What Getting Fired by Wanda Sykes Taught Me About Knowing My Worth at Work
I lost my first job at 27 and it scarred me enough that I basically never talked about it until today. For months after, I felt worthless and embarrassed. I was so young that an event like that wasn’t part of a normal career life cycle. I didn’t know how volatile entertainment was. Frankly, I didn’t have enough perspective.
I didn’t move to LA to write for TV. Like many people I was too freaked to do the thing I actually wanted to do so I did the thing close to the thing I wanted to do.
In my defense, when I chose to take a producing gig on FOX’s The Wanda Sykes Show in 2008, it was a tentpole in TV history: Wanda was the only queer woman of color to host late night. Who cared that I wasn’t developing my writing skills? I was making history, baby!
I’d actually submitted for staff writer but they said what they really needed was a field producer with a late night background. This was well before streaming channels had 3 late night hosts each so I, fresh off the red hot Colbert Report was a freakin’ white whale, but of course I was too young to know the value of all that. They told me the job was a stepping stone to writing for the show and I, ever the practical cat took the promotion, raise, and rationalized that I was pretty good at all the scheduling, wrangling, planning and executing good producers were known for, even though I didn’t like doing most of those things at all.
If you’re wondering why you never heard of The Wanda Sykes Show, you would be forgiven: it lasted one season, did not end up taking a much of a political tone, was over budget and let go much of its staff (including me) within its first few months of airing.
The weeks that followed were a dark time. At that point in my life, I’d known rejection but had never had anything that chose me end so abruptly. I still remember making light of it that night, drinking with a few friends on the Sunset Strip, too young and reactive to understand that I was masking feeling worthless and dejected at my decision to move for a job I’d never wanted and was apparently, not equipped to do.
Looking at it more than a decade later I had to ask:
- Was it worth persisting in a role where I knew my days would be made up of doing things I was decent at but didn’t like for a promise by people I didn’t know at all that I’d get the job I wanted eventually? Was I living up to my full potential at the time?
- I keep hearing this type of thing happening for so many other women, even into our mid career. What can we do to stop the cycle?
Let’s dive in…
HOW DO WE END UP HERE
We didn’t know what we know now
My 27 year old self can be forgiven. Another thing she wasn’t yet known for was her wisdom because she hadn’t had enough raw experience or even enough experience learning to LEARN from experience.
Contrary to what experts who want to preserve their status say, expertise is not measured by reading all the books, and earning all the degrees. It comes from experience and practice (it doesn’t even have to be 10,000 hours — that’s for Serena Williams, not coding or contract negotiation, or building communities).
When we were younger we straight didn’t have enough time and experience to have the skills we have now. Not for nothing, the dynamic we were used to in school and home (and as women in general) is generally a command and control, top down dynamic where an authority figure basically told us what the standards were to “succeed” and then we followed their metrics. Rare is the parent or teacher who asked ‘what do you want?’ AND ACCEPTED THE ANSWER. This carried well into my own work life.
We don’t know we have a choice
Because it would be very inconvenient for the people who want us to live by their rules if we all of a sudden realized that rules are just made up by the people in power — making your own rules isn’t widely advertised or supported. This realization arrives around high school and college and leads to a lot of raged out social studies papers.
When we grow up we see we have a choice to define our value for ourselves and in that, there is huge power. Though 26 year old me could pitch a Jezebel fueled fit against the MAN, I now see that often:
I baited the hook then ended up resenting it when it dragged me along.
I’m not altogether perfect at “earning my worth” and “standing in my power” every second of the day, but I learned over time (and hopefully in some way, thanks to that first LA job) that I’m the only one I can control.
We undervalue our skills
My friend is a partner at a venture fund — smart lady: Harvard, Stanford. She also does all the contracts for the fund but in her words “it’s really not fun.” If she could, she wouldn’t do it anymore.
But how did we get here? Who told her other partners she was good at that skill? And who agreed to do it when they knew they hated doing it? Or didn’t realize how insanely valuable this skill was and charge accordingly?
Swear to God this is not about blaminess. This is about not knowing how awesome you are and then get bummed when others take your awesomeness for granted. It happens to all of us, even those with the best skills, the greatest education and the smarts to know how to advocate for ourselves.
3 STEPS TO DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
- Know what you’re known for
- Write out a list of skills and strengths you are rock solid in.
If you don’t know, ask 5 colleagues, mentors, friends. I have my clients do this and it affirms and cements what they know about themselves and there’s a lot of nice compliments in there so you get something of a good buzz.
2. Know what you WANT to be known for
- Now, sober up! Look at that list again without ego.
How many of those skills do you actually like to do? Like actually? Those are the skills you should be emphasizing from now on.
- Which of those things do you not like to do but are so high value (contract vetting, por ejemplo) you’d do them anyway?
- For those skills you don’t like, name your price.
That’s the amount people have to pay you to do that thing you don’t like to do. Guilty about charging more for that? Um, hello — are you not saving them an in-house counsel’s salary?
- Have some skills you want to be known for but haven’t yet developed? Add those.
Don’t worry. You don’t need a game plan to become an expert in those areas yet. Just knowing what you intend to learn in the future will do wonders for how you orient yourself in the present.
3. Emphasize what you want to be known for and don’t take any guff from anyone
A million things happen in any moment, what you choose to emphasize is the story you’re telling. When know which pieces of your story you’re emphasizing and why, you hold all the power.
- Remember: no one has to know anything you don’t tell them.
- What if I have a reputation?
Of course, other people will also tell your story for you and if something you used to do comes up you just tell say something professional, definitive and future focused like “While I’m well versed in [insert skill here: ex: “baboon wrangling”] my business/career is pivoting away from that space. To be honest though, from what you tell me about this position, you’d benefit far more from my skill at [“teaching zebras the tango”]. BOOM!
- This works for the position you’re in now, too.
That’s what reviews and 1:1s are for. To start communicating what you want to do more of and what you want to let go of. With the help of a great manager, this is possible.
As for me, I spun my story in a way that served me. Wanda was not a perfect experience, but it got me to LA. It also led to a come to Jesus conversation that forced me to write the spec script that earned me my first staff writer role at NBC’s Community. And THAT is another story altogether.
What’s the number one thing you WISH you didn’t have to do at work?
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