Betty Bay® Columnist for "The Courier-Journal", a Gannett publication

Bowen:       Betty, as a syndicated columnist, undoubtedly you hear from people writing to you, calling in, do you have a sense of the relative satisfaction or dissatisfaction that people may be feeling about their job situation.

Bay®:      As a columnist and editorial writer I may tap into peoples' rage in various kinds of ways so it might be skewd in a certain direction but I have this sense that people are not just angry in the workplace but angry in their lives in general and the workplace is a part of the stress that they feel and a certain amount of real resentment to some extent to people who in their minds maybe work and make too much money. I am not one of them. However, I think that when we do these stories in the media about corporate salaries and perks and stuff like that I think people really get annoyed.

And I think with all the downsizing and outsourcing that people just have a level of insecurity and these are working people. (They) have great insecurity about their own lives. They don't feel that I can work on this job and do good work and I won't be let go or I can retire from this job. And I think that insecurity explains some of the stress that we see in other places where people are just in general angry. You say "good morning" and they say "what's so good about it."

Bowen:       Right. Talk a little bit more about the whole person. It's not just an emotion that exists in the workplace but it's in life in general.

Bay®:      We see it in the political arena - maybe it was always there but I'm real aware of it - the level of political discourse, for example. People are very angry, they're not just disappointed with politicians. They're angry with politicians. They feel let down and I think that the political is only a part of it.

I think that in personal lives, more people can't keep personal relationships together. You know, we're divorcing, we're breaking up, we're cracking up, we're not gonna take it anymore. So I think there's kind of a coming together of many forces that makes for a pretty angry society. We see with people driving. You know, you change lanes and somebody is liable to cuss you out or you wonder if you're going to be shot. I find that there are days when I'm just like that. I'm just leaving home and I'm already in a state of anxiety about whatever and I'm probably one tries to catch up with the person in front of me who cut me off or something and you don't know whether that person has a gun or whatever and then you drop back and think, well, this person could be having a bad morning, too.

I just see it in general and I see differences opinion about things that I think people would discuss. Now, people are liable to fight you about it. So, it's really a rage and I think some of it's a workplace, stems from that insecurity.

Bowen:       From the perspective of the press and commentators, do you have a sense that, to some degree, there may be a contribution that these folks are making to stir the pot so to speak?

Bay®:       Oh, I think that's true. I'm in the media and I think that as media people you sometimes look for the drama of a situation. I think we stir the pot. I was reading an excerpt from Orlando Patterson's book "The Ordeal of Integration," and it talked about the disconnect, for example, the rage over affirmative action, and peoples' real upset about their situation and 42 percent of white Americans said that their rage about affirmative action stems from the media. And he made the the point that many people in the media are themselves are hostile to affirmative action and so they cover stories in ways that affirm what they already believe about it, their negative feelings. And then they poll people, and people give them back what they've given them and then they say we've got this great divide over affirmative action. And I think those of us who are people of color, we feel that strongly.

I think the Rush Limbaughs and some of the talk radio, the discourse, is very, very angry and it makes people feel like they're being gotten over on, they're being taken advantage of. So, I think that's a part of it and I think that's how people feel in the workplace, too. The boss is making so much money and look what I'm making and I'm getting laid off and this guy has failed the company and still he's getting (and I say guy because they usually are) these great big bail-out packages even for companies that essentially are not winning in the market. So, it's sort of a total kind of rage that I think we must be careful about. I think it leads to child abuse, spouse abuse, abuse your co-workers, whatever. So, I feel a great sense of drama in America today.

Bowen:       So these kinds of societal influences are impacting people's lives and they are carrying these feelings into the workplace. As a woman and as an African-American, do you believe that there are special issues that are effecting so-called minorities and African-Americans in particular which contribute to these feelings of anger?

Bay®:      Part of it is the general rage. When people are not in a pleasant state of mind, it's when they start going after who have skate-boarded to fame on these kinds of so-called wedge issues. And so of course, as a person of color, you're usually the first to get the rage. People can't strike out at what really bothers them and there's this way of making people think that their job are being lost, or their jobs are in jeopardy, because all these minorities and immigrants are taking their jobs. And it doesn't matter what the reality is numerically or whatever. It doesn't matter that when I look at C-SPAN, it seems to me that white men are still running the world, but you still have white men who have been told that they're victims and see themselves in that way. And they see themselves not as victims of a system that's never been a meritocracy but has always been a smaller group. They see themselves as being victims of me, or somebody like me, a woman, a minority, an immigrant. And it's a very interesting skewering of what people understand is the reason for their distress.

So, I think whenever times are bad, and it's historically proven time and again in our own history, when we've had race riots, when we've had work riots in the early days, say in New York early in the century, when the white immigrants felts that the people coming from the south, the black people where taking their jobs. You actually had riots where white people rioted and they attacked black people in the street because it wasn't their understanding of what was going on in corporate America and the stock market, they had to see some person they could blame. So, I think this is a very sensitive time to be a black person and a woman and that whatever you have you've always taken from someone. Or the feeling of some white men that their only competition now is not other white men. Their competition is minorities and women, or immigrants. It's a very unstable situation and in times like these, racism finds a niche.

People who specialize or capitalize on race issues, like some of the politicians do it in a more sophisticated manner, but a lot of the people who hear them talking don't have that level of sophistication that maybe this is just talk but it translates to them into "that guy down the block is the threat to me." It's really a bad situation.

Bowen:       Do you think this is a condition that is changing, relative to maybe 10 years ago? If so, is it getting worse, is it getting better?

Bay®:      Probably, when I try to think about some of these issues, I think it's different today. think to some extent it's more sophisticated. There is a sort of a language, you know; you don't have to say "black people," you just say "urban," and so what it is is it's slightly different. I think when times seem as flush as these for some people, and these are great economic times for a lot of Americans..., but in flush times you also get downsizing for a lot of people. It's the best of times, the worst of times: some people have a lot. But in order to have a lot, in order to make the stockholders happy, sometimes it requires doing-in the little guy. It requires closing in the company.

So, I think we notice the gaps between us far more and I notice that sometimes people are far kinder when times are better for more people and that may be a clue that even as we talk about how good the times are, maybe we're not really acknowledging how rough it is for others. And that if it was good in general, we would be a happier lot. And when Americans have been happier, they tend to be far more generous in terms of what they think government can do. And so it's a very interesting shift and I think it is different from 10 years ago.

Bowen:       Isn't there sort of a dichotomy, though, in spite of the hype and perception of good times. With all of the government pull-backs, and the balanced budget orientation that politicians have had, aren't we getting tighter in terms of economic restraints.

Bay®:       I think what it is is that they went after the easiest things first. They went after poor people first. They made the welfare mother into the person that was sucking the money out of the economy, who was taking out of people's pockets. Well, you've gone after the people who you think are politically impotent, that you can go after. The challenge now is, is that if you're going to make this thing work, now you've got to go after the people who support you politically. The people who do vote. And that's why social security and some of these other issues are a little bit tougher.

So what the democrats and the republicans did initially was to take the cheap way out and that is to beat up on the people who are the least politically potent, but in order to make this thing work economically to keep a balanced budget and all of that, you're going to have to go after the people who really get the chunk of the money - the military complex and some of these other things that they're doing. That's the tension now because now you've got to close down bases and now you've got to think about how many planes are going to build at a cost of so many millions of dollars. These are harder decisions for politicians to make than it is to make a decision to go and attack poor people and people of color and immigrants. You've got harder issues now. And I think that to some extent, there's this other thing that people understand what is going on.

Supposedly, now we're seeing the new Newt Gingrich and the lessons that he's now learned. Well, his tone is different now because remember all the venom was gotten out on the people who couldn't respond, who were easy to demonize. Now when you start demonizing the people who support the political system, it's a little more difficult to do. It's a little more difficult to demagogue the issues.

So, ya, I'm just sort of fascinated in how this thing goes in waves and there are a lot of people in America who are hurting a lot, and a lot of these welfare chickens are going to come home to roost because you've already dealt with people on welfare who were the majority, the ones who are employable. Now, you're down to the hard core. What are you going to do with them. Now you're telling them, "leave your children at home and do any kind of work." So, in other words you're saying let's re-institutionalize slavery for poor people and let them work for companies for minimum wage. It's just interesting to me, but now we're in the hard part and it's going to be interesting to see what the politicians do and I suspect a lot of them will be born again in terms of how they now come after and try to reconfigure government.

Bowen:       What do you think the attitude or the orientation is of people coming out of welfare and going into the workplace? We've heard a lot about welfare reform and welfare reform workers as if they are different from those who have been in the workforce a longer period of time.

Bay®:      Well, they have been having a lot of stories coming out of New York, now, where people coming off welfare are being used to replace other people who had worked basically at the low level of the income but they're being run out now by welfare people who they can employ just for checks. So, even some of the minimum wage people who had always worked, had never been on welfare, are finding themselves in trouble as they try to feed more welfare people into the system and to work them simply for their checks, which means no cash has to change hands in terms of what they see, so some of those workers are now being threatened by welfare reform. I think the thing is that what is clear is that many of these people cannot make a living wage, cannot take care of their families, and I think we're going to find that reform in a lot of ways is going to be far more expensive than what we have because people can't make it off those salaries, even in a place like Louisville which we had always thought of as a moderately priced city. Well, we're getting to be more and more an expensive city and we're building these huge supermarkets, Meijers, and all of this competition... it's like there's this sense that poor people and they're still going to need some assistance from us.

So, we've just promoted the idea that work is better than anything. We're pulling poor people, for example, out of college - welfare people, taking them out of college so they can get a job because we've decided that it's a smarter investment... to force them into minimum wage job than to support them for another two years and let them get a degree where maybe they can earn more money. So, some of the decisions we've made, I think, are short-sided but we've done it again because that was the easy crowd to deal with and these are some of the harder issues and welfare reform is not going to be cheap.

Bowen:       So when you say people are being forced out of a schooling situation to take a job, are you saying that the funding is being cut back and therefore, they have no alternative?

Bay®:      Right. Some of the people on welfare, some the programs require them to go to work. Some of them were managing to go to college and to be assisted while they got their degrees. Well, some of the demands now that they go to work means that they have to quit college in order to take minimum wage jobs as opposed to us saying, maybe the thing would be to look at people individually and if this person has two more years to finish school, let's let them finish school and get a degree where we can place them in a situation where they might be able to be more sustaining than to say that they ought to quit that and go into a six dollar an hour job which is where they're going to be without the educational training.

And then we make decisions about women should leave their children at home. I mean we've got this double-tiered thing; for women with money, they should stay home and take care of the children because it's good for children, but poor women, we're saying, no you should not stay home and take care of your children. You ought to go to work. So, we've got these contradictory messages which really are to some extent political but which again impact people in the workplace and people would be angry if they see welfare people taking their jobs. If somebody's going to work for a check, why would a boss pay you six or seven dollars an hour when they can bring in a worker for the welfare check. It's interesting at the very least.

Bowen:        It sounds like there's a condition being created that's ultimately going to work its way into the workplace as a potential situation of further conflict.

Bay®:       Yes, yes, I think there's going to be great conflict and I'm saying conflict at the lower end with the people who have always worked in low level jobs suddenly finding themselves being replaced by people who can be worked for a check.

Bowen:        If we look at other segments of the workforce, where do you see minorities and non-minorities having common issues and common cause for being insecure, being dissatisfied, or even being angry?

Bay®:       I think the common issues, particularly in the larger companies, when the GEs and the big companies start to lay people off, again they're not necessarily doing it the way they used to on seniority which used to be where, if was seniority, it generally benefited the people who had been there longer. Now, it depends on what area you're in so you might have 25 years, so, you know, in a lot of ways you and that black guy who's got 15 years maybe in simpatico - both of you are going out the door.

So, I think there's, you hate to say misery likes company, but there's something about if we could look at some of these issues and see that we really are impacted in a lot of ways across the lines in terms of some of the things that happen to people in the middle or the lower levels and especially we will see more of what we have in common, but it is politically expedient to make excuses why you're outsourcing people other than to say the idea is for us to maximize profits. I mean you have to say the reason why we're doing this is because we got affirmative action, we had to hire all these unqualified people, we had to hire all these women, to make excuses for what you know is the only way you can make mega-profits is to send that work overseas to Haiti or somewhere else where you can find some new people to exploit.

Bowen:        Betty, it occurs to me that while we've been talking about welfare reform and welfare mothers returning to the workplace (or in some cases coming to workplace for the first time), that there may be a perception that we're talking about African-American people but in fact it is the case that the large majority of these people are not people of color.

Bay®:      That is true and that is important to say and that's when we were talking about, for me, commonality of issues. I think poor people have commonality of issues and poor people are not mostly black. And, again, when we talk about the media of which I am a member and sometimes a little bit ashamed of it, is the perceptions that we create. When we want to do the welfare story, we go out and find somebody black. But when we want to do the story about a middle class working family, we go out and find a work family-a white family, as if there are not middle class people of color who are in that same group and that those are decisions that editors and other people have to think about: what is the message that we're sending. And the message that we send about poverty and particularly welfare is that it's a black thing and nobody else would understand. Well, actually, it is not.

Bowen:        Betty, as we move away from talking about entry level people, and look at people throughout an organization, what is particularly unique about the African-American side of anger in the workplace?

Bay®:       Well, I think, for example, this is an experience of many African-Americans I know in middle management is being promoted to a supervisory position and finding out the number of white people who resent having to work for you. So, in addition to knowing your job and doing your job, you have these subtle issues that are underneath. You find, perhaps, whites that you supervise going behind your back and going over your head to talk with somebody they feel comfortable with to complain about you or whatever. A real sort of resistance and, again, I think this may tap into some of the "this person got my job" sort of attitude that there is that whole level that many African-Americans take home at night-the frustration at the end of the day, or feeling sabotaged, often, in ways by people who can sabotage your work because as you learn, when you work long enough, not all the power resides in the people that are over you. People who are under you also have the power. They effect your evaluation. They effect how you are going to be perceived as a manager and they can make you perceived to be not a good manager by working to undermine your efforts, by questioning your decisions, by demanding that you spend a good part of your day justifying why you're asking them to do something.

And this sort of stuff comes from, interestingly, not from people who you would identify as overt racists. These are people who, maybe when you were on the same level, were collegial with you. You went to lunch together, you we really cool. But, when you got that promotion, they change up on you. That can happen in any event but happens often across the color line.

In fact, these are issues that African-Americans have talked about for a long time in books that white people tend not to read. I mean, "Black Life in Corporate America: Swimming in the Mainstream." I think that white people would be amazed at what black people do to themselves to survive in the corporation, to make it in the corporation, and what it often demands is is that you stop being black. Is that you leave that part of yourself at home. Is that you make sure that your colleagues no as little about your personal life as possible. To make sure that you're playing classical music in your office as opposed to the music that you really listen to when you're at home because you don't want to reveal much about yourself. And I know when George Davis and Glegg Watson wrote the book "Black Life in Corporate America: Swimming in the Mainstream," that was back in 1980 and these were considered to be pioneer black people who talked about even taking care as to what pictures they hung on their walls because they didn't want to be identified in some way that could be used against them. You even had people talk about stuff like they didn't even want to go into the bathroom when other people where in there. That's how serious it was. And black people talk about this all the time: a certain neurosis, a two-sidedness, that sort of wearing the mask and who you are at work and who you are on the weekends which is why you see often many black people who work in corporate America on the weekend, they're really not interested in socializing with white people because they need meltdown. They need the time because come Monday morning, they put the mask back on. They pick up the briefcase, they put the suit on and they know that the last thing that people want to hear about is what they did over the weekend. It's a very difficult separations and, for some, leads to real delusions about what's good and what's bad. What's translated in that is that the black culture is negative.

You just have people trying to fit in and it's hard to do that five days a week and then you go to the family reunion and there's your old aunt sitting there speaking eubonics and you've been told that this is a terrible thing.... Many of us were raised and nurtured by people speaking eubonics and all of a sudden you're supposed to separate yourself from them because they're backward and illiterate and whatever, and never mind that they've overcome obstacles that many of us could never imagine with our college degrees. To some extent, they were a lot tougher. And when we really want to know what is it going to take for me to survive in here on Monday morning, sometimes you've got to go to your eubonics-speaking grandmother for her to give you that mother wit that's going to get you through the week that Harvard did not prepare you for.

Bowen:       Obviously an individual who has to bifurcate himself is not going to someone who's going to be particularly happy. That has to contribute to a lot of the frustration.

Bay®:      And sometimes, I find it interesting, too, is that the rage is there. Ellis Cose, his book called it "The Rage of Privileged Class" and what it is is that you come in one morning and John who you've always known as a good guy, and you say the same thing you said to him on Friday and he goes off. It's really been very often that I've heard white people say, "God, I didn't know he was that angry." Well, it's generally because it's not the it of the moment. It is sort of a seething, a sort of a putting inside the briefcase the stuff that makes you you. Not being able to argue, for example, in the way you're used to arguing. I don't mean to generalize, but among black people a tendency to talk with their hands; to debate, to really debate. If somebody's not making the point quick enough, to jump in the floor and take the floor and make the point.

There's another book called "Black and White Styles in Conflict," which was written by Thomas Kochman some years ago, which I think every manager ought to read. It talks about the differences in styles so for many African-Americans, the way to argue, you have to put that in a bag because the way corporate America argues is much calmer. You know, we're cutting each other up but we're not talking loud, we're not yelling about it, but we're having the same effect. I was talking to some people here at public radio why I love listening to the parliaments in Canada and Europe because they really cut each other up but it's in a sophisticated kind of way. But it is as outrageous, it is as insulting as anything else. But when you are African-American or whatever you have to learn another way to argue because your style doesn't dominate.

So, again, it contributes to that sort of two-sidedness that for many African-Americans in corporate life, not being able to be themselves. It means coming out in your three-piece suit and your briefcase and having a cop, perhaps, stop you in your Mercedes-Benz and treating you as if you just robbed the supermarket down the street because the decision still is that it doesn't connect. So, when people say there's so many more blacks in the middle class, people don't understand the tenuousness of that because on any given night all it takes is a clerk in a store to turn you back into whatever they thought you were before. You can go into a store with your mink coat on and still be followed around by the store detective.

So there's all that sort of drama and stuff that really makes people potentially go off about what seems like not a big thing but generally there's a whole lot into it. But, because one group dominates, they don't really have to think about those issues as much. And, yet, as an African-American, you always have to think about how is this going to be perceived. How am I going to make my point. How am I going argue my point where they won't dismiss me as being an emotional, crazy black person.

Bowen:        Let's pursue that. If the situation were different and people could express themselves as they are, what do you think the benefit would be to the workplace?

Bay®:      I think one of it is people who are calmer, people who don't feel that they are phony, that they are putting on. A lot of it is phony. It's a game that you play and when you consider that you're a professional and say your professional life is going to be 25 years in a company, imagine 25 years of wearing mask, 25 years of your style and your way not really being acknowledged. That you have to make yourself over. And I think that people would be more productive if they didn't have to think about why is somebody saying this to me? Are they saying this to me because I'm black? Are they saying this to me because I'm a woman? Are they dismissing my point because they're not used to listening to black people or they think I don't have anything important to say? There's a lot of psychic energy that I think could be translated into good work that is spent just trying to figure out, why is this happening to me? You know, what are they saying? What are they talking about when they get over there together? And that happens both ways. When you work with whites and they see three blacks by the water cooler, everybody sort of thinks you're plotting revolution and you could be talking about whatever. And then you see a group of whites together and you're sitting over there eating by yourself and then you're thinking, well, are they talking about me? What are they doing? And so some of this not recognizing that we all come from it. Even among white people there's not one culture.

I grew up in multi-cultural New York where I grew up with Italians. Italians are demonstrative, they use their hands. I'm used to that. I grew up with Jews who I found were very straight forward in how they talk. If you don't understand you'll think they're putting you down. I grew up with Hispanics. You know, there's that sense with the Puerto Ricans, the machismo, the whatever. And if we're going to be together, and I think this is going to be the new condition of the world, I think we have to recognize and acknowledge that there's not one way of getting to the point. That there are many ways. And how are we going to learn how to listen to people in the voices in which they feel comfortable speaking and not dismissing them as not having anything to say.

Bowen:        What advice would you give other minorities entering the job market?

Bay®:       I guess the thing I think about is that it's far more important that people respect you than love you. This is probably true for all of us, but I don't think we should go to work looking for love. I think for us what is important is to be respected and I think that a lot of the tension that we see in the workplace, it stems from a lack of respect. That is, people who don't respect your talents, who don't respect your contribution, who don't respect the way you do things. And I think if we get back to just the simple thing about respecting people we would be a lot better off. So, when I talk to young people going into business, it's primarily to respect yourself. If the company is asking you to do something which betrays everything that you've ever been raised to believe was good, maybe you have to consider doing something else. There's a gospel song that talks about what would it mean to gain this whole world and lose your soul. And I think that your soul becomes important to who you are. And when you let people steal your essence or steal your joy, you are not a hundred percent effective and so that is my message to people going into the workplace, is that where you can you try to make people hear you the way you want to be heard. That doesn't mean that you don't compromise sometimes because we have to listen to. We have to learn how to listen. But, I think if we respect each other and if we respect that we come from different things and that we see the world through different eyes - respecting somebody is sitting down and saying let me try to understand where you're coming from.

And too often we say we're too busy to thing that we ought to be doing because lot's of times, maybe some of these shoot-outs that we've seen where people have gone berserk might not have occurred if somebody had said let me sit down and hear where you're coming from, maybe I can see your point and let me help you understand ours. We should not be so busy that we lose the concept of respecting people, of respecting their values. And for the individual to say, there are some thing that I will not do and maybe I will have to not do this job if that what is required from me. Your soul is important and in the workplace I think a lot of the soul has been taken out of it and I don't see any reason why we can't have soul and make money, too. I think the people in the music industry prove that all the time. They hold their soul and they make money, and I think we could do it in corporate America as well.

Bowen:        What recommendations do you have for leaders of organizations to address some of the issues that you've raised and to realize some of the opportunities that you've suggested?

Bay®:      I think leaders of the organizations are so focused on the bottom line that they forget how to get there. They forget the bottom line is the people who work for you. I don't know how they think they're going to get there and mistreat the people. .... They have gotten so caught up in the balance sheets that they don't understand that happy workers make them money. People who enjoy what they're doing make money. Unhappy people sabotage the operation. Unhappy people are starting fights on the line are not productive, so leaders have job to do, again, to respect the people who work for them. Maybe it's the money. Maybe the money is so big now, somebody said that the top person may make 25 times more than the workers on the line and maybe that's were the separation comes in at. But if we take a cue from some of the small businesses, I mean small business owners can't afford to treat their workers badly because they're right there in the same space and you can see that person. The small business person wants to make a profit and so the small business owner probably understands that can't mistreat people. Now maybe in the corporation where there are more stories, you're higher up in the building or whatever, you just have this sense that you don't have to pay attention to those people. And, again, the bottom line still is going to be how you treat your people and as we've talked about some of the successful companies, the most successful start-up companies are the ones that treat people well.

And people can say what they want to say about Microsoft and some of these places, but a part of it is that they have shared the wealth with the workers. You have people staying up all night long trying to come up with new ways to make money because they share the wealth. And so what has happened is a lot of these computer companies have created a lot of new millionaires. Now, we're all happy because Bill Gates makes so much money but so do I.

So, when you recognize people's humanity, when you say, ya, that's the janitor but that person does something important in this company and I'm going to say good morning to them. And I am appalled by the number of people who tell me, minimum wage workers who always say to me, you know I really like you because you always say good morning to me. I acknowledge people. If I'm out at a fancy dinner, and I know somebody who's waiting the tables that goes to my church, I don't not speak to them because they're working the dinner and I'm a guest there. It's hi, how are you doing. And I think when you acknowledge people, when you give them their humanity no matter whether they're flipping burgers or the guy in your accounting office, they all have a sense of this person notices me, I'm somebody, they care about me and that's what I think some of those old corporate people knew about. They knew about caring about people and even when they were on some level exploiting them, the people allowed themselves to be exploited because they felt they were a part of the company and too often now people don't feel a part of the action. They feel like they're just fodder. They're just available.

And corporate leaders would do really, really well to focus in on the humanity of their people. To walk the floors, to come down from their ivory tower and sort of talk to folk and say how are you doing. There's nothing like saying to somebody, how are your kids, how are your grandkids. Man, that smile just breaks out on their faces and the next thing you know they spend the rest of their day working harder. We don't need any more of these scenes at office buildings and when we start dissecting some of these things, the angry worker starts somewhere and generally you'll find that the angry workers is the one that feels they were not listened to, that they weren't taken seriously enough. And, unfortunately, it's not just an issue for the leaders, because an angry worker sometimes doesn't just take out the leaders, they take out other people to. So, we maybe need to pull our leaders by the coattails and say, you know, I think you maybe want to talk to John a little bit or Susie a little bit because she really seems distressed. We need to start paying attention to one another.