This is a post I’ve been working on for two weeks, but it’s clearly not going to get any better. And by that I don’t mean I think it’s good.
I was raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition(s), and also went to divinity school, so I’ll offer some thoughts on lay theological education, if anyone out there is reading. Essentially, the question asked is: how can we bridge the gap between lay experience in congregations and experience in divinity school? In other words, what can we offer people who want “more” (but don’t want to go to seminary or divinity school)? Read the rest of this entry…
How would you describe yourself in your current position compared to your last position? “I am less patient and I dress better” was the description given by an university administrator who had formerly been a faculty member. It seems that how you view your current role often depends on your past roles:
A key difference he [the researcher] found in the administrators surveyed was whether they took their first administrative job at a new college or at the institution where they had been working as a professor. The former were more likely to have sought out the position as part of looking for a new challenge or opportunity. The latter were more likely to have been drafted into administration or to be taking on the role out of a desire to serve their institution.
The two groups also face comments about the changes they made when moving to what those whose first job was at their home campus were more likely to call “the dark side.” While people remark about clothing (more formal), personality changes, and lack of time of new administrators, those who didn’t switch campuses feel more commentary and criticism since their former colleagues know that they used to wear jeans all the time. The title of the session — “I Am Less Patient and Dress Better” — is one dean’s summation of his situation.
Well, you gotta love administrators who refer to themselves as working for “the dark side.” In research terms, “role exit theory” is applicable (an hypothesis stating that our attitudes toward our current positions are shaped by the roles that we exited as well as the roles that we current have):
The research focused on applying the “role exit” theory of the sociologist Helen Ebaugh, who argued that many people’s identities are as shaped by the positions they left as by the positions they enter. The “role residual” or “hangover identity” has a major impact, said Jeffrey Breese, a sociologist who is an associate dean at Marymount University in Virginia and who conducted the research through open-ended survey interviews with 62 members of the deans’ association (and judging from nods in the large audience of deans here, a representative sample).
It does seem fairly obvious that our past roles affect our current roles, but who hasn’t seen someone with a hangover identity (the non-alcoholic kind)?
At the Office, Taking a Break for the Oath of Office tells us what we already suspect: many of us are taking today off:
Ophelia Galindo, an expert in absences and productivity for Buck Consultants in Orange, Calif., predicts that twice as many people will skip work on Tuesday than the average for a day after a holiday.
Ms. Galindo said that many of her clients — some of the nation’s largest retailers and manufacturers, as well as hospitals — had called her to say that they expected a lot of people would be off. But even if everyone shows up, she added, there are questions about how much work will get done, with employees turning to live Internet broadcasts to watch the festivities.
“The dilemma that some employers are facing is, do I block access to certain sites?” Ms. Galindo said. “They might just tolerate the loss of productivity because in the long run, at least, that person came to work.”
Oh, don’t block access to web sites. Silly employers. That will just piss people off. Here’s a better idea:
Tony Dinkins, who owns a small company in Yonkers that does event planning, decided to organize a modest get-together for his workers and their families at the office. Mr. Dinkins, who is black, employs 10 people — “blacks, whites, Eastern Europeans, a real rainbow coalition,” he said — and all of them are supposed to be there on Tuesday, just in case they are needed, he said.
“We’re going to set up some TVs, order some food, put the phones on mute and we’re all going to share in this together,” he said.
Did you take the day off? I didn’t, but I will watch on-line.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be a bit more deliberate in thinking about theology in the workplace (and this blog as a form of lay ministry) without lapsing into theology proper, which is often completely incomprehensible to most of us. There’s a discussion in the UU blogosphere about how to develop curriculum for lay people in theology. I have some emerging thoughts on that, but more immediately, I’ve found that I can adapt some of the theological questions here for the workplace. (Of course, I’m not so sure these are solely theological questions. They’re certainly moral, spiritual, and religious as well.)
What is the purpose of work in my life?
Where is God (the holy, a divine presence) at work?
How can I reconcile my own suffering at work (and the suffering of others) with the necessity of work?
Why do hurtful things happen to me at work?
How can I best deal with troublesome people at work?
What do I owe my coworkers? What do they owe me?
How can I find joy at work?
Why do I make mistakes and screw up at work? And how can I best succeed?
Anything you’d like to add that you think about? Or modify? Or subtract? Sometimes I think the larger question that keeps arising is, “How can I be moral in a workplace that seems amoral?”
Oh, I am all over this article: Preoccupations - A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting.
If I could summarize my workplace experience glibly, I’ve had far more positive and lasting relationships with men than with women in the workplace. And, I fear, it’s at least partially, if not entirely, my own damn fault. Something about how women are socialized (or, gulp, how women are) seems to make some really good at being frenemies:
But while women have come a long way in removing workplace barriers, one of the last remaining obstacles is how they treat one another. Instead of helping to build one another’s careers, they sometimes derail them — for example, by limiting access to important meetings and committees; withholding information, assignments and promotions; or blocking the way to mentors and higher-ups.
And if you are a woman and happen to have a female co-worker who is a bully, watch out. A recent study by the Workplace Bullying Institute examining office behaviors — like verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority and destroying of relationships — found that female bullies aim at other women more than 70 percent of the time. Bullies who are men, by contrast, tend to be equal-opportunity tormentors when it comes to the gender of their target.
Women aren’t necessarily unkind to your face, of course. Hence “frenemy” rather than “enemy”.
I first noticed the infighting with adult women when I attended Smith. Never in my life had I seen women attempt to control one another, judge one another so harshly for wearing the wrong clothes or saying the wrong thing (or being from the “wrong type” of people). It astounded me that in a place so supposedly feminist that there was this degree of negativity toward one another. And it seemed almost impossible to not participate in one way or another. Unfortunately, this sort of environment isn’t unique. Women do this sort of sabotaging to one another all the time, especially in the workplace.
The article proposes a number of hypotheses for this sort of behavior (i.e. the scarcity of few places at the top, the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps because I did” approach), but I tell you after Smith, and several just-about-all-female workplaces,…
this cheese stands alone.
I definitely don’t think open office plans are part of my ideal work environment. Apparently open office plans are associated with increased levels of stress, conflict, and high blood pressure, as well as office turnover.
The evidence we found was absolutely shocking,” researcher Dr. Vinesh Oommen, of the Queensland University of Technology’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, told the AAP.
“In 90 percent of the research, the outcome of working in an open-plan office was seen as negative, with open-plan offices causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, and a high staff turnover.”
Researchers also found that the high level of noise causes employees to lose concentration, leading to low productivity.
“There are privacy issues because everyone can see what you are doing on the computer or hear what you are saying on the phone, and there is a feeling of insecurity,” Oommen added.
What kills me is the lack of privacy. Just give me a room with a door.
I’ve been spending some time working on a “life plan,” (a gag-able term, I know) as part of a larger strategy to evaluate how I want to move my business to the “next level” (also a gag-able term). As part of this process, I’m trying to envision the ideal work environment.
I could use some feedback and ideas from others, so I’ll put out my results so far:
The Ideal Work Environment (for me, anyway) involves…
–a combination of face-to-face contact, email, and phone conversations;
–being free to choose which projects I want to take on;
–projects that involve new ways of thinking about something or new ways of presenting information;
–an office with a door, or at least the semblance of privacy (I hate making phone calls with an audience listening);
–time to make what I’m working on great rather than time to simply make it workable;
–an aesthetically pleasing space (no 1970s California style architecture) in which to work with light from windows and plants;
–time in the day to take a walk to clear my head, which helps infinitely with my writing (not the head, but the clearing of the head);
–time in the day for other exercise and meals away from my desk;
–downtime in the evenings when I’m less helpful to others, and downtime in the form of vacations; and
–a short commute.
What about you? What is your ideal work environment?
Finally someone has acknowledged the brilliance that is Groundhog Day (the movie, mind you, not the actual day). Groundhog Day is one of the best films about work out there, and Stanley Fish claims it’s actually one of the 10 best of all time:
Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis. Another Pygmalion story, but this time the material the sculptor works on is himself. Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a jaded, dyspeptic, arrogant, cynical and obnoxious TV weatherman who on Feb. 2 finds himself covering the emergence of the groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pa. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds that it is not the next morning, but Groundhog Day all over again and all over again and all over again. (His own spring will be late.)
His responses to being trapped eternally in the same day include disbelief, despair, excess and hedonism before he settles down to make the best of the situation, which, it turns out, means making the best of himself — a self-help project that takes forever, but forever is what he has. (It is as if he were at once the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future and the object of their tutelary attention.). By bits and pieces, fits and starts, he makes himself into the most popular fellow in town and wins the love of his producer, the beautiful Rita (a perfectly cast Andie MacDowell). The miracle is that as the movie becomes more serious, it becomes funnier. The comedy and the philosophy (how shall one live?) do not sit side by side, but inhabit each other in a unity that is incredibly satisfying. This is a “feel-good” movie in at least two senses of the word “good.”
Just last year, after extensive conversations about potential work, I was brushed off via an exceptionally short email. It was unsettling, and left me wondering if I had somehow offended someone. Seems like this is not a unique experience and I’m not alone:
Four rounds of interviews culminated in concrete discussions about which office I was going to work in — the firm was thinking of having me work stateside for a year, then move overseas to open a new branch office. Then, all of a sudden, a one-paragraph e-mail arrives in my inbox, thanking me for my interest, wishing me luck with my career and encouraging me to keep in touch by a social networking site in the future. This came from the executive who’d been actively recruiting me and arranging dinners with the firm’s top managers.
You can read more about the situation, and related advice here. My sense is that because email is so seemingly painless to send, it may seem like it will automatically be painless to receive. Hence, it seems like a good idea to send an email and avoid a potentially painful conversation. Don’t do that. Have the conversation.
We’ve lived in our neighborhood for almost a decade, and know some of our neighbors quite well. We exchange gift baskets of goodies with them, some of them quite elaborate in cookie variety and size. But here’s one thing I can’t figure out. Neither Jim nor I actually enjoy going over to the neighbors to literally give them the basket. We have to force ourselves to do it. I can’t quite figure out why. We enjoy making the basket. We enjoy eating items from their basket. And we like the neighbors. Something about the actual act of gift giving of this nature repels us. (Do we think we’re forcing it on them? Are we insecure about the goodness of our goodies? Are we reminded of going door-to-door with girl/boy scouts or some sort childhood memory? Do we know that the neighbors don’t like people intruding on them?) I like giving gifts to friends and family, but there is something about this neighborly practice that makes me really squeamish.
Thoughts? Comparisons? Sharing of similar (or different experiences)?
I’ve been forwarding GhostGirl some of the more heinous electronic “holiday” greeting cards for businesses that I’ve received, and she has coined the phrase “crad” to describe these crappy cards. I’m sure there’s a circle of hell reserved for us for this most ungenerous practice, but I prefer to think it’s because GhostGirl and I are both interested in marketing and how images are presented. A sampling of said cards included:
–a greeting card in which the identically dressed staff wore clothing prominently displaying an unrelated label (e.g., LL Bean, Gap, etc.);
–a greeting card that directed me to play a holiday game (the game did not work, and required intellectual work on my part—not interesting to me at this moment in time);
–the world’s most depressing view of a certain college campus, which almost prompted me to burst into tears ; and
–anything with crappy electronic music.
It’s the thought that counts. (Repeat three times). And, yes, that’s a hamster-powered shredder. The only redeemingly quality these cards seem to have is that they’re electronic and didn’t kill a tree.
It’s snowing here, just outside of Santa Clarita, which is fairly unusual. I had set aside a block of time this morning to go to the Social Security office to straighten something out, but I’m thinking that the roads will be slick, and, to make a huge generalization, Southern Californians (I’m including myself here) are terrible drivers in the rain, so God forbid there is actual snow because that makes us THE WORST DRIVERS IN THE WORLD. I guess I’ll stay home.
I can offer this 12 things to throw at Bush
David Robinson of the Haas School of Business answers questions on business meal etiquette (apparently we are on somewhat of a food theme here at Surviving the Workday). In short:
-At a business lunch when someone else is paying (or when you’re paying, for that matter), avoid both the cheapest and most expensive items on the menu. Focus on what is easy to eat. I advise avoiding salads, which I love, but are unpredictable.
-At a fancy smchmancy business lunch at a restaurant, some people may expect you to eat french fries with a fork. I would suggest that these people are silly, but I’ve seen lots of folks cut up pizza with a knife and fork. If you’re seeking to impress someone, you could always follow her lead.
-At a business lunch, you may have to bring up business more gingerly than you might expect. Some folks would rather talk baseball.
Generally speaking, evangelical churches do better in recessions. And by “do better” I mean “have greater church attendance rates.” I’m not convinced that higher attendance is necessarily a goal in all churches (or they might be friendlier to newcomers). In any case, this recession is no exception. Evangelical churches are experiencing huge growth. Here’s the background:
In ”Praying for Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Religiosity in the United States,” David Beckworth, an assistant professor of economics at Texas State University, looked at long-established trend lines showing the growth of evangelical congregations and the decline of mainline churches and found a more telling detail: During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline during recessions, though a bit more slowly.
I would venture that one thing that evangelical churches manage to do better than certain other churches is find connections to daily life. However, there are a variety of other opinions on the the rate of growth in evangelical churches during recessions:
But why the evangelical churches seem to thrive especially in hard times is a Rorschach test of perspective.
For some evangelicals, the answer is obvious. ”We have the greatest product on earth,” said the Rev. Steve Tomlinson, senior pastor of the Shelter Rock Church.
Dr. Beckworth, a macroeconomist, posited another theory: though expanding demographically since becoming the nation’s largest religious group in the 1990s, evangelicals as a whole still tend to be less affluent than members of mainline churches, and therefore depend on their church communities more during tough times, for material as well as spiritual support. In good times, he said, they are more likely to work on Sundays, which may explain a slower rate of growth among evangelical churches in nonrecession years.
Msgr. Thomas McSweeney, who writes columns for Catholic publications and appears on MSNBC as a religion consultant, said the growth is fed by evangelicals’ flexibility: “Their tradition allows them to do things from the pulpit we don’t do — like ‘Hey! I need somebody to take Mrs. McSweeney to the doctor on Tuesday,’ or ‘We need volunteers at the soup kitchen tomorrow.’ ”
In a cascading financial crisis, he said, a pastor can discard a sermon prescribed by the liturgical calendar and directly address the anxiety in the air. “I know a lot of you are feeling pain today,” he said, as if speaking from the pulpit. “And we’re going to do something about that.”
There are times when the New York Times seems to be written toward a totally different sort of person than I am. The rich sort. Here’s some of their advice for cutting costs at work along with my comments:
Avoid impulsive spending on food and other items by leaving credit cards at home and bringing only cash with you to work.
I wouldn’t pay for a snack with a credit card, anyway (that’s what spare change is for), but apparently they think people do. In any case, I carry a credit card for emergency purposes, and that certainly means I need it at work.
Bringing lunch to work, even two or three times a week, cuts down on food costs, said Susan M. Cooper, a certified financial planner and manager of the New York metro branch office of AXA Advisors.
Again, clearly I’m not in the demographic of people who should be reading this article. I always brought lunch (or make lunch) because I’m picky about food, and generally won’t spend money on food other people make.
Consider starting a snack pool, by asking co-workers if they want to donate a snack like granola bars or crackers to share with the group, said Beth Pinsker Gladstone, editor of WalletPop.com, a personal finance advice site.
Does a snack pool sound like a workplace nightmare to you too? You know that someone is going to gorge on the snacks, and there will soon be a Ms. Theologian letter about how John ate all the granola bars and won’t replenish the supplies.
And try eliminating both your morning and afternoon latte.
I’ve never bought coffee twice a day. This reminds me of some of the stupidest financial planning advice I ever heard, which was just about identical: skip Starbucks coffee, and pay your retirement account instead. That’s a good idea as long as you have money to buy coffee at Starbucks in the first place. I don’t think most of us are choosing coffee over retirement.
For some people, a gym membership is a vital long-term investment in their health. But if you feel you need to save money by forgoing it, try waking up earlier and going for a walk or a run before you leave for work, or squeezing in a walk at lunch. If you want more intensity, add wrist or ankle weights and stop to jump rope.
This would not be appropriate for every office, but Ms. Pinsker Gladstone says she exercises while she sits at her desk by using an exercise ball instead of a chair.
Good thing I’m not on an exercise ball because I’m laughing so hard I’d fall off. I actually think a gym membership somewhere near work is a really good idea for your health. The exercise ball? Kinda stupid as a chair.
Increasing your health care deductible will also pad your paycheck. Switching from a $250 to a $500 deductible, for example, can significantly lower your monthly health insurance premium, Ms. Cooper said.
A $250 deductible? I’ve never even seen that at a day job. And now I’m in the world of individual health plans with $5000 deductible.
I suppose it’s not all bad. Surely there’s a helpful tidbit in there. And perhaps someone would like to buy my exercise ball?
Dean Dad (boy, do I want to add an apostrophe somewhere in there) ponders the humane way to lay off folks:
With a storm of this magnitude approaching – and honestly, some sober and sane people around me who’ve been doing this for decades, and whose judgment I respect, are saying it’s the worst they’ve ever seen – there’s a real temptation to just lower your head, do what needs to be done, and be as unprovocative as possible in the interim. Given the way that some people react when given scary news, the temptation to keep them in the dark until the last possible moment is real.
But I can’t help but believe that it’s better to be as open as we can be. The catch, as I learned in the last go-round, is that ‘as open as we can be’ doesn’t tell people what they actually want to know, until it suddenly and cruelly does.
This is a great follow-up to our discussion about whether we’d want to be told that we’re being laid off: How Much Honesty from Your Employer. Wander over to Dean Dad and see what’s in the comments.
A few weeks ago, I edited portions of a textbook on culinary operations. As I read the textbook, I noticed how much information there was about restrarant management and food service that could be learned from a book. For example, there’s actually a formula to figure out how much hamburger patties shrink (pre-cook to post-cook) so that you can accurately order the amount of ground beef. Now I would have thought that most of that information would be learned in hands-on experience, but there was quite a lot in that book. Of course, that doesn’t mean the book would be useful for everyone.
The preparation for most professions is a combination of classroom learning and non-classroom experience. The ratio between the two varies according to the profession, and, if there is flexibility, according to the needs of the worker. Editing, for example, requires almost no classroom learning, and is entirely something that is learned hands-on. Writing is learned in much the same fashion, but we continue to value MFA programs, because they legitimize writers in some fashion. You got a degree; you must know how to do something. Also, they sound like fun. But that’s probably irrelevant.
I’m not sure ministry is that different from other professions in terms of negotiating the ratio between formal classroom learning and informal hands-on experience. Ordained ministry in the Unitarian Universalist tradition leans toward the classroom learning with the requirement of a three-year master’s degree, but also includes required hands-on experience in both a parish and a hospital. And, of course, there’s other stuff too: a psychological evaluation, paperwork, and a big interview.
The questions being discussed are “How can we best support excellence in ministry?” which has lead to “Is this the best way to train ministers?” and more thoughts here. I can’t answer those questions. I’m not a minister. But as someone who studies how people move in the workplace, I think the issues raised are interesting because our requirements in training expose what we value. By requiring so much formal schooling, we express that we greatly value education of a certain variety. And since so many ministers go on to doctoral work, it seems that education continues to be valued (or almost required informally?). And institutions. We value institutions. The sort that are colleges and universities, particularly those with name recognition. We value mentorship, but mostly the formal kind in an internship. We seem to really value debt too, or at least see it as a sort of a macho marker of a “call”.
This is an evolving post, but it’s certainly linked to other topics that I think about: When the Hurdles are Insurmountable. What exactly happens when you put up lots of hoops to jump through? I think you get folks who are good at jumping through hoops. Is there anything wrong with that? I’m not so sure there is. It seems to me that some of the jobs that a minister must complete during the week, particularly the tasks that are process oriented, are entirely about hoops.
Wal-Mart has noted changes in consumer behavior, which it considers “disturbing” in terms of the economy. These changes include:
- About 80% of shoppers cite “personal financial security” as their top concern in internal surveys, up from 65% just a few months earlier.
- A rise in purchases of staples instead of discretionary items.
- Some shoppers aren’t coming to the stores as often so they don’t have to drive as much. Others, who may be unemployed, are coming more frequently to buy a few items when they have money in their pockets.
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Wal-Mart has seen a 2.5% increase in sales at the start and the middle of the month, when workers are paid, compared with four months ago.
I’ve also made some observations that mark changes in the economy.
- 4 of 60 homes in our valley are in the process of foreclosure (that’s 1 in 15—yikes)
- our neighborhood looks kinda crappy—lots of delayed maintenance issues with the properties that aren’t foreclosed
- I’ve been approached while pumping gas for money a number of times in the past year (but never before)
- most of the teenagers that I know (and some of the folks in their early twenties) are unemployed after looking for part-time or full-time work
- I know lots of folks who have been laid-off (though on a positive note, many have found jobs, just not the youngish ones)
What have you observed? Anecdotal evidence is fine.
A survey: Would you like to know if you’re going to be laid-off?
For employers, a quandry: speak of woes or wait? explores reactions of employees to being laid-off. Apparently DHL employees learned that they were going to be laid-off when their customers told them during deliveries. Nice job with employee communications, DHL.
In any case, would you like to know ahead of time that you were most likely going to be laid off? Or not? Or know partial information?
For most of elementary school, I was in speech therapy once a week. I have a lisp. I can’t hear it, but it really bothered the speech therapist. Every speech therapy session, I would repeat, “Sally sells seashells by the seashore,” and she would move a dried lima bean from one plastic cup to another. Over and over for an hour. Sometimes the speech therapist would make an encouraging remark, “Good!” or “Excellent!” and occasionally we talked about the position of my tongue, but mostly we moved those beans between cups.
I hated speech therapy. I didn’t think I had a big problem. It was incredibly boring. The encouraging remarks felt condescending. And the lima beans were not particularly a reward. Oooh! I managed to move another lima bean.
I thought of those lima beans today. My mom is in the hospital. She had a stroke and is more or less okay. However, today she was visited by the speech therapist, who made her read something silly out loud and then suggested speech therapy for her. Mom didn’t think she had a problem. And I don’t think she has a speech problem (at least not from the stroke—apparently I belong to a whole family of lispers). I asked my mom if there were lima beans involved when she read out loud. She said no, it hadn’t come to that. Yet.
Beware the presence of dried lima beans, friends.
Is it possible that if I want a job in the Obama administration, I have to hand over everything I’ve ever written? I’ll assume it’s just everything that is published in some fashion.
Jobseekers are being asked to supply copies of all résumés for the last decade - presumably to screen out people inflating their credentials.
Applicants are also being asked to hand over all written material - from books and articles to lowly comments on blog posts. They must provide all internet handles, and the URL of professional and personal networking sites.
All resumes in the past decade? Do people actually keep old resumes? All blog comments? Possibly that’s just everything google-able. I’m not sure that would be possible for me to find all comments. The rest of the requests makes somewhat more sense:
Applicants are asked to list any legal offences, including traffic violations punished by more than a $50 (£34) fine. They are asked to list any gift worth over $50 they or their spouse have received from anyone who is not a relative or close friend. They must reveal whether they or anybody in their family owns a gun.
A good portion of the questionnaire is devoted to seeking financial information -down to the rate of interest the applicant is paying on his or her mortgage.
Legal offenses? None. Gifts over $50 from anyone who is not a relative or close friend? I don’t think there are any of those, but who the heck knows. Would I even remember? Oh, maybe gifts from clients? Guns? None. Mortgage rate? Extremely low, thank you very much.
That’s a lot of information in the name of avoiding scandal. I think I’ll skip the application.