QUIT THAT JOB!!

Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. I have a question for you. Have you ever wished that you had some guidance from somebody on whether you should quit your job or if you should take that new job you're considering? That's what I'm sharing with you today, the jobs you need to quit. And there's an indigenous and non indigenous version. Let's talk about it. Bonjour. Mishko Pognon. Quaint Additiona Kas Mundo Dam. Hi everyone. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And I swear, every single day I run into, see or asked to help with the fallout after someone either stays in for too long or takes a job that they never should have taken in the first place. So this got me thinking. I was like, you know what, there are just some, there's some rules here. There are some hard pass situations that for your sake and the sake of your employer that you shouldn't put yourself in. And I wanted to share those with you today. So I actually have five situations, five on the Indigenous list and five on the non Indigenous list. So let's get started on this quit that job exercise. First off, we're going to start with the Indigenous list. So in the case of taking a job with a non indigenous employer, whether they're internationally based or Canadian based, I'm going to get really blunt here. If your employer is attempting to quote, unquote, buy a feather, if they are hiring you to be the Indian in the cupboard, only brought out for advice and then shoved away, do not take that job. I don't care how big the salary is, park your ego and protect your mental well being. This is is going to burn you out. And if you're not sure if that's the situation, I have three different things I want you to consider. First, what other actions or steps has this employer taken to engage with or support Indigenous peoples? Depending on whatever their work is, do they have an Indigenous engagement strategy strategy? Do they have a DEI person or department? Have they done any type of reconciliation training? Those kind of things. So what other actions has this person taken? If you're the first action they're taking, that's a huge heads up. Not necessarily the total negative, but definitely something you got to think about in relation to these other two things. The next thing, if you're that first person or you're part of a plan, do you control a budget? Is there dollars attached to the work you do? Or just your salary because people put money behind the initiatives they believe in. You don't want to be the token Indian. You don't want to be the gold star that they bring out just to show, look, we hired an indigenous person that, that's buying a feather. Is there a budget and closely related, what kind of authority do you have? Do you have a vote on decisions or are they just going to ask you a question, you give advice and then it can just be ignored. I just realized another thing. If you're going to be the point person, if you're going to be the person that they're sending out into indigenous communities, how much heads up do you have to the actions they're going to be taking? Taking? Yes, because so often I see these people in these positions, the Indian in the cupboard, and they go out to the communities and the community shares a concern, well, what if they do this, this and that and that person goes, they would never do that. Because they honestly believe the employer would never do that. Give it two months. The employer does exactly what the community was afraid of and now it's the person that looks like he or she has lied to their own people. It's not good. Not good. So if they're buying a feather or you're going to be in the Indian in the cupboard, don't take that job or quit that job before it hurts you. Now the next one, we're kind of going to go to the other side here. If you're an indigenous person and you're about to take a position, whether it's with an indigenous entity, a first nation community or a non indigenous entity, if you're going into that expecting a healthy environment or totally woke environment, that it's, there's not going to be any challenges. No one's ever going to say anything inappropriate. Don't take that job. Don't take, don't take any job until you ingest that perspective, we are in the middle of the biggest learning curve possible. Our communities and agencies are not healthy. So going in there expecting healthy is going to set yourself up for a fall. Does that mean you have to endure things? No, that's going to bring us to the next one one actually. But you have to understand where we are in the timeline here. And mainstream is just starting to learn how to respectfully engage with us. They've never even tried before. We have to give them the time to learn. So if you're expecting perfectly healthy or a perfect work environment, don't take the job, don't do that to Yourself, the third one. And this is where, when you realize it's not healthy or not perfect, if you're not willing to A, speak up and say, wow, that was inappropriate, or B, educate them on why it's inappropriate, don't take the job. Because every job I've ever seen, your job is to be part of the organization and help the organization be healthy and grow organization, business, whatever the entity is. So if you're just going to sit in judgment, if you're going to point out what's wrong and not help them understand why it's wrong, or better yet, give them examples of how to make it right, don't take the job. Don't take the job. Sitting in judgment is one of those negatives we were taught as indigenous people. And it's not going to help us reconcile, it's not going to help us get better at this. So please don't. Just don't. Which brings me to number four, and I'm kind of surprised it's that far down on the list. And that's only because of what I was focusing on when I started this list. If you haven't done your healing, don't take the job for your sake. Because there are going to be things that trigger you. And your healing is your responsibility. It, it's not up to your, your attacker, your abuser. For them, yes, of course they should stop attacking people. But your healing is your responsibility. Do it for you. Do it for your kids, your partner, your grandkids, your community and the team you're going to be working with. You can't just be offended or just be hurt and not say anything. Make sure that your healing game is epic. That should be your highest priority. And last but definitely not least, now I'm going out on a limb because we did the whole Pretendian discussion and the Descendian discussion. I guess this kind of ties to descendants maybe in some cases, in some cases not. We have people in modern day who have recently been identified as or recently discovered they're indigenous and they have zero indigenous experience, zero lived experience as an indigenous person. They've never been left out of things. They've never endured the comments, they've never lived in the poverty or the abuse, the violence that is known as the indigenous experience. And they are who mainstream entities tend to hire because they sound like mainstream and that's because they've lived the mainstream experience. So it makes it really easy for the employer to be comfortable. But you're not going to be able to help the employer, help them understand why the people in the community are behaving a certain way because you don't have that experience. Experience. What Canadian employers need is someone who can say, okay, whoa, you're not going to approach the discussion like that because this is how that's going to be interpreted. That's the interpreter they need. Not someone who has zero indigenous experience. I'm not saying you're not indigenous, but let's be honest about this. You're Indigenous with mainstream experience, so you shouldn't be taking that liaison job or that, that marketing job or whatever it is that they've identified. They need an Indigenous person. Okay, does that make sense? I'm getting blowback on this one. I can just hear it. But let's get real here. Let's, let's, let's be honest. So now that was the five for Indigenous, non Indigenous. This is where I'm going to get the blowback. Because so many. This is the definition of privilege. When people say, what do you mean I can't do that? Of course I can do that. As marginalized, racialized people, we know there's a whole bunch of things we can't do or that people are going to have a problem with. Privileged mainstream Canadians are just starting to learn that concept. Well, this first one I'm coming out hitting hard here. This one I have said for years, and I will continue to say if the position is an Indigenous liaison or it's a DEI position, but you know that their target market is Indigenous and you're non indigenous. You have no business taking that job, period. I have seen way too many people tasked with that impossible assignment because you don't have the Indigenous worldview or lived experience. How are you going to help them liaise? You would have no more information than they already do. That's not going to help. So quit the job or don't take the job. Okay, seriously, let's do a little self analysis here. If you in any way, shape or form have a savior complex, you want this job to help the poor little Indigenous people, You want to help that community, you want to help that family, you want to help? Back away, quit the job, don't take the job. We don't need anyone else trying to save us. We need people that are going to help us remember that we're strong, resilient, that we can stand on our own two feet, that we know how to heal our own. That victim mentality does not need to be encouraged by someone saving us. And are there Indigenous people who want to be saved? Yes, they're incredibly Traumatized, but they don't need a white savior. That's not empowering. When someone saves you, it's not empowering. They help you save yourself. That's empowering. Okay? So we don't need any more white saviors. Which brings me to the next one. Holy moly. If you're unpacking your intent and you realize you just feel really guilty about the side of history you're on, if you're overcome with white guilt, do not take the job to work with or support Indigenous people because it's not about you. You are not the job description. Instead, you go unpack and do your own healing and do your own educating. Do not inflict that on us, okay? Because the first time we call you out for saying something inappropriate, you're going to dissolve into a puddle that you were just trying to help. White fragility doesn't help anything. You go unpack that. That's your homework. Next. Okay? If the job is to support Indigenous people, sitting sell to Indigenous people, engage with Indigenous people, recruit Indigenous people, supervise Indigenous people, and you haven't done the work, meaning you haven't educated yourself, you haven't done the reconciliation work, you haven't found out about Canadian history and why things are the way they are. If you haven't done that work, don't take that job because you're going to bring in a whole bunch of stereotypes and misinformation and prejudice and, and we're going to pay the price and you're going to burn some bridges. You're going to end up getting fired anyways because you're going to offend us, which means we're not going to buy from you or want your support, which means your employer is firing you. Save yourself the headache. And last but not least, I kind of touched on it. If you haven't unpacked your prejudices and that job involves Indigenous engagement or any of the other things I mentioned, don't be taking that job. If you still think that the condition in First Nation communities is because of us rather than a stage in our healing from what was done to us, then you have no business being in that job. If you say things like if we just worked harder or if we weren't so lazy or any of those God awful, horrible stereotypes, then you have no business taking a position that's going to support or sell to Indigenous people because you are the problem. So you need to go get your education. So how's that for hard hitting? We got to get these people out of these jobs so that we can start making genuine steps towards reconciliation because we can work together. I was talking to a beautiful friend of mine yesterday. Well, actually I read her email. I haven't answered it yet. I will do that today. We worked together on a book she had written. A book had received backlash from the indigenous community because of some things that were in the book. She reached out to me, asked me to read it and give her feedback. I was not surprised that she received negative feedback. But I explained it to her and guess what? Her and I worked together and reworked the book. Now I love the book and I'm going to be looking at going on tour with her to promote her book as well as mine. Indigenous and non can work together if they've each done their healing and are able to listen. And there you've got some humility and able to say, yeah, you know what, I did that wrong. But thank you for pointing that out to me. Now I know better. We can do this. Not like this. I hope that made sense. I'm dying to see your comments. Don't be nasty. Don't be nasty. Just, just. Have you seen these people? Have you seen the damage? I would love to hear from the indigenous. I know you've run into these people and maybe you made the mistake of almost sacrificing yourself in a position. Now, by the way, if you're indigenous in a totally toxic work environment, of course I want you to quit the job. But you go in there and you try to do your best. If you end up taking the job, but don't expect the perfection, try to help. If they're not ready to grow and learn and heal, then get yourself out. You're not a sacrificial lamb. I hope that made sense. This one's going to be fun. I can hear the comments now. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.