Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go...

When you start a new job, there’s an adjustment period. Aside from getting used to your new responsibilities, figuring out where the damn water fountain is and getting your desk chair to remain in a comfortable position, you have to figure out the office culture. Is this an office where we decorate our desk space with personal style? Are peep toes acceptable, or is it strictly closed toe pumps? Aside from the superficial fitting in, you have to prove you fit in a substantive way.

At my old job, you proved yourself through results. They set an incredibly high bar (that you really were only kind of expected to reach) and you did whatever was necessary to either hit that bar or at least make a good effort to show everyone you’d done everything you could to hit that bar. This is a hugely popular non-profit known for huge increases in everything from year to year. Some people were naturals for the environment and they were golden. If you weren’t a “fit”, you could choose to live your life for the organization (it’s beginning to sound like I’m referring to the Mafia, I’m not, I promise) and try to make up for your shortcomings. What do I mean by that? You can get to work at 9 AM. You can leave at 8 PM. You can eat lunch at your desk every day. You can turn on your laptop once you get home and work until midnight or later. And then you can do it again the next day. You can become accustomed to this and forget that there is a whole world out there where people stop working at 6 PM and don’t have work-issued laptops so they aren’t online everywhere they go. You forget that it’s possible to take time off from work without checking your email. What’s worse is that you expect other people in your life to understand this crazy workstyle you’ve developed. And if they don’t, they often disappear from your life.

I used to think that this was just an organization using energetic, recent college grads to do their bidding in a frenetic way. I mean, the results are undeniable. But now I see that some organizations function like this at all levels, from the lowliest assistant right on up to the president. If that’s truly how you want to live your life, I clearly have no way to prevent you from doing that. Do I have a problem with it? Sure. Because I believe that Americans spend too much time at work. However, you as an adult can work wherever and however long you want.

Let’s be clear about something. Sometimes stuff goes down at work that needs to be handled TODAY. There’s nothing wrong with that. You stay late, you do what needs to be done, and that’s life. But when this is the status quo, it becomes unhealthy.

I had dinner with friends who still work for my old company last week. They all asked me what it was like to “be on the outside” and what it was like to leave. I told them about my new job, about my great new hours, about being rewarded for overtime, and about all the extra things I can do now that I have time to commit to them. I even made a joke that I was working too fast, in a nod to the breakneck pace of my old life, and told them that normal places don’t run around like everything is an emergency. And I told them that it was a nice change of pace.

There is a phrase in the book The Devil Wears Prada, a book whose protagonist I’ve identified with many times in the last year of my life, the “Paranoid Runway Turnaround” and it refers to the behavior of magazine staff who complain about their crazy editor, and then justify her behavior. I’ve always thought the justification comes from two places:

1. CYA – no one ever wants the bad things they said about their boss to get back to them, and

2. Self-justification – Trust me, I’ve lived this, I’m not hating. Mentally, you can only take so much before you begin questioning why you do what you do. The only way I found to deal with this was to assure myself that the nature of the work was such that it put everyone in high stress and sometimes that manifested itself through bad behavior on the part of organizational leadership.

Translation: I lied to myself so I wouldn’t have to face that work ruled my life in every way. Here is where the danger starts. I lied to myself so much that I began to believe other lies being thrown at me. I couldn’t see the truth anymore. I began to believe that I was worthless, that I was bad at my job, that the team would be better off without me. Looking back now, and having been told otherwise by 95% of that team, I can see that what began as self-preservation ended as self-destruction and devolved into deep depression.

--Back to the story: In front of my very eyes, every single person (with one notable exception) at that dinner table did their own version of the Paranoid Runway Turnaround, but this time I was on the outside.

“I just don’t know what I would do with all that extra time, I mean, isn’t there more you could be doing to stay later?”

“You’re working too fast? I wouldn’t like an environment that told me that, I would see myself turning into a slacker who didn’t have a good work ethic.”

“Well, you would like an environment like that. You always had strict work-life boundaries yourself.”

I swear you guys, I wasn’t pissed until the last one. Sure, the others are indirect digs at me and mine, but that last one just angered me. She was right; I wouldn’t let myself work more than 60 hours a week unless there was a project that demanded it of me. I don’t think that the amount of time you spend at work reflects the amount of work you get done and I knew that in my 50 hours, I got more done than others did in 80. So it was at this point in the meal that I realized my friendships with these girls will change in the coming months. They’re still under the influence of management that instills in them this “work at all times, no matter what” and I’ve left that sphere of influence.

After an uncomfortable silence, because I wouldn’t agree with, or really acknowledge, their statements, the conversation picked up and was steered right back to their work. This is their life now, but it’s not mine anymore. I don’t miss it, but I might miss them. The idea of losing them makes me sad, but not sad enough to doubt that I’ve made the absolute correct choice and will be happier for it.

Amendment to previous iPod rule

So today on the sojourn home, I boarded my metro car without an idea of what was to befall me in mere minutes!

First, a man sat next to me, which was annoying because it was 4 pm and the car was empty, but I digress...then it BEGAN!

Have you seen Step Up 2: The Streets? If you missed this cinematic masterpiece, please see the link below and take those two and a half minutes to educate yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep5L9rRiG64

So that happened on the metro today. I mean. It was just one guy, but still. He was DANCING. Using the overhead bar for balance, spinning, kicking. He was polite enough not to invade the personal space of others. As the crowds grew and waned with each stop, so did his dance moves. I kept waiting for the rest of his crew to join in, hell, I wanted to join in on the fun. This may have been the greatest metro ride home ever. I got to watch this show from L'Enfant all the way to Crystal City. And I was sad to see him go!

All this to tell you, I have amended the rule. If I am on the metro, and can hear your iPod, it is NOT OKAY, unless you are giving me the performance of your life, then please allow your iPod to serve as your portable club.

I was also lucky enough to get a picture. Sadly, he spun away from the camera as I clicked, but here you go:

The political equivalent of Chuck Norris...except less so

I am so happy for the families of Euna Lee and Laura Ling (for those that don’t know: that’s Lisa Ling’s sister! One time for being a child of Channel One news!). Americans are so lucky to have a free press. It’s something I value dearly. In that same vein, journalists who travel to places where the same freedoms don’t exist do so at high personal risk and I respect and value their efforts. Because of these brave souls, we have non-biased news coming from otherwise media-dark places.

Now that we have that out of the way, I can begin the critique of news coverage. (You knew the beginning of that post was too happy. You felt this coming.)

We all know the media loves Bill Clinton. They love Bill Clinton in an obsessive way. I am not here to disparage him or to belittle his accomplishments. If you overlook impeachment, which is hard for me to do, even in my little theoretical vacuum, he made good decisions during his presidency and served the country well. He certainly was not the worst president we’ve seen. But he’s not God. He doesn’t have special powers.

The media is portraying the North Korea development like this:

--

Scene: Bill Clinton’s plane lands in Pyongyang. Bill exits plane and proceeds to Kim Jong Il’s place.

Bill: Hey, Kim! Lovely to see you!

Kim: Hello, William. I hate America.

Bill: Well, Kim, I think that’s an unfair sentiment, but I’m not here as a representative of the US government. I’m actually here to talk to you about two journalists that you’re holding. It would be GREAT if we could get them back.

Kim: Well, Bill, normally I am an angry man who likes to make an example of people, but since I like you, I guess you can have them. Just make sure that everyone knows it was you who persuaded me.

End scene.

--

Maybe it’s my years as a Model United Nations kid (go ahead and laugh, I used to spend four days at a time pretending to be X country in X committee, it’s silly), maybe it’s my healthy interest in international goings on, or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m not so easily swayed by the media, BUT just to let everyone know…North Korea is one of the most strategic governments in existence. If anything, they were keeping these journalists as an extra trump card for the never-ending game they play with the US. It is more likely that Bill took this unofficial trip in an effort to talk about nuclear issues and before he landed North Korea had already decided to give up the reporters to avoid having to talk about nuclear weapons programs they may or may not be developing at alarming rates. As a bonus, they get to make statements about what great humanitarians they are and how they are an example to the rest of the world.

This is the same government that imprisoned these girls for illegally entering their country and a vague “grave crime” for TWELVE YEARS. And prison is a gulag in North Korea. Prisoners don’t have rights. Everywhere else in the world, an illegal border crossing would be a simple matter of deporting the offending journalists back to their countries. Except that North Korea wouldn’t want anything these journalists discovered getting out into the international media.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop myself here and just say this:

Maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe he did convince them to let the girls go. But I just want to be able to expect more from the media and not be continuously disappointed by their coverage of just the party line. You would think that in a case like this, where investigative journalism was threatened, they would optimize the national attention by including more than four sentences about US-North Korean relations. If you thought that, you would be wrong.

Where constitutions are suggestions and even Elvis won't hide anymore...

Seriously, there are some mornings when the BBC Americas section just angers me.

Simple, pure anger.

Today’s anger is brought to you by yet another Latin American leader thumbing his nose at a country’s constitution. In this region that so desperately needs to gain international legitimacy, so much happens to keep these nations from moving forward. It’s almost like there’s only so much room for politically successful countries, so no matter what reforms are passed, no matter who is ousted from office, Latin America will remain a politically backward place.

Mr. Zelaya of Honduras is the newest offender of the pack. Before I get into this though, I want to give a brief synopsis of Latin America’s history with executive branches of government.

- Latin America is discovered by Europeans and subsequently serves as Spain’s bitch for centuries.
- Political revolutions begin, namely in Mexico, around 1910. Nothing happens in these revolutions. They happen about once every two to three years. It’s always a conservative replacing a conservative. Villa & Zapata run around some countryside. Santa Anna lost his leg, gave it a state funeral, had it dug up and paraded around the city, (GO AHEAD AND CHECK. I AM NOT KIDDING.) and then lost his cork leg in Texas.
- Most argue that it was until the PRI was elected in 2000 and Vincente Fox was the president of Mexico, however, constitutional reform was floating around Latin America in the 1980s. Since there was no money in the region, the idea of a weak executive didn’t bother politicians. They couldn’t afford to run and serve for more than one term.
- Then money started to pour into the region. And people got excited (read: greedy). That’s when presidents started closing down congresses and bribing militaries to back them into taking over the country until the next guy came along and bribed all of the original guy’s supporters into turning on him. Meanwhile, people in Latin America remain poor, uneducated, and receive no real services from the state. (Talk about a social contract in need of overthrowing.)
- Things calmed down a bit in the last ten years with Castro getting old and not being able to support crazy young guys, but then Chavez was elected and the crazy young guys got a big champion in him. Now people think it’s once again okay to try and change the constitution to give oneself more time in office. This clearly causes all kinds of problems.

So Mr. Zelaya tried to gauge public opinion about changing the constitution to allow for executive reelection. He was promptly escorted out of the country by the congress and the military. In a region where executives are notorious for abusing power once they’ve gained it via legitimate means, Zelaya had to see a negative reaction coming on that one.

So why the anger? Well…in true US fashion we’ve chosen a horse to back and it’s the wrong one. The right one being no horse, because the more we intervene in political decisions, the worse things get twisted. Sec. Clinton received Zelaya after he was booted out. Even better is that Obama wants to pretend he’s not intervening at all. For the most part, he’s not. He refuses to engage with Chavez, which may be one of the few things we agree on completely. But the invitation to Zelaya should have been rescinded. Sigh. Now he’s playing chicken with the Honduran border and Chavez is shouting his support louder and louder every day.

And people wonder why Latin America doesn’t make any kind of global progress. It’s a circus down there people. A CIRCUS.

iPod etiquette continues

If you turn up your iPod to not be bothered by the announcements on the metro, do not turn to me and ask what they just said when you sense the announcement is over. Not only did I have to listen to the announcement AND your poor musical choices at the same time, but now you've taken out one earbud, I can hear the Jonas Brothers more clearly, and I have to repeat the announcement three times before you get it.

Just don't.

The one where I discuss why men aren't evil...

I just read a blog post where the author discussed having changed her name four times and then dove into the reasons behind each name change. Now, she’s a professional writer and some of her reasons have to do with the nom de plume issues of writing controversial (but highly entertaining) columns, but her first name change is what stuck with me. She changed her last name in order to undermine our patriarchal society. I can understand the reasoning behind this. Words are incredibly powerful, or at least I’ve always believed they are, and I suppose changing your last name will remove a public association to the men in your family. (And to be fair, her childhood was horrific enough to cut off her arm if it meant disassociating with some of the monsters in her life.) But then she mentioned the other women in society who change their names. And I started thinking, would I just up and change my name?

Well for starters, I definitely wouldn’t change my first name. I like it. Everything about it. I like my first initial in all kinds of script, I like the origin of my name, I like how my name sounds in a variety of languages. I love my name.

As for my last name? I would feel like I was betraying two amazing men who have done so much to make me the person I am today. I don’t feel like keeping their name in any way diminishes the efforts of women who also contributed to my upbringing, some with the same last name, some with another.

My father’s father was born in a tiny town in Cuba. His dad didn’t really want him, so one day he dropped my grandfather off at his grandparents’ house and left him there. I think he was around 4. He spent his childhood doing little boy things, his adolescence learning to be a welder, and his young adulthood fighting first in a revolution, then in a counterrevolution. He left his home, knowing he’d probably never see it again, and brought his family to a country where he worked like an animal to put his children in the best schools available. He was a tough man, and big, the kind of man who would frighten little children with his sheer size. I once saw him bring a grown uncle to his knees with a simple handshake. But he was also kind. I saw him every week as a young child. He would bring a pizza to our house for lunch and just sit and talk with us and with my mom. He was a pillar of the community and a lot of my faith in God comes from his example. He overcame alcoholism, heart disease, and was eventually brought down by the cruel condition, Alzheimer’s. But even when he was sick, when he couldn’t recognize me or my brothers, his children or his wife, he was still the man who bought my a bike, never held me back from doing anything because I was “just” a girl, and encouraged me to study hard and want for more than he had.

My father is a product of his father in so many good ways. He’s generous and loving, and still has that toughness. He’s got the handshake too. He spent his childhood studying hard. He was “that guy.” Top of his class, varsity wrestler, handsome, blah blah blah. He went to college and started studying to be a doctor. And then he met my mother. She was (and still is) a good friend of his little sister’s. After a while, it was evident that they were meant to be together. They got married his senior year, despite objections from both sides of the family. He crammed about five million credits into his last semester so he could get a job and they could start their life together. Most 23 year-old guys I know run away from that kind of commitment, emotion, and lifestyle change. His life plan was on a medical school track and here he was college-educated, married, working as a phlebotomist, and pumping gas at night. He met the love of his life and didn’t “keep things casual” or ask her to wait while he “dated around while he was young.” (I’ll keep my thoughts on the ridiculous antics of boys nowadays for another post.) He moved on to other jobs, settled into a successful career, and created an amazing family. I was always encouraged to go after what I wanted, to look for things that made me happy. I also was lucky to be reared in the presence of an amazing relationship. My parents are still sublimely happy, like high-schoolers in puppy love. And they fight. It wasn’t until I left home and got more insight into how the normal world works that I realized how rare it was to find a relationship where you can fight and use it to make the relationship stronger. I am immeasurably grateful to have this example in my life as a model for my future marriage (which is unlikely at this time, let’s be honest).

I could go on an on about both of these men. I could go on and on about their flaws too, but I won’t. It’s enough to mention that they have them, that they’ve passed some of them onto me (I'm not perfect! Shocker!), and that the good far outweighs the ugly. I could also go on about my uncles, cousins, brothers, friends. They are all amazing men in their own right who’ve made an impact, big or small, on me.

So there you have it. Why would I change my name? These men have given me everything I’ve ever wanted and needed and taught me how to get these things for myself. I don’t even know if I can change my name when my unlikely marriage happens. I’ll probably just tack the new one at the end. Because I like my last name’s first initial, I like how it sounds in Spanish the best, but mostly I like that it marks me as being a product of my patriarchy. Maybe that’s an unpopular thought among young women my age. Maybe I will be labeled an anti-feminist. It doesn’t really matter though, because the only label I care about is the Rodriguez one on my birth certificate.

(Just for the record, I carry the marks of the women in my family proudly too. And that’s another post for another time.)

Conscious Effort...

I've been twittering like mad and don't think anything of it. But then I read an article about how twittering is replacing the actual dialogue taking place on the internet. And I didn't really like the tone of the article, because it assumed laziness, the bastards. And here I am making a concerted effort to "contribute" even though no one reads this.

Since my last post, I accepted that I hate my job/career path, quit in January, and am still unemployed. It's gotten easier to say. And I feel like such a poseur too, because someone will ask what I do, and when I answer, they give me the "oh, bad economy" look. Sometimes I let them think it, but I feel so bad when I do that. I did this to myself. I'm not a victim. I shouldn't pretend. I don't regret quitting my job. Ever. But unemployment has indeed gotten old and I'm dying to have a job at this point. Hopefully something works out soon.