To All the Clients Who’ll Never Hire Me—My Sincere Apologies

My brother and I were having lunch and discussing my business plans (he’s my informal business manager/muse) and while taking a look at my Linkedin profile he shook his head slowly and said “I don’t know Crystal. Your profile lists your blog right there. Are you sure you want to do that?”

A strange question to ask a writer, no?

But I knew where he was coming from. I cover a lot of ground on my blog. I talk about my faith, I talk about my family, I talk about race relations, and I’m very vocal about my disdain for employers who choose dysfunction over function. It might be a little too much information for certain prospective clients. Especially some of my prospective clients, because in addition to being a writer, I’m a HR consultant, and it’s hard to imagine a more conservative profession than HR. Except maybe a banker … or a corporate lawyer … or a priest … okay, fine. You get my point.

So I understand. But I look at it like this. I did not decide to assume all the risks of starting and running a business, such as paying my own health insurance, paying my own life insurance, investing my savings, working all hours of the day and night and weekends, and enduring my friends’ questions about when I’m going to get a “real job,” so that I could twist myself into some damn pretzel, trying to hide parts of myself I no longer care to keep hidden, all to satisfy someone else’s jacked up notion of who I’m supposed to be. Been there. Done that.

Good to eat, not to emulate.

I worship my lord and savior Jesus Christ. Is that a problem for you? So sorry. I’m a black woman who is not happy about racism or sexism occurring in the world around me. Does my lack of love for racist and sexist behavior make you uncomfortable? Again, so sorry. I also have no love for irresponsible corporate bullies—especially those in leadership, because regular folks who come to work wanting nothing more than to do their jobs get a bunch of crap instead under this leadership’s watch. And so again, if my ire about this issue bothers you, I’m very sorry. Really, I am.

But it strikes me that it’s a very strange world in which someone who expresses disapproval of behavior that hurts others or her love for a supreme being to whom she owes the very air she breathes should be shunned for these beliefs. Of course, it is a very strange world indeed.

And I thought about all this for a few seconds before answering my brother, and then I said—

“Yes, I am.” 

Because I know two things. The first is—that God I mentioned earlier? I need to trust him to send me clients who either don’t care about all that stuff I just mentioned or who will actually like me for it. The second is—a writer can’t help anyone by pretending not to believe anything or to feel anything. I don’t care if I’m writing about “managing up,” an employment law that just passed in Jersey, or how to save money at the movies. Playing it too safe is a disservice to my God and my humanity, and it’s boring to boot. So unless I’m writing to deliberately offend (which I don’t) I’m going to insist on expressing who I am.

So sorry.

This post was part of a link party at makealivingwriting.com.