The Betta Fish

Lessons from the Workplace Fish Tank

AS A KID, I was fascinated with betta fish. Also known as Siamese Fighting Fish, these brightly colored aquatic creatures don’t swim in schools like other species, but instead prefer to exist alone and choose to fight others to the death in order to reign supreme in the fishbowl. This is why my mom and dad ended up buying me a pair of those orange big-brained, bulging-forehead goldfish instead: they could peacefully (albeit boringly) swim around for years and exist without any issues.

Decades later, as a full-fledged employed adult, I realized the workplace is an aquarium filled with betta fish! But what was worse, these human equivalents didn’t use physical violence to show off their neon colors. In some ways, that would be easier to deal with! Instead, these adult human combat creatures used snark, verbal aggression, and underhanded sneaky tactics to take down their prey. And that prey was usually yours truly. What fooled me in the beginning was how it was often the prettiest or the most unlikely workplace counterparts who would end up trying to take you down because you were the new kid in the tank.

You likely know exactly who I’m talking about. Think of Susana in the shipping department who appears to be all smiles and sweetness when she hands you your Amazon Prime packages each week, but on the inside, she’s seething because she applied for your job years earlier . . . and didn’t get it. For me, my betta fish moment came when a real-life Ron Burgundy from the movie Anchorman rigged my teleprompter scripts so I would mess up on-air. Another workplace saboteur leaked embarrassing photos of me to a national news blog. Again, for personal gain. (More on that later.)

The fact I even need to write a chapter about watching your back at all times seems paranoid and preposterous and downright sad. Maybe being in news has exacerbated this need to stay safe and aware of my surroundings. We cover shootings, cases of identity theft, and bank robberies. A bodyguard follows me and my crew if we’re shooting in a high-risk area. But none of us have bodyguards in the office where, instead of personal property attacks, we are faced with credibility attacks. These affect your mental state, personal well-being, and ability to do your job.

Humans are inherently competitive beings. Scientists have long claimed that competition is “one of the most basic functions of nature” and that it’s an instinct to survive. We “compete for resources in the forms of food, jobs, living quarters and general status in society. We compete against each other, we compete against ourselves and we compete as groups against other groups.” Competition at work can motivate . . . or bring out the worst in some.

Hence why this chapter is so needed.

But while you can’t have your head on an owl-like swivel at all times, or wear those rearview spy glasses (I also loved those as a kid), or hire a life coach to follow you around at all times, you can learn to peacefully coexist. Swimming around these creatures isn’t always enough and, honestly, it’s not always possible. (What do you mean I can’t trade desks with you?) So, your best ammunition is to fortify yourself with the savvy strategies and quick quips that’ll keep you alive and thriving, so you can keep moving upward while those trying to get in the way of your success stay stagnant.

This isn’t to say you won’t encounter, or be surrounded by phenomenal, supportive, genuine people. Much of who I am today is because of the standout women and men who supported me and held my hand when others couldn’t or wouldn’t. (More on finding and nurturing these relationships later.) But the fact of the matter is the workplace is a curious amalgam of people from all backgrounds with varying goals. While we should ideally work in tandem for the greater good, it doesn’t always happen. Your goal is to rise above it, all the while maintaining a positive working attitude with the people around you. Trust me on this: once you master this part of the workplace and your career, a big chunk of everything else challenging about work will fall into place.

FROM SORORITY/FRATERNITY TO BATTLEFIELD

A fellow reporter friend of mine once told me about the time she waved at and wished a senior female reporter a Happy Thanksgiving only to be dismissed with a haughty “goodbye” and strut out the door. I envisioned it to be like that viral video of rapper Nicki Minaj sashaying down a runway, blonde extensions whipping back and forth, arriving at her exclusive private jet you’re not allowed to be on. Except this was a 50-something-year-old woman in a tweed power suit giving a 37-year-old reporter a piece of the business as she stomped away into her news van. My friend, an incredibly intelligent, quick-witted, talented storyteller said she was so shocked she just stood there, mouth agape as the vehicle pulled out of the driveway. The mental image of this was kind of hilarious in a pitiful kind of way.

What happened to civility? What happened to everyone being in the same sorority or living on the same floor of the college dorm, planning out a 1980s movies night? Instead, offices are micro clubs and cliques with a separation between the old guard and any newcomers. On the outside, the existing staff may be the most welcoming, the most cordial people you’ve ever met. But when you’re the new kid in town, there’s undoubtedly a hazing period. Your job is to survive it.

LIKE MURDER: THERE’S ALWAYS A MOTIVE

In a way there is reason to think a bit like a true crime episode on the Oxygen network when you’re at work. Is your colleague taking you out to lunch to welcome you to the workplace . . . or to dig for information to use against you so she can swoop in when you get demoted? Did she get passed up for the job you were just offered? Does she have a friend who wanted your job? By doing your homework, you’ll be able to separate the true friends who will lift you up from the ones who are wishing you’d fall.

Figuring out the motive behind an action in the workplace can not only help you understand why something is happening and give you perspective, it can also help better prepare you for how to handle the situation. It’s one of the pillars in reporting in the field and can help you make decisions in the workplace, too.

Take the case of my agent in Kansas City. He was a bulldog. Fiercely loyal and supportive, he would do anything he could to fight for every penny he thought his clients deserved. Shortly after he completed a contentious back-and-forth negotiation when I was promoted from weekends to weekdays, my boss approached me and suggested I get another agent. One he recommended. His argument was my agent was “mean” and “scary” and that I’d have better success with my career if I hired an agent he had worked with in the past.

It being my boss, the man who spent countless hours going over shows with me, picking them apart, coaching me on how to be a better anchor and reporter, I took his suggestion and hired his friend. Not to mention, we had just inked a very generous (to my 24-year-old brain at least) renegotiation contract. At the time, this seemed like the right thing to do and made sense.

Years later I discovered the agent who was his friend, was his friend of a reason: he was soft on negotiating and didn’t stand up for me when I needed advice, coaching, or feedback. It all started to make sense. If my first agent was a fierce tiger, this one was an affable lop-eared bunny. He was hesitant to pick up the phone to call the station if an issue arose, didn’t push back nearly as hard as I’d like during contract negotiations, and worst of all, didn’t seem 100 percent in love with me and my work. He’d act shocked when I got promotions and at one point told me my work was “pretty good.” How could he be my advocate when he thought my work was only pretty good? Here I was, paying him thousands of dollars every month and my agent was more interested in protecting his friends than having my best interests at heart. The last straw was when a reporter friend was talking to a VP of News at a convention and mentioned my agent by name as being “easy.” I fired him the next week. In this case, being easy was pretty much the same as being sleazy.

The agent debacle got me thinking: motive is everything. I doubt my mentor was trying to be malicious, but his motive was self-serving. Save the company money. My soft agent was soft because he was friends with all of these employers and was close to retirement age. It’s crucial to think about every possible scenario of why someone recommends that you do something. Ask yourself these critical questions: Why would someone want me to do this? Does this person directly benefit somehow if I follow a certain directive? Does he or she have a friend or family member who would? Asking the “why” isn’t just for reporters, it’s for anyone and everyone with a boss.

DIG DEEPER: HOW TO DEAL WITH THE PRYING COWORKER

Upon arriving in Kansas City after a short year-long stint in a tiny market in western Massachusetts, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, enthusiastic to be at a prestigious station in a medium-
to-large-sized city so early in my career. But shortly after I started, a discrimination lawsuit was filed by three of the senior on-air female talent who felt like they were being pushed out for younger talent like me. In the affidavit and in whispers I’d overhear in the hallways it was clear the older crowd didn’t think I belonged or was qualified for the weekend morning anchor position. Truth is, with a year of experience under my belt and never having anchored a day in my life, I wasn’t qualified. But it wasn’t everyone else’s job to judge until I could prove my worth in other ways.

This made me feel alone and depressed. Many of my colleagues were not just a few years older but decades older, and didn’t socialize after work, opting to go home and be with their families. This I understood. But it was a stark contrast to my former job, where my coworkers provided me a robust social life with weekly dinners or drinks on the weekends. My new reality was going home by myself many days after my shift, watching episodes of “Barefoot Contessa” on the Food Network and trying to re-create her recipes that never seemed to come out anywhere nearly as perfect as they did on TV.

So, when I received an email from a colleague who was in her late twenties, asking me to lunch, I responded right away with zeal. Yes! At last! A potential friend! Lana had been a reporter in Madison, Wisconsin, and Buffalo, New York, and was relatively new at the game herself. I was about to embark on my first on-air girls lunch date in my new city and was already mentally preparing what to wear.

We met at a popular Midwest chain restaurant that featured unlimited garlic fries, a million flavors of milkshakes, and burgers the size of your head. Over our gargantuan meal, Lana asked me how I liked living in Kansas, how I felt about my colleagues, the boss, and what my career goals were.

At the time, being 23 years old, I just assumed this was basic getting-to-know-you chatter and since I was feeling sadly desperate for female companionship I spilled my guts as if we had known each other for years. When the last of our thick chocolate malts were sucked up, and we stood to leave, I beamed, “Let’s do this again!” Lana gave what seemed like an enthusiastic (albeit I should have realized, insincere, like her anchor expressions) affirmation; we hugged and were on with the rest of our day.

When I got back to work the next week, something seemed off. Several weeks passed, and Lana didn’t make any effort to reach out, to say she enjoyed lunch with me, or as much as look at me in the newsroom. What happened to our burgeoning friendship? Did I do something wrong? I was crushed.

It wasn’t until more than a month later, I learned from Abbie, a producer at the station (who would later become one of my closest friends), that Lana just wanted to dig for information. She had approached Abbie several times baiting her to say something negative about my workplace performance. Example: “So, what did you think of Dion’s story on the Hannah Montana concert last night?” (This was way before Miley Cyrus started twerking on stage with Robin Thicke.) “Don’t you think her wearing a blonde wig like all those little girls in the crowd is not real journalism?”

She also had mentioned to her in separate conversations that she felt like she deserved to have my position, given that she has seven years’ more experience. (Good LORD, I thought. Did everyone want my job?)

It suddenly all made so much sense. Here I was, telling Lana how I wasn’t all that keen on my new city, mostly because I didn’t know anybody, and that I dreamed of one day becoming an anchor at a top 10 market. A supervisor suspiciously approached me the following week to inquire about my career aspirations and if I had been looking for a job. Since there was only one person I had confessed this to, my heart sank. How could I have been so naive to spill my guts to someone who would betray my trust for their own personal gain?

Ever since the Lana betrayal, I became ultra-mindful when others approached me in person or online to chitchat and ask a few too many questions. Over the years I’ve honed my tiptoeing skills and deploy strategies to shut down the snoopers so they don’t suspect you’re suspecting them of being busybodies. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Zip It, Zip It Good

Your goal during these nosy attempts at personal data mining is to give the other person the tactful equivalent of talking to the hand. You want to end their prying while still keeping things civilized. In some relationships you can call the other person out and say, “Hey, are you being nosy?” but chances are, if the person feels the need to pry, it clearly means he or she is not comfortable enough having a straightforward conversation to get the desired information out of you.

A Case for Vague

It’s hard to escape a tough question without making a blatant change-of-subject, or in the TV business, a “hard right turn,” going from a story about a unicorn festival to a triple homicide. Instead, being obscenely general can not only shut down the questioning but satisfy the other person’s need for an answer. Today, when people ask me what my career aspirations are, I tell them I can’t think that far ahead into the future because life changes so quickly you never know what’s going to happen. Another good response in the form of a vague joke is, “I just want to get through the week. I can’t even think about aspiring to anything other than what’s for lunch tomorrow!”

Feign Ignorance

Playing dumb sounds terrible, so I like to think of it as playing it smart by “feigning ignorance” to handle certain situations tactfully. A favorite pastime of coworkers wherever you are employed is to gossip and speculate about who is getting fired, who is getting a promotion, who is sleeping with whom, and so forth. By blatantly saying you know nothing of the situation or haven’t heard a thing (even if you might have) renders you useless to the other person. In these cases, being useless is a positive.

The Brush-Off

Journalists are extra inquisitive, so whenever someone tries to get me to talk about someone behind their back, or reveal the identity of someone who did something or said something, if I don’t want to share, it’s as easy as saying, “It’s not important” or “Just someone I know.” Being prepared with a quick brush-off prevents further digging—even after the “C’mon, you can tell me.”

Follow-up question: After deploying any vagueness, ignorance, or the brush-off, the best thing to do is to ask your own question to the other person to shift the focus on cultivating information from you to neutral subjects pertaining to them. By asking a question, it forces the other person to respond and hopefully forget about his or her own probing questions. It then gives you a door to wrap up the conversation and remove yourself from the situation.

End of Story

The last resort is when you encounter someone who just can’t stop prying, even after you’ve done all the feigning ignorance, brushing off, and follow-up questioning. Sometimes you just have to nip it in the bud and tell the other person, “Hey, let’s move on” or sometimes I’ll say, “No means no” and play it off as a joke. The key is to be just firm enough that the other person understands you’re about to be mad if he or she keeps pushing.

LEARN TO TRUST . . . BY TESTING THE WATERS

Figuring out if three senior anchors/reporters in Kansas City were on my side was pretty easy, since I was clearly named in the affidavit they filed when they sued the station for age discrimination. (I was the much younger woman who was offered an anchoring job over them.) While the women were perfectly kind and professional to my face, I have no doubt they felt I was not entitled to anchor in market number 33 so soon out of college. So, I just steered clear and tried not to ever get in their way.

But in many more instances, it was challenging to crack through the smiling, seemingly friendly facade to determine who would be on my team and who would create an invisible one-sided rivalry. Today, I can usually get a general sense of how our relationship will be within the first three encounters. It’s not just determining motive, or using some of the body language cues discussed in the first chapter. Sometimes it takes getting burned first.

The whole concept of testing the waters to protect oneself came after getting badly burned from actual water . . . and a photo of poop.

A Stinky Situation

One day while getting ready for my newscast at a station that shall not be named, I went to the makeup room to de-shine my sweaty, practically reflective forehead when a foul, sewer-like odor wafted through the hallway. It was so puke-inducing I was willing to bet either an animal had somehow gotten inside and died, or someone had a very embarrassing accident after eating too much Mexican food. Turned out a sewer line had burst and begun seeping stench and brown particles all over the tiled floor. After screeching in horror with a meteorologist who happened to be in the room already, semi-trapped by the fast-moving liquid around her, I snapped a photo to document the hilarity of the situation. Since a colleague who worked on my show was out sick that day, I texted him the photo with the caption, “Be glad you are not here to witness the sewer geyser!” A few hours later, the liquid mess was cleaned up, the pipe fixed, and I thought all would be fine in the world.

Except the next day, I woke to a flurry of texts asking if I had seen the news. An industry blogger had obtained the photo of our makeup room mishap and published the story for the whole nation to see. HOW!? None of my friends outside the building knew the photo was taken by me, as there was no attribution or credit on the image. But how did the photo get to the blog? The meteorologist must’ve told our managers I leaked the photo, because she was in the room with me at the time of the incident and when I snapped the pic. The meteorologist saw me text it to our colleague. Why didn’t she defend me and say I took the photo but had sent it to someone else? HR called me into their office shortly after, and I was pegged the mole, even though all I did was send a text.

This experience taught me two things: First, be aware of those you text these seemingly innocent/funny photos to. Second, sometimes it takes a test to determine who is or is not trustworthy.

Years later, when rumors began spreading about various people in the newsroom on a different news blog, I wondered if it was one of the photographers I worked with on occasion. Ted asked a lot of nosy questions and always had a habit of saying, “Whatever is said in the truck stays in the truck” as soon as we stepped inside the vehicle for our assignments. Anybody who feels the need to say this clearly is not keeping what’s discussed close to the vest. So, one day after he asked what was happening to an anchor who was out on medical leave and if she was coming back, I purposely let slide a factoid I knew he would find salacious.

“I’m going to be filling in on the show for several weeks.”

This was a true statement, yes. But one I normally wouldn’t reveal to anyone, as this opens the doors to even more speculation and nosy nellies. “Are you replacing her permanently? Would you want to do that schedule? I wonder if they’ll give you a big raise?” I could practically hear the inquisitive minds chattering away behind my back and eventually to my face.

Several weeks later, lo and behold, as if by magic my suspicions about Ted were confounded when several coworkers approached me and said, “So I hear you’re going to fill in on the big night show for a while.” Bingo. Nobody else except my boss knew I was going to be subbing on the show, so by default Ted was our leaker. From that moment on, nothing could be shared with him and that his little saying about “what stays in the truck” was a load of BS. This kind of testing results in a clear picture of whom you can trust in the workplace. It actually helps you avoid uncomfortable confrontations, like when someone’s spilled the beans and he or she gets caught. While my experience with Ted didn’t warrant a response because it didn’t really affect me one way or another, there are other times when the right response must send a loud and clear message: don’t mess with me again (for example, like when someone’s actions directly impact your daily duties or block your path to success). And it’s best to deliver this message while managing to retain poise, professionalism, and dishing out a little sass at the same time.

Who Calls You?

My former coanchor Reggie was facing an ethics investigation for his relationships with one of his sources for a story. He was under suspension when he called me to relay what really happened. Since we were thick as thieves and had made a pact to always have each other’s back (as coanchors should), he confided in me that neither of his current coanchors or fellow on-air teammates even did so much as call or text him to see how he was doing. It broke my heart. “D, the people you can count on are the ones who will attend your funeral.” This got me thinking: It’s not just attending a funeral. It’s the little things. The person who will stay a few minutes late after work helping you figure out the new electronic timesheet system. The administrative assistant who brings you an extra cup of coffee when you’re working on a particularly challenging project. For me, I knew I had won over the respect of a seasoned reporter when she offered to share a coveted source with me. These are all signs of whom you can count on when the time comes.

YOUR SKINFOLK AIN’T NECESSARILY YOUR KINFOLK

My college bestie Iris is an anchor in Syracuse, New York. She comes up with the best one-liners and catchy phrases that seem to apply to everything. Before I start any new job, she calls me to say, “Remember: Eyes and Ears Open; Legs and Mouth Shut!” It’s her joking-but-not-really-joking way of reminding me to watch out at all times and don’t do stupid things.

One of her favorite phrases is by African American writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston: “All my kinfolk ain’t kinfolk!”

It’s basic human nature to be attracted to people who seem most like “us.” A July 2010 issue of The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin carried a story indicating humans are predisposed to be attracted to those who resemble our parents or ourselves. Sometimes this can work to our advantage—it’s one method I use to get interview subjects to open up to me. When they mention they lived in the Midwest, I mention my three years of working in Missouri. The ice storms; finger-licking, fall-off-the-bone barbeque; and lack of ocean are usually our common denominator and make the candidates feel like they are almost talking to a friend.

But when it comes to the workplace and your career, that person with the same ethnic background, haircut, or same level of career experience doesn’t mean you’ll be viewed as being on the same team.

JUST BECAUSE WE’RE ALL XYZ . . . DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE BFFS

Let’s make sure to get this part straight: I believe in professional groups, whether they be for all one ethnic background, or for women or professionals in general. These groups provide a sense of community and support otherwise not found in the workplace. Especially during my non-Asian environment years (this was pre-San Francisco when I lived in Kansas, Charlotte, and Tampa), I couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride in witnessing individuals who looked like me and shared similar struggles thrive in this competitive, sometimes cruel, industry. These conventions essentially felt like several days where the playing field was leveled, and I was no longer the “exotic” or “token” one, but just someone who was seen for her talents, not her skin color and eye shape.

But just because we’re cradled in this safe nest/cocoon support-
group-like atmosphere doesn’t mean you can run your mouth the same as if you were back in college.

There’s an amazing Facebook group for females in TV news with about 5,000 members from across the country. The women range from reporters fresh out of journalism 101 to seasoned veterans, producers, and anchors who’ve worked at five or more television stations in their storied careers. I know that the woman who started this group several years ago intended it to be a place where people with similar backgrounds could seek guidance. She started it when she was working in a small market in Nebraska and struggling with questions nobody seemed able to answer. The purpose of the group was for other TV news ladies to interact, get advice, share their worries and struggles (like how to pay rent and afford work clothes on a $23,000-a-year contract), find jobs, and meet mentors. Women were taking comfort in also sharing their stories getting motivated and inspired for their days of oftentimes hard-hitting, depressing news.

As supportive and incredible as this community was, the worrisome reason why I scaled back on my participation is that women began using the group as a therapy session and forgot about professionalism. Just like how cyber bullies develop screen-courage because nobody can see them in real life, these women suddenly developed the same affliction, except many believed since they were in an invitation-only group, they were part of some exclusive club where whatever is said in the group stays in the group. (Are we in Vegas? I think not!) The group feed was clogged with confessions about hating bosses, their salaries, and details of their agents and contracts. What was shocking was that most used their real names. Even the ones who didn’t have profile photos that could, with a little research, reveal their true identities.

My friend who started the group years ago quit cold turkey, tired of the bullying, the name-calling, and out-of-line comments. The forum’s intention of being a safe, supportive place had morphed into a place where people felt free to expose their worst sides. An anchor friend in the Pacific Northwest revealed to me later that she was burned when someone took her comments about looking for a job and not only leaked them to a news blog, but went as far as sending an anonymous email to her boss informing him of her job search. A moderator ended up taking over the page and now helps police any inappropriate behavior and fields questions and topics to hide women’s identities if they so choose.

If you are ever involved in a group like this—where it’s an in-person networking group or something through social media—ask yourself these questions:

   Who are these people? In a group of 5,000 people, do you know the basics of every single person? Probably not. Why would you share your problems or comments with those whom you don’t know basic information about, like the state they live in?

   Are you getting goodies back? I jokingly tell my single girlfriends not to give away the goodies if they’re not getting the goodies back. (I’ll let you interpret this as you wish!) This also applies to working relationships. If you’re driveling on about something yet the other person isn’t engaging or blathering back, it’s a sign that he or she is not interested, and is possibly just harvesting your information to use down the road.

   Is this the right time? Instead of a verbal mudslide right away, can I develop a relationship with someone first, and truly get to know someone before engaging in conversations that reveal facets of my life? Please don’t be like the young woman who once trapped me in an elevator at a convention to spill her career woes with me. TMI!

MIND GAMES: WATCH OUT FOR KIKI, THE HUMAN ROADBLOCK TO SUCCESS

Even before I arrived at the station, people warned me about Kiki. At least a dozen fellow journalists in various markets and even one of my mentors in his wise, diplomatic, way, much like white-bearded Dumbledore (the headmaster of Harry Potter’s wizarding school) did for his wizards-in-training, imparted these words upon me: steer clear of those who try to get in the way of your success. My agent even said he was prepared to make calls to my management if Kiki ever tried to pull any of her BS.

Kiki was an anchor who had been at the station for nearly two decades and had more than paid her dues moving up the TV market ladder, just as I did.

Surely the rumor of her bullying a younger female on-air talent so badly she had to take medical leave for being so traumatized was an exaggeration.

The first few months were okay. We rarely saw each other, apart from the random hellos in the hallway. But as my profile rose, and I was assigned the big stories that sometimes received national attention, and praise from my managers, she started creeping around my desk, making odd comments. “Did you get a haircut? Oh, you did? Hmm.” Or while viewing a photo of me and a friend from a gala I was emceeing, she cooed condescendingly, “What’s that? Are you participating in a Miss America pageant?” It was like a line graph: as my on-air time grew and the stories I covered received more attention, ever the more Kiki’s friendly exterior began to crack like mud in the sun. If she was on my line graph, the line that represented her underhanded pettiness began to rise alongside my ascent.

One day she even came over to my desk while I was working, deep in the zone on a project that was due in less than 15 minutes, and insisted I listen to what she had to say and that it was important. Without removing my headphones, I looked at her incredulously as if to say, “Really?” and made a gesture to my wrist and tapped my watch face twice.

“No, we need to talk now,” she insisted.

I yanked the headphones out of my ears in one downward pull and turned my chair in a semi-circle to face her. Kiki gave me an earnest look and said, “Your anchoring is good but you need to work on your credibility. Take it from me. I was like you when I was young, so it’ll eventually come.”

Hold up. Did a grown woman, 18 years my senior, really just come over to me unannounced, out of context, and while I was in the middle of trying to make a deadline and school me on how to do my job? What was the purpose of this? An attempt to get me to lose focus? Start doubting myself? What she had just done was so blatantly offensive and uncalled for, there was no way I was going to let her have the satisfaction of affecting me. I was now 12 minutes from deadline and couldn’t afford to let this jab bring me down.

Part of why I was able not to lash out at Kiki was because, in addition to many people warning me about her wiley ways, I understood where she was coming from because I had been a version of her in my mid-twenties. I was insecure and felt compelled to assert my dominance toward those whom I deemed threatening. You’ll read more about this in Chapter 5, but unlike Kiki, I had figured myself out and why I felt the way I did. Her motive was to stop my upward trajectory by making these kinds of comments. Knowing she was probably dealing with inner turmoil made me feel sorry for her, not sorry for me. Understanding other people’s motives for their behavior leads to an understanding of why a particular exchange is happening. Were her comments irritating? Absolutely. But knowing someone’s motive allows you to react calmly and forge ahead with little disruption. As a bonus? Remember how our reactions are like a daily performance review? Kiki’s treatment of me didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the newsroom. Many would later tell me they were impressed by my resilience and that incident helped build my reputation. It’ll ultimately help yours, too.

FEEDBACK: YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT. YOU NEED IT. SOMETIMES YOU HATE IT. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT

Email from Mom:

Number 1 Didi, When I tried open my eyes wide and big, this eye movement create lots rankles on my forehead. Thus, I always tried not to open my eyes too wide to avoid forehead rankles. I have seeing you doing it today. (use mirror to see I was correct) I eat too much cabbage today, now stomach has lots gas . . . I got to go drink one tablespoon apple cider vinegar delude with cup water to cure gas. (work well all the time)

MOM

OMG. Staring back at the email I felt the familiar simmering of blood begin to rise to my face. In her all-too-blunt (you’ll learn more about that shortly), roundabout broken-English, in a condescending-yet-caring tone only my mom could achieve, she was trying to tell me lines were beginning to appear on my forehead and that I was looking bloated and needed to de-puff with her homemade remedy.

This was my weekly feedback email from my mother in Connecticut who was livestreaming my newscast from her iPad at two o’clock in the morning Eastern Time. It’s taken years of training and discipline and soul-searching to get to the point where instead of firing back an aggressive “Ma. What. The. HECK. Is. Wrong. With. You. I am never emailing you back again!” I took a deep breath, right-clicked, and hit “Copy” on the message, and posted her correspondence on Facebook.

This irritating correspondence was the least of my worries. (More on Mom’s email later.)

Who knew this constant criticism, the same criticism that drove me nearly to the brink of panic attacks and depression growing up, would serve as a training ground for what was in store for my career? Turns out, not only is the workplace filled with managers, colleagues, and mom-clones, but their critiques could be much more brutal.

Then there are the times you yearn for feedback. Some kind of assessment of how you’re doing. In school, your grades serve as evaluation, as do regular check-ins with counselors and professors. But in your career, I’m pretty sure the president of your company has little time to meet about your workplace performance. That is, if he or she even knows about your daily work habits and contributions. And then there are the annual performance reviews where you do get feedback and it doesn’t always seem fair. When you do get critiqued, what should you listen to?

While your job may not require you to be on display for hundreds of thousands of viewers each day, you too are always being watched. By your boss. Your peers. Your customers. And along with it, comes feedback. Sometimes unwanted, always thought-provoking, but it should never be taken at just face value. It’s how you react to it that can make the difference between a promotion or driving yourself to the brink. Or in my case, a bad case of TMJ from subconscious anxiety combined with nighttime teeth grinding. Let me tell you about one of my favorite experiences receiving feedback.

You vs. the World . . . or Just One Person

When I first got to Tampa Bay, wanting to get ahead of the onslaught of wardrobe suggestions from the impending visit from the clothing consultant, I asked one of my managers if he thought the royal purple dress I was wearing would be appropriate for the anchor desk.

The Milly dress was well-made in a thick ponte fabric and a silky, rich-feeling lining. The sleeves were tiny caps, outlined with black leather trim. It was my recently acquired 90-percent-
off-retail-price eBay win, and made me feel like a million bucks. This was just how I wanted to start off the first days of my new job.

Without skipping a beat, my manager said, “Dion, the style’s great. Just great for this market. As long as you keep your arms toned.”

Did I hear this correctly? The dress was fine, but my arms may be on the brink of not being fine?

Since it was my first week, I made a flexing motion with my biceps and perkily chirped, “See? So toned!”

Not wanting to displease my boss, I went on an exercise binge. Kettlebells, dumbbells, and push-ups got incorporated into my routine. More dips! Work those muscles past fatigue and into failure! For months, every single day, my arms went through torture in order to keep them rock hard.

It wasn’t until my ultra-toned, strict vegan, personal trainer of a coanchor, donned a sleeveless dress and sat down next to me to prepare for the newscast. I took one glance at the preview monitor in the desk and did a momentary double-take. It was plain to see the contrast. My arms had ballooned to the size of this woman’s waist. I had transformed into a female Asian version of The Hulk! (Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was a huge difference.) My arms had become bulky instead of slim and toned, which is what they were when I first got hired.

When I broached the subject with my bestie, a reporter in Syracuse, she said, “Dion, are you on crack? You’re what, like a hundred pounds? Girl, your body looked great just the way it was before!” She proceeded to text me a photo from our last outing together. Yep. She was right.

I felt ashamed. This was one of my closest friends who was proud to be plus-sized, loved her body, and owned her look. And here I was, a once self-confident news anchor, turned obsessed exercise lunatic over chiseling my deltoids all because of one man’s comment.

That day I made a vow to never let my own judgment be clouded by just one person’s comment, let alone a man who did not seem very toned and fit himself. That experience taught me how subjective and complicated comments, critiques, and overall feedback can be, even when they come from an “expert” or person of authority. So as wrong and rebellious as this may sound, here’s something to consider: you don’t have to listen. Sure, being able to accept feedback can make you more skilled and better at your job. But it can also drive you to the brink of madness and failure . . . or in my case bodybuilder-like arms.

Don’t Forget About You

Oftentimes in our haste to please the boss or others, we forget to be true to ourselves. I’ve always been confident in my wardrobe choices (the fact I was featured in Glamour for my “work uniform” was probably a good indicator of this) and had no issues with my arms. Not to mention, that purple dress was right in line with what others were wearing anyway. Why was I asking an unfashionable man who wore mom jeans on Fridays (and not in the stylish hipster way, either) if my outfit was appropriate if I already knew the answer?

Gracefully Receive Feedback . . . the Good, the Bad, the Total BS

There are times when you know something is such bad advice you have to just laugh. Like when a makeup artist turned my swivel chair around and, in the mirror, I stared back at a large black fake mole on my upper lip. The artist’s recommendation was that I create a signature look like Marilyn Monroe or Cindy Crawford and don a large black eyeliner mole each morning. What if I blew my nose and accidentally wiped off the dot one day? I’d be deemed the freckle fraud! Even at 24, I knew better than to listen to this cockamamie idea! I’ve made quite a name for myself, without a mole, thank you very much.

But then there are the times when you can glean something useful out of a critique.

When I got to San Francisco, after three years of working in Florida, it was recommended I ease my high-energy anchoring style to something a bit more subdued for the market. In Tampa Bay, the stories were about alligators and meth heads. Management there would come into the studio at 6 p.m. and clap three times chanting, “Energy! Energy! Energy!” to get us to be louder, faster, and more intense so the viewers wouldn’t fall asleep. My new Bay Area covered more social issues like protests and tech-world news, which didn’t lend itself to that in-your-face style.

This would be a big departure from what I was trained to do in a former life. Re-tuning my entire style wasn’t going to be easy. Instead of taking offense to this idea (Why did you hire me if you didn’t like how I talked!?), I wanted to explore the idea more before I took the steps to change my anchoring.

Second . . . or Third Opinion

Like getting diagnosed with a disease or some serious medical condition, having another expert weigh in can help put the situation into perspective, and help you decide how to proceed. The key is to do this only with people who are knowledgeable to the situation. Would you ask a NASA scientist how to knit a sweater?

Pick the Right People

Feedback critiquing your performance is a personal issue and, just like sensitive subjects, those second or third opinions should be from those you trust. The last thing you want is for your colleagues to play a game of telephone or start rumors that management is unhappy with your work. When it comes to my job, I trust my former coanchor, a former investigative reporter, and my agent. They know the business and don’t work with me, and I know will shoot me straight.

Get on the Same Page

In the example above, since all of my trusted confidants agreed that relaxing my delivery wouldn’t hurt, and could only potentially help, I gave it a shot, slowing down my sentences and not embellishing dramatic events as much. These people helped me understand that this feedback wasn’t because I lacked skill or talent. I just needed to adapt to my new surroundings, while still being me.

GIVE FEEDBACK: THE RIGHT WAY

Talk show superstar Oprah Winfrey spent many years in local television before propelling into the network TV stratosphere. What would have happened if she had listened to that silly TV producer in Baltimore who called her “unfit for television” and she quit? When I was leaving Kansas City, a manager told me it would take “5, 10, 20 years before you’ll become an evening anchor.” At the time I was crushed, but knew this wasn’t true, as stations had already been pursuing me for various roles other than mornings. Had I listened to this absurdity and not applied for these positions, I wouldn’t have, the very next month, accepted a job offer as evening anchor in Charlotte, North Carolina.

At about that time, the tables started turning and I was the one getting requests to provide feedback to others. This wasn’t only from my teammates who suddenly saw me as having a valuable opinion, but young reporters messaged me regularly, asking for a critique of their demo reels and insight into what career path to take. What I discovered, from being bombarded with a myriad of suggestions and feedback myself, was that reviewing a person’s work is a great responsibility. What you recommend can have a lasting effect on someone’s psyche and career.

   Digestibility: A well-known plastic surgeon once asked me to critique his latest on-camera interview and I tore it to shreds. Not in a mean or abrasive way, but that I didn’t leave any stone unturned. From his outfit to body posture, his speech delivery, and content. It was too much for him to digest and he ended up getting overwhelmed. His next interview was even more riddled with long-winded answers and a sweaty brow. People can only handle one or two suggestions at a time. Too many comments can give the impression that they’re not good at the task at hand and end up demotivating the person. Perhaps if I had given him just a few notes, we would have seen improvement from the doc, not a worse performance.

   Follow Through with an Example: Pairing the one or two suggestions with an anecdote or explanation not only adds gravity to your tips but also helps the person understand why it is important. When I suggested a cub reporter get rid of her handheld microphone in favor of a wireless one, I explained it would not only make her on-air presence more natural, but also allow her to be more active, demonstrative, and creative. Then I showed her two clips of me, one holding a microphone and one without. I think she got the hint because in the next demo she sent me, she was 10 times more relaxed and conversational in her delivery.

   The Only Person Who Can Make That Decision Is You: This is always my disclaimer when providing feedback. Why? Because giving someone guidance with a definitive answer isn’t fair. When I was debating between three different jobs as I left Kansas City, one mentor said, “Take the job that pays the most!” Sure, that job probably paid a third more than the other two options, but it wasn’t the role I wanted to be in, or in a city where my husband and I wanted to live. There are so many things to take into consideration, that a more fleshed-out response with the pros and cons of each job and each city would have been more helpful. In the end, only I could make the decision on how my career would shape up.

PS: As for my mom’s email? While it may seem cruel and unusual to post her words on the World Wide Web for all to see, it’s actually turned into entertainment and a big part of my personal brand. One day, out of frustration, I shared a drawing she had sketched, took a photo of, and emailed to me in between the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. It was a primitive ballpoint pen drawing of my head with some strands of hair flipping out to one side and an arrow pointing at the misplaced hairs. I laughed so hard at this tiny cartoon version of me, there was no time to be annoyed. So, I posted the photo on Facebook, and my audience loved it. As the dozens and dozens of comments and “likes” amassed, I realized my fans appreciated the fact that the seemingly put-together lady on TV has a crazy mom, too. At the same time, my mom would see my Facebook post and understand I got her message loud and clear. This may not be a conventional way to talk to your mother, but at least she gets a kick out of the viewers who think she’s funny and adorable. Everybody wins.