I HAVE NEVER FELT more anxious,
stressed and unsure of myself in a place or
an environment than I did in that job. The
issue was the work environment, not me.
You don’t need to fix me; you need to fix
that environment; you need to fix the
manager. That’s what would make it ten
times better.
I identify as a young black woman. I was
the only black person in my team and one
of the few people of colour. There were
microaggressions around me wearing a
hoodie. It was on a one-to-one internal
Zoom call. I was working at home and
I had my hood up. My manager said, “Oh,
when you wear your hood, it’s just assumed
that you’re unhappy or not professional.”
I thought, what the hell, that’s unacceptable.
I thought it really rude and so unnecessary
to comment on what someone’s wearing.
My hoodie was a nice hoodie, it was
presentable, and I expressed the reason
I was wearing it. I said, “I’m really not
feeling well today. This is not how I look
on a regular basis.”
Even if that was the way I looked, that
doesn’t interfere with the way in which
I perform. I would never question what
a member of staff is wearing on a virtual
meeting. The funny thing is, there’s an
MD who wears hoodies.
The key thing that I said in my
exit interview was that mental-health
conversations need to be something that
managers are taught how to have. They
need to say, “This is always going to be a
safe space for you to come and talk about
it.” That’s really important.
I suffer from borderline personality
disorder (BPD), anxiety, anorexia, paranoia
and depression. I’m really open about my
mental health and mental illnesses. I want
to feel confident enough to talk about it
at work.
The first time I had a conversation
with someone about it at work, I instantly
felt like the vibe was off. I wanted to be
able to flag it up just in case a flare-up
happened with my BPD and I wasn’t
feeling well.
The Times Magazine 21coloured shoulder pads, but she’s also the
mother of three boys under 13 and the proxy
mother to two more: her 23-year-old nephew
and a 22-year-old student from Mozambique,
both of whom have lived with the family for
several years.
Though she is bound by Hollywood’s
favourite piece of paperwork, the NDA
(non-disclosure agreement), from revealing
the details of individual clients, the industry
behemoths that bring her in – such as Fox
Entertainment, Disney, NBCUniversal and
Sony – hire her for a minimum of six months,
sometimes up to two years, “to help these
individuals show up tomorrow in a way that is
more effective than the way they show up
today”. She is careful with her own language;
she talks not of executives fearing being fired
or cancelled, but instead how those she works
with realise, “I want to keep doing what
I’m doing and for me to do that I need to
lead differently.”
This usually takes the form of a weekly
session. But she is, she says firmly, neither a
therapist nor a psychiatrist. “I’ll occasionally
listen to them complain, but if they can’t do
something differently tomorrow, then I’m not
doing my job.” And that’s a job for which
coaches of her calibre are paid more than
$100,000 for a six-month engagement.
Until about eight years ago, the majority
of her clients were men. Now it’s almost 50/50.
But, she says, “Most of the time the women,
particularly in entertainment and media,
are proactively seeking me out. With men,
most of the time, that’s coming through an
organisation. I don’t think I have ever had a
male client reach out on their own.” Which
is to say that women – actively wanting to
become better bosses – send themselves
to McLaughlin; men are marched there by
their companies.
Does she get pushback from these men,
who have essentially been sent to her for
workplace reprogramming? “Sometimes,”
she says. “And those conversations are, ‘Listen,
you don’t have to do this. But what are the
implications of you not doing something
differently? And if you love your job and you
want to keep doing it, let’s figure out how to
make that work.’
“I’m a huge pain in the ass,” she says,
grinning. “I’ve worked with a lot of people
where others have said, ‘Oh, this one’s going
to blow your head back,’ or, ‘This is a strong
personality,’ or, ‘We don’t know if you’re going
to come in here and be able to do this work.’
And 99.9 per cent of the time, I am. I can look
at someone and say, ‘Hey, I got no skin in this
game. So stop being an ass.’ ”
The problem, McLaughlin says, is that “the
higher you are in an organisation, the fewer
people around you speak the truth. I’mI wanted to be able to have that safe
space so that if I was having a panic attack,
I say to my manager, “Listen, I can’t go into
that meeting today because I’m not feeling
that well, mental-health wise. We’ll talk
about it when I feel a bit better.”
But that didn’t happen. I felt like HR
were just ticking the boxes. So long as
they’ve covered their backs, that’s all that
matters. I instantly retreated and knew
that it was not a safe space for me to talk
about my mental health.
It’s about being accommodating to
everyone, even those with disabilities that
you don’t see. I felt like they were very
accommodating if you’ve got kids. But
if you’ve got a mental illness, which
sometimes feels like having a kid that you
need to look after and tend to, it was never
treated the same way. It was very, very
stigmatised. If I were to say, “I don’t feel
as confident travelling today. Can I not be
in the office today?” they would be like,
“No, you can’t.” Whereas if I said my kids
have come down with the flu, they’d be
like, “Of course you can stay at home.”
A lot of people are trying to hit diversity
targets but are not creating inclusive
environments. Inclusive environments
are knowing what’s right to say and what’s
not right to say.
There were a lot of lazy comments
made about an Asian member of staff: that
she was able to get a certain amount of
numbers because the businesses are Asian
businesses and she’s Asian. She might just
be a really great communicator who knows
what she’s talking about, so the businesses
trust her. Not just because she’s an Asian
lady and they’re Asian.
I was only there for three months. When
I handed in my notice, what shocked them
the most was the fact that I said I didn’t
even want to work my notice period.
I needed out, because of how much I
didn’t want to be there.
Now I feel amazing. I feel tons better.
I never again want to be the Meg that I
was. It’s unacceptable. No job should make
you feel that way.Meg Zeenat Wamithi on her work at a London charity
‘My manager commented on me wearing a
hoodie. I thought, that’s unacceptable’
The EMPLOYEE, 24