Surviving the Workday

There are certain stretches in Los Angeles that have so many billboards that it is literally like watching TV to drive down the street. Most of them feature mostly half-dressed emaciated young women and men, but occasionally there’s a can of coke or someone dancing with an iPod.

Steve Lopez, in the LA Times, describes one billboard in particular, for a film called Captivity. (If you’d like to see this in person, drive south on Highland, and it’s on the right north of Hollywood High School). The ad consisted of four panels (photo here):

Abduction, in which a terrified young blond woman has either a gloved or
black hand over her face, as if she’s being kidnapped.

Confinement, in which she’s behind a chain-link fence and appears to be
poking a bloody thumb through the fence.

Torture, in which she is flat on her back, her face in a white cast, with
red tubes that resemble jumper cables running into her nostrils.

And Termination, in which her head dangles over the edge of a table, the
murder complete.

Lopez focuses on the reaction of pre-teen girls and their parents to this poster, which they have really no choice but to see as they drive by. It’s hard not to think that there is a deliberate campaign of misogyny in the movie industry, encouraged by lazy-ass writing and an audience’s unrestrained appetite for violence against women. When Lopez tries to find out who is responsible for the billboard, Lionsgate, the studio, says this is a mistake—no one is every responsible for this sort of “mistake.” Read Lopez’s column, Billboard’s Captivity Audience Disgusted, to find out more of the details of the “mistake.”

I’ve been working on The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Creativity. It’s stirred many thoughts about former coworkers, former friends, and even family members as I deal with my own issues with creativity.

Today, I’ve been thinking about the crazymakers and creativity. When I was younger, I tried to help everyone. As I’ve grown older, my tolerance for other people’s craziness has decreased substantially, as has my urge to help. In fact, when I see a crazymaker, I give that person a wide berth. The problem for me with a crazymaker colleague is that I get sucked into this person’s problems and don’t have to deal with any of my own (not my own family issues, my own work issues, and not my own creative challenges). It’s a creative black hole for me.

The author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron, has this to say about crazymakers (which reminded me of many of the work situations that y’all write in about):

Crazymakers are those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive. And, for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive. you know the type: charismatic, but out of control, long on problems, and short on solutions.

Crazymakers are the kind of people who can take over your whole life. To fixer-uppers, they are irresistible: so much to change, so many distractions…

If you are involved with a crazymaker, you probably know it already, and you certainly recognize the thumbnail description in the paragraph above. Crazymakers like drama. If they can swing it, they are the star. Everyone around them functions as supporting cast, picking up their cues, their entrances and exits, from the crazymaker’s (crazy) whims (pp. 44 and 45).

You might want to pick up a copy of The Artist’s Way for more information on how to work creatively.

Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) rallies are today.

From Answer’s web site:

The war for Empire is a rich man’s war. Working and poor people in the United States are experiencing massive cuts in social services, high taxes to pay for the bloated military budget, assaults against our unions and decent wage paying jobs, the illegal elimination of pension funds by the new corporate robber barons, severe cuts in public education, and the ongoing racist neglect as evidenced by the destruction and usurpation of the neighborhoods of New Orleans. Racism is ever present in the government’s policy towards immigrant workers whose labor is super exploited while the laborersare subject to raids, imprisonment and deportations.

While demagogically campaigning against the so-called “welfare state,” the construction of a warfare state has become a central priority of corporate elites and the two political parties that are firmly under their control. In the months ahead, on October 28 and March 17, thepeople of the United States will unite against this war for Empire and in support of a society that makes social and economic justice its top priority.

Man of the Year is a film about a classic dilemma relating to the workplace: What do you do when you get something you don’t deserve and didn’t earn?

Who hasn’t had that happen at work? It happens all the time. I suppose there are a couple of possibilities:

a. You give it back.
b. You actually earn it and consequently deserve it.
c. You take it and don’t care that you didn’t earn it.

This movie chooses the obvious and easy answer, skips the morally gray area, which is of more interest, and then decides it’s some sort of psychothriller.

One of the most astute and endearing thoughts I’ve ever heard about movies was Kevin Smith’s observation (in Kirby Dick’s documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated) that violence against women should make a film rated NC-17, yet was a common device that screenwriters use (when in doubt, throw in some assault).

Man of the Year is a classic example. When they ran out of plot and chose to avoid the moral dilemma (and Williams came off his high), they decided to make it a film about stalking Laura Linney, which includes breaking and entering into her house, later her hotel room, and assaulting her, drugging her, and then running her over with a truck. Those events are just thrown in. It’s not essential. That’s lazy-ass writing. And trust me, I know all about lazy-ass writing.

Dear Ms. Theologian,

Unsettled Downunder

Dear Unsettled:

Sometimes Ms. Theologian thinks we were all shortchanged by our societal education on morals that led us to believe that there was always a “right” and “wrong.” Those are actually the easier choices. Often there is an “okay” or a “less okay.” Or just “not okay” and “not okay” as options.

What does Ms. Theologian do when she has two “not okay” options to choose from and can’t find a third option anywhere? She prays, she meditates. But, of course, she does that anyway, though not as often, her husband notes, as she might like you to believe.

When something is painful, she finds that Tonglen meditation helps more than anything else. It is counter intuitive to breathe in pain, but breathing it in is really the only way to accept your own suffering, the suffering of others, and, eventually, turn it into light. Ms. Theologian thinks the anxiety you are experiencing, including the physical symptoms, are actually a sign of avoiding suffering in your choices, which you can’t do for too much longer. Avoiding pain actually can cause more pain. Yes, Ms. Theologian did go Buddhist on you. It happens.

-Ms. Theologian

P.S. If you would like to write to Ms. Theologian, send an email to ms dot theologian at gmail dot com.

Looking for God in the Great Terror in Russia wore me out.

Right now I’m in the mood for looking at a cinnamon bun that looks like Mother Theresa.

I sort of see it. You?

Via Boing Boing

I’ve been reading a lot of literature about the presence of God, raising the question of where God is in times of great tragedy.

And the Word Was, by Bruce Bauman, explores a father’s journey in India after he loses his son in a school shooting in the states, his wife to adultery, and his job in the media and legal frenzy that follows the shooting. He turns to the teachings of a Holocaust survivor to understand his own urge to injure those he hates, who have caused him pain, the school shooters, and their parents who sue him, as well as his wife, whom he still loves, but by whom he feels deeply betrayed. He seeks to still believe in God, to go to temple, but feels absolutely deserted.

Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million is Martin Amis’s exploration of Stalin (Koba the Dread) in Russia from 1917 to 1933, and the death of twenty million people. The question he raises is how Western leftists can know all of this about Stalin and still be communist affiliated. And, really, he is talking about (and to) his dad, Kingsley Amis. This is a nonfiction book; it is epic in its accounts, and personal. And it is essentially about the existence of great tragedy. Amis never asks where God is, but that seems to be the question that naturally arises.

So where is God?

God is everywhere; God is nowhere; God has abandonned us; God is in every breath; God never existed; God is all around us, even in times of tragedy. These are the answers that are offered. All of those answers, even the seeming contradictions, may be the only way to answer the question.

We live in a very hot climate. Yesterday it was 91. In the summer we basically have to pass out between 3 and 6 p.m. waking up to make dinner and then work in the evening.

From what I’ve heard, it is also this way in Greece, and I used my Greek heritage as a way to justify my nap. But I just read in No More Slouching, Greeks Told that the interior minister told Greek civil servants that they need to be at work in the summer and no siestas.

The government wants to put a halt to these practices and try to bring Greek civil servants in line with the rest of Europe.

Whether or not it means that more business will get done in the summer is an open question.

Civil servants can be surly creatures at the best of times, but now that their perks have been cut still further, they’re unlikely to become more charming.

Bummer. And I love how the last sentence is pure editorializing. Love the BBC.

Photo from Sporade Tours (of Greece, of course)

I do enjoy the public shaming of the bad boss. I might also enjoy the imprisonment of a bad boss given the stories I’ve been told.

Gawker is running a little contest on evil bosses and quite a few of the publishing and entertainment elite make the list of the evil bosses.

The sins of the evil boss run all the way from throwing objects at employees to disliking talk with anyone who is overweight. Name calling and physical abuse seem par for the course.

It’s my belief that the best strategy when encountering these potential bosses is to R U N lest you find yourself enmeshed in their world six months later using mantras, prayers, and chanting to deal with their sociopathic behavior. There is absolutely nothing wrong with mantras, prayers, and chants, but there comes a time when you need to first follow the No Asshole Rule. View Bob Sutton’s No Asshole Rule video here.

I’ve traveled a fair amount on business and unfortunately stayed in more than a few b&bs when hotels were full. Now, some folks absolutely love b&bs. But for the business traveler, it’s like staying with my eighty-eight-year-old Auntie Clara. That is to say, the furnishings are decorative, often uncomfortable and malfunctioning, and basic amenities are nowhere to be found. And did I mention chintz? B&Bs love La Chintz in all incarnations.

I usually do not remember to read the trip advisor reviews before I book a room. Why? I get distracted by getting the best price online. I always get around to reading these reviews eventually, including those of a particularly strange place in Austin, Texas, which seems to have left a trail of misery. Apart from the fact that the wireless access wasn’t accessible in my room, and the wine that their web site promised was not freely offered (it was bartered for, mind you), there was the matter of foraging for food in the morning and grumpy owners. I considered my experience normal for a business traveler in a b&b. But no! Roughly half of all the trip advisor reviews are vehemently negative. These folks have been leaving a long trail of anger and hostility.

Now I know folks who own a b&b and lots of folks who have worked in hotel management, which is probably one of the best ways to learn about the underbelly of humanity. So I do know both sides to this: people act like rude slobs when they are guests in hotels, especially b&bs, and the hosts and owners end up acting equally rude. Still, it would have helped to read the reviews first.

Yes, painting the bike shed is a wonderuful phrase I’ve learned about workplace communities while watching How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People during my lunch hour.

“Painting the Bike Shed” comes from this scenario: a group of workers are building a nuclear power plant. They also decide that they want a little shack to keep their bikes out of the rain while they’re at work. The discussion on what color to paint the bike shed takes monumentally more time than the discussion about how to build the power plant. So there’s an inverse relationship between the importance of the task and the amount of discussion involved. You see this phenomenon in every workplace in America.

Another great phrase? “The Bus Factor” is the number of folks that have to get hit by a bus in order for an organization to be up the creek sans paddle. How many organizations do you know who have a bus factor of one? (i.e., If the president or CEO is hit by the bus, then the work is dead, the organization can’t function.) Now the bus factor doesn’t have to involve being hit by a bus. It could be a new job offer, a new baby, or another shift in life. This sort of change shouldn’t be enough to kill an organization, but sometimes it does.

How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (and You Can Too) is one of the most helpful videos I’ve seen about workplace dynamics and how to encourage healthy creative communities, particularly when you deal with volunteers. Some of it is specific to open sourcing, but most of it is not. Honestly, much of it seemed appropriate to ministry, non-profit work, as well as corporate working environments. Please watch it, and in a pinch, read notes about it here.

Do you feel you’re in a rush this morning? Too much to do? Too early to do it?

Left to run without cues from the sun and clocks, our bodies actually run on a twenty-five hour cycle, so we’re pressed to fit our lives within twenty-four hours to start with. And then daylight savings time snaps off another hour.

There are some supposed benefits of daylight savings time: fewer traffic fatalities in the evening, less crime, some economic benefits to businesses that benefit from sunlight (golf, for example, or convenience stores, according to Wiki). But for most of us who have to get up an hour earlier…..I’m just not feeling the benefit. I’m feeling a toll.

So that panicked feeling? Totally normal. Perhaps you can take a walk during the daylight at the end of the day? Or visit a convenience store? Take up golf at the end of the day? Drive more safely?

For many of us, winter has been a time of hibernation, a time when change occurs slowly and on the inside as we make preparations for the year ahead. Spring is a time of great change on the outside: snow and ice melt, ground thaws, plants bud, flowers blossom….and often we contemplate making some changes in our life.

Often I find myself restless in the spring, but I’ve begun to believe that it’s normal. I was particularly restless in the springs before career changes (going back to school, changing jobs, and even being laid off).

If you’re facing a career change (voluntary or involuntary), but you’re scared, consider reading three stories of successful career changes: from a doctor to a balloon artist (and check out her art! wow!), program manager to administrative assistant, and from human resources consultant to career services director.

First, and most importantly, I shared how I lost a friend to Walt Disney. I just hope he was worth it.

We talked a fair amount about self-nurture, and self-soothing during the workday.

And there was a fair amount of discussion about paying teachers different amounts for teaching different subjects.

There are some spectacular nature photos from readers of the Los Angeles Times here. You’ll find those that are regarded as “the best” by sorting for “Best,” but “Most Viewed” has some good ones too.

I find looking at nature photographs very soothing. Let me know if you have a favorite, and I’ll look it up, because I certainly haven’t seen them all.

I’m partial to the ones of the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, but this is a photograph from the top of Mount Pinos in January of this year.

We often don’t acknowledge a drive for fame as a motivator with work, but many people are under the influence of The Fame Motive. Unfortunately, the drive for fame also causes a great deal of stress:

In a 1996 study, Richard M. Ryan of the University of Rochester and Dr. Kasser, then at Rochester, conducted in-depth surveys of 100 adults, asking about their aspirations, guiding principles, and values, as well as administering standard measures of psychological well-being. The participants in the study who focused on goals tied to others’ approval, like fame, reported significantly higher levels of distress than those interested primarily in self-acceptance and friendship.

As you might expect, seeking a source of approval other than yourself, and a fickle source, at that, is psychologically troublesome. But no matter, most people wouldn’t admit they seek fame (according to the article). They aspire silently.

Speaking of which, if you would like a couple hundred folks exposed to you and your job issues, shoot me an email at ms dot theologian at gmail dot com and we’ll do an interview.

Paying for Better Math and Science Teachers explores one of the interesting aspects of differential pay: how the idea gets killed by teachers.

…it seems that the Kentucky effort to provide increased pay to teachers with qualifications in mathematics, physics, and chemistry has been gutted. Teachers objected to differential pay, and that portion of the bill was removed.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the math and science teachers who objected. Now I taught high school math and science many years ago, and I know that even if I can’t get any other job in the world, I can always teach again because there is always a shortage of teachers. And one of the reasons you can’t find math and science teachers to fill positions is because they are paid better and treated better at just about any other position that they’re qualified for. Paying them more would be a start…

Via Slashdot

I learned about the Hassayampa Institute while I was in Tempe from Mary Sojourner (Does she have the coolist “copyright notice” on her page? It’s copyleft).

The Hassayampa Institute sponsors a writing workshop in Prescott, Arizona July 23-27, 2007. If you haven’t been to Prescott, it is a lovely town and should be nice and cool in the summer. The conference seems extremely affordable at $375 for a week, though you do need to book a dorm room or hotel or something (even so the hotels are in the $70/night range). So that’s just about $700.

I’m pretty sure I can’t afford another conference, but Mary Sojourner’s workshop at Desert Nights was awesome. I produced some of the best stuff I’ve written in years.

Last summer, I hired an assistant, who was the valedictorian of our local high school and went to college on a full scholarship to study biology. Several weeks into the summer, we had a editorial discussion in which she sheepishly admitted that she didn’t know what the big deal was when people used “man” to refer to “men and women.” After more discussion, she admitted that she “didn’t know what the big deal was about sexism,” but she was pretty sure “it didn’t happen anymore.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Had the world changed so much since I was in high school and college? Was my assistant just naive? Was her work in biology so different than geology and math, which I had studied?

The more research I do on working conditions, both here in the United States, and elsewhere, I’m convinced that my assistant was young and naive, and in some ways, I hope that she stays that way. I hope that she’s never told what physical work she can do because of her femaleness. I hope she’s not told what mental challenges are appropriate for her because of her femaleness. I hope she is well-paid and her pay is equitable. I hope she doesn’t find herself the object of unwelcome sexual advances from her boss. If she chooses to have a baby, I hope that she can find a clean well-lit place to breastfeed or pump. I really hope she’s loved and supported throughout her career. I really hope this will be the case for her.

Read more about the history of International Women’s Day.

Now, this is participatory, so please list at least one thing you’ve done to nurture yourself at work in comments. And work is anything that makes the world go round, not just work at a cube. And nurture is anything that takes care of yourself.

I’ve had a Clementine, which might not sound like much, but it’s a. food, b. tasty, and c. rather expensive and I don’t usually buy them because of the cost even though I adore them. So I think that’s nurture. You?

I stopped reading David Kuo interview John Edwards because by the end I felt like running from the room and screaming. Did he just affirm Prayer in Schools? I think he did.*

What are the biggest moral issues facing America today?

There are several. One is here within our own borders. The fact that we have 37 million people who live every day worrying about taking care of themselves and their family, living in poverty, I think is a huge moral issue. I would say the same thing about the 47 million people who don’t have health care coverage. I think those are the big moral issues here within our borders. But I think there are big moral issues in other parts of the world, too. Global poverty, half the planet living on $2 or less a day. Three billion people. I think this genocide that’s going on in Western Sudan, Darfur, is a huge moral issue. Us continuing to allow kids to be born in Africa with AIDS because their mothers can’t afford $4 medicine is a big moral issue.

Does your concern for the poor come mostly from your own background, or does it come from your faith?

Both. It comes from both. My own personal experience has been that I came from a very poor background when I was young. But, by the time I was in middle school/high school, we were solidly in the middle class. And now I’ve had everything you could ever have financially in this country. And so, I feel some responsibility myself to help and give back, to give that opportunity to lots of people who I don’t think have it today. That’s part of it. And it also comes from my faith. If you took every reference to taking care of the least of these out of the Bible, there would be a pretty skinny Bible. And I think I as a Christian, and we as a nation, have a moral responsibility to do something about this.

You’ve received a lot of criticism from people about the size of your house. In your book, “Home,” you quote Rick Warren saying, “What I’ve noticed is that where people live affects how they live.” If that’s true, how does your home impact you? What does it say about you? And does it in any way undercut your discussion of the poor?

I think it’s a fair question, first of all. And here’s how I feel about it. The book that you made reference to that Rick Warren is in, “Home,” I think the overwhelming message from that is, whatever the structure, the physical structure–some of the houses in my book were very small, tiny. Some of them were huge. And what matters in the message from that book is [that] the physical structure’s not important. What matters is what happens inside that physical structure, and what kind of values and beliefs and faith are taught inside that structure. And so, you know, I come from a very modest place and I’ve done well and we have a very nice physical structure. It’s completely unimportant. What matters is what happens inside that structure. And back to your question about Jesus and what he would be most disappointed in, what we’re doing to meet the needs of those around us. I’m not for a minute suggesting we are saints or we have done more than a lot of other people have done, but Elizabeth and I have spent a lot of time building a couple of learning centers for low-income kids who need a place to use technology, made college scholarships available, helped build houses for people who don’t have houses, helped with humanitarian needs in Africa. Those are some of the causes–I’m sure I’m forgetting some–that we have been personally committed to, both before we got in politics and since that time. So, do I think we’ve done everything we could do? No. I don’t think anybody does. But I think Jesus would be happy with some of the things we’ve done.

Would it be your hope that a John Edwards Supreme Court would allow public schools to encourage more prayer in schools?

What I’m not in favor of is for a teacher to go to the front of the classroom and lead the class in prayer. Because I think that by definition means that that teacher’s faith is being imposed on children who will almost certainly come from different faith beliefs. Allowing time for children to pray for themselves, to themselves, I think is not only okay, I think it’s a good thing.

If you’re stronger than me, read the entire interview here.

*Let me clarify my opinion on prayer at work (and then prayer in schools). I think taking a quiet moment at your desk at work (or at school) to pray silently is fine. I think a quiet moment at a meeting (or in a classroom) to pray is not okay. Not everyone is religious. Not everyone believes in God. Not everyone prays. And it’s an imposition of assumptions about how it is to be religious and spiritual.