I commited a micro aggression against my manager, now what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is dumb.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are neurodivergent. And, perhaps, anxious. Get fully treated.

[Anonymous]

Racist or not, I literally would not care if someone put my name or email on a message meant for someone else. It’s not even worth raising an eyebrow. You feds are some weirdos.

[Anonymous]

Start by medicating your anxiety.

[Anonymous]

I don't buy this... admittedly it's better than some of the low effort trolling we see here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is dumb.

This guy absolutely nails it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how it's a "microaggression." Is the insinuation that to you, all black people look the same or something? Because THAT insinuation would be a bit more than a "microaggression."

It's a mistake. Shit happens. Move on. Worry less. You're right to slow down and be more careful. But I think you're focused on the wrong things here.

This is what happens to WOC all the time and makes us feel like we're all the same to white people. OP is taking responsibility so don't minimize it - it's not okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how it's a "microaggression." Is the insinuation that to you, all black people look the same or something? Because THAT insinuation would be a bit more than a "microaggression."

It's a mistake. Shit happens. Move on. Worry less. You're right to slow down and be more careful. But I think you're focused on the wrong things here.

This is what happens to WOC all the time and makes us feel like we're all the same to white people. OP is taking responsibility so don't minimize it - it's not okay.

DP. But it happens to others, too. This isn’t something that only happens to WOC. So it’s a micro aggression when it happens to one group but not others? Why would you perceive it as “white people think we are all the same” instead of “that person is clueless/rude/disorganized”? I ask this as someone who has her first name frequently mixed up, mispronounced, or changed to another name entirely. No one is saying it’s ok to mix up names, but it’s not automatically a micro aggression.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how it's a "microaggression." Is the insinuation that to you, all black people look the same or something? Because THAT insinuation would be a bit more than a "microaggression."

It's a mistake. Shit happens. Move on. Worry less. You're right to slow down and be more careful. But I think you're focused on the wrong things here.

+1.
Seems more like you just happen to have two black women as your previous and current boss. So you got confused/stressed with ADHD and emailed the wrong boss. Fairly certain that is what happened. However, at same time, I can see how a BIPOC person could see it as a micro-aggression when it happens multiple times (you really have no clue how often this shit happens to people thru out their lives)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how it's a "microaggression." Is the insinuation that to you, all black people look the same or something? Because THAT insinuation would be a bit more than a "microaggression."

It's a mistake. Shit happens. Move on. Worry less. You're right to slow down and be more careful. But I think you're focused on the wrong things here.

This is what happens to WOC all the time and makes us feel like we're all the same to white people. OP is taking responsibility so don't minimize it - it's not okay.

DP. But it happens to others, too. This isn’t something that only happens to WOC. So it’s a micro aggression when it happens to one group but not others? Why would you perceive it as “white people think we are all the same” instead of “that person is clueless/rude/disorganized”? I ask this as someone who has her first name frequently mixed up, mispronounced, or changed to another name entirely. No one is saying it’s ok to mix up names, but it’s not automatically a micro aggression.

It can be perceived as a microaggression. Obviously, reality may be different.

We know that the OP mixes up a lot of names, including white colleagues (so it points to ADHD, stress). However, her manager or the other black employee may not be aware of OP's habits, so it may come across as a microaggression.

There's something called the cross-race effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how it's a "microaggression." Is the insinuation that to you, all black people look the same or something? Because THAT insinuation would be a bit more than a "microaggression."

It's a mistake. Shit happens. Move on. Worry less. You're right to slow down and be more careful. But I think you're focused on the wrong things here.

This is what happens to WOC all the time and makes us feel like we're all the same to white people. OP is taking responsibility so don't minimize it - it's not okay.

You clearly think all white people are the same. Worry about yourself and stop trying to police other people.

[Anonymous]

OP you are spiraling a bit. You know you need to get this 100% right from here on out. Period. Invent some system that will get you there. I’m adhd and one of my biggest fears is accidentally copying customers on an internal email. Here are some ways I make sure that does not happen:
- Before every email I send, I pause and check the To: list carefully
- when emailing project teams or groups, I copy the entire set of emails from a list I keep that is organized by group. Very easy and repeatable.

You understand (by your own words) that this is less about intent and more about the impact it has on others, so excuses don’t really matter. This is just a challenge you have to meet.

Allowing yourself to be so rushed that it routinely compromises your work product, ultimately blows back up on you. So, work on that issue as well, whether it is workload, boundaries or something else.

Finally, good for you for owning up to the mistake.

[Anonymous]

Treat it like an embarrassing thing that happened, and that you need to move past. If you accidentally went to pee while on a Zoom, you wouldn't bring it back up with your manager, you'd focus on not doing that again.

The more positive/nonracist interactions you have with your manager, the more those will counteract the two times you sent the wrong email. So just give it time and make the effort not to repeat same error. Do not bring it back up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Woke culture. They're always looking for something to be butthurt about.

[Anonymous]

In my workplace, leadership constantly confuses all the South Asian employees with each other and all the Latino employees with each other. They see a Latino person in a meeting and just guess at their name using common names like Garcia and Rodriguez. Often even when they have a memo in front of them with the correct name on it.

OP, I think part of the reflection has to be about the fact that these women are experiencing this all the time - I'm hearing you say you're super embarrassed and want to fix this otherwise, "it will appear I'm not taking this seriously". I'm glad you're motivated to fix this, but I'm not sure you're convinced that what you did is primarily harming someone else versus embarrassing to you. It probably wasn't fun for your manager to bring this up and she did you a kindness by doing so.

FWIW, it's not normal to mix up the same people's names up this many times. To be fair, the incident a couple of weeks ago should have been brought to your attention immediately ("Oops, I think you meant to send this to Brenda, not me") and it's also weird that it wasn't. But yeah, they are weirded out because what you are doing is weird.