Just give em' up

  
   Its friday and I had a pretty good week. I can't complain about anything that happened because I still have a job and I still look the same. There IS something that happened at work today that I'd like to speak on though. I work at a University as a Custodial Supervisor. I am the youngest in the department on all shifts. I have prior experience in this field so I know the job and the work. But being younger and I think Darker than mostly everyone in the department, I run into a lot of hostility from others within the department. For example....

     When I get to work, I give out keys to buildings and assignments. Tonight, there were 3 sets of keys missing from the office. These keys were to the building I'm mainly assigned to. Another supervisor told me that the keys were being used by the afternoon shift because they were cleaning up after a graduation earlier in the day. He also said that he'd go and get the keys and bring them to me. So, since he always takes his sweet time to do things, I went to the building to get the keys myself. And let me add that the building is adjacent to my own across a parking lot.

     When I got to the building, I sought out what looked like a supervisor, identified myself and stated that I was there to get the keys to the athletics building. The guy looked at me crazy and refused to give me the keys. Again, I told him who I was and said that I had people waiting to start their work. He said, "I'll give the keys to who I got them from and they'll give them to you". Huh? So I call the other supervisor I share an office with and tell him what's going on. He asks me to put the guy on the phone and at 1st he didn't want to talk to him. Then he snatches the phone and they start talking. I hear the guy say, "well I don't even know him". But I'm in uniform AND I told you who I was.

          He walks towards three other people and starts talking some spanish and tells the guy that lied to me a few weeks ago, Ernesto to give me the keys.

      Now, maybe I'm being a bitch about it, maybe I'm offended. BUT, I know if I was white, OR if I came up in there talking Spanish, I'd have got those keys and been on my merry way. BUT, since I AM young, and a Black man, the 1st thing that comes into their heads is "he's on some bullshit". Not Cool. I don't use broken english, I don't sag my pants, I don't have gold teeth. Someone can look at me and tell that I'm not an ignorant guy. But, since the world thinks that all black men are stupid monkey's, this guy had his mind made up about me before I opened my mouth.

I got the keys though. And I emailed my department director about the situation. For the 1st time, I snitched.