Stuck in the Middle

A black woman didn't create middle management. Like for real, I think it is completely contradictory to what we do. Actually, let me not generalize and say, I just don't like playing the middle man. Oh, right now I'm sipping on a watermelon wonder raw kombucha from Synergy. I saw my aunt drinking kombucha and thought let me try this. I like it. I'm the type of person that has to check reviews. Before trying anything I need to see what Yelp, Google and my trusty folks at Tiktok have to say. Well my people over at Tiktok gave mixed thoughts so I knew I needed to see for myself. That's what black women do, oops I mean that's what I as a black woman do/does? (whichever is closest to what ya'll consider grammatically correct). Ha, I literally chuckled because I just may be the only English major I know who thrives in grammatical incorrectness. But come on, 1. my name has an apostrophe smack dab in the middle, 2. my family migrated from the south, C. my ancestors aren't of this land. I was born to buck the system of what most people deem "proper American English" and I enjoy doing it because my dialect is so eloquent. Language is a bridge but middle management is a barrier. 

I don't exclude myself when I say middle management is a barrier. I feel the weight of stuck-ness all the time. Someone wants something from me that I can't realistically give to them because I have a boss that has a boss that has a boss who wants in on the action. I'm the middle man of the middle man. So I am always thinking of ways to remove myself, "you should talk to this person" has to be on my list of top 5 sayings at work. I guess middle management wouldn't be terrible IF people had appropriate decision making power. Why do I have to run this by my boss? What is the harm of making the best decision at that time based on all the information I have? Is this a work culture thing that is just happening at my place of employment? 

I'm confident that the best position for me is as an influencer with no management responsibilities. This way I can continue to advocate, I have authority to influence decision makers but don't have to play the politics of it all. Maybe middle management is not the problem but the politics are. Realistically, do we need work buffers? 

- BMM (Black in Middle Management)