I'm gonna get a little personal here, but I want to get real. I used to work at a fortune 500 company as a software engineer. One day at work I was at the water fountain (bubbler if you're from Wisconsin), and someone from facilities was inside the men's restroom cleaning. An older white male looked at me and asked if it was ok for him to go inside. It took me a second to realize that he asked me because he assumed I was the cleaning lady. In that moment I froze because here I was in my professional outfit , getting water, minding my business and this guy made an assumption about me...based on my ethnicity. It was this moment where I got so angry because I now understood what people mean when they say that you can do everything that you're "supposed" to, and still be placed in a box. When I finally came to, which in reality was probably only a couple seconds, but in my head felt like an eternity, all I could muster out of my mouth was "I wouldnt know", before I stormed off. Now, a couple years later I wish I could have said more to that man than I did in the moment. However, that experience has brought me to this curiosity of understanding other people's experiences and what they go through in the workplace. That situation made me open my eyes to the reality of this world, but also made me have an appreciation for the people who can see me for me. That comment was another push for me to start looking for a new job . It also taught me to lend a hand to others in the workplace because you never know what they went through that day. **Disclaimer: This story is not to gripe on people in the cleaning industry, I respect that field of work, but I also dont feel it should be a stereotype for the type of people who work in that field. What's your silver lining??