They call me “Mr. Beachhead”
Once I was established in the industry, I decided to give back. I wrote a proposal for a minority-targeted summer internship program and presented it to my superiors. They went for it on one condition: it couldn’t interfere with my workload. After promising that it wouldn’t I checked with the department heads to see who wanted interns. Next, I hit up colleges for candidates. It was a ton of work but I figured somebody did it for me, so: each one, teach many.
But they changed the game on me: First the higher-ups told me that the program couldn’t be exclusive to minorities. “Reverse discrimination,” they warned. Reverse discrimination… this from a company whose 180-person staff was whiter than a Colorado blizzard. Anyway, I had to interview white candidates and guarantee that at least a couple whites would get in… Just be fair. I agreed and proceeded accordingly.
What followed was a good-old fashioned coup: My bosses decided that the program, while noble, was interfering with my work. And since running an internship program was deemed an “executive initiative,” my boss offered to “help oversee it,” as he put it. By then I’d interviewed a handful of candidates and had dozens more hungry and waiting. To make a long story short, he took over the internship program and picked the interns himself. That summer our department had five interns—3 male, 2 female, all white. Two even had ties to clients or high-level company execs.
The following year the internship program went down the same route: All white college kids, some with insider connects. When I complained I was politely told I should be more concerned with keeping my own job.
What followed was a good-old fashioned coup: My bosses decided that the program, while noble, was interfering with my work. And since running an internship program was deemed an “executive initiative,” my boss offered to “help oversee it,” as he put it. By then I’d interviewed a handful of candidates and had dozens more hungry and waiting. To make a long story short, he took over the internship program and picked the interns himself. That summer our department had five interns—3 male, 2 female, all white. Two even had ties to clients or high-level company execs.
The following year the internship program went down the same route: All white college kids, some with insider connects. When I complained I was politely told I should be more concerned with keeping my own job.
