I'm Not Emotional, You Are

What should have been a quick chat to resolve a misunderstanding with a contractor turned into a night of replaying a scenario obsessively. Yesterday evening, I called him as promised to walk through his scope of work on my kitchen remodel. He answered the phone without a hello and said, "I gotta be honest, I stared at my phone, seeing your name, and debated if I have it in me for an emotional conversation with you."

In what felt like a five-minute silence debating my response, I said, "If you want to call me back in the morning, that is fine." He laughed it off and then jumped into discussing our miscommunication. I let him know I looked over the invoice as well as our texts regarding what work is included in our latest quest to finish up my kitchen remodel. I kept it factual. I spoke to the itemized list in the new invoice and the dollar amount. To which I was interrupted and heard, "Listen, I don't do money semantics. I pay my guys a daily rate and if your stuff isn't there when it's supposed to be, I have to pay them again to come out and another day rate. Let's just figure out how to make you happy."

It's important context to know, that I gave him the option to reschedule. He wanted to move forward. And what does money semantics even mean? Semantic text, semantic change, semantic meaning, sure, I can speak to those, but money semantics - I searched it up (for those without kids... that means I Googled it). No scholarly articles come close to what he alluded to; in reality, he wasn't about to talk to me regarding what he itemized and what I was actually paying for. I come from a career at an investment firm and I'm an Angel Investor. I'm not a fish out of water when it comes to business or money. What it does tell me; he's not used to being held accountable. And I'm not just talking about accountability to fulfill a contract, but accountability to his words.

Now, I have a good relationship with this person. He has stood in my home, and we have had conversations and challenged each other on social politics, issues, raising kids, and even marriage. We have a relationship that respects each other's views, while vastly different. This story isn't to diminish that; it's to shed light on the everyday interactions women face in what can sometimes feel like a man's world. But let's deconstruct the highlights of the conversation.

"I gotta be honest, I stared at my phone, seeing your name, and debated if I have it in me for an emotional conversation with you."

We have been conditioned from adolescence to be nurturing and attentive to others' emotions, feelings, and needs. Aware that any response I wanted to give him included an old-school middle finger emoji (my girlfriends get to follow my remodel journey in a group chat where I send them small, funny episodes of "F**k That Remodel" for entertainment), I instead, removing emotions, provided him a screenshot of the conversation showing the work is included in the cost he is charging me overall. Again, no emotions, just facts. If being a woman in the financial industry and now a leader in DEI+B has taught me anything, it's that I sometimes have to project an alter ego to be taken seriously. For me, this means removing the emotion. Women, especially people of color, do this without even realizing it many times; mine is always conscious. Maybe you've heard an African-American friend who all of a sudden has a "white voice" when speaking to a doctor's office, maybe your sister's voice lowers in pitch when she's met with authority, or water cooler talk of your gay bestie turns into them switching pronouns of their spouse when telling about their weekend? That's code-switching. From birth, we are told to fit in, stay safe, make friends, get ahead in life, and underrepresented people have to use these tools that society has created to tell us what is acceptable.

The conversation then continued by explaining to me that he was taking a hit by fixing my prior contractor's mess. He said, "You know it's guys like me that come in and make things right and take the hit. I'm not going to charge you any more money, let's just figure out how to make you happy." Again, this is the second time he's stated he just wants to make me happy while telling me that he's making concessions to do so. This is a bait and switch. Being a fly on the wall, you'd have clearly seen I am not a damsel in distress. Making me happy is allowing me to speak. What I ended up doing is allowing him to speak (for about 3 minutes straight) to a point where he talked himself into a full circle, and I ended up getting the outcome I was looking for. Only it came at a cost.

The opening line about being emotional, as a stand-alone comment, I may have dismissed this interaction quickly, but instead, they continued. Microaggressions like this happen to me all.the.time. This compounds one-off situations into a lived experience putting women and other minorities into the pitfalls of stereotypes. Enter in the Mad Black Woman, The Loud Latina, The Soft Spoken Asian, The Revengeful Single Mom. When we do not allow someone to be heard or seen, we instead insert stories about who they are. What we don't realize is that it not only greatly affects the stereotyped person, but it diminishes our own experiences. As a solo mom of two fabulous young girls trying to co-parent with an alcoholic, I have had to put my own biases in check in regard to other solo parents and addicts. In the same way, my contractor is inserting his dominance over my prior contractors as well as me and "making me happy." What we each did here is created a caste system immediately. Why? Because humans feel better and in control knowing someone else is beneath them. But recognizing this as a bias allows us to redirect our thinking quickly, removing judgment, and allowing for grace.

Here's the thing, this is a business transaction. I stated where the miscommunication happened, showed why, and simply called to get on the same page to resolve it. Making me happy is allowing me the space to understand why you are charging me for work that I thought I already paid for. I'm not shy in asking questions, and I'm well-versed in providing alternative viewpoints. But it comes with consequences.

In a 360 review during my banking days, I was called a prickly pear; I've also been told in informal feedback that I'm "like the mom of the team" when I was one of three senior global leaders and the only female. Now, I'm being told that I'm emotional and that asking questions to clarify where my money is going is a new thing called money semantics. What these comments and situations tell us is that it doesn't matter if a woman leads; her way is not good enough.

Imagine a world where you place toys and books in front of your child that vary from Barbies to dolls with flowing locks, to wood blocks to building engines to computers. You put them in every color regardless of what gender you assigned them. You allowed them to choose freely who they are and who they will become while guiding them with building blocks of what it means to be a good human. I have news for you, parents who allow this are not creating weak men and dominant women. They create a space for them to exist to their full potential.

What I'm saying through this ever-so-common story is that I won't wait another 50 years to be seen as your peer at your table, I won't even give you five. What I will do is go build my own table. I'll invite those who see another landscape across the table and those who can turn that table into something we'll no longer recognize in the future. I'll include you because I know the value of your voice, and I understand that surrounding myself with people who make me a better human and who challenge me gives me the proper tools to fix a wobbly table. I'm saying goodbye to fixing an uneven table with a rolled-up napkin. I'm not emotional, you are.