What An Amazing Day (That Existed)!
One of my coworkers is from West Africa. He’s an intelligent polyglot who is up for a promotion; however, one of the managers who makes the decision is a bigoted a**hole. It’s noticeable that he never promotes anyone who isn’t white, despite 70% of the workforce being people of color.
That could just be a statistical anomaly, but it doesn’t excuse all his casually racist snipes at coworkers who have darker skin or thicker accents.
I’m in the factory office one afternoon running through some data entry numbers with an admin guy, when the racist manager comes storming out of the office in a rage. He curses, kicks a trash can, and storms out.
From out of the office comes the site manager, the big boss.
Me: “What was that all about?”
Site Manager: “After I said my choice for the promotion was [West African Employee], [Racist Manager] wanted to insist on a literacy test as part of the promotion process.”
Me: “Okay? And you disagreed?”
Site Manager: “Oh, no, I agreed. Whoever gets the position will be writing up reports, so proficiency in English is a requirement. We introduced the test a couple of weeks ago.”
Me: “Then… why is he so angry?”
Suddenly, from behind [Site Manager], comes the HR lady and [West African Coworker]. They were all in the meeting together.
Site Manager: “[West African Employee], do you mind if I tell them what you wrote down as your answer to question seven?”
West African Employee: “I don’t mind!”
Site Manager: “The test is quite simple, mind you, it’s just designed to gauge basic English skills. [Racist Manager] insisted that we should fail [West African Employee] for getting question seven wrong.”
Me: “What was question seven?”
Site Manager: “What is the shortest month?”
Me: “February?”
Site Manager: “[West African Employee], what was your answer?”
West African Employee: “October 1582.”
Me: “You’ve lost me.”
West African Employee: “In October 1582, the pope of the time, Gregory XIII, cut out ten days from the month to fix a discrepancy from the Julian calendar that caused the equinox to drift too far. It was a hard reset that introduced the Gregorian calendar, named after said Pope. October 5-14, 1582, don’t exist.”
Me: “Wow! I never knew that!”
Site Manager: “[Racist Manager] wanted to disqualify him on the basis that the answer should have been ‘February’ and I argued that if the point of the test is to evaluate proficiency in English… well…”
Me: *To HR Lady.* “Wait, are you okay with us all talking about this out in the open. What if [Racist Manager] complains?”
HR Lady: “You’d have a point if [Racist Manager] was a current employee. He quit about ten minutes ago…”
Everyone who heard the story kept scrolling back on the calendar apps on their phones to 1582 to see that it really WAS the shortest month! That was a good day, although I am sure [Racist Manager] wished that day was also one that didn’t exist!
That was about five years ago now, and in that time, [West African Employee] was promoted again to take over the role that [Racist Manager] had vacated.
