Why I’ve Stopped Caring About Discrimination at Work.

Someone in your office is prejudiced against you. How do you cope with that?

I received a submission through my website a few weeks ago, in which a woman in a managerial position admitted she felt discriminated against at work. I hope she won’t mind me sharing it with all of you now; one of my favourite things about my new podcast is seeing how my openness, however intimidating it may be for me, is encouraging others to voice their own work-related troubles and allowing important conversations to be had.

She detailed a meeting in which she was the only female, encircled by eight men at her level. They sat at a round table, but the man heading up the meeting chose to stand behind her, addressing the rest of the room but forcing her to keep her back to him, refusing to engage her with his body language. Though she comedically titled her submission ‘short girl problems’, (the urge to laugh off these situations only enforces the sad truth that we’re all too used to dealing with them) the fact is she felt overlooked, undervalued and at a disadvantage. And, because we’ve all seen the statistics and we’ve all experienced discrimination in one form or another, her mind jumped straight to that inevitable question: is it because of my gender?

Discrimination is something we have all or will all encounter in our lives - be it based on gender, skin colour, sexual orientation or background. But when it finds you at work, it’s hard to know the best way to respond. Often we hold back from confrontation out of fear for our job security or fear of not wanting to be branded with a bad attitude. It can bring us down, enhance our insecurities and make us question our own value. But a recent conversation with our CEO at Social Chain, Steve Bartlett, illuminated something for me.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Prejudice is a complex issue - there’s no doubting it. And it’s a very real problem. However - and this is slightly controversial - I don’t care. And you shouldn’t either. If someone is prejudiced against you, that’s on them. As soon as you stop spending your time hustling and choose to spend it dwelling on a moment, on a comment or a feeling, you’re giving more power to them than they deserve. You’re holding yourself back; you’re confirming their opinion. If you spend long enough focused on the glass ceiling, you end up building it yourself.

Undoubtedly, at some point in my career, I have been discriminated against. It’s inevitable; everyone has prejudices. And yes, sometimes you can change people’s minds. But, for the most part, if someone insists on feeling a certain way about you, it’s not in your best interest to try. That’s not a productive use of your time. Instead, your time should be spent making yourself as valuable and as necessary as possible, building yourself up and working on yourself to the point where it’s impossible to ignore you - no matter your race, religion, gender, what have you.

If you tell a runner that 5K is the average distance for someone of his age, height and build, he’ll start to get lethargic once he’s hit that mark. The second you acknowledge a limitation, real or not, you start enforcing that limit on yourself. Steve put it best: “The minute you think you have a disadvantage, you start to live that disadvantage.”

Of course, if you really are being cast aside at work because of something you can’t change about yourself, you are under no obligation whatsoever to put up with it. Bring it up with a senior member of staff, bring hard evidence to the table and make yourself heard. We can’t sweep discrimination under the rug; it’s important to talk about it, but whatever you do, don’t give a prejudiced person any unnecessary power by carrying their words around with you. Remember that you should also never feel pressured to leave, but you are always free to leave if you wish. Quitting isn’t a bad thing - and when done for the right reasons at the right time it can take you far.

Your number one priority should be nurturing your drive, defending your ambition and focusing every ounce of your energy on yourself. So someone in your office is prejudiced against you. Who gives a f*ck?

Click here to listen to the latest episode of my podcast, ‘I Shouldn’t Ask You This, Steve Bartlett, But...’