued.
We had to sit & consider if something about the topics presented here impacted this stark and startling switch from support to chastisement. The topics involved that hadn’t been the content of previous, similar messages issued in the same format in the same spaces (scheduled at similar times) were the following:
- Educating on Forming Employee Resource Groups
- People of Color having Private Chat Rooms
- Culture Development about People of Color
Instead of getting defensive or assumptive about what the implications were for this, We did Our best to assume positive intent, keep the dialogue open when we could both be present and clear minded, to be willing to engage in feedback in case we missed something important about what we had done. We responded:
We have always held discussion in public channels during work hours and have always offered Ourself up as available to answer questions or talk to. I didn’t see this as a departure from that.
It was an ethical way to make newer team members aware of existing channels they may have interest in and opportunities to get involved in upcoming developments because if we wait until the week before engagement is low
I’m happy to pull the reminder and we can collaborate on something instead if you feel that would be more appropriate.
You can’t simply set an expectation to have people go to you about questions about Our culture. Without consulting anyone. I personally find that pretty inappropriate
When We read this, We felt deeply and personally offended, realizing that “inappropriate” is not an insignificant word for the H.R Director to use (again). We were thanked in public about doing the work of cultural development, consulted about writing policy documentations & the code of conduct in order to inform cultural development, & to literally have been asked to write the mission statement for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for official onboarding materials regarding culture, only to be told it was inappropriate to answer questions about the work that We do or Our experience of Linode at large. Nothing about Our offer to answer questions stated that We were the only one that could be talked to. We’d also never stopped anyone else from making the same offer of their time & attention. Having had more than one employee previously approach us to share concerning interactions with the Director, in terms of the quality of feedback they gave & employees’ sense of security in their job as a result, we felt all the more defensive. We continued:
Don’t we encourage all employees to be inviting about talking about culture? Don’t you think Intersect members are making the same offers of accessibility to answer culture questions when they meet new employees? Lots of people already come to me with this stuff. I specified that I help so as not to create confusion about relationship with the work. I am not sure I understand what made this inappropriate but I’m happy to talk with you about why you feel it is so I can understand better.
H.R. Director 18:05
I don’t know. They operate in a private channel. :)
This felt dismissive of Our statements and was more concerning evidence that the content of the message was contributing to the stark change in response.
I meant in person and in pm’s and in public channels in addition to private ones. (edited)
Happy to pick this up another time, heading to my sons soccer practice
We spent the rest of the week(as no further contact was made) feeling suddenly worthless of even being given the benefit of the doubt & a decent conversation. In private channels, private meetings, & private messages there had been repeated sentiment from a number of employees about not trusting the Director, in part inherent to his position with the company, in part due to his use of privilege, & in part due to the manner of questioning with which he often approached topics that were emotionally powerful for employees but not him. We had, in every available opportunity, encouraged them to give the Director the benefit of the doubt, to assume positive intent, & to provide documented, constructive feedback to him because We truly believed they didn’t have ill intentions, so much as ignorance, which offered at least a kernel of hope for re-culturation that We could attempt on their behalf. We still didn’t give a shit about losing Our job.
However, We did want to leave. What was the point of doing so much work just to be treated with even less basic respect than We were extending the folks that harmed Us? Instead of leaving Our people, we used company tools to provide feedback through normal channels, doing everything We were capable of to use the systems at hand to hold a coworker accountable the way We expected to be held accountable:
In continuing with a precedented and previously supported pattern of sharing publicly available information with the rest of the staff in public channels, We received feedback from H.R. Director in a manner that does not abide from documented codes of conduct and feedback models:
- Did not assume positive intent
- Did not provide constructive feedback
- Did not value Our input on issues affecting all employees, in a space for all employees, regarding work we do voluntarily week over week for all employees, because we don’t have a “title”
- Did not make an attempt to discuss whether Ourself or Vinnie had the time and emotionally availability to discuss feedback, and abandoned the poorly constructed feedback conversation without resolution because he was not available, despite my request to schedule time for discussion.
- Did not attempt to discuss and come to an understanding, nor made plans to do so.
- Abandoned the conversation without wrap up due to inavailability
The response was very incongruent with other similar actions taken that have been previously encouraged and appreciated by Director and the staff at large. We received several messages of appreciation, including from leadership, regarding Our actions and were never given an opportunity to discuss it further with H.R. Director.
We were never contacted by, or spoke with, the executive who was supposed to be the recipient of the feedback since the Director reported directly to the C.E.O. We received another private message from H.R Director shortly after submitting, however:
Feel free to stop in and talk to me any time; your phrasing that “I didn’t give you an opportunity to discuss things further” is a bit misleading — my door is always open, and I’m physically in the office every day. We should talk time you’re in the office. I didn’t realize that I was expected to schedule something with you.
“I’m happy to talk with you about why you feel it is so I can understand better.”
I took this as you would be talking to me.
You had a problem with Us doing what We always do, not the other way around. That’s a feedback conversation We feel you should have initiated and followed through with instead of chastising us asynchronously and then abandoning the conversation. Frankly, everything about this interaction really hurt and offended me. I don’t feel safe talking to you about this one on one in person because those meetings are never documented. If there is a problem with Us continuing to contribute in the ways that we always have and are still being praised for publicly, we should have a documented, mediated meeting to discuss that. (edited)
H.R Director 10:34
There is no problem contributing in the ways you always have. That issue I took was being exclusive of people who dedicate their entire jobs and careers to developing Linode’s culture. Doing so can very well cause a lot of confusion for a lot of people without clarity to what contributions we have and who to go to for specific things.
Scheduling a formal public discussion in a public forum with short notice, also, can be seen as a problem with zero context. The interpretation of this was that this was going to be a formalized discussion, thereby taking some people away from their primary responsibilities. It’s not about the content.
If you’d like to move ahead with a fully documented and mediated conversation to discuss these matters so that I can provide further clarity to my thoughts, I strongly encourage that. Please place something on my calendar on a day/time that works for you; my schedule is up to date. I would recommend Legal as the mediator, however would be happy to accommodate someone different. If you don’t want to schedule something, I will accept that as an understanding of my position as stated above.
Despite the fact that We had a right to speak with another executive for accountability, We did just that - entered into mediation. In independent meetings with Lega.l What We found was a very restorative conversation that really inquired about what goals We had for the mediation,what problems We saw & what would feel like a positive outcome versus a negative one. We left that conversation feeling very positively about how the mediation might go.
If you can already sense what happened next dear reader, it’s probably from experience. For that, we are sorry.
We had a very textbook experience of mediation with an HR director. Male fragility. Angry, Black person framing. Ego issues. Bias. Beginning mediation, tears already streaming down Our face from the anxiety, We tried to focus on the way We had been addressed, leaving the inherent power structure at play in the discriminatory, offensive “why” for a larger discussion, hopefully with an opportunity to address the systemic toxicity with more support from Our ERGs. Speaking firmly while visibly sad & anxious, before even being able to complete Our first three sentences, We were told that We were being hostile: needed to monitor Our tone & volume. He nearly jumped backwards out of his seat. We explained how he had upset me & why We felt feedback was really important to have. We showed it affected other employees too, & that his behavior should never have been out of line with kind of standards that were being set at a departmental level for other employees. Why were We being treated with less respect than We are told we should have for coworkers. Are we not coworkers? The theme continued.
We were told We were too emotional for productive conversation. We reminded that he had derived Us the privilege of not having strong feelings in the first place, that his job was not at risk as a result of mistreating Us, that We had treated him with more respect before & after being harmed than he was showing Us even in that moment. The accusations calmed. He began apologizing without substance, asking for an education on how they had impacted us to this degree. We agreed to schedule a meeting to talk about extending our department’s feedback training to all departments for equitable accountability. We asked for the notes from the mediation to be emailed to Us, along with calendar suggestions for the feedback training meeting with a week grace period for Us to feel up to it.
Legal never took a single note. We asked for a summary of the meeting content & the next steps that had been agreed on. We were never provided any documentation at all.
Another private message came later that day:
H.R. Director
I’ve spent the past … years here doing some amazing things for this amazing company, and feel like for the first time, I’m not getting recognized, or my actions aren’t being appreciated by all — whether that’s just perception or not, it’s an adjustment on my end that i’m feeling, but regardless, there’s a lot to learn. I do want what’s best for everyone, and hope we get past this quickly, whichever way you are most comfortable with.
No response expected/necessary, but I wanted to say thank you for helping me understand your perspective and effects of my actions.
We had done no such thing in the few hours since they had asked Us for that out of one side of their mouth, while calling Us too emotional to provide it out of the other. We decided not to let them back track on asking for more feedback, & provided it in detail by email anyway (shared inline earlier). The email was never returned.
We were proud of Ourself for taking the risk. As an employee of a marginalized background in a non-essential role working in an at-will termination state pushing examination of traditionally controversial issues & disruptive improvements in Our culture, anything anyone in leadership says to Us that isn’t strictly positive is a threat to Our employment & always has been. It’s a reality We must acknowledge & accept literally every time we use Our voice to say anything that could be seen as “subordinate” or “disruptive” or “aggressive” or any other selection from the long list of abstract and unproductive descriptions of grounds for termination in Our employee handbook and the documentation of previously terminated employees.
The work they had done is work that they were titled & compensated to be doing, although we are sure it comes with costs & labors that fall outside their job description & may feel taxing. Only, the work they have done in that time really has very little in common with the work we had supported the employees doing collectively in the previous year, in part because Our work directly benefits the employees even, if necessary, at the cost of the company. The equivalency contributed to Our feeling of not just a lack of recognition or appreciation, but active devaluing & erasure. While they had spent years improving the policies & benefits of this company to improve the company’s outcomes while supporting employees in the process, We had spent the last ten years dedicating Ourself to improving systems through the cultural development & education of stakeholders to improve the experiences & outcomes of those most negatively impacted by poor system & procedural design. We’ve spent tens of thousands of hours, without even approaching exaggeration, developing expertise in what makes cultural systems terrible for the people who have to operate within them & in what ways systems can be improved to benefit the lives and wellness of these human beings.
We’ve done so with similar methodologies as we execute at Linode:
- self education
- community engagement
- facilitating systemic change informed by participant data
- support and advocacy for participants in navigating the system and it’s changes overtime
- being willing to take on the burdensome risk of doing so in support of employees who cannot
It is Our life’s work to fight to make things better for people, by their own standards, with all available resources even as more are pursued for them. We have not only never sought recognition for Our contributions, but when received we actively redirected it to the community members at large who contribute to this collective work. Days after being nominated for a Culture Builder of the Year award, they share they don’t feel recognized for their work or appreciated. Insult added to Our injuries.
It was some solace to have him acknowledge that he was communicating out of emotion because that is a privilege We are not afforded. Even then, We spoke to him with the same collected & effective communication We always strive for, no matter how emotionally We felt, despite the physiological stress responses. Taking that risk is a privilege too. We were happy to have tested the waters on what kind of outcomes could be expected in attempts to use the existing systems of grievance address the way we were “supposed’ to. Perhaps others would test for themselves, & hopefully some would try another way.
Depression & Departure
That was the beginning of the end of Our time at Linode, however. We sunk further into depression, which had begun after a home invasion earlier that year despite improvements over the summer thanks to a mental health benefit offered through Linode. Insomnia returned, nightmares resurfaced. We often woke up late in the morning sobbing, thrashing, groggily scrambling for something to defend Ourself with, late for work already. Despite being transparent & forthcoming about it with leadership, We were only informed about the option of pursuing a disability accommodation applying to depression in the meeting where they gave Us our final warning notice. We told them if they weren’t able to collaborate with us while We went through that process, we would be fired in advance. They were asking us to wake Ourself from Our nightmare to call out of work before the start of our shifts…about missing work…because We were having a nightmare. It was physiologically impossible to sustain, as it required not sleeping. We were told to figure it out. We saw a psychiatrist, were prescribed anti-depressants, had the form completed. We were fired the day We brought in Our paperwork. Our time at Linode ended, as predicted.
So to the people we worked alongside, We have not left you. We are with you in spirit, in solidarity, and on Signal whenever you need advocating, or a place to talk about your frustrations & oppressions. We call on you to remain united, to take the risks of talking to one another honestly, to documenting your personal struggles to legitimize your collective experiences as systemic. As we have seen that collaboration is unsuccessful, unionizing offers another path to thriving professionally as well as personally. You are far from alone in fighting for what you deserve.
If discussing unchecked power consolidations, reinforcements of toxic, unhealthy cultural conditions holding positions of authority, & a failure to invest in the resources that would prove most effective in bringing employee thriving to fruition reminded you of your work place, gave you feelings of indignation about capitalism with a side of hopelessness in the pit of your stomach, or made you question how someone in your position could possibly manage to make any meaningful systemic difference, We have some hope to offer you. Please connect with Us.
We’re happy to help get us all #FreeToThrive.
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