Surviving the Workday

If nothing else, I can document this, right?

The crisis continues. It’s a low grade affair, sort of depressed fog punctuated by an occasional moan. I picture the June Gloom of Santa Barbara.

I’ll note this for those of you who are interested in writing, editing, and publishing. Since I’ve worked as both an editor and a writer, I do know this:

Making your writer feel dumb, disrespected, and, in general ,crappy will not increase the quality of her work. This is not smart editing because it pisses her off. It does not inspire her. It does not make her want to be “creative,” and please you, except possibly in the pro-creative sense because that, at least ,would be technically possible, while you and your suggestions and needs are technically not.

How should you treat your writer?

Like the Goddess that she is. She can translate your miserable scraps of detail into fully fleshed out experiences. She can catch her own mistakes as well as your own. She makes you look good.

And those little errors? She expects some editing in return. She expects that her work is not so perfect that it can be immediately shipped for 30 million young minds. She expects some editing, some polishing, some rewriting, some restructuring. This is par for the course. But she doesn’t need to be bashed. That makes her mad.

I worked this long holiday weekend, as I work many weekends. Not by choice, but by deadline. And not by bad time management, but because of lack of hours in the day.

Working the weekend means that I get up early, I log on to the computer, and I write or edit something that isn’t necessarily my own chosen topic all day. By the end of the weekend, I’m usually read for a break, but instead the week starts.

As a result, my own chosen topic, my own writing, my third (omg, it’s my fourth) unpublished manuscript languishes. I’m on the verge of giving up for these reasons:

I’ve worked in the publishing industry for 10 years and I have some sense of how things get published.

For my non-fiction manuscript to be published, I would need to be semi-famous in my field (theology) or semi-related to someone just famous (Nicole Richie’s ex-druggie sister, who went through a spiritual conversion or Richard Gere’s theologizing niece). And that’s not going to happen.

For my fiction manuscript to be published, I would need a a record of print in literary journals, which I can’t seem to get. Me and the literary journals? Not a good fit. I know this because I read them. Lots of them. And submit to lots of them.

So why do I keep thinking that my own work will get published outside of educational publishing when an author’s name is stamped on top and me (the writer’s) name is left off?

Because I’m damn delusional. And I woke up on Saturday with this thought: this can’t go on for too much longer.

And it’s not simply burn out—though it is partially so. It’s mostly the climate of publishing.

When you work in publishing as an editor and a writer, you live in a community of criticism. Misspellings aren’t allowed, bad grammar is abhored, and every document is returned covered in criticisms, some constructive, some helpful, but unhelpful. As I said on Mary’s blog, often critiques are an attempt to make the manuscript more of the critiquer’s style and voice rather than understanding the writer’s style and voice. And I’m a good editor who can write in many styles. Criticism is simply part of the process. Most of the time, it makes the end result better.

But continuous criticism also kills creativity. After ten years, I think my creativity isn’t a gush or a seep. It’s a drop here, a drop there, where it usually evaporates instantly with the hot rush of criticism.

Witness this incident, one of many from last week: after much grinding of teeth, I turned in a manuscript that a client wanted, a “creative” approach to blah, blah, and blah, which followed the client’s instructions to the T. It was returned with nasty comments and suggestions to dump the entire thing and try something “creative.” Again.

Creativity does not exist in this climate. It runs, it hides, it puts the blankets over its head and hopes for a better day when it is loved, appreciated, nurtured, and respected. And it’s not coming out until that day comes.

This is a spiritual crisis, which I hadn’t been able to identify because I was in the midst of it and it wasn’t precipitated by the types of events that normally precipicated this sort of event (death, divorce, failure).

If you’re being sexually harrassed at work, you are not alone.

In this case involving Dr. Robert Haddad and Caritas Christi Health Care System in Boston, four women accused Dr. Haddad of sexually harassing them. The sexual harassement included hugs, touching, kissing, and personal calls to them.

Later, 10 more women came forward.

Wonder how many more women there are out there?

I would guess dozens more.

I’m posting this because I know that when we are victimized it is easy to believe that we are the only one this is happening to, that we are isolated (or that the instance was isolated). But it simply isn’t true.

This is not to say that coming forward to Human Resources doesn’t have consequences in the real world. It can be embarrassing and painful. It can lead to being laid off or fired. But it just might be the right thing to do.

I’ve never bought a Ford truck. Or car.

I’m one of those people in the Japanese economy car with 200,000 miles on it that never breaks down. But there’s enough that’s good about Ford and its public policy decisions to make me reconsider.

Ford has been courting the gay and lesbian market for years and has stood up to those who attempt to get them to back down–all the while claiming diversity is All-American. I like that sort of argument.

Make no mistake. Ford courts the gay and lesbian markets because there’s big money there. But Ford has also taken a calculated risk because they have I N F L A M E D the “pro-family” folks. And these are people who enjoy a good flame.

Here’s a quick summary of how the “pro-family” folks at Boycott Ford summarize the sins of Ford:

Ford held the first automotive conference aimed at bringing diversity to the car industry. “Diversity” is a code word for homosexuality. By defining themselves as a minority such as African-Americans, homosexual activists seek to bolster their claims of needing special treatment. Encouraged by Ford, more than 100 multinational companies attended the meeting which, according to 365Gay.com, included a goal of “broadening the number of LGBT workers in the field.”

Ford was given a 100% score on last year’s Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Ford was the only automaker and the largest corporation to get this score.

Ford has been on the DiversityInc “Top 50 Companies for Diversity” list in each of the four years the rankings have been published.

Ford actively recruited homosexuals for employment by advertising on gay job websites.

Ford hired a D.C. marketing firm to target the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender market and developed a plan to involve Ford in the day-to-day business of selling vehicles worldwide to gay and lesbian customers.

Ford was an executive sponsor of the 2004 “Out & Equal Workplace Summit Conference.” The purpose of the event was to advance the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage, in major corporations.

Oh my god! They support Human Rights! They support Diversity! They support legal marriage and legal rights for gays and lesbians! And that’s just a mere sampling.

Quick, where’s the number for the local Ford dealer?

I have an uneasy relationship with unions. My dad is always bitching about being basically forced to join a union and that sort of shaped my opinions. I’ve heard of the good that they’ve done in the United States in terms of transforming abusive labor practices into less abusive ones, but sometimes labor unions have their own issues with abuse internally.

This story, Day Care Workers Flex Their Muscle, in TruthOut of the day care workers union was enough to convert me back again to the positive power of unions.

When her infant daughter’s chronic ear infections made her miss too many days at work, Angenita Tanner of Chicago decided in 1996 to quit her job and work from home as a full-time babysitter.

Experienced in the field and equipped with an associate degree in early childhood education, she launched Grandma’s House Child Care. Her first clients were low-income working mothers whose daycare expenses were paid by the state. Six months after Tanner’s career change, she found herself on the brink of financial ruin. She had received no payment from the state for the eight children in her daily care.

“I was in business six months and not getting a paycheck. I was at the kitchen table with my assistant, a retired nurse, going over the bills. I’m feeding the kids, trying to pay my mortgage, trying to provide materials like books and toys, plus I haven’t paid my assistant,” she remembers. “Being in business for yourself in your own home, you have no one to go to. I’m sitting there, I’m stressed and the doorbell rings.”

At the door, as if on cue, was a representative of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Tanner attended an SEIU organizing meeting that night, found herself giving an impassioned speech and joining the union. “At that point I realized I wasn’t alone anymore,” she recalls. Thus began her commitment to improve the working conditions of Illinois child-care providers who contract with the state.

I had an interview with SEIU a couple of years ago to lead an education program out of their Los Angeles office. It was a long commute and one of those jobs that you had to breathe and sleep SEIU so I opted out of the second interview. But reading this story reminded me of the importance, the power, of unions.

I’ve been thinking recently of what makes a home and what makes us homeless. There is a sense of dislocation to being homeless that is unparalleled by other experiences. It is a sense of fitting in nowhere, of not having a bed to rest a pillow at night, of constantly walking, running, drifting from place to place, searching for a place to remain rooted.

It’s easier than you think to become homeless.

Beliefnet readers share their stories here. Here is an excerpt of one:

As a child growing up in Los Angeles, I remember riding in a car with my mother and seeing a homeless man sitting on the railroad tracks. I remember my mother telling me, “Son, never give up on life and be like that man over there.” Little did I know that I would experience homelessness in my life as an adult. God knew, but I didn’t.

I think it’s worth reflecting on what makes a home, what makes roots, and how easily you can be uprooted.

Gratitude, I think that’s what I’m getting at. When you are warm and snug, this is a time to appreciate the moment.

For All God’s Creatures

O God, we thank thee,
for all the creatures thou hast made,
so perfect in their kind —
great animals like the elephant and the rhinoceros,
humorous animals like the camel and the monkey,
friendly ones like the dog and the cat,
working ones like the horse and the ox,
timid ones like the squirrel and the rabbit,
majestic ones like the lion and the tiger,
for birds with their songs.

O God, give us such love for thy creation,
that love may cast out fear,
and all thy creatures — and thy creation,
see in men and women like us
their priest and their friend.

- George Appleton

I read this interview with Anne Lamott and felt so much better, Anne Lamott on Jesus, “I didn’t want him.” She has such perspective and honesty.

Age is just such an incredible blessing, the softening and the rounding of corners. And the sort of meat-tenderizing effects of aging. Like being a stone in the river – the sanding down of the sharp edges.

My sense of humor really developed, I think, from suffering as a child because I got teased so much about how I looked. I was quite strange looking and had this crazy, frizzy hair, and these big googley, goggley eyes. And I was so skinny, so so skinny.

I got attacked emotionally a lot, and that very much hurt my spirit. I grew up in a family where the parents didn’t love each other, and where my parents struggled with their own forms of addiction and mental illness. I felt very, very scared.

It’s funny because I’m a pretty afraid 52-year-old with a tremendous amount of faith. It’s sort of paradoxical, although I often think of that wonderful line that “courage is fear that has said its prayers.”

But at any rate, I was a very frightened and threatened child.

So says the alarmist Washington Times article, Working mothers don’t breast feed enough:

Many working mothers in this country and abroad do not breast-feed their babies, suggesting maternal employment can be a liability in providing infants with the benefits of breast milk, according to new research.

Ms. Theologian wonders if “new research” that concluded that employment was a liability to breastfeeding could have used input from the Women Work Because They Need the Money and Not Because They Want to Neglect Their Children Institute. It’s a popular organization, but it scarcely gets any press coverage in the so-called Mommy Wars, a constructed war that insists women who work hate women who don’t who hate women that work. etc.

Thanks to Feministing for the link and Jessica who pointed out that rather than focusing on how workplaces could become more flexible for the needs of breast feeding women, the research has concluded that women are all to blame (damn you for working to feed yourself when you should be breastfeeding!).

On Friday, we (Jim) managed to negotiate an entire truck load of free wood chips from the tree trimming folks in the neighborhood. We divided the labor: he dragged the wheelbarrow up a hill, dumped it, and spread the mulch with a rake. I filled the wheelbarrow.

I used a pitchfork to toss loads of wood and leaves into the wheelbarrow. It was eucalyptus mulch, mostly, so with every third pitchfork full, I would have to clean the sinuous twigs from the pitchfork. One, two, three, clean, four, five, six, clean, seven, eight, nine, clean. And then I would have just about a full wheelbarrow, depending on the wood : leaf ratio.

It was a kind of meditation, this one, two, three counting, that kept my mind off my blisters, splinters, and aching muscles. But as with all meditations, it was difficult to keep focused. The pitchfork snagged on a Del Taco cup that someone tossed in with the mulch, I tossed too far to the right and missed the wheelbarrow, the neighbors drove by and stared. But again, as with all meditation, it’s not that you establish a sense of bliss of bliss and relaxation right away, but that you try, and try, and try to focus.

What sort of Hindu are you?

Granted, you may not be a Hindu in the first place, but it’s still fun to think about the importance of scripture, worship, and festivals in your own life. I scored 80 out of 125, which makes me a traditionalist.

Have you thrust your hands in some dirt (or mud, if you’re in New England) today?

Have you stuck your nose into a flower this morning?

Have you watched a lizard make its way across a rock wall (and again, if you’re in New England, have you watched a duck swim past your house?)

Have you observed the flittings of a butterfly?

It’s almost summer here in the northern hemisphere. It’s time to remember that it isn’t us v. nature. We are part of nature.

for whorish listings with key mispellings. Can you find it?

1. Do you often go to bars, clubs and lounges?
2. Do you know that you are physically attractive?
3. Would you like to make a little extra money just for going out?
4. Would you like to drink for free while you’re out?

We are starting a New York based internet company which assists owners of bars, clubs and lounges with obtaining beautiful femail patrons. As you likely know, nightspots in New York City do not thrive unless attractive women regularly attend. For this reason, owners and promoters are willing to compensate attractive women to come have fun at their establishments.

Share your story about feminism and faith at Her Code, which builds on the success of The DaVinci Code to incorporate principles of equality into Christianity. I just wrote mine, but I’m not sure it is posted yet.

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article about the Internet and Spirituality.

In God’s Call Comes by Cell Phone:

Andrew Careaga, a youth pastor in Salem, Mo., welcomes some of these advances. Yet he worries that when spirituality migrates to cellphones, it becomes just another item to check off the to-do list — “a five-second spiritual fix, you’ve seen the verse of the day and you’re done.”

“Technology always seems to be a Faustian bargain. It encroaches on our ability to unconnect with the world and connect with God,” said Careaga, the author of “e-Ministry: Connecting with the Net Generation”

A good point. Thoughts?

Ms. Theologian is open for questions regarding workplace issues. Just shoot an email with your particular challenge and she’ll put a spiritual spin on it. She likes questions about conflicts with coworkers, dealing with bosses, supervising folks, and having your own business.

All email should be send to ms dot theologian at gmail dot com.

And, yes, she is this angelic.

One of the tried and true suggestions for surviving the workday is to surround yourself with plants, including potted plants and cut flowers.

In addition to their beauty, plants are symbols of life and of our connection to the earth. Plants help us remember to nurture them and to nurture ourselves.

If you work at home, you may be able to go into the actual garden, but much less space can still allow you to nurture plants. A kitchen garden, a terrarium, a potted marigold, a porthos—these can bring a sense of life (and oxygen) into your workday.

From Gardening and Spirituality:

Many serious minded women and men, spiritual seekers, have become advocates for gardening as an effective means to start and stay on the spiritual path. They are rediscovering a centuries old tradition of combining prayer, meditation, or silence with the daily efforts of hoeing, digging, watering, planting, harvesting, and pruning in their gardens. Even the quiet contemplation of the beauties and wonders of a garden, after a few hours of work in the garden, are sufficient for many to transport them into mystical reveries or provide profound insights.

I’ve found that in my own garden (flowers, vegetables, cacti), I’ve come to understand how to cultivate seeds and seedlings (and patience), how to nurture admid hardship, and that death is part of the cycle.

On a practical note, I used to abhor cut flowers, which seemed to exist only to watch them die. But after much study of plants, I’ve come to realize how this is essentially part of their purpose and that I can enjoy the beauty even though it is only temporary.

For Everyday Blessings

Dear God,
Open my eyes to the beauty of this day.
The yellow of an egg yolk in a blue bowl.
The scent of bacon frying in the pan.
The soft caress of the morning breeze.
The sound of children at play.
Awaken my senses.
Let me see, hear, and feel the beauty around me.
And be aware of the presence of the Great Artist in my everyday world.

- William Webber

from Beliefnet’s Prayer of the Day

In an illuminating article, The Care Crisis , Ruth Rosen writes about what women talk about when men aren’t around (and she notes that it’s not sex):

For four decades, working women have poured into the paid labor force. Yet American society has done precious little to restructure the workplace or family life. The result? Working mothers are burdened and exhausted, families are fractured and children are often neglected. The dirty little secret, we repeatedly tell each other, is that it is both profitable and convenient to our government, business and many men, for women to wear themselves out trying to do the unpaid work of caring for children, caring for the elderly and caring about the social networks of our communities.

I’m tired just reading it (but not tired of reading about it). It’s funny how when you are silent about unpaid work, it effectively works as collusion with the status quo, but that stating how exasperated you are with the current situation is often seen as a complaint.

We took a mini-vacation this weekend up to Santa Barbara’s Central Coast, which also where I grew up. We visited Sunstone and Kalyra wineries.

After much wine was tasted at Sunstone, I made my way to the bathroom where I ran into one of the women who had poured wine for us in line. After some staring at my feet (pale) and the view (gorgeous oak meadowlands), I asked her how long she had worked at Sunstone. I also wondered if I had too much wine to carry on a coherent conversation and whether I would subject her to drunken ramblings as she waited to pee.

“This is my fifth weekend,” she said.

I wondered about measuring life in weekends for a moment, and times when I did that. “So not that long?” I ventured.

“It’s just a weekend thing,” she said.

I was about to ask what she did during the week and whether the folks at the winery were bastards, when she asked me what I bought, and that changed the subject completely into the wild realm of syrah rose.

I drank wine before Sideways. I swear. But Sideways changed the Central Coast wine scene. Even in Monterey where we tasted last summer, Heller Estates and Ventana were full of twentysomething and thirtysomething couples. The Monterey tourism brochure encouraged us to take a Sideways tour of the wineries. Does that include cheating on your fiancee or just the alcoholism and alientation?

But something has changed up there. This is not the sleepy Santa Ynez valley of my youth. Kalyra has what amounts to three enormous bars with at least two people deep all around. Rather than pressing your glass forward for beer, you press it forward for a few ounces of wine for $7 (you keep the glass).

“How busy was it before Sideways?” Jim asked as we bought wine at Kalyra (enough had been tasted)

“Not like this,” she said. “This is at least 100 percent more.”

Reading Wineries bask in their Sideways cameos I’m not surprised.

But getting back to the point–my fifth weekend–I started to think about how many of us have weekend jobs (or work our weekday jobs during the weekends). How many of us have jobs in which we transition from white collar work to blue collar work, if such things exist anymore. The boundaries are certainly blurred.

Santa Barbara County is gorgeous, but the jobs are driven by tourism, much like Santa Fe, New Mexico, and any other number of beautiful places in the United States that lack an industry other than tourism. The salaries are generally really low and the locals scramble to pay bills, pay the rent (because forget about buying a home). I certainly don’t begrudge wineries a little tourism (or a two-deep bar), but I wonder how this helps sustain most of the people who live there.

Oprah Winfrey has certainly found her calling. And she refers to her work as ministry.

The divine Ms. Winfrey? explores the spiritual nature of Oprah’s work in the world.

Love her or loathe her, Winfrey has become proof that you can’t be too rich, too thin or too committed to rising to your place in the world. With 49 million viewers each week in the USA and more in the 122 other countries to which the show is distributed, Winfrey reaches more people in a TV day than most preachers can hope to reach in a lifetime of sermons.

I’m pretty sure that Oprah isn’t proof that you can’t be too rich, too thin, or too uppity (which is really what “rising to your place in the world” means). One of the most sympathetic moments I have with Oprah is when she admits her struggles with her weight that so many of us say.