Are you familiar with the practice of employment law? Do you know how discrimination in the workplace shows up?
Discrimination is generally an uncomfortable topic to discuss. Unfortunately, it occurs at some point in the career of various executives and professionals. In this episode, you will learn how to identify if discrimination is actually occurring on the job.
Our host, Porschia tackles the subject of discrimination in the workplace with our guest, Angel Horacek. Angel shares specific instances of discrimination and how to handle those situations as an employee.
Angel Horacek is an Employee Rights Attorney at the Law Offices of Angel J. Horacek. She is admitted to practice in all state courts in California and represents employees in courts, arbitrations, and administrative hearings. Her firm helps individuals resolve issues in their workplace or vindicate their civil rights.
What you’ll learn:
- What employment law is and why it is important
- How to identify instances of discrimination
- What you should do if you think you are being discriminated against
- The biggest mistakes executives and professionals make with their discrimination cases against a former employer
- How companies can reduce instances of discrimination in the workplace
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today, we are talking about Employment Law 101, Discrimination in the Workplace with Angel Horacek. Angel James Horacek practices employment and civil rights law on behalf of employees, focusing primarily on anti discrimination work. She represents employees in courts, arbitrations, and administrative hearings.
She also counsels employees in select pre litigation matters. Angel is admitted to practice in all state courts in California. Prior to starting her own firm, Ms. Horacek was an associate commercial litigator at an AmLaw 100 firm focusing on business and corporate clients. She then transitioned to representing individuals.
As an associate attorney at a [00:01:00] boutique employee side litigation firm. Hi Angel. How are you today?
Angel: Portia. Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Porschia: Absolutely. I’m excited to have you with us to discuss Employment Law 101 and Discrimination in the Workplace. But first, we want to know a little more about you.
So tell me about 7 year old Angel.
Angel: Oh, gosh. Um, where should I start? So 7 year old Angel, I would say, probably didn’t think she was going to be an attorney. Um, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Um, and I was sorely disabused of that notion when I learned that doctors have to deal with a lot of gross things.
Uh, so that was, um, a rude awakening. Um, but I’ve always been very curious about how things work and, you know, kind of what are the rules behind what makes things move. So in terms of science, you know, thinking about the rules of [00:02:00] physics and things like that. So it was kind of a natural flow, I think, into law because it’s completely rules based for the most part.
Yeah,
Porschia: definitely. Definitely. Uh, so what was your first job, Angel?
Angel: Oh boy. Um, my first job was during the summers as a camp counselor. And I always feel like if you really want to know about the human experience, you should hold at least one of three jobs at your point during your life. One is working with children.
One is with working retail and the other is working with food service in some way. I feel like You will learn a lot about yourself and a lot about people working in one of those three industries. So, working as a camp counselor really helped me, I think, be able to explain things, um, at a, at a level, uh, break it down for kind of the tiniest nuggets for folks to be able to understand, um, the little ones to understand, and then also dealing with their parents, um, who sometimes don’t want to hear, [00:03:00] What happened with their kid that day.
So it really helps you in the customer service angle. Um, I really enjoyed it though. I really like working with children.
Porschia: Wow. It sounds so fun. I mean, I think camp counselor was one of those things that I kind of wanted to do, but never got a chance to. I can check off the retail and the fast food boxes, Angel.
My first job was at Wendy’s. I was taking orders at the drive through and, and passing out, uh, bags at the second window. So I did get that experience.
Angel: It, and it is an experience. I think you learn a lot. about kind of what people’s tolerance is and, you know, how people will treat other people. So it’s just, I think, did you, do you feel like you learned a lot doing that?
Porschia: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So many things, uh, customer service, psychology, uh, getting along with others who are completely have a different. Frame of reference [00:04:00] and goals and all of that from you. But yes, I agree. I think that experience definitely sets you up to understand, um, other people, uh, in a really, really big way.
Angel: Yeah, I think definitely it’s, um. It’s kind of interesting sometimes when you work in those fields and you kind of learn, no matter what your work performance is, sometimes it really doesn’t matter to that particular individual because they want a particular outcome. And in some ways, there was really nothing that you were going to be able to do to influence how they feel about what their experience was.
I think you
Porschia: said that perfectly. The way I could say it is, please don’t curse me out because we’re out of barbecue sauce. You know, you said it much better, much better. I love it, Angel. Um, so tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your own firm. [00:05:00]
Angel: Um, that’s such an interesting question.
Uh, let’s see, before I started my, I guess, you know, one of the pivotal moments, I think for me was definitely passing the bar exam. Um, it’s such a huge milestone, I think, for any practicing attorney. And, um, it was very, not that I doubted I was going to pass, but, You know, the California bar exam is notorious for having a very low pass rate relative to other state bars.
And then I think if you actually look at kind of the numbers demographically, um. You know, African Americans have kind of a worse track record in terms of that. And so, even though I had felt well prepared coming out of the school, UCLA, Rep UCLA, um, that I went to, it was still kind of in the back of my mind, but I was so happy to have, I think, put in the work and then, you know, pass that bar exam because you can’t really, I, you know, you can’t go to court.
You know, if you’re not barred and, you know, in my mind, I, you know, I wanted [00:06:00] to be the type of attorney that went to court and, um, there’s certainly things you can do with a legal degree, uh, that don’t involve going to court. But for me, that was, I think, a huge, a huge factor. Yeah, yeah,
Porschia: absolutely. I’ve, I’ve heard, you know, a lot of people who had challenges passing the bar exam.
So hats off to you. Um, so what would you say have been, um, some of your biggest career challenges so far before starting your own firm?
Angel: Um, some of the biggest career challenges, I think kind of largely comes out of I would say, maybe the history of how law is practiced or the tradition of how law is practiced.
And as I said before, like, it’s very rules based in terms of the actual law itself. Um, but sometimes when you work at a large firm, there are traditional things that exist [00:07:00] there that make it difficult, I think, to be the person that you, you may identify as right. So, um, I worked at a large firm. Um, that firm was an East Coast firm.
Uh, there are wonderful people at that firm, but sometimes I found that it was, um, it could be constricting, um, in terms of what’s expected of you. So certainly there is. An hours requirement at almost all firms. There’s a certain amount of hours. You have to build to be able to put in that work Um, maybe let’s call that 2000 hours a year.
I’m being very just to make the numbers work Um, but what they don’t kind of tell you is that well that’s billable Um, you have to then do a certain amount of numbers, you know of showing up to maybe continuing legal education classes or FaceTime in the office meetings and things that don’t really count toward that billable requirement.
And so you end up spending a lot of your time and we, you know, all time is finite. We only have so many [00:08:00] hours in a day, in a year, um, spending a lot of your time kind of doing things that don’t necessarily lend themselves to the benefit of the client and are kind of just historically because people expect you to be in your seat.
You know, 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, whatever it is, and you’re kind of starting to see some of this now where people are pushing back and they want to stay and be remote, right? They want to have the flexibility to come in when they want to come in. And so it’s, it’s been very interesting to kind of watch, um, as the effects of the pandemic have shifted, um, some of this, yeah.
I would say time power back to the workers because traditionally, I found it very constricting. So that was a big challenge. I thought for me.
Porschia: Absolutely. I have heard that from a lot of attorneys angel. I will say that, um. attorneys. It’s a pretty [00:09:00] large group of people I’ve seen in our career coaching practice who wanted to transition out of either law or just working for a law firm, right?
They wanted to go in house somewhere to kind of get away from the, you know, 60, 70, 80 plus hour weeks. Um, the way I heard someone put it to me before was that, Hey, I can work 10 years, work my butt off for the firm and then still not make partner. You know? So, um, I, I have heard a bit about that from some of our clients
Angel: and then as somebody once described it to me, um, you know, a senior associate at the time they were considering partnership and then they were like, well, do I, is this even something I want?
Because effectively it’s winning a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. You just become more responsible for other things, right? And so certainly there’s, um, the share of profits in terms of becoming an equity partner. But if you can’t enjoy your life, [00:10:00] uh, what difference does it make? Yeah, absolutely.
Porschia: And these are some of the tough questions that I’m sure a lot of your clients kind of, you know, express to you and we hear from our clients as well. Um, so Angel, I really want to start with the basics. Uh, what is employment law?
Angel: So the way that I define employment law is any sort of, well, it’s the practice of law that relates to the obtaining And the maintaining and sometimes the ending or separation of employment, uh, at will employment between a person generally, um, and a firm, whether that’s a business, a sole proprietorship, depending on how that’s structured, um, I would distinguish it from labor law.
Um, they’re related, but I would distinguish it from labor [00:11:00] law, um, in terms of labor law, really specifically kind of dealing with, I would say, unions, um, and collective action, um, more of, um, the relationship between labor and capital, kind of, and not to get too into, you know, Marxism and things, but, you know, you have a group of people that work in a group of people that is the capital, and, you know, the relationship between Thank you.
What those groups can do what they do for each other, but employment laws I look at is specifically related more to the individual and not so much the compensation, but there certainly are issues related to compensation that can affect an individual in the way that labor law is not implicated. So hopefully that answers the question.
Porschia: Yeah, it does. It does. And from my perspective, I’ve, I’ve seen, you know, people say, uh, you know, that they were a labor attorney or, you know, an employment law attorney. Um, I’ve seen some people kind of say employment and labor. So thank you for, [00:12:00] uh, clarifying that for me.
Angel: Sure. There’s, there’s a lot of different, I think it’s good to ask that question because there’s a lot of different areas of, uh, I would say law related to employee employers.
For instance, there’s workers compensation law, which is a whole different subset. Like, I don’t practice that area at all, but it is related to obviously employers and employees or even, um, ERISA law, which is related to kind of, uh, retirement employee benefits. And that’s something totally different too.
So I’m kind of almost everything that those things aren’t. That’s kind of what I deal with is the relationship of the individual, um, toward the employer and vice versa.
Porschia: Got it. Got it. Um, so I know that you specialize in anti discrimination work. Uh, what are the most common discrimination issues that you see, uh, your clients have in the workplace?
Angel: Oh, wow. Um, that’s such a broad question. I think [00:13:00] it’s the most common issues that I see. Well, can I talk about kind of like the most obvious? Maybe is that a good? Okay, so I’ll frame it that way. Um, the most obvious issues that come up in terms of discrimination is twofold. It’s where an employee is not given the same opportunities as a different employee because of usually what they look like.
Okay, so sometimes we see, um, there will be colorism where only the light skinned employees of a particular place get to work in front of house versus people who work in the kitchen, right, back of house, and the darker people work there. That could be color, that could be race, it could be language, depending on what that situation is, right?
So that’s how it might present itself. Um, but the more often times I see this presented is, An employee changes somehow during the course of their employment. [00:14:00] The employee becomes pregnant. The employee comes out of the closet or gets out of it at work in some way. Um, the employee gets married. Um, the employee maybe transitions.
Right at work and or the employee becomes disabled somehow or ask for medical leave. Somehow. Those are usually the ways in which the discrimination starts happening. It’s the employee was, um, presented a certain way was able bodied was a straight appearing, whatever. Um, and then. Some change happened, and then the employer starts treating them differently, usually based on that condition.
So that’s, that last one, that’s what I would say is kind of the, usually, what happens. And then they end up calling me. Got it.
Porschia: Got it. Um, so when they notice that they’re starting to be treated [00:15:00] differently, um, what are some common kind of things that your clients notice or tell you about in terms of, you know, their employment or their environment changing?
Angel: Sure. Um, so one of the most obvious things that happens is they start getting either like Territory taken away or their sales quota raised, they might lose opportunities for, uh, overtime work where if maybe they always regularly got overtime and then all of a sudden they’re no longer. Being asked to work overtime where other people are.
Uh, so in terms of usually those are the compensation type issues. Sometimes it’s a removal of responsibility. Um, sometimes it’s, it’s as, as obvious, honestly, I’ve had situations where clients have gotten an email, Oh, well, you’re pregnant now we’re going to give this account to, [00:16:00] you know, X man, because he can handle it.
He doesn’t have those physical limitations. So, you know, and sometimes it may not even really be coming. I might I would say it’s not necessarily coming out of a. Malicious place. Sometimes the employer thinks they’re doing what that employee would want or what they would want for themselves on behalf of that employee, right?
They might want a lighter schedule if they were pregnant, but they never asked the employee if that’s what they wanted. So I would definitely watch out for either a change in compensation, a change in hours. Um, sometimes there can be disciplinary action that’s unwarranted. So like, uh, a written warning, a verbal warning, a performance write up.
a performance improvement plan where before you always had previous reviews that were positive. That’s usually how it starts presenting itself. Wow. Some sort of shift. [00:17:00] Yeah. Yeah.
Porschia: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that because a lot of times I hear from clients, they wonder if it’s. In their head, they have a feeling that things have changed.
Like you said, maybe there was a, you know, a change with them and then they feel like things are different, but it’s hard to explain. So I’m glad that you gave us some kind of, um, tangible scenarios and circumstances that you see because again, , it’s easy for someone to think that this is in their head.
Angel: Mm-hmm. . Yeah, and it’s, it’s hard to know because nobody wants to think that this is happening to them, especially if you worked somewhere for a long amount of time, you know, over a course of years, you feel like, you know, they know me, we’re family. Um, you know, it’s your second home, you spend so much time there and nobody, that’s not where anybody kind of runs to like, oh, they’re discriminating against me and ha ha, let me call the attorney.
That’s never really how it goes in terms of my clients. [00:18:00] It’s always kind of like the last resort. Like, I have eliminated every other possible rational reason why they would be doing this. And I can’t come up with anything other than some unlawful purpose.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Angelee made me think about a kind of a more pop culture, uh, reference to this.
And I don’t know if you’ve heard this. And so, uh, I’m not sure if this is true, but someone was telling me with, you know, Rihanna performing pregnant at the Superbowl that, um, One, the Super Bowl committee, they were mad because they didn’t find out she was pregnant until she showed up for rehearsal. And then, um, I was reading somewhere that they said she wouldn’t be asked back to perform at the Super Bowl, you know, because You know, that she, you know, I, I first thought, come on, I mean, most people perform at the Super Bowl.
That’s a once in a lifetime thing. So I don’t think she’s twiddling her thumbs waiting for that to come [00:19:00] back. But I turned to my husband and I said, you know, this is exactly why women don’t share that they’re pregnant. You know, if someone had presented her with this opportunity to perform at the halftime show and she said, Oh my gosh, I’m so excited.
And I’m pregnant, you know, they might’ve pulled the offer, right? And this is exactly why I also have women clients who feel like they don’t want to talk about the fact that they want to have children at some point in time. Or they, you know, want to have a family, they want to get married, those sorts of things, because they fear that, you know, like you mentioned, responsibilities, opportunities, uh, will be taken away from
Angel: them.
Yeah. No, it’s exactly true. And that’s a very interesting scenario, thinking about the Super Bowl thing. I mean, I think you’re right to, you know, I don’t know that people are asked to come back, right? I think the, you know, the irony about that whole thing is I don’t think that she’s… An employee, right? As I understand it, if you’re, if you’re presenting halftime at the Super Bowl, you actually have to [00:20:00] pay for that exposure yourself.
They don’t pay you. Um, so she is, you know, providing base. They’re providing a showcase, but she is fronting, as I understand it, all of the, the monies, um, to put that program on. So I think she was right to do whatever performance she wanted, as long as it fell within whatever the FCC allowed. Um, I, I don’t, See what the problem was.
I was entertained, actually, and I was surprised by how visually striking it was, um, and how many songs she didn’t sing because they easily could have run through a medley of even more songs, but they didn’t do that. Um, they were very selective and about what they perform. So I enjoyed the show. Um, I don’t even know if it would have been possible to have some sort of clause where she would have had to disclose to them, right?
That would have been kind of violative, and quite frankly, by the time she signed the agreement, who knows whether she was even anticipating being pregnant. Um, but I think you’re right. I think a lot of [00:21:00] people… A lot of people who are anticipating having children, they are fearful of disclosing that to their employers.
Um, and a lot of people have put their own personal lives in the hopes to grow a family on the back burner for so long. I know people who are, are freezing their eggs. Because they want to hit partner or they want to achieve whatever professional milestone before, um, they take the time to have a child because of, you know, what their fear is at work.
And I just, personally, um, Don’t feel like that’s a, that’s a great way to enter, to have a work relationship where that if that’s how you feel your work feels about you, I think you need to consider kind of the company you’re, you’re keeping quite frankly.
Porschia: Yeah, yeah, I agree. It’s, it’s a very real thing for a lot of women.
So Angel, what do you recommend a professional or executive do if they think that they are being discriminated against? Thank you. [00:22:00]
Angel: Okay, um, well, let me even back up because I think there’s a couple of things in terms of, like, general housekeeping, even before you get to this point, right? Like, if you are working at a firm and they have a human resources department.
I strongly urge everybody to honestly just check what’s in your personnel file from time to time. Um, you can set a regular interval. It’s kind of like healthy credit score reporting. Like, just see what, you know, see what’s in there. Um, you don’t want to be surprised by anything that’s in your personnel file.
So anything anybody might have written about you, about your performance. Um, maybe you had a conversation with your boss and you thought it was fine, but they actually reduced it to writing and put it in your file. You may not know that until such point as, you know, you’re asking later to look at your file or you’re being told this is your second or third warning and you’re going, wait, what was my first warning?
I didn’t know that. [00:23:00] So you want to check in there just, I would say at a regular interval, maybe on your anniversary date, just to see what’s in there, I would definitely also recommend when you receive your performance evaluations, or I don’t know if that’s annual or however, whatever the regular interval at which you receive those from your work, keep a copy, keep a copy for yourself.
You can keep it digitally, but do not maintain it digitally on. You know, in your in your work email, I would definitely have a copy if you want to print it fine, but have it and keep it in a safe place, maybe at home. So you have it to refer to, because later, if you get called in on something that you feel is unfair, or you don’t remember, or was never mentioned, you can go back and check your records without having to go to HR to ask what’s in your file.
So, in terms of if you think this is already happening to you, you’re being targeted for discrimination, you, you think [00:24:00] you’re being treated differentially, I would start keeping a log, honestly, start keeping a log of what you feel, um, is the differential treatment. So discrimination has a legal definition and it’s basically being treated in a differential manner than somebody else based on your protected class, right?
So, um, if the protected class is, you know, if you’re a woman, if you’re, you think it’s gender discrimination or it’s sexual orientation discrimination, you are being treated worse than somebody else who is not in your protected class. Um, I would start keeping notes of what happened when. Um, who maybe did not receive the same treatment or who received preferential treatment, right?
Um, because eventually when you’re going to make a complaint to either your supervisor or human resources, you want to be able to say. Well, you know, on today’s date, uh, this [00:25:00] is what happened. I was in the break room and somebody came up to me and said, uh, good morning to the white person next to me and not at all, they didn’t speak to me at all as the black person.
That in and of itself is not necessarily going to be determinative of whether you are discriminated against, but it goes to bias. Right? It goes to the workplace environment. So that’s kind of what I would recommend if you think that this is starting to happen to
Porschia: you. Mm hmm. So yeah, it sounds like people should be proactive, you know, checking what’s in their files and keeping their own copies of performance reviews and notes on just different events that are going on.
That’s great advice. Um, so Angel, what are some of the biggest mistakes? That you see people make with their discrimination cases against her employer.
Angel: I, in terms of mistakes, I would [00:26:00] say. A couple things. One is, so, assuming the person’s still employed, um, one of the things that they don’t do is they don’t, they don’t approach, it’s so hard when you’ve identified with, you’ve been working at a company for a long time, you still think of the you and the company as a we, and if this is happening to you, you need to kind of stop yourself from thinking of you as, and the company as a we, as a unitary, and start thinking more adversarially, it’s, It’s kind of difficult to make that mental shift.
Um, a lot of folks, honestly, like, they, they just want discrimination to stop. They just want to go back to work and have things the way they were. And sometimes that’s not possible. That’s not within the realm of, you know, the possible. And so I would say talking. Through that with somebody not at your work.
Okay. But [00:27:00] somebody else, you know, outside of work, maybe that you can be honest with would would be helpful. Um, sometimes what happens is people are very frank and honest with their coworkers. And then later. The coworkers get called into HR for an investigation, and they’re asked to disclose comments. Um, and sometimes those comments are, are not helpful, um, to the individual that is having the issue, even though it might be true.
So I would say, just be aware of who you’re talking to at work because. If the discrimination is starting to happen, then it’s, you kind of need to shift it from a we to a I and a them. Um, it sounds really unfortunate, but you have to protect yourself and think about yourself. Um, and that’s the problem is that a lot of folks, they think about the company first.
Um, that’s one issue that I could just think of off the top of my head.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a great point. And I tell our clients that also from just [00:28:00] a career perspective, right. With progression, a lot of times talking to your coworkers and your colleagues at your company is not necessarily as beneficial as you think it might be.
One thing we see a lot of. To and this could also go into the whole preparing a case thing, but when we’ve worked with clients who are creating an exit strategy, maybe they’re trying to get a new job, or they want to start their own business or something and they start talking to their coworkers about it.
And I just. Generally say like that kind of, you know, information is just really sometimes too explosive for for someone to keep. Even if you think they’re your friend. Um, I’ve, I’ve had clients where they shared that kind of information and. Their whole exit strategy or whatever else they were planning, um, was affected, you know, negatively because they’re thinking these people at work are my friends.
[00:29:00] And, you know, it kind
Angel: of comes back. Yeah, no, that makes absolute sense. And that’s, you almost don’t even want to put your coworkers in that position because even if they are your friend, what’s going to happen is let’s assume there’s an investigation because eventually a person has reported discrimination.
HR supposed to investigate. So if they’re doing their job, they’re going to talk to everybody that might have information. And so if you’re known to have a work pal, uh, HR is going to know that they’re going to talk to that person. And now that person is being put on the spot in terms of having being asked to disclose conversations.
And they kind of are obligated to, and if they don’t, then their job’s at risk. So, I would just say be careful about the counsel you keep at work because everybody has different motivations that necessary don’t necessarily align with with your own. Yeah, I
Porschia: completely agree. So let’s think now, Angel, I guess, from the [00:30:00] perspective of a company, I know that you exclusively represent, um, individuals, but if you could talk to, you know, companies, um, how do you think that companies can reduce instances of discrimination in the workplace?
Oh, sure.
Angel: I got a lot of thoughts about this. All right. So, um, so at least, um, I know a lot of companies and they are obligated to make sure that if you have over 50 employees, I believe you have a certain amount of human resources training regarding discrimination or harassment and how to prevent that.
And it’s required for supervisors and managers. I would strongly urge. Companies, if they have the bandwidth to do so, the financial resources to do so, give that training to everyone. Don’t limit it to just employees and sorry to just who are managers and supervisors, because a lot of times what happens is there might be two co workers the same level [00:31:00] and one is harassing the other.
They don’t have a supervisory authority, but they’re harassing that other person, and the person who’s being harassed might escalate it to a supervisor or manager, but if the person who is the harasser hasn’t explicitly been told that what they are doing could be harassment, it’s much easier to prevent a problem from starting in the first place than it is to fix something that’s already broken.
Right. So even if the manager, if they get a report about this harassment, they can take steps to end it. Maybe they move the harasser to a different place, depending on the level of the harassment. They might terminate someone. But it would have been so much easier if the person had been told, hey, this type of behavior isn’t okay in the 1st place and continue to do that training.
That, that shows a value, that shows a value judgment on behalf of the employer where they really think it’s, it’s valuable because I feel like what that saying is, it’s okay if our, you know, lower level employees harass each other, but you know, [00:32:00] once they report it, then it becomes our problem. No, it should be your problem the whole time.
You should never want it to happen. Mm hmm. Yeah,
Porschia: I agree. I agree. Um, so Angel, tell us more about your firm.
Angel: Mm. Um, well, uh, I have a law corporation in California. I love practicing in California because I feel like we have, uh, some of the most, uh, worker friendly. Laws. Um, I still think there could be a lot of progress made, but you know, in terms of where the country’s at, like, I feel really good about how California is progressing.
Um, I don’t take a lot of matters. It’s just me and I work for myself. Um, you know, with some staff, but I love being able to represent individuals. Um, that’s 1 of the things I kind of missed when I worked at a large firm is that you’re representing companies. I mean, there are individuals who work at the companies you’re interacting with, but it makes such a difference.
I think to my [00:33:00] clients, um, to just be able to know you’re, you’re helping them, um, in their lives and not, you know, helping a company. So I love picking my clients, choosing my clients. And one of the things that’s great about having your own company is if I decide there’s somebody maybe I don’t want to work with, or they’d be a better fit with somebody else, I can make that referral to them.
I don’t have to take that client. Um, and I can find them somebody that’s better suited to them. And that actually works for everybody. So, you know, that’s one of the great things about, I think, being in business is that you can choose your path and the people that you work with.
Porschia: Agreed, agreed. Well, we will be providing a link to your website and your other social channels in our show notes so that people can find you online.
But what is the best way for someone to get in
Angel: touch with you? Sure. Um, if people are interested in a consultation, they can certainly visit the website. Um, it’s It’s [00:34:00] Horaceklaw. com, H O R A C E K L A W, uh, dot com, and there’s a little form on there, and if you fill out that form, um, it comes to us, and we can start getting some background information in terms of conflict checks, and then see if it’s something that we can help with.
Um, if it’s something that we can’t, we certainly know people who can, but that’s usually how, uh, most folks contact us and start a case with us. Great. Great.
Porschia: So, Angel, my last question for you, and I like to ask every guest this question, um, how do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Angel: I think the best thing that folks can do is actually have conversations with other people, including. Active listening. If you’re actively listening to the people that you meet, I don’t even like to think about it in terms of networking, but when you meet [00:35:00] someone, like listen to what they have to say about what their career is and keep it in mind.
And later on in your life, later on, it could be that month, that week, it could be later that day, you’re going to think of something related to what they do, and then just shoot them an email and say, Hey, I just heard this thing on the radio. It reminded me of when you said that you like working with, you know, dogs or whatever it is, and so help you having a good day.
That will distinguish you and help you stay top of mind of people and that’s usually when things open up is when you have shown that you’ve done active listening with those people and it’s not just about what can they do for you, but it’s also I’m thinking about you as an individual and I respect you as a person.
I love
Porschia: it. I love it. All right, Angel. Well, you have shared a lot of tips with us today that I’m sure our listeners can use, um, to be more confident in their own careers, uh, and make [00:36:00] sure that, you know, they know if discrimination, you know, is going on or not. So we really appreciate you being with us.
Angel: Thank you so much for having me, Portia. It’s been lovely to speak with you. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.
