My experience at Google as a vocal TVC
By: Bathala Na
Tags: Stopasianhate, Asian American, Covid-19, Google, PTSD

If budget cuts were really the issue, how did they have the budget for a steak and scallops dinner delivered to the entire Google Year In Search 2020 team to do a virtual cooking class? Is that where my budget had to be allocated? And could they not have allocated the existing budget for the 6 white men brought on after my contract ended to hire people of color?

Before COVID and before the murder of George Floyd, I was happy working at Google. I drank the kool-aid thinking I was being extremely well-paid with my non-negotiable contract offered at $55/hr and felt valued and appreciated when I was given a raise to $65/hr within less than 3 months of me working there. I was fine knowing that even after finding out that the participants in the Fellowship program were being paid $70/hr because I got to not just touch, but lead some of Google’s largest campaigns. I believed it would literally pay off in the end. If the decision of my contract ending was “a larger conversation” beyond my manager and her manager who say they “truly supported” me and “wanted me to succeed” when former colleagues of mine ask what happened to me, I feel like they would have at least mentioned that they advocated for me, found a way to let me finish my 2 year contract, or even just cut my contract in December rather than right away in August, but they didn’t. If budget cuts were really the issue, how did they have the budget for a steak and scallops dinner delivered to the entire Google Year In Search 2020 team to do a virtual cooking class? Is that where my budget had to be allocated? And could they not have allocated the existing budget for the 6 white men brought on after my contract ended to hire people of color? I could have happily referred at least 20 BIPOC womxn to fill those spots instead. If Google [Department Redacted] wants to bring up that I was one of the 8 or so TVCs who were let go in August, can they answer the aforementioned questions for those 8 or so others if not for me?

“Bring your whole self to work…until you make me uncomfortable.”

It is unfair for white people to expect their BIPOC employees to have the tools to “properly” “bring their whole self to work” while processing two global pandemics. How dare white people minimize our trauma and flip it on us as “unprofessional.” How dare white people give me feedback that I’m “becoming difficult to work with” during a traumatic time when white people are constantly difficult to work with no matter what time of the year it is. How dare they value the ideas and experiences of the marginalized enough to recycle them as their own, but not the human beings who contributed and even lived them.

White liberals don’t want us to bring our whole selves to work. They want us to bring our bodies, our “fly style,” our ideas, our taste in music (to the point where the VP of Marketing even had me “DJ” at the beginning of every All-Staff), but not our ability to speak up and hold them accountable. “Bring your whole self to work…until you make me uncomfortable.” I was being paid $65/hr to perform my 9–5 tasks as a [Name of Position Redacted] in addition to the labor of making sure I wasn’t hurting white management’s feelings no matter how much they hurt mine with their ignorant comments and actions every day. Not only was I being unfairly compensated for the former, they also did not budget for the amount of work I put in towards the latter.

Creative work is personal. Identity is personal. Creative work around people’s identities and livelihood are personal. I am taking this personally.

This is not about “shifting my perspective” into “using this as a lesson” on how I can be “a better manager in the future.” I know I will be a far more empathetic and compassionate manager than any of my white managers throughout my career ever pretended to be or wish they could be. This is about making sure my white managers understand how to be better managers and advocates for those who report to them as they continue to move up the corporate ladder that the system has set them up to easily do so regardless of how progressive they are or how much empathy and compassion they do/do not have.

I am really done with overpaid full-time white liberals at Google feeling so damn proud about doing the bare minimum and bringing people of color on as TVCs to be tokenized as underpaid consultants for “diversity and inclusion.” I am SO done with being told these problems “are bigger than Google” when these problems can start being addressed at a powerful corporation like Google and the “well-intentioned” white liberals who hold positions of power within it. Malcolm X had a term for them — the smiling fox. Neither [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] or [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] sent me a diplomatic “Thank you for all you’ve done during your time here” email on my last day, but the Executive [Position Redacted] of our department did and even offered to connect me with people in his network. So who exactly made the decision here and who had a say? People can’t just keep saying “It’s Google.” Google isn’t a person, it’s represented by people. People make these decisions. White people make these decisions, especially at Google [Department Redacted].

I do not care about passive aggressive threatening language of “burning bridges with people who can impact the future of my career.” I do not care about letting this be “water under the bridge” when the water is filled with so much toxicity and white tears. I do not care about white people crying when I confide in them about these things (believe me, I’ve tried) and doing absolutely nothing other than saying “That is terrible that happened to you. Thank you for sharing. I hear you.” White people do not get to cry. White people do not actually hear me. White people have built these “professional bridges” on the backs of marginalized people and skip right across it. They have the privilege to “feel terrible” for us to “feel like this came out of nowhere” but do nothing about it other than that. That is how systemic racism continues and stretches further. It’s too easy for white liberals to blame Donald Trump, the alt-right, and even Google in order to overcompensate for their lack and unwillingness of inward reflection.

I am tired of “killing them with kindness” and “not letting them have power over me” when white people continue to participate in and allow the literal killings and suffering of marginalized people while the marginalized are still “fighting back” in nonviolent ways through our words, through community organizing, grass-root efforts, and through voting. White people get to “have a bad day,” but BIPOC can be murdered for simply trying to have a good day. The amount of forgiveness BIPOC individuals and communities have historically given to white people in power because of the hope that we hold on to yet the lack of empathy given towards us dare we talk back to our white manager for her racist remark is baffling. White people have had power over me, my sister, and my brother even before my mother and her mother were born — no eat-pray-love-yoga mantra can fix that. It is not enough for white people to be an ally or even anti-racist anymore. It is time to be anti-white supremacist.

White people take our land, our lives, our ideas and still expect to receive more and still believe they deserve more. No more. Not anymore…I do not care what bridge I burn. I and too many other mistreated BIPOC employees at their workplaces are going to burn the whole system down and I am starting with Google [Department Redacted].

I am capable of building my own career bridge on the right side of history. I’ve been constantly warned by other BIPOC creatives that “Just because you’re right and what happened to you is true, doesn’t mean you’ll win.” Others beg me to just “keep playing the game” that white people have created and I’ve witnessed firsthand how that mentality strips our full potential away just so we can get a paycheck or even literally live to see another day. Several BIPOC creatives have said things to me like “I don’t think I have the presence or impact at Google [Department Redacted] to speak up and I’m scared of what will happen if I do” or “I’d rather not.” The fear white people have instilled in us and the intergenerational trauma are so deeply embedded in our DNA that in 2021, we are not actually free. White people take our land, our lives, our ideas and still expect to receive more and still believe they deserve more. No more. Not anymore. If I have to suffer this entire lifetime so my children and their children won’t have to fear being murdered by bigots and eaten by the smiling foxes of the world then this fight will be worth it. I do not care what bridge I burn. I and too many other mistreated BIPOC employees at their workplaces are going to burn the whole system down and I’m going to start with Google [Department Redacted]. I am tired of people of color going about their whole lives just simply trying to survive in a white world. We deserve to not just live, but to thrive. I am fully aware I have a “whole life ahead of me.” I am sharing my story because I and so many others do not deserve to live the rest of it according to whiteness anymore.

These are the solutions I am demanding for my healing and the better treatment of current and future BIPOC TVC employees at Google: