September 12, 2012

Saying Yes: Another major (life) decision

A flashdrive for size perspective. This is what I will be having more of but point of order, Trader Joe’s: this is not a lemon BAR. This is a lemon CUBE.

Things have been brewing.

My feet were set on a path toward climbing career mountains, while time and experience began carving out a niche in our lives, for our lives. And in nearly direct dichotomy to my quest to conquer the career dragons, my health demanded its rightful share of my attention and I made the decisions, over and over, bit by bit, that it had to be tended to.

And there’s a saying I’ve been living by a lot lately: plan for the worst, hope for the best. After all, theories are all well and good but life will happen.

And it surely did.

The Big Work Satisfaction Plan (ease my work burdens so that I could finally take care of my health while carrying on a successful work life) was knocked off the table due to a variety of complications, some sudden, some progressive.

My immediate reaction was to double down, and make the best of an initially bad situation while assessing the landscape. Of course, I also put the word out to my Career Board of Directors for their thoughts and guidance.  While I could certainly change my mind and adjust my actions accordingly later, my first instincts matched their recommendations to a T.

After a waiting period, my assessment was: Failure to improve, no true signs of improvement to come in the foreseeable future, and a quickly developing toxic environment. While not blindly optimistic about the future, I still believed in the organization’s overarching goals and hoped for the best. My next move was to map out potential options that stretched out into next year.

While I created this action plan, the developments continued in a downward spiral on a number of critical fronts. I did my best only to allow minimal venting once in a while publicly and about less important things, but though I didn’t realize it, even that wasn’t very minimal.

Tough cookie though I am, it took a toll.  Curled up on the sofa after work at least 20 minutes a day – utterly drained, listless, short of breath,  misery incorporated. Weekends were worse, my body just needed every minute to try to recover.

My doctor, the one I’ve seen exactly once since last year, discussed my stress-induced, exponentially increased pain for about 12 minutes before asking me to quit.

My friends, at least the ones who are willing to be totally blunt, told me she was right: take her advice and leave.

Those weren’t just signs, they were people willing to be upfront with me and give me a push.  That, I truly appreciate.

At first, I was worried about how I could walk away without financial preparations and from what I saw as my responsibility, my reputation, and without appearing weak.  I had to work through those mental barriers, even before doing the math, which is a first for me.

In identifying those precise barriers, I was able to address them.

Responsibility: Who are we kidding? I own this word by now in my personal life. It’s no surprise, then, that my professional accomplishments have certainly far exceeded what I’ve been paid to do by any objective measure, with data to back this up;
Reputation: See above – my value has been firmly established with reliable people internally and externally. If someone chooses to denigrate me or my choice to leave, that’s their problem and not mine;
Appearing weak: My leaving is a valid choice, for any reason.  As long as I did so in a graceful and professional manner, nothing else matters, not even the money. No accusations of cracking under pressure or “losing” can actually make it true – I made a smart choice for me, my family, my health and anyone who chooses to sneer or smear is doing so from a dark place.  I have nothing to prove, I’ve already had an untouchable stint there. (And if my ego wanted a bit of something? As sometimes it does. It may take four people to replace me, if not more.)

And wouldn’t you know, as I was coming to terms with that, I was surprised with an offer.

I’d been gearing up to create my own path, such was my determination to leave on my terms, but this was an unexpected opportunity to:
A) leave on a much shorter timeline,
B) increase my income,
C) significantly improve my commute.

I hadn’t felt as light as I had just during the negotiations in years. I don’t celebrate until any deed is done and done but even solely the act of building an immediate road out instead of waiting out to the longer term as originally planned so that I could save more – the difference that made to my mood, to my breathing, to my physical health -well, it was just amazing.

Knowing this is the break I needed, in more than one sense of the word, and will be a positive change for at least a year or two, I accepted.

With that timeline in mind, I will continue to work on my own side projects but with a more focused eye on directing that energy to making those projects something more worthwhile and perhaps income-producing than just hobbies.

*****

Donna Freedman’s recent GRS post on personal responsibility touched on the idea of taking stock of your surroundings, the results of your choices, and realizing that you have to take responsibility for the role you played in getting to where you ended up when you find that you’re in a seemingly untenable situation.

This is all very true – so much of our lives, we become inured to the power, and responsibility, we have to actively make choices.

How often do people choose to stay and complain at jobs where they are increasingly unhappy just because something about it is “good” except for the job itself?
Staying at a job where I could build a “stable” career under increasingly stressful conditions reminded me of being a lab rat: how long will one stay when the heat is only increased in tiny increments but the conditions are inexorably intolerable?

How often do people stay on when they’re unhappy because they have too much debt or financial obligations? Or because they have perceived obligations, burned too many bridges, or failed to build bridges in the first place? Or because they’re too busy for a job search?
I didn’t just get lucky – I put in about a decade of hard work to build a stable financial foundation so I could walk away from anything. And while things would have had to be pretty dire before I did that, I was also building social capital with my professional reputation.

Most critically: we have to make and take those opportunities.

We also forget that the smallest decisions can hold the greatest influence. Being flexible, understanding how you work best and learning how to make the best of any situation but refusing to tolerate abusive conditions – these aren’t monumental decisions. But those are all decisions I made long ago and when I remembered them in the context of the greater whole, not just as part of my work ethic but as part of my life philosophy, they paved the way to a big decision that feels right for me, and right for our family.

And reading J “Poppa” Money’s updates? I can foresee a bigger challenge ahead already.  If we do have a family, how shall we manage this without me having to be the pregnant one?  Hmmm……  😉

(Mostly kidding but ….. We shall see.)

September 10, 2012

Bullying and cyberbullying: A social commentary post

Of late, there have been a few poignant posts and conversations that touch on a very important issue: safety with an underlying theme – sometimes not at all hidden – of misogyny. Safety’s important for everyone, a message I communicate to all, but the degree to which men don’t experience the same issues of objectification and targeting as women do is obvious by the reactions and ::horrorface:: that we get from our husbands and those men friends who haven’t ever run a protection detail for us on a night out when we Facts-Only describe the experience of a simple solo walk or a run.

*****

This woman’s experience on public transit when she just wants to be left alone to read her book may sound like an exaggeration to anyone who has had hundreds of safe and easy rides, day or night, sober or drunk, but I have had thousands of those and I still have my guard up every minute against this occurrence because it happens.

The vast majority of my rides are peaceful, most people talking to me just want directions, need a bit of information or are a bit curious and then drift back to their own world after a 30 second exchange. I’m approached or interrupted by people – usually tourists or new commuters – all the time on my commute and once I’m past my initial startlement it’s not a big deal.

Still, there are a few jerks who think they’re welcome to bother me rudely, persistently and without regard for boundaries. They aren’t too frequently imbalanced so I’ve been able to put them off politely or immediately change cars and seats at a station stop if the polite wave-off doesn’t work.

Sometimes it doesn’t work. Then it gets uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. There’s often cursing, raised volume, nastiness.

It can even devolve into something extreme like what she describes – the person froths and foams, screams, raves, rants, flails and threatens. (Sometimes they board transit like that, actually.)  And you need someone to reach in and physically haul you, the target, out because you need someone watching your back. You don’t know if your movements will trigger an actual physical attack.  I’ll point out, too, that the would -be attacker is not always male, sometimes the person demanding something from you is female. I’ve seen that too.

You don’t need to be pretty, I certainly deliberately dumb down my average-enough appearance for transit travel, you just have to be unlucky enough to have attracted some persistent fool’s attention.

*****

The incessant stream of Twitter threats against a variety of comics professionals, many of whom, like the public who came into contact with the repulsive slug probably blocked him, recently came to the attention of Mark Millar who took a vocal stand and insisted that we all do something about this, but the fact remains, people can do this with impunity.

And the reaction of a number of people?  Blame the targeted persons. “Big girls know Twitter has a block function.” (comments thread) Really. That stops the bullying and the threats  and the invitations to bodily harm?

Clearly not, as Sue and Kelly of DC Women Kicking Ass have been trolled, harassed and cyberbullied to an outrageous degree for years by that very troll. Yes, blocking makes no difference, folks.

You can’t stop a bully by ignoring them.  And I’m hugely thankful that people like Ron Marz recognize that:

….
Ignoring a miscreant does nothing to prevent the same disgusting behavior from being inflicted upon someone else. It probably encourages it, frankly. You’re just passing the buck. I’d rather spend time dealing with it, and finding a way to get the abusive behavior stopped, than turning a blind eye. The goal should be to prevent the asshole in question from moving on to the next victim.

Comics is a medium that tells a great many stories about heroes, about people who do what they can to protect others. About doing the right thing, especially when it’s hard. I like that. I believe in doing what’s right, and helping others when they need it. I believe people who cross the line of acceptable behavior so outrageously should be punished. That’s why I did what I did. That’s why Mark did what he did.

While there’s been plenty of support for what happened (which is much appreciated), I’ve also seen a fair amount of dismissive reaction: everything from claiming this poor troll is having his free-speech rights violated, to the lazy shrug of “Well, it’s the internet…” Maybe I’m pissing into the wind here just as much as I am when get on my soapbox about digital piracy. But in just the same way, I believe it’s a discussion is worth having, a fight worth fighting.

…

Social media offers access for people like him to abuse innocents. But it also offers ways for us to come together and do what’s right. If you see something that shouldn’t be happening, don’t just ignore it. Do something about it. If you’re suffering abuse from someone, ask others to help you. We can all be somebody’s hero.

*****

via NicoleandMaggie, to them via a comment thread on a Scalzi post:  Letter Writers who don’t know how to deal with the Creepy Guy in their friend groups.

A quick sum-up: Letter Writers have dude friends in their groups who are tolerated despite their creepy-ass and inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors as Situation #1:

“concentrating on the other women: telling them to expose themselves, telling them their skirts weren’t flying high enough while they were dancing, hitting on them when he knows they have boyfriends….. Whenever there are parties, it seems like he goes with the mindset that he will meet someone there that he might be able to have sex with, rather than to have fun with his friends. A couple months ago at one of these parties, some of us went to the park after dark to hang out; Creeper approached one of my friends, asked where her boyfriend was, and when he was told that the BF was out of town he put his hands on her shoulders and told her that BF had “forfeited” her for the evening.”

Or outright sexual assault in Situation #2.  Evidently in Situation #2, Letter Writer was dismissed by her BF who didn’t want to confront the assaulter because they were longtime friends.

Captain Awkward’s extensive responses to both were pretty spot-on. I’m only writing here as an adjunct because, of course, I was outraged that the situations were ongoing and the men involved were that blatantly laissez-faire about their own friends, male and female both, involved.

I can’t conceive of the notion of living with, or staying friends with, people who were so utterly dismissive of basic human decency.

I have been in situations like that, and like this, and my friends have been verbally assaulted time and again, and I react very very negatively.

PiC had a creeper friend, you see, and before we ever started dating, I met all of his friends. Including that creeper friend. He thought it was totally appropriate to spend the conversation standing way too close to me, staring exclusively at my – let’s face it, folks, remarkably unendowed chest – so I concluded the conversation quickly and walked away, disgusted.

I related the story to PiC later, half smiling, and told him that should that creeper ever pull that stunt again with any move to touch me? I’d feed him his own eyeballs.  I made it quite clear to him and a close mutual friend that their fuzzy friend of yore, going back double digit years of history, now with all the drunken-excuse embellished, prostitute-centric and other “amusing” gamy stories whenever he came back up on their radar was a creepshow and he was unwelcome.

They could do whatever they wanted together on boys’ nights, but he was certainly never welcome to join us, ever. There was never a moment’s hesitation or disagreement with my statement, and I noticed that his presence at mutual parties and gatherings was incredibly rare thereafter.  I also noticed that he wasn’t voluntarily added to the guest list of boys’ gatherings either.

I don’t take responsibility for the changes in that set of relationships across the board – there were many mutual friends who chose to step back from their own personal friendship. But I do note that there were at least two important narratives that had to exist: I had to be willing to speak up very clearly with my observations and expectations, and PiC had to respect me and those expectations more than he cared about that friendship. And in addition, at least a few of his key friends happened to agree with my observations and acted accordingly to disengage from the creeper on a regular basis.

There was no doubt in my mind that it was possible the guy’s creepiness could be curbed but not if he was “encouraged” or rather, enabled, as guys can and will do in their casual friend group environment simply by not saying anything about the Creeper’s actions or behaviors. I’ve seen that happen because there’s no comfortable way to police a friend in a friends-only environment.  And yet, I’ve watched others do it casually with a “Dude, that’s creepy, don’t do that.”  Those are powerful words: Don’t do that. It’s not right.

But many don’t do that because they don’t feel like it’s their place to criticize a friend, they don’t feel like the behavior is really out of line when they’re among friends, a multitude of reasons.  Still, it has to start somewhere lest a minor creeper grow out of hand to become a Full Scale Creeper and worse.

People like him are those who think it’s ok to catcall and harass women trying to walk down a street – he definitely didn’t think that was an issue.

And I certainly can’t tell the difference between someone who’s just catcalling because it’s amusing to one who has intent to assault, harm and/or rape. From my perspective, the 3 guys in that car who decided to stalk me for more than a block and cut across several lanes of traffic to pull up next to me at the corner several weeks ago certainly made themselves a credible threat so calling the police and pulling anything to defend myself was an appropriate response. From theirs? Who knows?  It could just be a game that they always win, big or small.

And that’s not counting the 11 other instances of catcalling in the previous mile of walking up til they arrived.

I’m not of the mindset that we have to spoonfeed a new narrative for men to understand how to react in shitty situations – I know plenty of men who are perfectly decent human beings and know pretty much the right things to do in principle. They are the ones I am friends with. This is why I am married, PiC’s not a rotting jerk in any degree and neither are his friends.

I do think, however, that there is plenty of evidence there are idiots out there who do need to be identified and not enabled. The reinforcing that the creepy and unacceptable behaviors are in fact, creepy and unacceptable, has to happen before it’s too late and harm is done.

At the very least, the fact that we all should be able to recognize and say that creepy and aggressive behaviors are wrong, toward men and women, without coming under ridiculous fire, should be a given. And it’s incredibly disturbing that we often don’t even have that basis of humanity to rely on.

September 5, 2012

Office Spaces and Productivity

If I never again have to share a communal restroom with
people who think taking phone calls, or even conference calls, while using the toilet is ok;
people who have trouble hygienically using toilets and then clearing up the evidence afterwards;
people who think that the bathroom – in or out of the toilet stalls – are the best places to hold gossip sessions;
I would consider myself a lucky lucky person.

If I never have to listen to pompous asshattery being repeated outside my physical vicinity but yet loudly enough to be heard, in Groundhog Day-esque fashion, on every matter under the sun including politics, religion, sex lives, how one really should fix that particular problem no really this is the undisputed way, oh I’m so very meta I was just being meta at you and you didn’t even know it, and personal discussions with family, friends and significant others, I might think I’d died and gone to my reward.

A graphic shared with me on the pain of the responsible, stuck working with the uncommunicative and the unproductive:

If I never ever had to go to another Team Meeting again ……

— A variety of people on why they changed careers or what kills them about their jobs.

These are the verses to the tune of People are Hell, I think.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the commonality, and frequency of, the restroom related complaints since I have expressed at least one or two of them myself. I was tempted to add one or two myself but refrained lest any of my esteemed colleagues ever recognize themselves here.  Heaven forfend.

They made me laugh a bit, not quite schadenfreude since the complaints aren’t unfamiliar in the slightest, but I suppose it’s the reason The Office is funny, right? Bit of horror, bit of comedy, bit of drama.

I read a recent study, which I can’t find now to link to, on open plan offices and how they’re not quite the ideal workplace layout once envisioned. People work with headphones to shut out their neighbors more often than not and they’re actually more stressful for people in general because you can’t control the ambient noise if people are randomly striking up conversations. The lack of privacy means that generally people will hesitate to discuss more delicate issues around their work areas and will have to find a private space to do so.

So many businesses, including most of my recent employers, have invested in just this sort of open plan arrangement while reserving the private spaces only for those at the very top and I don’t see them backing away from it as the human/intellectual-potential cost isn’t enough for them to make any real physical or policy adjustments.

For my part, I’ve always worked in busy, bustling environments and became very accustomed to ignoring people, so completely zoning out and creating my mental bubble without help is no hardship, at least until the conversational frequencies hit Shrill or Panic. If it does either one of those things, chances are good I should be tuning back in anyway.

Oddly enough, if I’m working at home, hobbying or real working, I don’t actually like the television or radio to be on – that is more likely to be distracting than real live people.  For all that I mock the dog for leaving the room when videos are playing, I guess we’re more alike than not.

Do you like working where you work or do you wish for a totally different environment?