When Scrutiny Becomes Punishment

A workplace investigation is meant to find facts, but what happens when it starts to feel like a sentence? We return to Toya Talks with a heavy, urgent conversation sparked by the death of Professor Jason Arday, following weeks of intense coverage, plagiarism allegations, and questions about his life and work while Cambridge University pursued an independent investigation. We’re not here to pretend mistakes do not matter. We’re here to ask why the way we pursue “accountability” so often strips people of humanity long before any conclusion is reached.

We pull the lens wider than one headline and talk about workplace investigations, HR process, confidentiality, and psychological safety. We break down what employees live through when credibility is challenged: the isolation, the gossip, the quiet removal of responsibilities, and the feeling that colleagues have already decided you’re guilty. We also make the case that due process is not only the final finding, it is the journey there, including proportional communication, clear timelines, and genuine support that treats the employee as a human being throughout.

Race sits at the centre of this, too. We explore the difference between competence and legitimacy, and why Black professionals are so often forced to prove they deserve the room they’re already in. When grace is unevenly distributed, one person’s alleged failure becomes a judgement on an entire community. We also question media ethics in an age where outrage turns people into content, and we ask where public interest ends and public punishment begins.

If this conversation hits home, listen through, share it with someone navigating work stress right now, and subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. What would it look like for accountability and humanity to coexist in your workplace?

**Point of correction there was previously an investigation of wiretapping by Mirror Group Newspapers not the Daily Mail. - This reference was an error and theinestigation did not include the Daily Mail it was Mirror Group Newspaper.

Sponsorships - Email me:  hello@toyatalks.com

TikTok:  toya_washington
 
Twitter: @toya_w (#ToyaTalksPodcast)
 
Snapchat: @toyawashington
 
Instagram: @toya_washington & @toya_talks

https://toyatalks.com/

Music (Intro and Outro) Written and created by Nomadic Star

Stationary Company: Sistah Scribble

• Instagram: @sistahscribble
• Website: www.sistahscribble.com 
• Email: hello@sistahscribble.com

Transcript

Hiatus, Late-Night Return, Procrastination

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh yeah, out of the space, out with space, but get nice to re and set the face from Goldman's acts WC building legacy for all systems. This leg just couldn't stop this load. Love the creatures. Watch me grow. Let's just stop the game. Let me show you how to not forget to deliver that's what we do.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hello everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of the Toy Talks podcast. You're probably thinking, Toy, where have you been, girl? It has been weeks. We've had a whole new uh prime minister, we've had people in and out of government, we've had reshuffles. There's so much that's happening in the world over the last few weeks, and I haven't been here to give you the tea, the coffee, the sugar. And honestly, I've just been taking a break. I'm not gonna lie. Like, it's just it's not just other Europeans that get to go on holidays, like, just because I'm in the country don't mean I'm not on holiday from something. And um, I should have said really, I should have just like posted something on the Toy Talks podcast page. But procrastination got the better of me. Um, and I am gonna be talking about procrastination um as part of this podcast episode, but we're gonna get into that. Listen, I'm recording this episode, and it's 14 minutes past midnight, and I share this because it's been really difficult for me to figure out how I was gonna deliver this episode, but there was no way I could not deliver this episode. Now, I am on a hiatus in terms of just taking a break, and I will be back to podcasting more frequently from September the first, the week of September the first, and I'm just trying to figure out what days work for me. So it was bi-weekly every Wednesday, but it's more about the day. Like, I don't know what day to go live. Um I like I like like Tuesday, Wednesday. I feel like you have to start your week, but then it depends when you listen to the podcast, right? So does the day really matter? I don't know.

Jason Arday, Allegations, Media Onslaught

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Anyway, I'm gonna stop waffling on. It's been a heavy few weeks, right? It has. We have literally watched Professor Jason R. Day be dragged. Like, if if you could contextualize a modern day lynching through press coverage, the way that uh Jason R. Day has been dragged, that's what I liken it too. And it's literally over the last two weeks, it's been the press, the British media, it has been blogs, and honestly, it's it's just been so heavy, and it's culminated. It's culminated in um the announcement that Professor Jason Rday was found unresponsive in his um in his home and he has died, and though they haven't confirmed cause of death, I think we could hazard a guess as to the cause of of his death or how he came to to be no more. If you are detecting a bit of like hesitation in my voice, it's because it's heavy, it's really, really, really heavy. Like when I read that it stopped me in my tracks, I felt it in my soul, and I felt this immense sadness. And as things were happening over the last two weeks, I kept silent, and I kept silent insofar as I didn't want to add my own view, or you know, but what what I didn't keep silent about was what was happening to him and how it just it was just this onslaught of non-stop like coverage, aggression. Um it was really it really was watching someone be dragged, and in my head, I was like, what is he being accused of here? Because I mean the king uh the king Charles has a whole brother that has been accused of a lot. Okay, his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has come under scrutiny. He has been stripped of his royal title and the things. Hugh Edwards, who used to deliver uh BBC News, or was it news at 10 or whatever, but he was a permanent fixture there at the BBC. He they found indecent images of children. He lost, well, I think he resigned, right, from the BBC, but I never saw the level of press coverage for him or the energy for people who do such disgustingly despicable evil acts. I we didn't see the level of vitriol for them that Jason R. Day got. And and let's contextualise what what he is being accused of here. He's being accused of plagiarism and um what they call inaccuracies about certain aspects of his life. How do how is the UK waiting this? How are the media, the British media, waiting this? Because the level of vitral and vim for Jason Arday, honestly, I was like, is there something that we're missing here? Is there something they're not sharing? But it does boil down to a few things, and and that's what I want to explore on this episode. Because one thing I I always I pray that I do is I always want you to feel educated. I always want you to feel like you've learned something. And if you never feel like you've learned something on this podcast, and this podcast isn't for you. I always want, if if you're gonna spend your time listening to this podcast, I want to hope to leave something of substance. So I really hope I do this episode justice because I'm I'm delivering this episode with a very, very heavy heart. As many of us have this heavy heart. Because Jason R. Day represents all of us. We see parts of ourselves in what's happened here, and as a black woman, oh god. Who gets to make a mistake and remain human? Because I think that is a really poignant question. There's something I have been thinking about since the death of Professor Jason R. Day, and actually, I've been struggling with how I want to talk about it because where do you even begin? I don't want this conversation to be reduced to whether Jason R. Day did or did not do the things he's accused of doing. There are allegations concerning his academic work, there are questions concerning plagiarism and inaccuracies, and Cambridge University had announced that they are conducting an independent investigation into those allegations against Jason R. Day. And Professor Jason R. Day himself had acknowledged that he had made mistakes, and those things can be discussed, but an investigation is supposed to determine facts. An allegation is not a conclusion. And somewhere along the way, I think we have lost this ability to hold two things at the same time: accountability and humanity, because Jason R. Day is dead, and he was 41 years old. He was a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, and somebody whose life achievements and qualifications and credibility

Accountability Versus Humanity At Work

SPEAKER_01 8:10

had become a matter of massive public scrutiny in the weeks before his death. I want to talk about this. Because underneath everything else that happened, there's something people are overlooking. Cambridge University was Professor Jason Arday's employer. And once you start to look at what happened through that lens, I think it opens up a much bigger conversation about the world of work. Because most people's workplace investigations don't end up in the national press. Most people's disciplinary processes aren't being discussed by thousands of strangers online. But many of us know what it feels like to go to work every day while your professional credibility is being questioned on a daily basis. And many of us know how it feels to be under investigation, to be performance managed, to have a grievance raised against us, to have somebody questioning our qualifications and to have allegations circulating amongst our colleagues. To walk into meetings knowing people have been discussing you before you've even arrived. And sometimes people don't resign. Sometimes they sit through it. They continue attending meetings, they continue answering calls, emails, they continue logging in every morning, they continue pretending that they're okay because we have bills to pay, take care of children, maybe. Added responsibility, rent, counsel tax, you name it, responsibilities. And sometimes they remain there until their mental health simply cannot sustain it anymore. That's the workplace conversation that I really want to have. What happens when scrutiny becomes punishment? Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with an employer investigating legitimate concerns. There has to be accountability in the workplaces, and I think we all know that. We all understand that. But nobody should be beyond scrutiny because of their race, their position, their achievements, or their reputation. That isn't what we're arguing here. That's not what we're discussing. I'm asking a simple question. How is that scrutiny conducted? What happens to the person while the investigation is happening and who knows about it? How is it even communicated? How is confidentiality even maintained through this investigation? What assumptions are being made before the process is concluded? How long does this investigation continue on for? And perhaps more importantly, is the purpose of the process to establish what happened, or has the process itself become the punishment? And in the case of Jason Arday, the process became the punishment. It was used as a weapon by blog sites, the British media. Jason Arday's situation had another massive dimension. The press. His professional life wasn't simply being examined internally. His credentials, his academic work, his childhood, his achievements, his character were all being examined publicly, headline after headline, article after article, and post after post, comment after comment. And suddenly we're no longer simply talking about an investigation anymore. We're talking about making somebody a public spectacle. And that is where I used a phrase, you know, when I was writing this down and I was really processing what was happening. I know some people are gonna find this uncomfortable, but I described what I witnessed happening to Jason R. Day in the press as feeling like a modern day lynching. And I want to explain exactly what I mean by that. Like I want to I want to explain so you can understand because I recognise also there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast that may not understand it because there's not that history within your race, within your culture that ever had to deal with the historical impact of what lynching actually means. I'm talking about one particular characteristic of lynching that we sometimes forget, and it's making someone into a spectacle. Historically, lynching wasn't simply about killing someone, there was a public humiliation, there was a collective participation, there was a stripping away of somebody's humanity, there was a message being communicated about who belonged, who didn't belong, and what could happen to somebody who crossed particular boundaries. Technology has given us a completely different mechanism for public spectacle. You don't need a crowd physically standing somewhere anymore. A crowd can be millions of people holding phones, one allegation becomes a headline, a headline becomes 20 articles, those articles become tweets, TikToks, threads, Reddit posts, YouTube videos, comments, and eventually the human, that human being disappears. That person becomes content, they become part of a discourse, they become something everybody believes they have ownership over. And that is the metaphor I'm using when I describe a modern form of lynching through the press. It's the spectacle of public punishment. And when the person at the center of that,

Public Spectacle And The Press

SPEAKER_01 14:21

that the center of that spectacle is black, I think we absolutely have to be willing to discuss race because black professionals know something about being asked to prove that we belong. I've spoken before on the podcast about something that happened to me when I was in my 20s. Um, I was working somewhere, I'd been there for about five months into a six-month probation, and I was called into the Birmingham office. I was working in the London office, but I was actually called and asked to go to the Birmingham office. And when I got to the Birmingham office, my CV was sitting on the table marked up with red pen. And I was interrogated, questioned about whether I'd actually achieved the things I'd written down, the qualifications. Think about that. I've already been recruited, I've gone through an entire interview process, I've been working there for five months, and somehow we've traveled backwards. We weren't discussing whether I could perform the role, we were discussing whether the history that had enabled me to get the role was actually true. And that distinction really stayed with me because there's a difference between competence and legitimacy. Competence asks the question, you know, can you do this job? Legitimacy is quite different. It asks, do I believe somebody like you should have this job in the first place? And so many of us black professionals spend our entire careers being forced to answer the second question. Do I believe somebody like you should have the job in the first place? We're being asked constantly, we're being questioned about our legitimacy. Prove your degree, prove your experience, prove your achievements, prove you really led that project, prove you deserve that salary, prove you earned that promotion, prove that you belong in this room. And there is an emotional consequence to constantly being required to defend the legitimacy of your own existence within professional spaces. At the time that happened to me, I'd lost my father like maybe a year, year and a half before. I was grieving, I was depressed. And it was over the Easter period that that happened, you know, the markup of my CV that I remember just after that, maybe a week later was Easter. And that was that was a turning point in my career. I was suicidal that Easter, and I will never forget it to the day I die because it just caught me unawares. I was not expecting to go into a meeting five months into my probation. I've got a month left, and I'm walking into a meeting thinking that you are going to say, Yep, you've passed, or what I wasn't expecting to see my CV marked up in red pen and being questioned about the legitimacy of my achievements, whether you know, were you telling the truth? Question interrogated. And still what I was going through, the humiliation, the grief, I still had to function professionally. I know how hard I fought back tears in that room. So when people casually say, well, it's just an investigation, I understand that an investigation can be procedurally necessary. But I also understand that there is a human being inside that process. And bear in mind when I was in that room, I wasn't being investigated, I was being accused. I think employers forget the human being that sits behind when you are investigating, when you are accusing, when you are questioning someone's legitimacy. Due process isn't only about reaching the correct conclusions, it's also about how you actually get there. You can ultimately conclude that somebody did something wrong and still acknowledge that they deserve dignity while you are investigating them. You can investigate somebody without humiliating them. You can challenge somebody without dehumanizing them. You can establish accountability without turning somebody into workplace gossip. You can protect an organization's reputation without destroying an individual's reputation before you've even established what the

Legitimacy Versus Competence In Careers

SPEAKER_01 18:50

facts are. Those things are not mutually exclusive. And this is where organizations need to think about, like really think about it carefully about how investigations involving someone's professional pre reputation is actually done. Because reputationally, accusations are different. If you're questioning somebody's honesty, for example, their credentials, their integrity, or professional competence, you're potentially attacking the very thing upon which their career has been built on. For somebody who's spent decades building that career, that isn't about abstract HR process. That's their livelihood, their identity, their professional community, their ability to work somewhere else, and their ability to support their families. And if that individual is already part of a group historically required to prove that they deserve access to these institutions, there's another layer that's sitting underneath that. So Professor Jason Arday's achievements have mattered in this conversation. He wasn't simply a professor, he became Cambridge University's youngest ever black professor. Think about like, think about that historically, like the historical significance of that. And then think about what happens psychologically when somebody reaches a space that historically contained very few people who then who looked like them. And suddenly everything that enabled them to reach that space is being questioned. That doesn't mean the questions shouldn't be asked. That's not what I'm saying. It means we should understand the weight of how those questions are being asked. Because there is something I've observed repeatedly when it comes to black success. When we achieve something extraordinary, there can sometimes be this almost forensic desire to establish whether we really earned it. Was she actually qualified? Did he really write that? Was she a diversity hire? That's a DEI hire for sure. Did he get like special treatment? Was she actually the best candidate? How did he get the job? How did she get that job? How much are they being paid? Who helped them? There's something. There's sometimes an assumption sitting underneath black achievement that says there must be another explanation. And that this is not proportionate. It doesn't make no sense. So who gets the grace? This is a question I keep returning to because we watch public figures make mistakes constantly. Politicians are investigated. Politicians resign, but they may resign from the post they're being appointed, but not from their constituency. Executives make terrible decisions, people make errors of judgment every single day. People actually fail. People apologize, people disappear for six months and then come back. And society somehow finds mechanisms for allowing certain people to remain complicated human beings. Their mistakes become something they did. It doesn't necessarily become everything they are. But I don't think that grace is distributed equally. And I particularly don't think black people experience public failure in the same way that white people do. Our mistakes become confirmation of something, confirmation that we shouldn't have been there in the first place, confirmation that diversity went way too far. Confirmation that standards have were lowered, confirmation that somebody gave us something we didn't deserve, which means an individual black person's alleged failure can suddenly become an argument about black achievement itself. This is an enormous burden to place on anybody. And it happens in ordinary workplaces every single day. Sometimes you're not simply worried about getting something wrong, you're worried about what your mistake, like what that actually may mean. Like it can't be just a simple mistake. What sits beneath it? What's the, you know, what's what does it mean in its entirety? And employees have enormous power in these moments. Managers have extraordinary power. HR has power. Investigators have power, senior leadership has power, even your colleagues have power. How an investigation and how an allegation is described really matters, and how widely information is shared matters as well. Whether somebody's treated as though they've already been found guilty really matters. Whether colleagues start like distancing themselves if they know you're being investigated, whether a person continues being invited into meetings, these things matter. Also consider whether their responsibilities quietly disappear, whether somebody checks in on their welfare. Language matters, confidentiality matters, process matters, because you can completely isolate somebody without ever formally suspending them. You can make somebody feel that their career is over without even saying a word. And somebody can still be sitting at their desk while psychologically literally falling apart. I know I have been in those situations very many times. That's why, like when someone says, Oh, they could just resign, it's such an inadequate response to a workplace trauma. People don't necessarily recognize immediately that something is being done to them. Some people need the money, some people think like an investigation will clear them. They believe that justice will prevail. Some people want to defend their reputation, some people refuse to walk away from a career they've spent decades building. And some people are frightened that a resignation will be interpreted as guilt. And I definitely felt that. If you read the um resignation um from Jason Arday, he makes it very clear like him resigning is not an admission of anything. But the weight of what was happening was just too much. So for him, it's like, you know what, I'll resign. And remember, resigning doesn't mean they halt the investigation because they never said they would, Cambridge University. They were still doing the investigation. Some people just, you know, some people don't resign. Some people just want to keep going until they just can't. I feel like workplace investigations need humanity to be built into them. Not kindness as a corporate slogan, not a well, like not a well-being seminar, not an employer assistance program, like link sent at the bottom of an email informing somebody they're under investigation. Actual humanity, procedural fairness, proportionality, confidentiality, clear timelines, appropriate communication, and support, like real legitimate support. And understanding that a person, a human being is being investigated. And that person remains an employee and a human being until the process concludes and remains, and that person still remains a human being through a process. I find that organizations love talking about psychological safety when everything is going well. The real test of psychological safety is what happens when something goes wrong. What happens when somebody is accused of something? What happens

How Investigations Should Protect Dignity

SPEAKER_01 26:40

when somebody makes a mistake? What happens when somebody challenges management? What happens when someone becomes inconvenient? What happens when somebody's reputation becomes a risk to the organization? Does your commitment to well-being survive conflict? And I think that's the real test. Then there's the media. We constantly hear be kind, especially like it was polarized after the press campaign against Caroline Flack. Yeah. Be kind. And suddenly it became like a like a slogan of it became a slogan that was attached to, in my opinion, a fragility that's not afforded to the black community. Be kind because you don't know what somebody is going through. That's what it actually means. And that that is irrespective of somebody's race. For me, it's be kind because words matter. Be kind because mental health matters. And yet sometimes I look at the way black people are publicly discussed and think, Yeah, okay. Be kind if your face fits. Be kind if your race fits. Be kind if society has already decided that you are somebody worthy of grace. Because there has to be a point where journalism asks itself, what is the public interest purpose of the next article? It's not an article first. And then the next one. And then the next article. And then the next article. What new information was being provided after every single article that was published of Jason Arday? There are questions. For me, those are questions that journalists should be capable of asking themselves without anybody suggesting that journalists shouldn't investigate legitimate allegations. Again, accountability and humanity can they can coexist. And here we are today. Jason Arday is dead. I know there's been, you know, it's not been formally established how he died, although we can assume how, because when we we I mean, come on. When he resigned, he spoke about the profound toll that the relentless accusations and speculation and public commentary had taken on him and his loved ones. His family has subsequently spoken about what they believe the campaign against him actually did. And I believe those statements truly deserve to be taken seriously. But yet, no less than 48 hours after his death, the press are camped outside the family home. They're grieving. Eventually, everybody moves on, right? Journalists moves on, social media moves on, the algorithm moves on, and then another scandal happens, another person becomes the discourse. But families don't move on in the same way. Somebody has lost a father, somebody has lost a husband, somebody has lost a son, a brother. People have lost their friend. And whatever any investigation may ultimately establish about Jason R. Day's academic work. Was Jason R. Day perfect? Of course not. None of us are. The question I'm interested in is this: who gets to make a mistake and remain human? Who gets investigated and retains their dignity? Who gets something wrong without having their entire life interrogated? Who gets the opportunity to rebuild and who gets grace? Because if accountability requires us to remove somebody's humanity before we've even established what they've done, that isn't accountability. And if our workplaces can talk endlessly about well-being while allowing employees to psychologically disintegrate inside. Disintegrate inside their processes. That's not psychological safety. And if be kind only applies to the people society have already decided deserve our empathy, that's not even kindness, is it? It's conditional humanity. I genuinely believe that Professor Jason Arde's death should force all of us, employers, managers, HR departments, journalists, colleagues, and those of us consuming these stories online to ask ourselves a very uncomfortable question.

Be Kind, Media Incentives, Racism

SPEAKER_01 31:51

What does scrutiny? No, it's not what. When does scrutiny stop being about finding the truth and start becoming punishment? Because accountability and humanity can exist at the same time. And the moment we convince ourselves that they can't is the moment we should be deeply concerned about institutions that we have created. And just on the topic of institutions that we have created, I no longer follow the shade bar. Apparently black-owned, apparently black-run. And they were complicit. Every end post of unrelated um stories that they were posting online, and it could have been about a bag of chips. The end card was Jason R. Day. The end card was like imagery of Jason R. Day. That's sustained bullying. That's a lack of humanity. That's degrading. That is a humiliation ritual, a campaign of bullying that went on multiple times a day from different news outlets. That's that is. That dignity? That's what has happened over the last two weeks is crazy. To even say it is disgusting. I've had a touch of the British media when I was in Big Brother. And I'm gonna I'm I'm I'm gonna tell you this. When I say I was touched, because I truly believe that the ancestors love me. They don't play about with me. Had I gone on Big Brother during these times now, the press, Big Brother itself, would never have gotten away with the things they got away with back in 2014. Um I put that on everything. There's this you know, this whole Netflix documentary trend on TikTok. And I I posted one, the documentary about the Big Brother house of 2014. They don't want me telling that story. They do not want I was systematically bullied by a particular person, and she was relentless. She also questioned the legitimacy of my law degree, by the way, because there was another white woman that was in the Big Brother house who had a law degree, very insignificant person, I don't even remember her name. She wasn't that they never questioned that. They questioned me, and I know that that macro aggressive aggression was because I was black. The racial undertones of every question. When we were on the panel, oh listen, I'm telling you this now. The British if you did it, if you didn't know it before now, know that the British media are historically racist. Just understand. So, insofar as you are not white, the British media feel they have the right. You hear me? Take it from me. There is an article when I was in Big Brother, and I need to find that article if that's if it's still up. And the headline read something like I grew like something about me growing up around guns and drugs. And I have never told them that in my life. I told them I grew up rough. I grew up in Tottenham. And when I say rough, I mean Tottenham back in the day was rough. I even shared about my upbringing that none of that was in the article. And when you read the article, it's nothing like the headline of the article. But what they wanted to denote is this black girl. They wanted to hit as many stereotypes as possible. But when you read the story, it doesn't relate to the headline, don't even make any sense. Because I did not say it. And losing my father when I came at the big brother house, I'm telling you now, broke my heart. It's probably one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. Had to go through the mourning of my father. But I'm telling you, what it did do is it changed the course of my life. And it made me really identify a few things because bearing in mind, I'm living my everyday life, I've lost my father, I've come out of one of the biggest shows of the what in the world at the at the time, especially in the UK for sure. In the world, though, because Big Brother set the tone for reality shows of that nature, those social media, so social experiments. But because losing my father changed the course of my life, it meant that what fame meant to me before I went in the house is not what it meant to me after. So I wasn't pursuing fame anymore. I didn't care about it. When I was going went in the big brother house, I was pursuing fame. I wanted to relocate to Nigeria, and all those walls were in motion. Losing my father, I walked away from everything. And I'm telling you now that if I stayed the course, the British media would have destroyed me simply because I'm a black woman who knows her own mind, straight talking, and they don't like that. They don't like to see anything great or successful within the black community. They think there's something wrong somewhere, like it's not adding up for them. How dare you be happy? How dare you work hard and have achieved all those things? They love a rag to riches story because they want us to remember the rags. They want, they will go to your worst enemy when you were young. Yeah, they will go to that worst enemy when you were young, when you were four years old, and you tripped up Stacy on the stairs. They will go there and talk to her. Yeah, she was a psycho at four. They love that. That's how they for them. The backstory is the focus. They never focus on the achievement or how great someone is. They need to destroy the image of what greatness looks like within the black community, and they will they will use whatever means necessary to do it. Shade borough, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are a stinking rasted outlet. Ain't nothing great about y'all. You guys have been used systematically to destroy the black community, and I want no parts. I want no motherfucking parts. I don't want it. I don't do that. I wanted to use this episode to talk about another topic, but do you know what? I'll do it in the next episode. I think for me it was really important to you know to talk about it. You know, I've mentioned it a couple of times on my private Instagram page. But I I really wanted to come here and just I hope I've done this episode justice, honestly, because it's just weighted and I can feel it, my body feels tense. Just because I just can't believe, I can't believe that it's ended like this, but it hasn't ended until the press decides because I camped outside Jason R. Day's house. That's crazy. His family are mourning the loss of somebody they didn't have to lose the way they did, but for the press. And it's the same press parked outside their house. How many times in our workplaces are we we are being interrogated, we are being bullied, we are being abused, we are be you policies are being used against us, people are ganging up to destroy us, the legitimacy of our hard work is being questioned. We always feel like we're a couple of steps away from a sacking, an investigation.

The Cost Of Success For Black Women

SPEAKER_01 40:20

We're a couple of we're you know, you never feel like you're too far away from losing your job. And I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say something here. I'm gonna say something. Whenever I see a black person, especially a black woman, in a position of power in these organizations, I pray for her. She's in a she's in a silent prayer in my mind. Because I know how hard you had to work to get there. And when I say I know, as in I know that it weren't beans, but God knows what you're going through while you're there. Because as soon as your greatness is polarized in that way, the sharks start circling. You are the scapegoat, you are the reason, you are the blame, you are, you are, you are. And I think genuinely this has held me back. I think it's held me back a lot from fully achieving my potential, you know. I am so ready for directorship. I'm ready. Like I've been ready for years, and I never quite allow myself, I never quite get to that point to push the button to allow myself. Because that mental load that I will now have to juggle once I arrive at the greatness that I have worked hard for, I don't know if it's worth my psychological safety. In fact, I know it's not. So, on one hand, you want to work, you want to achieve, you want to build an amazing future for your family. But at what cost? Because it's gonna cost you your mental health. No black person, specifically black women, who have entered those exact positions are remaining there peacefully. I've not seen it. If you exist, please tell me, come on the podcast, come chat to me, come share the antidote with all of us. I remember I went to Black Tech Fest last year, and it really just was just amazing. It was amazing. It was one of those events that I felt like the ancestors wanted me to come. I received the message, I went, it was amazing. And there was a black woman there, and she was just groundbreaking, is the way I could just describe her. And she looked like an older version of me. Like we literally dressed exactly the same. I knew the message loud and clear, I received it. And she said something. She said, Listen, she shared that she had ADHD, neurodivergent. She shared a quite a lot of, she was very open, and she said, Listen, I've worked so damn hard to get here, but don't ever think this level of success remains peaceful at this level. Because peace and success as a black woman do not coexist at this stage of your career, and that sat with me. It sat with me because I thought to myself, how many people are in their workplaces feeling suicidal? I sat there and I really thought about it because if I was to sit here and tell you situations where I felt so like, you know, like having like the level of anxiety that I could have an aneurysm and die. I've I've been in those situations. Or when I spoke, when I mentioned about like the five months, the five months into a six month probation. That Easter, I I I felt like I I I literally thought I I'm done. I I literally didn't want to live anymore. Because life felt so hard. I had lost my father. I was trying to find some normality. I had when I had lost my father, I'd attempted suicide. I had gone through a lot. So to be able to hold down this job, it was getting me through. And let me tell you, I was going when I tell you I was going through, I was going, hey. Then to have the wall, the rug pulled underneath you, and then to be told they're extending your probation. You're like, hang on, I've got one month to go. Where are you extending it to? I ended up leaving. I did. And and they were shocked. I'm like, you just question the legitimacy of my my credentials and you're you're shocked that. Listen, two weeks I left. I took a job paying me £30,000 less than what I was earning in that role. For the sake of peace, honey. I need to my my my my my my listen I was shattered. My anxiety levels were through the roof. I had no edges, none. None. I didn't even have the follicles. I was stressed to rass. Even my nose hair, I had none. I was I had nothing. I had to build myself, my self-esteem back up. And let me tell you, there are certain poignant parts of my career that happened to me. That was one of them that has made me into the woman I am now. That's why I don't take shit. Um you see in the workplace, let me tell you, I'm a very peaceful person. I work hard, I'm focused, I'm a safe pair of hands, and I deliver each and every time. But you know why I I move Jajili like that? Because I know for a fact that if I just mind my business operate in peace and you step on my toes, it's up. Because what I have had to do to build myself up to be this person, I am not willing to let that go for anybody. My psychological safety is my number one priority in the workplace. Because for so long I have psychologically felt unsafe as a black woman in the workplace. I still don't feel very safe in the workplace, but at least now it's measured because I'm always forward thinking. But do you know how exhausting that is to always forward think? To constantly check the temperatures of the sharks? It's exhausting, it's tiring. But this is how, as black women, our existence looks. Our existence can never just be peaceful. Every black woman has a similar story to tell. It's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence. The difference is we're not operating just as females and having the complexity of having to deal with gender issues. It's that intersectionality between gender and race that creates a problem. Because you, we, you, we, us, I together, we're working in in organizations that weren't built, institutions that weren't built for people like us. They don't they have no choice. They want the best. They come here because they know that we have to work ten times as hard. Who doesn't want 10 times of the best? We've had to work ten times as hard just to get in the door. And then when you get in the door, you're not and let me just contextualize something. You're not just having to deal with the complexities of race issues and other issues that exist in establishments that weren't created for us. But if you if if you're going to workplaces where we don't really see each other enough, you have to also consider where whether you your black brother or sister is an op. And I'm not saying optimistic, I mean opponent. Yeah, you hear it. Because you go to these workplaces and you see people that don't really look like you. That is the problem. Some people want to be the only one, they want to be the token. I have worked in a sp in a place before where I've gone to an organization, went through an interview process, and there was another black woman, and I've shared this. I remember years ago at Snap, on Snapchat, that birthed

Betrayal At Work And A Baseless Grievance

SPEAKER_01 48:20

toy talks actually. And there was a black girl, and this black girl, slightly younger than me, and basically I could tell that nobody was giving her the training, and you know, she really wanted to kind of do the role I was doing, so she actually asked me if I could help her with certain things. I was like, Of course, no problem. I don't listen, if I've got the time, I will try, whatever. Then she ended up moving to my team. I then find out she actually had applied for my job and didn't get it. And once I heard that, I had to pay attention because she never shared that with me. And for me personally, if you're holding back something like that, that's quite important, especially if you're wanting me to train you on gaps. Girl, where how did you know the gaps existed? It's because you applied for the job and didn't get it. Why are you not sharing that with me? Do you know I helped train this girl? I helped train her. Now she now she's in a senior role in another organization. I trained her. She used to call me every week. She'll go for interviews. She'll call me every week. Ah, that story is not even short. Do you know training this girl? One day, I noticed her attitude just was changing towards me. It's almost like she was angry. I couldn't work out why. Ah, me, I thought, ah, she on her period. I know also she was struggling as a single mum. So I just I never I never automatically thought it was something I was doing. I I I I could I thought, you know what, maybe she's going through something. But one time we was in the office now, open office, and I had asked her if she to if she could help me with something because also she did uh uh team admin. The way she snapped back, absolutely not. I said, excuse me, we're not talking to me like that. If you have an issue with me, you talk to me like an adult, but you're not snapping at me. I said, My name is not Snapper. I said it, yeah. Don't try it with me, girl. I was looking at her like, are you crazy? Do you know she went behind my back? This is somebody I've been training for months. That same manager that didn't give you the job is who you went to go and report me to. She went and reported me. Um, she said that I was bullying her. So my boss said, How is Toya bullying you? She goes, Well, Toya's asked me to do a couple of things, and I felt like she raised her voice and she'd asked me um to help her with something in the office, and I replied. Hear her. She didn't say she snapped, she goes, I replied. And Toya was quite forceful. So I feel bullied. Do you know? She put it in writing and made a complaint against me. But each and every time they tried to ask her for an example, she was stammering and stuttering. My boss called me into the office. She said, Toya, I don't even know why you bother with this girl training her. Because I watch you train her after work. So I she goes, I see it. There's a reason why she didn't get the job because she's not competent enough, she doesn't have the immaturity enough to do the role that we hired you to do. And you you now are on the next level. It's just this is a flat structure, there's nowhere to take you to. But you I watch you train her because I'm not training her. My boss at the time said, I'm not wasting time training somebody like this. And now, look, you've trained her, and now she wants your job. So she wants you out of the job so that she can take over the job. That's her mentality. I just looked at my boss. I said, What should I do? She goes, Well, we have to conduct the investigation. She said that you're bullying her, so I have to investigate. But I know there's no merit in this. That's somebody who looks like me. It's a black girl just like me, a couple of years younger than me. Me just walking into an organization, interviewing for a job. I get the job, I do the job very well. And it wasn't, it was an easy job, by the way, in my field. It was a difficult job. Because I was working with salespeople as well. So I was doing all their contracts, all their commercials. It was hard, it was hard because you know, a lot of these salespeople, they're good at what they do because of the skills that they have. But it doesn't work when you're now trying to commercialize and contractualize what they do. It was a tough job. I worked a lot of hours, and I really loved that job at the time when I anyway. I really loved the job, and it was really hard to get into that organization. So when I got in there, I was so proud. Then imagine all of that culminates into somebody basically like accusing you of something that you haven't done. I'm not listening let me tell you something. I'm direct, I'm straight, I'm not a bully. I am not a bully. Do you know what ended up happening? The team, the division, um ended up going through a restructure. Management came in, you know how it goes. Guess who was on the chopping block? Said girl that accused me of bullying. She was on the chopping block. So, as part of the consultation, they named who was on the chopping block. So one of the very senior people directors asked to have a meeting with me. He said, Toy, you've been here for some time, you've delivered da-da-da. This person now we've told is um basically in line for a redundancy. So I want to find out from you whether we've made the right decision. Because if you feel that we need her on the team, then this is your opportunity. I said, Listen, I don't want that responsibility. He said, Pardon? I said, no, I don't want that responsibility. I'm under investigation, I've been under investigation for a month. I've been accused of bullying. Then you're coming to me to ask me that. I can never give you an impartial view. And whilst I know it's baseless and has no merit, the reality is now she's going through a redundancy. This is not the best time to ask me these type of questions. That's what I said. You said, you know what, Toy, I respect it. Be careful how you slap people on the face, you know. Be careful. The hand that was feeding you, you slapped because you won my job. You just switched like that. Somebody who was sacrificing lunch times after work, key cat key contracts I was working on, I'll bring you on to learn. Do you think anybody was teaching me that way? Nobody sat me down and taught me shit. I learned it on the job. Imagine, imagine running on a treadmill with a book in your hand, coffee and headphones. That's how I was learning. Don't be mad and don't be dumb and don't be stupid. Be careful how you treat people who are touched by the ancestors. Be careful. When people are kind to you, be careful how you slap them because your karma is being registered and it never forgets an address. Do you know when they told her that she's definitely going through a redundancy? She couldn't even look me in my face. Two weeks after the director had tried to get me to have a view. My boss said that she'd investigate, there's no case to answer, it's without merit, baseless, everything. Bear in mind, this investigation, they didn't take a statement from me. They didn't let me see her statement. It was a blind investigation. You know them investigations where they know it has no merit. So they will just go through the process, but they didn't even investigate properly. Personally, for me, I wanted them to investigate properly. Yeah. I wanted my time so that she can. I wanted to have me, her, HR in the room. I wanted her to give the examples, and I had a chronology of every interaction I ever had with her because all the diary invites were there, all the time I spent with her was there. I had witnesses within the team that were willing to write a statement. People in the team stopped speaking to her because they found out about their investigation. How? My boss went and told them. Before I could say anything, my boss had already told them that this girl had made an allegation against me and I was under investigation. So I didn't even have the dignity to manage it. Everybody knew. Confidentiality out of the way. Luckily, my reputation precedes me. Everybody knows. Like I work hard, I'm direct, I'm straight, I don't take shit. But what I am is a team player. Oh yeah. Do you know this girl sent me a message, asked me if she can speak to me? If I don't go now, I'm a bully, right? So we went in the foyer. We're into the foyer area, and she says, you know, Toe, I'm really happy that you accepted my meeting invite. What fucking choice do I have, bitch? What the fuck? Like, what the fuck is this? I'm I'm watching a woman that looks like me, a fellow black woman. You've tried to destroy my credibility in this organization. You're trying to destroy the trajectory of my career. And you're saying thank you for an invite from the corner of your mouth. Are you mad? Outside of the workplace, can some of these people even chat to us? Absolutely fucking not. But here we are in the workplace, P A Y E. Everyone has a tax code. She said, Oh, you know, I'm really sorry about um doing a grievance against you. You're the only person that ever had time for me. And she was like, I don't know if you're aware, but I've been made redundant and they're going through the process at the moment, and they've told me that there's no opportunity for me to apply for any job, so they want me out of here. And she was like, you know, I acted on emotion. I said, wait there. She goes, Well, I said, wait there. I went back to the office, back to my desk. My boss used to sit three three seats away. I asked her, I said, please, Claire, oh yeah, can you come with me? She came. I said to the girl, I need you to start again. And what you said to me, you need to say in front of Claire. She goes, Oh, I thought it was a meeting between you and I. I said, It's never gonna just be between you and I. It was you and I when I came out here, but I realized where this is going, so the manager needs to be here. She said that she sorry, that how the reason why she did it is because you know, she felt like I was getting too big for my boots. Can you imagine? You're confessing your sin and telling me what I did to deserve the sin. Are you mad and stupid and dumb? That's why your lips are always dry, telling lies. Stupid bitch. And then she said, Oh, you know, upon reflection, she thinks that she should have spoken to me first. Maybe if if she wasn't happy about something, but when she thought about it, she realized that it wasn't that she wasn't happy, that she was going through stuff, and then work was becoming difficult. Like um, I became too busy, and then she felt like I was pulling away from her. So then my boss said, Hang on, so because you Toy was too busy put and she you feel Toy pulled away from you, where's the bullying? And she goes, Well, you know, Toy hasn't been here for that long, and you know, people going to lunch with her, I was never invited. I said, But who arranged those lunches? Me, do I eat lunch? And I just looked at her and I thought, I'm just going round in round in circles. What I said to her, why have you called me here? And she goes, That she can't look at me in the face, she feels guilty and can't sleep, and she feels like she didn't do the right thing and she didn't handle it very well. I said to my boss, please make sure you write this up and put it in the file. Because even though there's no case to answer, this is the answer. This is the why. My boss said, Yeah, she will do it. After that conversation, I kept it cordial with her, okay? So, you know, I I was always cordial anyway, but when I say I kept it cordial with her, she I'd noticed that she would go out of her way to try and talk to me. Like, I'll go to the kitchen, she'll corner me. She'll I will go to the toilet, I'll see her outside, you know, that type of thing. And I was just it wasn't just her counting the days until she left, honey. I was counting them days too. That's called a spiritual redundancy. Somebody who was helping you. Maybe the ancestors brought me to that organization to advance my career, but to use me as a vessel to help her advance hers. But she kept slapping me. Until do you know what it is to have a grievance against you when you know that you're innocent? That's mad. That's what that is. But that will forever be the example for me about doing too much. Now, this happened. Oh god, I wanna say 20, 20, end of 2017, 2018 times. That's when that happened. We are a long way away from it. I'm I'm very grown on a workplace level. That could never happen to me now. I'm not here to train anyone, I'm not LND learning and development. That's not my job. If you want to learn, there's a lot of outlets to learn. I'm not here to teach anybody, I'm not a teacher, I didn't qualify as a teacher, I'm a shit teacher. That's why I'm not a teacher. I'm

Boundaries, Neurodiversity, Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

happy to collaborate and work as a team, but I'm not here to tutor anybody. No. What was it that I used to say? I'm not Captain Save a hoe. I ain't calling no one a hoe. Well, I ain't here to save no one either. I'm dyslexic. I have ADHD, and apparently I have traits of autism. I'm high functioning. Do you know what that means? That I was never allowed to succumb to my symptoms. I had to function and operate on a very high level. I've been masking since I was 12 years old. I'm now 41. I had to go to them exams, I didn't get no support. I had to do the late nights. The I had to work, hold down a job and go to law school. I was working nights. I've worked hard to be where I am today. So my job is not to train anybody. If you want to learn on the job, we are all job in. That one I can do. But I'm not here to individually chew with someone. That situation single-handedly scarred me in my career, and it was much needed. Because I was one of those people, I see someone who looks like me, we're in this together. It's not all for one-on-one for all. Absolutely not. It's I am here, I'm figuring out, we're all figuring out. That's it. No, no, no. I am not Peter Pan, and I'm definitely not Captain Hook. We ain't doing that shit. Let's all figure it out together. So now when I see someone who looks like me, I my pattern recognition is amazing. If I see someone who looks like me, me, I'm happy to see you. Do you know why? Because I know we both worked hard to get here. But who you are is yet to be decided. Simple. I'm happy to see you. Uh-uh. Why not? We can all show our smile, but I'm not giving shit. Let me see you, see me, see us. That's it. You're a colleague like everyone else. That's it. I'm not trying to do all of that. Been there, done that, got the grievance, honey. No case to answer, nothing found. Anyway, I thought I'd share that. Um, just to bring to life the episode, but I am gonna leave it there. And I will be returning first week of September. We'll be talking the things because and Andy Burnham, you know, a lot's been happening. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, a lot's been happening, and I know we need to catch up. Um, and also as well, I'll be giving an update on the Nolan Wells um case and what's happening there that's still under investigation. So hopefully by the time I come back, there should be something because apparently they've called a grand jury. So I don't know what that means. Like, are we gonna are the charges gonna be laid? I don't know, but we're gonna figure it out. Um, yeah, just take care of yourself and really think about what you're consuming in the media and just take care of your mental health. The workplace is not a safe space for black people, even less for us black women. Let us spend time ensuring our psychological safety and let us also be covered by the ancestors because there's a lot going on, and I just hope that we all just take a breath and take a beat because it's heavy. I really, my prayers, my heart, my condolences go out to Professor Jason Arde's family. May his soul rest in perfect peace. I'm dedicating this episode to the amazing, the great Professor Jason Arde. My name is Toya Washington, and you have been listening to the Toy Talks podcast. Thank you so much.