I don't usually talk about my job here for obvious reasons, but something happened in the office this morning that I just had to run by my panel of experts.
I'm out of town on business in NY right now, but apparently there was an after-hours burglary in our office suite last night. Some d-bags broke in and stole a couple of laptops. This is a common occurrence, and although I feel bad for the co-workers who may have lost precious data and files, it's not too big a deal in the grand scheme. Like I said, it's happened before, it'll happen again.
This morning, our office admin sent an email to all employees on our floor about the burglary, and asked each person to check their offices for any additional missing items. Since I'm out of town and can't do so, I replied, asking her to check on my coveted collection of Washington Wizards bobbleheads that are prominently displayed on my bookcase.[1] Cause we all know, you can easily replace a laptop if you do your backups frequently enough, but they only made 5,000 talking Gilbert Arenas dolls.
I'm just sayin', it's all about priorities and whatnot.
So anyway, she goes over to my office, and sends me an email a few minutes later confirming that the bobbleheads all appear to be there, unharmed. I breathe a sigh of relief, then notice a second email from her just moments later.
The gist of the email is that the cleaning crew reported seeing two black teenagers in the office suite around 8pm, and assumed they were with an employee. So, she was asking me if I just happened to be in the office the night before. The wording of the email made it seem as if she was sorry she had to ask, so I replied, letting her know I was OOTO, and that no offense was taken. She replied with a thanks, and I assumed this was case closed.
But it wasn't.
This afternoon, I got an email from a fellow black male employee, asking me if I'd received an email asking whether or not I had been in the office the night before. He forwarded the email to me and a few other black male employees who work in the same office. It was the exact same email I'd received from the office manager. A few of the others confirmed that they had indeed received the same email. So, in short, it appears that the office manager was on some Nancy Drew idd'ish, and did her own bit of sleuthing to see whether or not any of the black male employees in the office just happened to be there the night before. Needless to say, there are some pretty pissed off brothers in my office right about now, but I'm wondering if they should be.
In my younger days, I would see this as a completely racist gesture. It does appear that she only targeted black male employees when inquiring of our whereabouts the night before. While this might make some sense (she could have wanted to make sure the cleaning crew wasn't mistaking an employee for a thief), it wasn't exactly logical (what kinda moron steals laptops from the job he's been working at for 10+ years, as all the black males in my office have?), and definitely was in violation of some sorta HR rule. Which rule, I can't say exactly, but I'm sure it's in there.
But I guess my point of view leads me to believe this wasn't malicious at all. I know the office manager only in passing, but she's always nice, and I haven't observed anything that could even remotely be considered "racist" from her in the year or so she's been working here. Then again, if I didn't really know her at all, as most of the other black males (who are travelling consultants that seldom come to the office) don't, I would probably see this as an effed' up situation.
I guess it all comes down to a matter of perspective.
Question: What do you think? Was the office manager out-of-pocket for asking all the black men in the office whether or not they were there when the burglary occurred?
[1] Don't look at me sideways. Like ya'll don't collect frivolous junk too.
