Save The Monogamy For Your Marriage, Not Your Career
These jobs ain’t loyal
I’ve been married to my wonderful husband for two years. He makes me happy and I have zero intentions of breaking our vows to be monogamous for the rest of our days. But monogamy, for me, only applies to my marriage, not potential job opportunities.
Even though I currently have a pretty great job (making close to a six-figure income and fully remote), when it comes to entertaining possible new career ventures, I need the LinkedIn DMs to never be dry. Career monogamy will never be something I will adhere to. Quitting the hustle and hanging up my jersey to be committed to one job for the rest of my life until retirement isn’t an option. Here’s the truth — I will still take a job recruiter’s number and put it in my phone even if I am in love with my current role. I am still keeping my LinkedIn profile turned on to “Open to New Opportunities.” And I am still casually applying for jobs that pique my interest on Indeed.com. You are probably thinking why would I be actively trying to mess up a good thing with my seemingly toxic behavior of constantly searching for a job that may or may not ever truly satisfy me?
Well, it’s because I am a career opportunist and I believe more Black women should be too.
Here are three reasons why Black women should never be loyal to their job:
Black women will always be expendable to White Corporate America
One of my former coworkers, now a close friend, said something to me once that I still think about to this day. She said, “White leadership will fire you and go home to sleep well at night. Always do what’s in your best interest.” She’s right. In fact, an article found on the CNN website highlights this very sentiment:
“When a company is going through layoffs, women and minority employees don’t always stand an equal chance. Research shows these groups of workers are labeled redundant or non-essential more frequently than their white male colleagues.”
More often than not, the expendability of Black women and minorities isn’t something that always happens overnight. From day one, they are usually hired by companies and placed with an impossible task where they can’t succeed, so they end up failing, making it easier to throw their positions away when times get tough. No matter how well they are doing at their job, how hard they are working, or how much value they add, Black women and their careers are never protected.
Found in the same article on the CNN website, Alexandra Kalev, associate professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University goes on to explain this further:
“We see that they get in, but they remain in their segregated positions, assigned to support or non-core management jobs or they’re assigned to line management in failing parts of the company, failing lines, struggling locations,” Kalev says. “So that’s not integration. That’s not inclusion. That’s exactly one big reason why they lose their jobs when downsizing comes.”
Professor Kalev also goes on to discuss the lack of opportunities to network and relationship-build as new employees, which in turn leads to another way for companies to have an easy out to get rid of Black women:
“In certain workplaces, women and minorities are relatively new hires compared to the majority white male workforce that may have been at the company for years. So when layoff season hits, they’re the ones without the deep connections and longstanding relationships, making them even more vulnerable to job dismissal.”
They will put Black women with their beautiful melanin, natural hair, and bright white smile front and center on their company pamphlet to highlight the fact that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a core value of their company. But at the end of the day, Black women will always be a part of the group that is the last to hire and first to fire.
Sometimes the grass is in fact greener on the other side
I am sure you’ve heard the infamous adage, “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it.” The saying points out that if you stay loyal in your situation and don’t turn away from making it the best it can be, the outcome will be outstanding. But In today’s job market and currently smack dab in the middle of a career revolution, this line of thinking has been proven time and time again to be utter bull****.
The grass is greener on the other side where Black women can comfortably work from home while making work/life balance a priority for themselves and their families. It’s also greener on the other side where companies are doing something about the wealth gap by paying and promoting Black women to higher roles with higher raises. And it is the greenest on the other side where their mental health can remain intact and protected from microaggressions, discrimination, racism, and toxicity.
A sworn loyalty or commitment to bettering something that hasn’t been great in the past (i.e., a toxic job) sometimes isn’t enough to change a history of poor decisions. But that’s ok because starting over can be pretty amazing too. That’s what life is truly all about. And sometimes the only way to do that is to take a leap of faith to the other side where the grass is in fact greener.
Career adaptation is more important than career monogamy
People always say that muscle memory is a huge deal. It’s getting into a rhythm, choosing a lane and staying in it, being on a constant loop. For a lot of people, career monogamy works in very much the same way. It’s the role you can count on, a position where you feel safe, a set of skills you have officially mastered. But is that wise? Will it be beneficial long term? Does it keep you at peak performance when it comes to measuring up against other competition in your field? The short answer is no.
Being able to effectively adjust to new environments with transferable skills you have accrued throughout your career will always be more valuable than how long you have been in a role. Unfortunately, people who have held their jobs for 20-plus years love to label those in my generation who like to job-hop for various reasons as indecisive or not serious. They just don’t understand why anyone would skip around with their career. But here’s the thing — unless there’s been upward mobility with plenty of opportunities to accumulate and expand your capabilities and knowledge in that role of 20 years, you are more than likely confusing loyalty with complacency.
In the end, your career isn’t ultimately strengthened by the time you spend in it; it is strengthened by growth in uncomfortable and unfamiliar places. That’s where you find out what you are truly made of when you have no other option but to adapt.
I want to hear from you! Do you believe in career monogamy?
