It all started as a joke.
See I used work for a very large software company, ServiceNow, that just so happened to have a racist senior director. What that meant for an immigrant engineer with no "white" social or business links was no promotion. No matter how good a job I did. Of course, I didn't realize this initially and continued to put in work, hoping for a promotion.
Well, my work got noticed. Initially by some white guy who worked for a partner company that specialised in the same software that I was supporting. This gentleman found one of my articles online, made some improvements and published a video on Youtube detailing essentially the same information. This was his first "successful" video on Youtube. and launched his career.
I myself had already started a Youtube channel to speed up my work. I was getting tired of telling customers to do the same thing over and over again. And I figured a visual explanation of the complex configuration I was sharing with these customers would benefit me. Save, time and effort. Also, it would free me to pursue other interests during my long tedious days at work.
Some time passed, and this other fellow and I became connected on the social media platform LinkedIn. I was never bothered that he had copied me. By this time I had figured out that my ex-boss was a racist, and there was no hope of a promotion. So I plotted my escape from the company. a couple of my videos had gone viral and I was sure I could find financial success doing essentially the same thing, but working as a contractor. Or maybe, with my inside knowledge of the software and the company, I could start my own partnership company!
Time passed. And I watched as engineers with inferior knowledge and experience became management. So I prepared to leave ServiceNow to pursue better financial opportunities. Meanwhile, the fellow who had copied me was becoming a star on Youtube. His channel was being promoted by "super-star" engineers who worked inside the company. The same said "super-star" engineers didn't even know my name. I wasn't bothered... Honest!
So I left. Financial success came quickly. Too quickly. I was doing relatively well as a senior engineer. But this was different, I had never seen so much money in my life. I decided to put the money to good use, make a difference where it would count. And so it was that the Okogyeasuo JMHS project came to birth. The aim, a computer lab any western school would be proud of, in a rural area of the Ashanti region in Ghana.
December 2018 rolled on. And my consultancy contract was wrapping up, around the same time as the Okogyeasuo project. I figured, with a successful project under my belt and with all my experience as an engineer, I was in a prime position to apply as a technology partner with my old company, ServiceNow. So I applied. And I qualified. But they wanted a little more from me then application required. Even though I had already developed an application for them while working as a support engineer, I was told I needed to develop another application if I wanted to become a partner. How many partners developed their own apps? Why did I need to do this? These were questions I should have been asking.
Me being me, I had not taken the racial discrimination I suffered at the hands of ServiceNow's senior director comfortably. And on my own Youtube channel, I left little hints of the bigotry that I left behind at the company. Initially, I never intended to make this racial discrimination known publicly. It was an inside joke, I was connected to the racist company director on LinkedIn. It was a way of rubbing it in his face while I waited for the partnership and next contract to come through.
So that was the trigger. A social media post and the rest...
https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4a9c6ee1dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f96197c
