Favor Or Free Work

May 15, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

Does it matter what is asked or who is doing the asking?

I do favors for friends. I also do things for free. I am broke. What is a favor? Helping someone move is a favor especially if being pizza and beer are offered. Being a job reference is a favor. However, finding clients for a friend’s business is actually free work. Getting sponsors for a friend’s project is an example of free work.I can’t afford to do free work but I don’t want to be mean and stop doing favors for friends. It seems like I have deposited so much in the karma column but have unclaimed funds in favors. There’s a balance that I have to figure out.

I can’t afford to do free work, but I don’t want to be mean and stop doing favors for friends. It seems like I have deposited so much in the karma column but have unclaimed funds in favors. There’s a balance that I have to figure out.

It could my fault. I don’t ask for enough favors in return. I must say no to doing work for free. Maybe I have too many friends. The overused sentence uttered by a reality show contestant is “I’m not here to make friends.” Well, it makes sense to say that because the motivation to appear on a reality show is money and/or fame. My life is not a reality show. I am here to make a contribution to the world, to share my talents, to learn, grow and love. The reality of life is that stuff takes money,and friendship should be helpful not a financial hardship.

Game Over. Grind On.

May 10, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

Regarding my move, a few people have said to me that “New York’s lost is Atlanta’s gain”. If I were to compare New York to an old boyfriend, than I doubt New York will be pinging me on Facebook or texting me any time soon. (BTW, it is super easy to find me. I am on all the social media.)

Starting over is hard, but I am excited and anxious by the clean slate. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then I am certifiable. I am not hard enough on myself. I don’t push enough. I squeak by.

I am going to push. The grind is on this time. The slacker game is over.

atlanta, me

One Week In, One Week Removed From New York

April 30, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

I found up my old dog-eared copy of Acts of Faith by Iyanla Vanzant. I am reading it along with Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock.

Today’s Meditation: Identification with an organization or a cause is no substitute for self-realization.

It took me leaving New York City to realized how much I had incorporated being a New Yorker as a big part of my identity. Now that I am not there, I can take note of who I am wherever I be.

I am a woman.

I am Black.

I am a Southerner.

I am a blogger.

I love cupcakes.

I am the oldest of three girls.

My elevator pitch is too long.

My place has changed, but I am the same. Being present is nice. The future is open but not as wide as it was in the past.

atlanta, me

Nuance, Nostalgia, New Chapter

April 14, 2013 Nichelle Stephens 3 Comments

via Instagram http://instagram.com/p/YIO4e0IqfU/

Shorter blog post: I left Brooklyn because I couldn’t afford it. I was afraid that I would be a bag lady. That fear and high likelihood it could happen was stressing me the fuck out.

Longer Blog Post:
I don’t navel-gaze. It may be good for self reflection or my core but I probably have lint in my belly button so that’s kinda gross.

People are so not naive to think that the world is black and white, but they act that as if it were because nuance fucks them up.
Similarly, I can’t decide if I more left-brained or right-brained. The lack of nuance seems to have made my career all topsy turvy.
I have been writing creatively since I was a kid. I wrote poems and stories since I was about ten years old. However, I was also good at math and science. I like baking. I like physics. I tend to recite one of Newton’s laws as it applies to everyday life. A body in motion will remain in motion…

I have been in constant motion living here in New York for over a decade. It’s been fun and inspiring. It has been heartbreaking and frustrating. Being always on the precipice of an arbitrary measure of success has kept my stomach in knots.

Although I took psychology in college, I didn’t fully understand cognitive dissonance until I read “The Souls Of Black Folks” by DuBois while living here in New York. My goal became to manage the dissonance. I also read Florence Scovel Shinn’s “The Game Of Life and How To Play It ” and I took to repeating the affirmation, “I have elegant and perfect timing. I am at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.” Sometimes that helped me to be patient and present.

I am going to get all “LCD Soundsystem” for a moment and say I was there for Deep Dish Cabaret in a dance studio,Gothamist happy hours at The Magician and Jinx Debates at Nolita Bar. I miss WYSIWYG, Chicks and Giggles and Tainted Lady Lounge. The good old days were not always great, but had perfect timing.

One of the tag lines of my old blog was this: “Nichelle hopes for Oprah-like scratch but she is already wealthy with an abundance of friends.” I will miss my awe-inspiring friends when I leave even more than I will miss Brooklyn. Brooklyn is full of artisans, divas, evangelists, ninjas and rockstars. I am pretty sure Brooklyn is the ONLY place on the earth where a stranger would come up to me to gush that I am “twitter famous”.

I am moving to Atlanta. Am I writing a new chapter or conducting an experiment? I don’t know. I hope to carve out a niche of prosperity and creativity.

tech

iPhone Apps Get ‘Donor Class’ Treatment, Android Apps An Afterthought

April 3, 2013 Nichelle Stephens 1 Comment

A year ago, my world changed when Instagram became available on Android. I got to be a part of this (new to me) world of photo filters and over-tagging. It even changed my habits. As a food blogger, I was already taking photos of food, but my photo taking became prolific. I started taking photos of graffiti, skylines, and my shoes. Also, I have taken more photos of myself which is now known as selfies. The other benefit of Instagram on Android is that I stopped carrying around my digital camera, so I thank Instagram for saving me from potential back pain in my old age.

I am writing this post to let all the lovely and creative startup founders and developers to step up your Android game. I don’t want to wait a year to play around with Vine, Mailbox, or Timehop on my phone. The hype cycle of new apps is getting shorter and shorter so it makes sense to launch the Android app at the same time the iPhone app drops.

There are more Android app developers now than ever before and more people who buy smartphones are buying Android phones.
Everyone knows there is a bit of iPhone elitism in the tech start-up world. It seems that only venture capitalists want to invest in iPhone apps, which is analogous to politicians only paying attention to the “donor class”. It is shortsighted to ignore the Android user. For example, a year after Instagam became available on Android, about half of its users were Android phone people. Growth and widespread adoption of apps can happen quicker if developers become more platform agnostic and stop worshiping at the altar of Apple.

opinion post, personal finance, writing

The Economy Has A Donkey Booty

April 1, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

Yes, I am comparing the United States’ economy to a woman’s figure. If you watch ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta‘, then you may have heard Phaedra Parks wax poetically about the Donkey Booty. It is a curvy, round butt that stands out. Despite Wall Street profits and the S&P hitting record highs, the middle class is shrinking. The middle class is losing numbers like JHud whittled her waistline from Weight Watchers. The new jobs coming from the private sectors are not living wage jobs. The public sector is not doing enough to create jobs. Cutting spending and creating lopsided stimulus packages are the only tools Congress is using. To refer back to my analogy, Congress keeps cutting carbs from their spending diet and thinks that makes the economy healthy. You may fit into those skinny jeans, but it doesn’t mean you are fiscally fit. The majority of jobs is coming from the retail and restaurant industry which typically are low wage jobs even if in managerial positions. These jobs don’t pay enough for a family to get ahead or even cover basic needs. Some people who are vying for these positions are often college-educated and are over-qualified. The current labor market is slack with four generations who are eligible to work. The donkey booty is a synonym for a woman’s posterior, an onion. Basically, the economy is so bad at the low end that it can make you CRY.

writing

Poem: One To Many

March 25, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

Poetry break inspired by the business hustle.

Diversify your portfolio.

Focus on one thing at a time.

Multitask. Multichannel.

Be a solo entrepreneur.

Use the second screen.

Never eat alone.

Binary.

conferences, tech

Women In Tech

March 21, 2013 Nichelle Stephens

When I was an engineering major at Georgia Tech, I learned how to program with if then statements. If then statements are the basic programming to execute a code. In real life, there is no simple “if then”. Most of people’s responses in life are more nuanced and based on an individual’s perspective, experience and identity. Unfortunately, some developers, hackers, and the like have translated if then statements as a code of conduct when dealing with people.

If a woman works in the tech startup community and attends a conference, then all jokes should be shrugged off?

If a person is offended, then should the offender be immediately fired?

If a man who has three kids loses a job, then wouldn’t the response be against the company who fired and not the company where the woman works?

If people online conclude that a woman is responsible for a man losing his job, then should rape and death threats and hate speech be launched immediately all over the internet?

If some people got their emails, then can a DDoS be faked?

If some tech blogs don’t include the rape and death threats in their reporting, then are they being irresponsible?

If tech startups lack essential human resources and public relations, then can they effectively handle situations like this?

If humans can’t treat humans with respect, then can we just program ethical robots to take over?

women

Sandberg, Mayer, Steinberg: Sistas Are Doing It For Themselves

March 20, 2013 Nichelle Stephens 1 Comment

Sistas,

Is that greeting too off-putting because I don’t know each and every Black woman in America?!

We may not all be related. We are definitely not a monolith, but we share enough experiences that it is safe to say we are a sisterhood.

Even as strangers, we let each other know if there is lipstick on our teeth or if our purse is not zipped up.

So lately, there has been conversation about women, their careers and lives. Sheryl Sandberg is telling us to “lean in”; Marissa Mayer is saying we can’t work home and Anne Marie Slaughter says we can’t have it all. However, we don’t seem to have a “bitch in this fight”. [ I only say bitch because it is female for dog. I am not calling anyone a bitch or a dog.] What I am saying is that we Black women are NOT represented in this discussion. Neither are other women of color.

Anne Marie Slaughter, Marissa Mayer, and Sheryl Sandberg don’t speak for us. They also don’t speak for their sisters who are white and struggling to keep their jobs, their homes and feed their children.

Aspirational lifestyle articles that talk about Slaughter, Mayer,and Sanberg start off with the assumption that everyone reading them is making bank. They reek of privilege and do nothing to move the conversation about the difficulty of women’s evolving roles as business owners, mothers, wives and community leaders.

How can women without money and resources become authors like Sandberg? How can they become tech start-up entrepreneurs?
How can they homeschooled their kids? How can they run for political office?

We want those stories. Sistas have those stories. Let the conversation start from women with less than six-figure incomes. Everyone can learn from them.

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