In a viral storytime video, a woman called out Ebin New York, a popular hair brand in the Black community, for icing her—the only Black woman in the corporate office—out and allegedly firing her for no reason.
In the Reesa Teesa-style videos (though this series is about 30 minutes long, compared to Teesa’s hours-long “Who TF Did I Marry?” saga), Samiyah (@miylifestyle) explains that she got the job as Ebin New York’s in-house social media marketer.
She was initially skeptical about the lack of diversity in the office since there were mostly Korean people and very few Black folks at a company that caters to Black customers.
On Samiyah’s first day, she posted a funny TikTok to the brand account that immediately started to go viral and got a ton of positive comments, including people saying that the person behind the account needed a raise.
Samiyah was feeling happy that her content was doing so well on day one, but later that evening, she noticed the video had been deleted. When she asked about it the next day, she was told they had taken it down because there were too many negative comments, which Samiyah knew was a lie.
From that day on, her co-workers started icing her out, Samiyah says. They would speak in Korean around her, knowing she didn’t understand what they were saying and couldn’t participate in the conversation, her supervisor didn’t include her on a work trip to New York that everyone went on, effectively leaving her alone in the office, and when her coworkers did talk to her, they were rude.
Samiyah went to HR about the hostile work environment, but the issues persisted for months, she says. On top of that, she was micromanaged, unlike any other employee.
While everyone else jotted down their daily tasks in a few bullet points, she had to give a detailed daily account of everything she did that day and the emails she sent. Eventually, Samiyah says they made her give a recurring presentation to the CEO, vice president, and marketing team, justifying her tasks. No one else on the team had to do that.
Samiyah says the CEO also had a constant look of disgust on his face around her and allegedly told her he didn’t understand her job and that she should leave if she was unhappy at the company.
“I even had to take a mental health leave because of this,” she says in one of the clips. “It was messing with me every single day the way they treated me.”
Samiyah was soon transferred to another brand within the company, where she was essentially a team of one and had a new supervisor who knew nothing about marketing. Because he didn’t understand her job, he thought Samiyah was playing on her phone all day—she was actually editing videos. She says her manager accused her of doing the bare minimum and told people he was trying to get her fired.
There was also an incident in which he booked her travel for a work trip. Samiyah says he booked her a bug-infested motel where she didn’t feel safe. When she called him about it, on the verge of tears, he told her there was nothing he could do and hung up.
“It was just clear as day that they did not care about me at all. They just wanted me to get some work done, and that was it. If I didn’t wanna quit, they were gonna just show me that you need to just quit,” Samiyah says.
It got to the point that she’d go to the office every day and cry in the bathroom.
There was another incident in which her supervisor was yelling at her about how she doesn’t do enough work, telling her the person who had the job before her was better, she alleges. At that point, Samiyah decided to go to the CEO, but instead of getting her issue addressed, she says she was written up for insubordination.
@miylifestyle Speaking up because I’m tired of us staying silent and being treated poorly in the corporate world. #ebin #workplaceproblems ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound
Samiyah ended up taking a mental health leave of absence, and while she wanted to quit, she needed the job. She regretted coming back immediately. As she said good morning through the halls on her first day back, no one responded to her.
“I don’t know why they’re so racist to you. If they don’t like you, they might as well just fire you. I don’t know why they still have you here suffering,” one of her co-workers allegedly said to her.
After months of HR complaints, Samiyah ended up getting fired due to “lack of performance.” This hadn’t been brought up with her before, so she knew that wasn’t the real reason she was getting fired. She suspected it was because of her many HR complaints about the work environment and people.
“How could a company target nothing but African Americans, women of color, and things like that, and treat the only Black woman that you have in at corporate like that?” Samiyah questions.
The Daily Dot reached out to Samiyah for comment via email, as well as to Ebin New York via the brand’s website contact form.
Update 7:18am CT April 29: In an email to the Daily Dot, a spokesperson for Ebin shared the following:
“EBIN New York takes great pride in treating every employee fairly and equitably in a hostile-free work environment, and will review the allegations raised in the viral video. EBIN has a deep and long-standing commitment to the communities it serves and always strives to uplift those communities.”
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