Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

by Phoebe Robinson

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #3: Have Some Damn Fun

  As much as I joke around, I’m a pretty tightly wound person. Not in a way that I take myself seriously, but as my astrologist so accurately put it: I don’t believe that success can come without pain and suffering. So bring on the sleep deprivation, anxiety driving my creativity, and not taking care of my mental and physical well-being. If the outcome means I accomplish what I set out to do, then it was all worth it, right? Ehh . . . maybe not? I’m sure this sounds rich coming from me considering I have quite a few things to show for my laborious efforts, but trust me. I’ve spent most, if not all, of my career consumed with crossing off and then quickly adding to my to-do list out of fear that work will dry up and because I was so hyper focused on achieving my dreams that practically everything else—friends, family, moments of peace—took a back seat. While I’m not filled with regret when I look back on the first thirteen years of my career, there are twinges of “Hmm, I should have enjoyed that more” and “I wish I took time to celebrate this with a friend in person as opposed to firing off a quick ‘thx, queen’ in response to their celebratory message.” Not absorbing the fact I was making my dreams come true also meant I wasn’t absorbing the lessons I’d learned on the path to those victories or appreciating the people who were at my side, cheering me on and/or playing an integral part in my success.

  You can be happy and enjoy your work. You can goof around and still be the boss everyone will answer to and respect. You can take a break, go on vacation, have a relaxing dinner with a friend, or a long and leisurely phone call with your parents, and you’re not going to fall behind. I know the stakes are high when your livelihood and reputation are on the line, but don’t let everything else that makes life worth living fall by the wayside. You owe it to yourself and your business to have fun and relish the good times because running a company is simply just too hard of an endeavor if you don’t stop and savor any of the delicious moments that come along.

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #4: Get Yourself a Lawyer

  I know we all think we can lawyer because we’ve watched legal dramas on a lazy Saturday afternoon, but a) we don’t know shit, and b) what we will most likely need a lawyer for isn’t to help us fight a murder charge, but so we don’t sign a boo-boo contract in which we’re getting paid peanuts. After all, the show was called How to Get Away with Murder, not But What Do Those Royalties Look Like Tho, which, if that show had a hot dude in it, I would watch. #HabeasMyCorpus! What I’m getting at is rarely, if ever, are we privy to discussions about what the possession of a trademark logo entails or why we should care about limitation of liability / indemnification. I mean, if Behind the Music taught us anything, it’s to read a contract before signing it, but if we don’t know what any of the words or legal phrases mean, then what’s the point?

  Legit, before I got a lawyer (but also even now that I have one), sometimes when I had to sign a contract in front of someone, it may have seemed like I was really absorbing what I was looking at, but in actuality, I was just thinking to myself, I am reading. This is what reading looks like. Squinting and hmm’ing so I appear smart. More reading and nodding and nodding and reading. Pause for a moment and hold the pen up to my bottom lip to show that I’m thinking. Is this how people look when they’re thinking? Will Google that when I get home. And now I’m signing. Fingers crossed I didn’t agree to fuck my life up. This is trash, but I know I’m not the only one who does this. The law is hard, and I’m not sure about you, but for me, legalese does one of two things: hurt my brain or become my NyQuil.

  Honestly, once I see the words “in accordance” and “heretofore,” my Black ass is sound asleep. I know parents struggle with newborns not sleeping through the night and I wanna be like, “Have you tried reading your baby a merch agreement between a client and a merchandising and branding company? That shit is like chloroform to the nostrils in a Hitchcock movie.” Like most people, I can’t get through reading a legal document, and guess what? All of this is perfectly fine and normal. No one expects you to know all the ins and outs of the law, which is a bad thing because there are always going to be snakes looking for easy prey, but it’s also a good thing because you can dedicate your energy to what you do best and hire a lawyer to protect you.

  In my opinion, a lawyer is one of if not the most important hires you will make. When you lawyer up, negotiations suddenly get taken more seriously by the opposing side, you prevent yourself from being taken advantage of, and, finally, a lawyer is probably one of the most objective people you can have on your professional team. Even if you have a good, friendly relationship with your lawyer, their job is to remove emotion from the situation. I don’t care what anyone says or how controlled a leader is, when you are the big kahuna, you’re always at risk of clouding a situation with your own feelings and biases because, despite the cliché that business isn’t personal, it. 1,000 percent. is.

  While a business isn’t who you are, it was birthed from you, and every day, you’re making professional decisions that have a direct effect on your future. Business becomes personal, on some level, once you have skin in the game. So you need an objective professional who will help you make the best decisions for your future. Honestly, one of my fav parts of a phone call with my lawyer, Josh, is when he’s walking me through something and I’m silent for a whole five minutes. Sometimes, the pause will be so long that it might seem like the call has been dropped. But he immediately knows I don’t understand what’s going on and then he ultra–breaks down the legal word salad into plain old English and then we’ll talk about our favorite parts of Hamilton that make us cry. I’m pretty sure he’s not billing me for that last part, but if he was, I wouldn’t complain too much. Josh has, over the years, improved my bottom line and prevented me from being screwed over. He’s worth every penny. Btdubs, I’m aware that lawyers aren’t cheap, so if all you can afford is one on a case-by-case basis, do it. I beg of you.

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #5: You Didn’t Get into This to Dracarys a Bitch

  Or maybe you did. I don’t know your life, but what I do know is acting a damn fool anytime anyone dares to breathe in a way you don’t approve of or behaving like a dictator will create not only a high turnover rate, but an environment where your employees talk shit about you. For real, if your employees’ impersonation of you is so good that Lorne Michaels is booking them a window seat in economy plus so they can join the SNL cast, then you done fucked up and need to reexamine your draconian behavior. But let’s put a pin in a potentially bruised ego due to office trash talk because, frankly, that self-absorbed reason shouldn’t be the motivation behind the way you carry yourself at work. What should motivate you is making the decision about whether you want to be a boss or a leader and figuring out how best to execute that.

  What I’ve observed from me and my friends’ experiences is that the typical boss stops at making demands, caring only about the bottom line, and treating people as though they’re disposable. And I get it! Ruling with an iron fist and intimidation can get the desired results. Just look at dictatorships, politicians, and Jamaican hair braiders. If avoiding being cussed out is the overarching goal, of course employees are going to toe the line, but, frankly, that sounds miserable for everyone involved. I mean, it’s demoralizing to be on the receiving end of vitriol, and to be the one doling out that awful wrath does nothing but mess up your skin. Seriously, being a tyrant will have you going from Dorian Gray to Steve Bannon in a New York minute. #ShallowButTrue. But leaders, especially the successful ones (note: Success is not limited to amassing wealth; I’m talking interpersonal skills, encouraging their employees to exceed their potential, etc.), are a different breed. Leaders are inspiring, make their employees feel like they’re in the fight with them, and show they care about more than the bottom line, all of which can cause their employees to exude the most coveted yet illusive quality: loyalty. I mean, who is loyal to a boss? No
one? Maybe a few, but truthfully, those few are loyal to what the boss represents and provides: money, power, and access.

  Some people have been in jobs where someone has tried to poach them yet the person declines the offer. Basically, money is nice, but just like you can’t buy love, you can’t buy long-term dedication from your employees unless you give them other reasons to stay. Those reasons include but aren’t limited to being mentally present, prioritizing work-life balance, providing opportunities to be promoted from within, equipping employees with sufficient onboarding and training, giving them the freedom to be creative in ways that aren’t directly related to their positions but can lead to innovation down the line, and, lastly, ensuring that management and leadership are not a dumpster fire. That’s right. Terrible managers and leaders are surefire ways to make employees leave.

  In fact, Steve Miranda, the managing director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at the Cornell University ILR School,* concluded that about 80 PERCENT of turnover is because the environment created for the employee is so bad that Al Gore is like, “One sec. Let me get my Samsung so I can film this and release it as the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.” Get it? Cuz the orig Inconveen Troof—that was ignorant—was about global warming and how we’re ruining the environment? Guys? Guys? ANYWAY! The point is don’t be a nightmare and perhaps you’ll earn the devotion that every single leader craves. After all, as Simon Sinek, bestselling author of Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last, so aptly stated on Twitter, “A boss has a title, a leader has the people.” Trust me, you want the people.

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #6: Ooooh, Child, Surround Yourself with People Who Will Keep It Real

  This is pretty self-explanatory. Not every idea you’re going to come up with is going to be that next great idea that will elevate your company. In fact, some of your ideas will be shit. Straight-up clangers that make contact with every square inch of the toilet bowl on their way down the drain. And you need to have cultivated an environment and hired the person (or people) who knows that doing their job includes letting you know when you’re taking things down the wrong path. Obviously, this should be done with tact. No one’s asking for Real Housewives of New York City’s Bethenny Frankel energy where you’re going to be roasted for jokes. But you do need to have someone who can interrogate your thoughts and opinions because they have a different perspective than yours, which is probably part of the reason you hired them in the first place. Does your employee pointing out how a potential decision of yours could be disastrous feel great in the moment? Of course not. You might get defensive or be embarrassed when presented with evidence that what you want to do is actually not in the best interest of your company, but get over it. Take a beat to process and understand that what your employee is doing is solely to help you. It’s because they care. It’s because they want themselves, you, and the business to thrive.

  Now, yes-people, on the other hand? Sure, they’ll stick with you when the going is great and make you feel good with empty praise because everyone loves being around a winner. However, when you’re about to #StruggleBus it for a while, as all businesses are wont to do, these suck-ups are nowhere to be found. They’re either gone and on to their next meal ticket or standing silently when speaking up could turn things around. Now, it’s up to you as to who you want in the trenches with you, but for me, I’d gladly take someone who’s bold enough to tell me what I don’t want to hear if that information is in the best interest of my business, over a heaux paying me lip service and guiding me toward disaster because all they care about are the checks clearing (aka getting paid) and that they feel like they’re my “favorite.”

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #7: Ask for Feedback

  It’s not enough to have your employees’ input on the direction of the company; they also need to have input on you. Oh, you thought you were only going to give and never receive feedback? Like you were just gonna hand out your Amazon.com customer reviews on what your employees need to tweak and improve and you were going to get nothing in return because . . . what? You’re infallible? Ya ain’t Black Jesus, walking on water or turning water into wine. At best, you’re turning water into Crystal Light, which no one asked for, so yeah, there are areas that you need to improve on. That’s why you better learn how to take critiques that, by the way, aren’t even going to be that harsh because your employees are nervous to say the wrong thing that, at best, will cause you to treat them negatively or, at worst, get them fired. Trust me, it’s way more difficult for them to give you feedback than for you to receive it. Still, it’s tough to hear constructive criticism.

  In the beginning, every time my employees gave me criticism, I wanted to vomit. My skin got hot. My mind raced as I felt like I was the worst boss and that my employees had already uploaded their résumés to Monster.com because they were ready to leave. But that was my own shit. That was me being emotion-minded and not understanding that feelings aren’t facts. Can you tell I go to therapy? Anyway. With time, my adverse reaction to hearing how my not-so-great tendencies affect those around me has lessened as I’ve learned to accept this truth: Not all feedback is negative or ill-intentioned. Now, if you’ve employed some messy folks who have ulterior motives and are whispering in your ear to manipulate you, then at least you found out you’ve been carrying a Iago on your payroll, but that’s not what’s happening in most cases. Your employees, when given the opportunity, want to help you get to the next level because it means they’re going with ya. That’s why I tend to end most meetings with, “Is there anything that I can do that will make your job easier?”

  This phrasing is intentional. I want them to be as effective as they can be, and that can only happen if I’m operating in a manner that doesn’t intentionally or unintentionally get in their way. So if they can suggest changes and tweaks on how you could make their lives easier, which in turn will help your business reach its ultimate potential, you’d be a fool not to hear them out. And before you know it, you’ll be taking it on the chin like Muhammad Ali.

  What Warren Buffett Should’ve Told Ya #8: Stay On or Under Budget

  Y’all, as much as I wanna claim that the math don’t be mathin’, it turns out the math indeed do be mathin’! I say this because as a Libra, I have expensive tastes. But also, maybe it’s just how I was raised. I’ll give you an example. I talked to my dad recently and he said, apropos of nothing, “The only mustard Trey [that’s my three-year-old nephew] wants to eat now is Grey Poupon.” Uh-huh . . . right.

  “Dad, pray tell, how did he end up explicitly requesting Grey Poupon?”

  “Well,” Phil began, “I gave it to him to see if he would like it. Just wanted to expose him to different kinds of foods and condiments.”

  WUT?! Usually, when you want to expose toddlers to different kinds of foods and condies, it’s pineapples or bite-sized pieces of cooked chicken or mashed avocado on toast, not bougie-ass condiments! Give him French’s yellow mustard, which is $1.79 at Target. We don’t need to waste fancy mustard on garbage toddler taste buds. I love my nephew, but he still smiles after licking the living room floor. His palate is not elevated, but now he wants the finest things in life because my dad is out here doing the most, which was a common and sweet occurrence for my brother and me growing up. After all, I’ve been eating Grey Poupon since I was a kid as well because my parents instilled in us that enjoying nice things (even if they are minor like Grey P) is not just for rich people. So thanks to Ma and Pa Robinson, my astrological sign, and experiencing a snippet of what the world has to offer, I am now a bougie bitch.

  Meaning I start each day with a Pressed Juicery green juice, Architectural Digest was the design bible I referenced when coming up with ideas for how I wanted my office to look, and I have a monthly subscription for goop Balls in the Air multivitamins that are for “people who function at an intense pace.” Yep, I eye-roll at this, too, but also, I double down on my bloop aka Black goop ways.
And while my bougie tastes led me to living beyond my means (along with student loans, of course), which kept me in financial trouble for the entirety of my twenties and early thirties, I’m now older and wiser. Still, I was tempted when I was launching my production company.

  My last corporate job had unlimited snacks and breakfast items, a FreshDirect vending machine, endless office supplies, state-of-the-art printers, and more. The head honcho would throw pricey holiday parties. The temperature in the building was always perfect. There were cozy lounge spaces where people could chat when they got sick of sitting at their cubicles. A wellness room for when we needed to take a nap or use a breast pump, or simply have some peace and quiet. I could go on and on, but you get the gist. My last office job was an enjoyable place to work, so enjoyable that it was easy to believe this was the standard. To assume that a fully stocked array of cereal brands to go along with any and every kind of milk was not only normal, but the bare minimum. More than those unrealistic expectations, I convinced myself that all these bonuses were signs of what a “real” office does, what a “real” boss provides, and that if I’m ever in charge, this is what I must do or my employees will stage a mutiny. Cut to opening the Tiny Reparations office, where it was my turn to foot the bill.

  I was like, “Hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up. What we charging on my business Amex?” Like, yes, I do, too, prefer almond milk in my bowl of Cheerios, so I don’t have bubble guts during an eleven a.m. meeting, but also? This ain’t Meals on motherfucking Wheels. These are grown-ass twenty- and thirtysomething adults. I don’t need to provide them with EIGHT different cereals and myriad milk options. They can purchase that mess with the salary I pay them. And I didn’t stop there. You better believe on CB2’s drop-down menu, I clicked “Sort by Price: Low to High” when I was searching for decorative items for the office. And I walked around asking my employees, “Do all these lights need to be on?” Lol. Okay, I didn’t go that far. However, what did happen was that all the things I thought were must-haves quickly fell under the category of “fringe benefits.” It was in my best interest financially to be frugal and decide what were, by no means, requirements, but would add to the work environment; what were the things that were nice and we could, hopefully, implement down the line; and, ultimately, what was an absolute waste of money. Because, as we all know, It’s a whole new world when you’re the one footing the bill.