Month: February 2016

Gender on Ice

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Yesterday I wrote about getting locked out of a building when it was -5C, and likened it to be left out on the ice, which kicked my memory into high gear, leading directly to a book I had to read during my master’s program. It was called Gender on Ice, and it was one of the few books in the program that I just could not get into. I barely remember it, and I am not even sure that I finished reading it at all. I recall clearly the seminars I had to attend, listening to all my classmates discuss the book, and several students being quite impassioned about it. At the time I could not imagine why. Now that I am almost 20 years removed from that (dear god – 20 years!), I wonder what I would make of the book now. Its theme – two polar explorers whose accounts of their feats were laden with self-congratulations and declarations of pioneering heroism and analysis of “the particular imperial and masculinist ideologies that each characterized” – held no appeal to me at the time. While I had no doubt that the “white man hero/trailblazer” story, excluding the contributions of anyone else, including a black man who accompanied one of the explorers, was entirely true, I think I was tired of the constant analysis of race and gender and all the things that drove my higher education.

But because I was immersed in it, it seemed the norm. This questioning, this struggle, and by extension, the autonomy and freedom to question and struggle on equal footing with everyone else, seemed a given.

It was only later that I considered more carefully that that was the construct and privilege of being at a left-wing, liberal arts college. I have never had to step or live very far outside that bubble but have become much more keenly aware of everything outside that bubble, which makes me question again the materials I read (or half-read) at the time but gave short shrift.

And, just so you know, a dude named Doug who pretends to be something of a Viking – or something – once said that “ice is evil”. I don’t think so, but maybe under such circumstances.

 

Locked out on ice

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Nothing like -5c outside and being locked out of a place in the middle of the night. Luckily my car is equipped with blankets and extra coats and all, but still, it was, let’s say… an irritation.

I like driving at night, quite the opposite of daytime driving, which I hate more than anything. At night, there are seldom any other cars. Just darkness and an occasional wild animal springing into the road. I stopped for petrol (and yogurt) at 3:30 and a man came in and seriously ordered a hot dog. Firewall and I once went to this very same petrol station (in one of its bathroom stalls it even has a rectangular metal plate on the back of the toilet, which looks like it’s been set up for people to do cocaine or something. With the way the youth of today hang out at this place on weekend nights – don’t ask me why – maybe there’s more to that theory than I’d have imagined), and he ordered one of these dubious dogs and spent the next 36 hours miserably ill. Even the woman working there asked him, with great concern creeping over her face, “Are you sure? These are kind of old.” No such caution in tonight’s transaction. Just a man who seemed like maybe he eats these gas station hot dogs all the time.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life… and I was locked out.

The carelessness of contact

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I often rail against the idea that our digital world allows us to be too familiar, too casual, to treat people like catalog selections we can discard, disposably. I hate this, but I am equally guilty, placing blame on the platform, on time, on my own inability to stretch 24 hours into more than it can hold. Sure, I am not casual or dismissive in any way with my actual friends, but I have become one of those robots who traipses through online forums and sites, starting halfhearted conversations and dropping them. They, of course, don’t seem real. And most conversation partners engaged in this digital wasteland usually feel the same way.

But not always. (Holding up mirror to my own hypocrisy. No surprise there.)

Tonight, I started going through an old inbox, finding old, unanswered messages. Most of them were of the dull, generic, “Hi” variety. Yet there were some genuinely lovely messages… and I am the one to drop the ball, and there is no way back (“User X no longer has an account”). There’s nothing like the kick you give yourself when you realize you may have squandered a good connection. Carelessly.

Softly into 40s: Where’s the party?

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An acquaintance recently turned 30 and fretted mildly about it. A mutual acquaintance and I chimed in immediately to reassure her that the thirties are by far the best decade. You finally know who you are – usually none of the anxiety and trying too hard to please others and finding your footing that shade your twenties. The mutual acquaintance and I are both on the threshold of 41. Neither of us felt one way or the other about turning 40, but somehow we’re both dreading 41 because it’s a nothing age.

I concocted a dream birthday party for 40 – maybe, despite not being a party person, I would invite everyone from all spheres of my life (Seattle, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, work, non-work, the past, the present) to one big event (in Seattle, in Iceland?). But the big trick would be to get 1. some bands I love that are still small enough to be able to do something like a big party (thinking here about stuff like The Wedding Present/Cinerama and Seattle band Tomten, for example), 2.the ubiquitous everywhere-man Tom Skerritt to choose his favorite poem and attend the party to recite it (haha – I know – crazy), and 3. a place big enough to accommodate all these dreams. And of course enough people agreeing to attend. It would be less a 40-year-old birthday for me and more a gathering of people who made the 40 years memorable, for better or worse.

In the end, I did nothing. Not a single celebratory thing. But now that I see 41 on the horizon, I wonder if I should aim for some big thing sometime this decade.

 

Penmanship and Italian tastes

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Growing up – and still – I had a lot of pen pals. It seemed that penmanship was a national trait in many countries. Every French person formed their letters and numbers in the same way. Every German, every Russian, every Italian, too. Unique handwriting for each person, but you could always tell from the envelope and the way the letters looked what country the letter came from.

I wondered the other day, as I watched the surprisingly good (for the most part) Italian TV drama 1992, about the soundtrack. It fit its time perfectly – but I wondered how many Italians at that time were really listening to most of the stuff included? Screaming Trees (the one song on the Singles soundtrack) – yes. Smashing Pumpkins – probably. But Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream… eh, I have my doubts. There were not THAT many people listening to those bands anywhere, let alone in Italy (a place I perhaps unfairly judge in matters of pop culture). Or did I see this through my own faraway prism, imagining that because Fanclub and Scream were indie/off-the-beaten-path where I came from, they also were for everyone else?

I don’t let Italy fool me and do have many good Italian friends who also have great taste (in music, too), but images of Berlusconi, the ridiculous bimbo-filled TV game/variety shows and crap like Eros Ramazzotti (or other things I cannot identify) always spring to mind. Maybe some of these trusted Italian friends can set my biases straight. Were people really getting that down to the sounds of early 90s Glasgow bands? (I grant you – the show only included the two best-known songs from these bands – but it still surprised me.)

 

The end: He was a walking earthquake

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It was not the explosive, obvious things that did it. The end was precipitated by the small things, accumulated over time, and by the long, slow erosion of trust and repeated breaking of promises. No, maybe the promises were not believed in the first place, but each time they rang more and more hollow.

The year had been a tug-of-war between his manic neediness, which always drove him to the exact kind of madness that drove her further and further away, and led her to feeling she had been used. She grew more distant with each episode of recklessness he displayed. It used to hurt but became instead an annoyance, an alarm clock of the brain, set to “snooze” until the next time madness set in.

Guilt had been a driver – this guilt-driven need to be a caretaker, to help set an unsteady man back on his feet. She imagined, wrongly, that smoothing the path would make it easier to stand on. He was a walking earthquake.

But care, too, was a part. But the actual care only went one way, at least in action. Everything else was empty words.

The litany of grievances was endless, but after a lengthy limbo, she simply wanted to be free of him, of all of it. It was nothing but trouble.

Work: 2 key considerations about your future… or maybe I’m a renegade

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I think a lot about work. Every aspect of work. Not my specific job or career but the overall concept of work.

And I always have. Even when I was in high school/college, I was trying to wrap my head around the different aspects of work. Work life, labor policy, pay, equality, office life, teamwork, reconciling being a non-conformist introvert with the “rah rah” of corporate cheerleading, recruitment, innovation and automation in recruitment, the shift from “pounding the pavement” to targeted online search and the role of technology in hiring and working, the economics of hiring, maintaining a workforce, building small businesses and startups, fitting into a corporate culture (or not) and finding one’s professional niche. I have thought a lot about the past (the “job for life”), the present (freelance/for-hire/impermanent job culture) and the future. All of this can include everything from education and how people learn and enter the workforce to how individuals can find just the right career and balance that works for them. It’s no more cookie cutter than anything else in life, but often it feels like the whole concept of work life is a conveyer belt in a factory making millions of the same commoditized, non-differentiated product.

No, not every company or job is alike. Very different cultures, industries, expectations… but when it’s boiled down to, for example, the job ad – the hook that gets someone to apply in the first place – there is very little differentiation. Recruiters can ask for different approaches to applying (for example, “send us a video and tell us about yourself” – but that just lights up all the pseudo-legal, proto-litigious lights in my head, “And open myself up for blind discrimination because I’m a middle aged lady?”) and change things up, but even the fresh wording in job ads is filled with subtle and not-so-subtle coding. A lot like real estate ads that describe a dilapidated shithole as a place with a lot of potential, if you just think outside the box and will just use your imagination, elbow grease and a lot of energy to turn it into your dream home, many jobs turn out to be the same.

And maybe these limit us – all of us. For example, I might see a job description that mentions how “young” and “fresh” the company is – I am immediately thinking about how environments emphasizing youth, a. probably don’t want anyone over 30, b. no one over 30 and/or really experienced wants to be there, c. the company probably demands much more than they give back, d. it would not be a good fit. And maybe nine times out of ten, it wouldn’t be a good fit. BUT… what if the job description was written by just one person who had a bias or interpretation and that is not at all what the job or company was about? Or, what if, like Microsoft, every job ad spewed into the world, read like it was written by a computer?

Thinking about limitations, probably the biggest concern/lingering thought I have on work pertains to remote work and home offices. I have long felt that technology would enable employees and employers alike to have their pick of the right fit regardless of geography (this has not managed to bear out the way I expected on a large scale). I’ve become semi-activist in my firm belief in remote/distance/distributed work and flexibility in the workplace. I’ve run my own business from a home office for 19 years without a hitch, but somehow most regular jobs and companies aren’t up to speed with that unless they are working with freelancers/outside “renegades”. So maybe I’m a renegade.

The point of this is that work takes up a lot of our lives. And we can end up feeling pretty miserable just because we take on a job (and stay in it) when it’s not the right fit. I read an article today that highlighted five things you need to make sure you do before you sign the dotted line on any new job.

From this, I took away key two points as an extension of the writer’s points:

“It’s so tempting to just take the offer and put the job search to rest — but your career, not to mention your health and sanity, are more important than a quick close!”

This statement is true – no job is worth your sanity or health. You might need a paycheck, and you might say yes to a job that won’t be your career to pay the bills. But looking long-term, you’ve got to look for a good fit. BUT (!) what struck me here is the statement that one puts the job search to rest.

In this day and age, in an uncertain and even unstable economic climate and with the ease/automation of the search, does anyone ever “put the job search to rest”? Aren’t you always kind of keeping your eyes and ears open, feelers out and antennae up? Am I just crazy that I regularly update my CV, I keep an eye on the job market and in-demand skills, that I take on occasional freelance and volunteer opportunities, sometimes apply and interview for jobs (if not to get the job to keep the interview skills intact?)? Maybe because I have obsessed about work all my life this restlessness is to be expected, but perhaps a less obsessive but certainly thoughtful and measured approach (always having the job search at least casually open to possibilities) would be advisable.

The second point:

“It can take nerves of steel to pass on a job opportunity, but if you’ve ever had the wrong job, you’ll know why it’s important to have standards.

The wrong job can shorten your lifespan.”

I agree on the stress and shortened lifespan. I’ve had some wrong jobs, and I found myself tied in knots, stressed, unable to sleep… and so blinded by the need for a job that I could not even recognize the signs until I had moved on to a new/better situation. Stay clued in when your mind, body and heart are trying to tell you something. It, as the above states, requires nerves of steel to say no – but you are your own best – and sometimes only – advocate. You’ve got to have the guts to say no, back out or take yourself out of the running if the fit just isn’t there or if you have doubts. Or even sometimes when your own life circumstances change and might render you temporarily the wrong fit for a job or company. I have finally learned to do this – for the most part. Sometimes it’s complicated, and a job offer (or job) has a lot of contingencies sucking you in like eight octopus arms squeezing you. Even after some let go, others still tether you there. Recognizing those tethers and figuring out how to ease your way free of them can be a good strategy.

But… what most struck me with this statement is not just that you should say no to the job offer but also that you should think seriously about whether to even go through with the interview – or subsequent interviews in the case of multiple interviews. Sometimes you see a job that looks perfect on paper. You read the ad and you check all the boxes and are ready for or need a new challenge. You apply. You are asked to an interview, but something about the initial exchange leaves you ill at ease. I have learned that this too is a test of will. When I was young and freshly out of college, just getting interviews was a triumph. I went to a lot of painful interviews for things I did not remotely want to do. Back then I sort of had to – but that marked me and influenced this idea that I couldn’t say no, especially because I was the one who had initiated the application process. But you can and should say no if something feels “off” – while you may well have been interested in the first place, interest cools – and you will thank yourself later for not putting yourself in an awkward situation (and for not wasting your own or a potential employer’s time).

It’s your life, your work. You don’t have to be a renegade but you also don’t have to settle for anything that threatens to kill you. If the wrong job can shorten your lifespan, at least find a way to dominate and enjoy the lifespan you have.

Lunchtable TV Talk: 1992 – Italian TV

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“Don’t let Italy fool you” – the one motto that remains constant in my life. This motto, usually holding true, sometimes prevents me from watching some otherwise riveting film – and surprisingly television.

1992, a ten-part Italian TV series, tells a story of lives that intersect across several Italian cities in 1992. From perspectives that span the law, politics, corruption and scandalous outcomes of these intertwining areas, it’s a gripping story with deep, interesting characters, each with his or her own challenges, and quite a bit of insight. Modern stories that plumb the past not just to spin a tale of historical fiction but to shine a light on universal and enduring truths are common enough (we’re seeing echoes of this in the current TV dramatization of the OJ Simpson trial in American Crime Story: The People v. OJ Simpson), but are they always edge-of-your-seat TV? Not always. But in this case, I’ve been on a binge.

Admittedly though I’ve had this lined up to watch for more than six months. I kept putting it off because I don’t know Italian and did not really have time for reading subtitles. I got halfway through the first episode twice before finally getting through the whole thing in a third-time’s-a-charm result. Now that I devoted a whole day to gobbling this up, I can’t believe I didn’t watch it sooner.

Of note is the great soundtrack that is just so 1992 (“Nearly Lost You” by the Screaming Trees, for example). And also one character’s insistence that we have a leader in Silvio Berlusconi – and everyone else around him is discounting this vision as pure folly, scoffing at an opinion poll he’d done with youth. One man even laughed and told him the list of popular public figures he’d compiled, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the number three slot, was patently ridiculous because – guffaw, guffaw – who on earth would take the idea of old Arnie as a politician seriously!? Haha. We know what happened there. And look what happened for Berlusconi in 1994 (and a few times thereafter).

Hillary needs a new tune

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Hillary Clinton does not know and has never known another way to be.

She can change the song, the genre of music and even the format (digital upgrade or streaming!), but she is still the same person with the same values (no matter how she tries to shift the narrative around and adjust her “tone”) as she always has been.

Her belief that it is her destiny and her time to become president somehow even lead her to a place where she makes her own achievements and qualifications sound like an excuse/defense. And sometimes ill-advised ones: “Before it was called Obamacare it was called Hillarycare!” Yes ,we know you know ALL about the complications and intricacies of this because you tried it as First Lady and failed in a big way – even spawning exhaustive publications about the failure (and her inability to cooperate and make deals that contributed to that failure).

Every statement by an opponent is a defense, along the lines of: “But but but… I was appointed Secretary of State!”

All these protestations and throwing in factoids about herself highlight one of the clear weaknesses of this – and all – her campaigns. She tries in a flat and false way to talk about them like they are about the American people, but they always come off being – or seeming like they are – about her. Meanwhile, the driving force of Bernie Sanders’s campaign IS the system and the people; he may mention his experience when he has to, but that is not driving the narrative of his campaign. An article in Salon states it succinctly: “His (Sanders’s) campaign is about us; it’s not about him.” and “Hillary Clinton’s campaign went south went she started making it about her and her experience.”

I am not really questioning Clinton’s credentials, her qualifications or her readiness. The laundry list of stuff she has done is impressive. I am questioning more the overall tone of what she presents (much like the episode of Friends, when Monica beseeches Chandler, “Sense the tone!”). But she stands for a lot of entrenched interests, the establishment and is, as The Economist put it, “the continuity candidate” in a season of change.

“Mr Sanders’s supporters want to undo the accommodation with business that the Democrats reached under Bill Clinton. But they do not hate their party: most strongly approve of Mr Obama, who is much closer politically to Mrs Clinton than he is to the Bern. That she is not doing better is largely down to her shortcomings as a candidate. Her well-funded campaign is being run by veterans of Mr Obama’s brilliant grass-roots operations and aims to emulate it in seeding and revving up networks of autonomous volunteers; but Mrs Clinton, a continuity candidate when the mood is for change, is not doing much revving. Mr Sanders’s campaign, which in 2015 netted over 2.5m donations, resembles the president’s more closely.”

When people crave change, they don’t care that the promises made are aspirational – they want to believe that the promised change is possible. Clinton’s insistence in the debate last night that the people deserve to know the nuts and bolts details of how changes will be accomplished is well taken – but for most people, it is a lot like how sausage is made. They don’t want to know, won’t look and will just eat what they are fed. Does anyone know how utterly impossible it was to get Obamacare reforms pushed through? And do they know the nitty-gritty of how that worked? Or did they just see that they may have gotten more options with it in the end?

The process of governing is tough – and Hillary is tough enough to do it – but it is not the process or bureaucracy that people want to hear about and is not what she should be campaigning on. She is reasonable and has a plan, but all it sounds like, despite her conversion(s) to different musical styles (following on the awkward analogy above), is a broken record – constantly breaking into song about how we have to work with the system we have.

That is the crux of the problem: the system we have is broken. That is what people are seeing, feeling and reacting to.

Standing up and bragging that you are the 30-year veteran of working within and creating a lot of that broken system is NOT going to help you.