I cannot let this day pass without noting it. Attention must be paid.
I’m starting this under the wire of March 15 (but willl finish after midnight). Today would be Pat’s 95th birthday.
I’d have to look back to see if I managed to honor the Ides of March, the birthday of Pat, ever since she left this plane in 2002. I think so. I hope so.
This week was one of those weeks where I thought of her a lot. I thought a lot about common sense and New England and the Massachusetts attitude that won’t stand for mollycoddling. Pat would have opinions, no doubt, about modern workplaces with the discussions of life/work balance and all of the stress and anxiety work and life seem to bring to the millenials and Gen Z.
She’d maybe remark that there is nothing about work that is actually promised to be anything but a pain in the ass.
She’d maybe contradict that thought a moment later to reflect on how things are easier and maybe better now and how the olden ways were too harsh.
She’d maybe say that she wished she could have had life/work balance.
Or, maybe she’d laugh and come up with a funny line about how the new generations have fewer skills to survive and thrive.
Here’s the Pat wisdom that I kept hearing over and over in my head this week — You just need a hobby. An inveterate crafter, she always had some project or another. As kids we had hand-knitted mittens all winter. In later years, she constructed a village of dollhouses, decorated and jammed with miniattures she also built.
She also read two newspapers a day, kept mystery and other novels at hand, did crossword puzzles in ink, cooked, ocassionally baked, and had some time to browse discount stores for treasures.
The solution to all feelings of stress and anxiety was to stay busy. Or, maybe the solution to all feelings.
Pat could be eccentric and all sorts of kooky, but making something really does have salutory effects. Creation is therapy. Some days after toil that feels like nothing got done and work is futile, I whip up a crocheted dish cloth. Then the day isn’t a total sinkhole.
I wanted to hear Pat’s sense of humor this week. Nay, I wanted to be Pat and tell an overworking colleague they need a hobby. It was a day where their bad day at work was becoming emotional. I wanted to will them into having a creative activity in hand to prevent them burning out. I wanted to blurt out, do something fun.
Problem after problem cropped up all week. Mostly just misunderstandings born from the ginned up sense of urgency that revs Silicon Valley combined with inexperienced people fumbling.
I work tech adjacent with a young workforce that wants to change the world. Using bleeding edge new tech and old-timey scientific research, if all goes well everythig biological about us meatbags will be understood, diseases will end, and there will be dancing in the street.
Meanwhile, though, I help out, because someone needs to push papers around, make spreadsheets, figure out what checks to write and pay the bills. I’m an A#1 paper pusher.
To some in the virtual corridors of my largely remote workplace, I shine on Zoom screens, regaling people with campfire stories from when work was done on paper and stored in manila folders. I used the ancient tools, faxing, typing,copying, using phones (connected to the wall or desk) to talk words out loud without text.
Emojis looked like this : – )
A wrinkled shaman, I have seen things. I draw on a lifetime of experience and the wisdom of those who came before me and through the ether people arrive inside my computer screen. I listen. And the youngsters ask me for help. Lost in the office wilderness.
For them, I summon the holy gods and mystical fairies and occasionally ask people to breathe with me. From a dark space — one could say that is pulled from the vicinity of my ass — I solve problems with suggestions like, “let’s ask the person who manages that, and see if they’ll help.”
Twice this week I heard that I’m repping some kind of magical problem solving.
My magic is only magical to the kids these days who never got sworn at in an office by the office bully or were forced to repeat boring ass shit over and over to “pay dues” before you were ever allowed a task that was vaguely interesting. Hammered into my head the hard way are 1,012 tricks to get work done.
But that’s not at all why I wish I could pick up the phone and talk to Pat. It’s really about resiliency.
A lot of what people tell me about stress. Some of my conversations are rooted in people coming to me when they want both a neutral point of view and maybe a sense of humor. I get asked a crazy tapestry of random things from a wild assortment of workers.
Some of my advice is basically “buck up.” Or maybe, “what’s the worst thing that could happen.” Inside my head, and then jumping through the computer, I hear Pat’s voice essentially coming out of my mouth. One day, I’ll convince all the kids to find a hobby.
In the end, I will honor her legacy. I’ll keep crafting. Also, now that I’m 60, I want to live what she announced when she hit a milestone age — Now that I’m old, I won’t be holding back.
As another ride around the sun rolled by, it’s March again. Not just March, but the day that I will always associate with the greats, Caesar and Pat. The Ides of March have come (but not gone), and so my mother’s birthday.
Even if it weren’t her birthday, I woke up thinking of Pat any way, a sign maybe in the universe’s kink of sending signs. Here’s the story.
The other night, I was toddling off to bed. It was later than it should have been, and like my mother before me I had fallen asleep on the couch. The wind and rain howled outside.
I saw a little ball on the floor, which I thought was loose yarn I had dropped from my crochet/knitting bag. I stooped to pick it up.
It wasn’t yarn. It was warm and moved a little. I yelped and took my hand back.
Apparently, a little critter in the order rodentia was living its final hours in a fetal ball. I assisted it down the road to the final roundup, off this mortal coil, and into a plastic bag, triple tied.
The next day, traps were set. Then, at 2:47 a.m. March 15, 2023, the same day Pat was born in the auspicious year of 1929, while banks are failing again, I heard a snap from another room. I buried my head deeper under my blankets and pillows and slept uneasily.
In the light of day, I woke to Pat’s birthday and found the snapped mouse trap and its little victim.
But that’s not the story. It’s the spark.
Around this time of year back east in the wild lands of Braintree, winter is trying to decide whether to let the crocuses poke through or continue to shit white cold piles of snow.
Pat’s house sat next to a small swath of woods. Winter sent rodent-shaped refuges seeking shelter from its storms to terrorize Pat.
Pat became unglued. Agitated. Beside herself, Petrified. Absolutely batshit-around-the-bend-crazy-scared-out-of-her-mind at any little field mouse that might poke a whiskered nose out or scurry across the linoleum. She’d practically levitate to the ceiling climbing on chairs and cabinets and counters away from real and imagined threats and call me to come over to save her.
Side note. Pat didn’t call me much. It was a Mountain not coming to Mohamed, Mohamed going to the mountain kind of thing. I called her, she did not call me.
But fear of mice tossed protocol out the door. She would call for emergency help.
I would come by and set traps. Then, I would have to come back, check the traps, and clear away the dead.
Truth be told, inside I may only be a step or two away from Pat’s terror. I’ve felt on edge for days. Corners are all full of potential enemies lurking and watching. The mice feel my fear and are waiting to attack. I hear them breathing.
I can gird my loins and battle, if I must. My rational brain struggles with my irrational revulsion and fear, but I can do what must be done.
One winter, I went to Pat’s house to check the trap I set.
She wouldn’t enter the room. She pointed and shouted at me to do something from another room. She yelled orders from the other side of the house, telling me where the broom and dustpan were and a paper bag and the garbage bags and maybe some Lysol and napalm for good measure.
I braced myself and swept the former beast into the paper bag. I rolled up the bag. I put that paper bag into a garbage bag and tied the garbage back tightly shut.
With my morbid package, I walked to the kitchen toward Pat for my disposal orders.
Pat lost her mind!
She leapt. Leapt like the best leaping thing. Gazelle or hare or cheetah?
Pat leapt onto the kitchen counter, hugging the side of the refrigerator and cabinets for balance, and screaming bloody murder. She accused me of trying to terrorize her. She accused me of threatening her. She accused me of trying to kill her.
She banished me from the kitchen, from the living room, onto the porch, into the yard, onto the street. I could not return without proof my hands were empty and the dead mouse was removed.
(I can’t remember if I got away with putting it in an outside garbage can or if I had to put it in my trunk and drive away with it eventually.)
Back to today.
I have so much more to say, but I’ve hit the midnight hour and just missed hitting publish on Pat’s day. This story is one of many that still resonate inside my head like they just happened.
She’s been gone now 21 years this January. I can now say the year with conviction, because my brother Danny finally took care of unfinished business that all of her children had neglected.
Pat is buried next to her Earl under the gravestone she erected for Earl with spare room on the stone’s face to add her name. For the last couple of decades, though, like the tomb of the unknown soldier, her name wasn’t there above her head. Danny fixed that. If you find yourself at Braintree Cemetery, you can find Pat and Earl together.
I imagine you could also visit the family that also is there as a mystery incantation from my childhood, grave markers in a row that say “Father,” “Mother,” “Sister,” “Charlie.” I will always wonder about Charlie.
The only person I consistently write about here is Pat. There’s an archive of Pat stories and reflections. Pat was my mom.
In the tapestry of all of the relationships, if Pat was once my center, directly adjacent was her sister, Nancy. Anne L. is her actual name, and for my whole life, and I guess her whole life, she flipped between the names Nancy and Anne, Anne and Nancy. For the family, it was Nancy.
Then, Nancy got married. Pretty sure it was 1970, but being around 5 or 6 years old, I may not be the best chronicler. From then on, there was another name change. The family ran everything together — NancyandRon.
I feel like it was every Friday night, but maybe it was Sunday. Let’s say every weekend. For every week of of my life as a kid, Nancy and then NancyandRon came over our house for a meal. During the week there was more often than not other visits and activities and meals and all sorts of things. My childhood memories all include them alongside Pat and my brothers and sister.
I can’t for the life of me figure out one memory in line with the historical record. A thing that never happens when you are the youngest of five kids happened. I got adult attention all to myself, and NancyandRon took me into the city of Boston to see the movie Doctor Doolittle.
If you had a gun to my head, I would swear the year was 1972, and I’d also claim that after the movie they took me to the Museum of Science, walked me through an exhibit on reproduction, explained all the things no one had ever told me about babies, and then shared the news that my cousin Ted was on his way.
Only thing is Doctor Doolittle came out in 1967. Back in ’67, my own father would have still been alive. I would have been only three.
The important part is Nancy did indeed tell me where babies come from. Nancy equipped me with so many things everyone needs to know. In my childhood, she was a colossus. She was a second mother. She was just so many things.
Pat had gaps in parenting. And, Pat’s precocious youngest child — the one clicking on a keyboard with these very words — had all her formative years overlaid with Pat’s toughest years. When I was 4, the world changed. My dad died, and buried with him was a part of Pat. Deep inside, she wore sadness that stayed for the rest of her life.
She soldiered on and raised us kids and did everything she could in a world not really welcoming of single moms. My school life coincided with Pat’s getting a teaching certificate and becoming a teacher.
Whenever Pat was too tired, or overwhelmed, or sad, or busy, or just not able to answer all of my questions, she turfed me over to Nancy. Nancy always had answers for me.
Nancy taught me about books and how to process real from imagined. When I began voraciously reading any book in front of me, which included The Exorcist around age 12, she explained adult themes and horror.
I learned about art, philosophy, travel, theater, museums, and culture at her knee.
Nancy told me stories about my dad that no one else did. My mother couldn’t talk about him. I think it hurt too much. But Nancy told me about fun trips and how she, 12 years younger than Pat, loved hanging out with my mom and dad when they were dating. She told me one of my favorite things to hear about my dad — That he always loved novelty, trying gadgets when they came out or new foods. I see my DNA in that memory.
Nancy also taught me about love and family. As a pre-teen or teen or whatever hormonal nightmare age, I did something wrong. In my apology to her, I made it about myself and said something about it being OK if she hated me. In her anger at my shitty apology, she taught me two things, how to apologize empathetically and sincerely and that she loved me and you can make mistakes and still be loved.
As an adult, Nancy was a co-conspirator in wrangling my adult relationship with my mom. We checked in with each other, Nancy would call me when my mom was pissed off at me, and we’d strategize. Late in her life, Pat wasn’t doing great at taking care of herself, and so then we could strategize on keeping her going.
I learned from Nancy a great strategy of managing Pat that always worked. Pretend you needed her help, even if you didn’t.
I suspect that ALL of my childhood years when Nancy was there visiting, and the prevailing narrative was that my mother was making sure Nancy had a good meal or help with whatever, it was a sham. Nancy let my mother take care of her, and then take care of her and Ron, and then take care of her and her family, because Pat needed it, as much or more than Nancy needed the help.
They both had death and overwhelming loss in common. My mother’s husband, and my aunt’s son, Tommy, left wounds that never fully healed. They also both hid their wounds and soldiered on.
Yet, in the worst times and the best, they were a pretty hilarious and awesome duo. I recently told my cousin Ted about when our grandfather, their father, was in a nursing home. Nancy hated the ritual of signing in and signing out and thought it was particularly stupid, when week after week the people at the home recognized all visitors. You couldn’t leave unless you signed out, apparently a gesture to keep the residents in.
So, she would make up fake names.
One day, she and Pat visited, and she signed them in as Charlotte and Emily Brontë. But, then, she had to leave before my mother, running out without telling my mother their fake names.
In the end, after a lot of frustration, my mother had to beg to see the sign in sheet. They were able to verify that the Brontë sisters had not, in fact, visited anyone that day.
One of my favorite weeks since moving to California was when Nancy came to visit. Her presence and everything she shared was for me the closest thing to M. meeting my mother.
It was incredible to hear Nancy’s views on San Francisco — A Mecca she had read about and wanted to visit. We took her to City Lights, and walked around North Beach talking about the Beats. She bought a “Howl” cap and I think a Ferlinghetti book. We ate fresh strawberries that she declared the best she had ever had. We cruised by the Berkeley campus, where she quoted Mario Savio and talked about how much his speeches from the steps of Sproul Hall meant back in the day. And, bonus of bonuses, a naked man tipped his cap to us while we crossed Castro Street.
With some of my cousins, my sister, a friend, and me, Nancy marched on the Whitehouse in January 2017, alongside an army of pissed off women.
I write all of this down, because as a co-worker said to me this week, “aunts can be important and weirdly influential.” And, yes, this aunt to me is very very important and was weirdly and enormously influential.
Nancy called me today. She called from hospice back in Massachusetts thousands of miles away. She called to say goodbye. We shared words of love and an awkward conversation that no one is ever prepared to have. And then we hung up.
I really wish it was not goodbye. I really wish it was au revoir. I hope for peace in the end.
Tracy’s first album came out in ’88 I think. I got my first nonprofit job in 1989. Accounts payable clerking at a major big deal cutting edge research lab.
The founder was alive. Jack Whitehead, called Jack for no reason I could figure out, because his name was Edwin. He wore suits and bow ties and gave the scientists latitude to do big things.
The Whitehead Institute was founded with millions. A lot of millions. Maybe $100 million. But million is the key word.
It was the 80s. A million dollars were a lot of dollars. To me, he was rich, and the job brought a lot of comfortable things — salary, growth, generous parties, and an assistant to the president who bellowed “fuck” with conviction.
After the Whitehead, I worked for grants or research where people were no longer walking around alive. Legacy, brand names and death.
This week, working under living donors came back with conviction or a vengeance. But, these donors, who fall in and out of the top 10 richest people in the world depending on the ebb and flow of the market and how much they give away, were in preschool or kindergarten for my first job.
Crazy wealthy. Crazy philanthropic. And I’ve spent the week meeting people doing their best work. inspiringly crazy work. A woman who realized in her 40s that lifelong health issues were from a rare disease. A scientist who donated a kidney to a stranger.
And, back from COVID, back in an office, with 48 hour testing, someone literally served me caviar, and then a champagne and Aperol spritzer.
This story is the kind of random that is so random it creates its own pattern. This story just makes me wonder if life it orderly or purely chaotic.
Today is also Captain’s Log, 2022, the Ides of March. Had Pat the Champion hung onto the terrestrial plane, she’d have been a ripe or seasoned or well-aged 93. But, she’s been gone for 20 years instead.
Today I got my first pay check from my new job that’s doing new philanthropy in the new millennium with new money from one of the younger of the world’s billionaires.
The TL;dr – I got knocked off the career ladder of blazers and blouses and budgets, writing memos back in 2004, coincidentally around Independence Day. A bit shy of two decades later, I get hired as a temp by a friend who was a front row viewer of the 2004 flameout.
I always wonder whether Pat’s dying was a catalyst, a lever that proved the center could not hold. My status quo for so long included her, so change was a-gonna come, when she died. And it did.
When I moved to California, I didn’t just avoid a career ladder, I worked 14 years at a place that brags about having a “flat” structure. No where to go and certainly not up.
I switched it up in 2019 and tried a stint in the local industry of tech. It was fun while it lasted, decked out in all the cliches. I wore a branded hoodie, drank cold brew and kombucha on tap and sat in an SF open office. And, I eventually got waylaid like the rest of the world in the fallout from COVID19.
I’m pretty sure Pat and I would have bonded on the international mandate to stay the fuck home.
I onboarded to my new, new job, no longer a temp on contract, on 2/22/2022, a year to the day from my last, non-temp job.
So this month it all converges. I get to use a lot from my bag of job tricks from a pretty big bag. Who knew I’d find something where having worked in grants management for science research, at a philanthropy, and for a CTO at a tech company would all come together. In one day, I defined PR in software development to a lawyer, explained charitable purposes to an engineer and processed a grant award to support an International research center.
Today, to remember Pat, my mother, perhaps the strongest influencer in my life, I celebrate all of the coincidences and wrinkles that got me here. My coworker from the beginning of the century who is my boss now. The date 2/2/22, when I marked a funny anniversary, and I created a new milestone, And a very nice paycheck on Pat’s birthday.
My central career story makes no sense any more. In the early 2000s, I was essentially fired for blogging. There was a time, back in the days before the Twitter president, when writing on the internet was novel and new and unknown and confusing. I jumped into the fray.
The short version is that I had been writing quietly. Journaling. Typing out the odd piece. Tucking it in a pile in my room and wondering if I would ever share.
I took an adult ed class on standup comedy to try to get out of my head and tackle my inner shyness. Ultimately, I took two standup comedy classes, because even though I did OK after the first one, public speaking still made me sick. Sharing my own words filled me with dread (and nausea and a little bit of a thrill, or I wouldn’t have tried again and again).
I actually had a boyfriend who after going to a comedy show said to me, “you’re funny, but you’d never have the guts to do what they do.”
Years later, I did it. I did it a lot. I went on stage. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed, mostly I got better. I definitely made some lifelong friends. I did, mostly, get over my intense fear of public speaking.
Blogging was something I heard about, and comedy friends had started writing in the brave new wilderness of the worldwide internets. I joined the nascent movement and wrote comedy vignettes and what I thought were amusing observations.
I ranted and opined and wrote a couple of funny things to an audience of like 20 friends.
Meanwhile, I was also a “career gal.” I had what seemed at the time a fantastic 9 to 5 gig (actually more like 7:30 to 7:30+). I managed grants and budgets at a research center and helped manage office space at a building that was slated for destruction. I had people reporting to me. I trained people. I signed off on things. I had a salary. My director encouraged me.
Let me back up, though. Before this job, I had had another one. I was at the quintessential in-between job (which I didn’t realize was bookended by two gloriously epic firings from ostensibly great jobs).
I was managing all of the research budgets and research and grant activities for a craptastically mismanaged collaboration of teaching hospitals. I think the CFO may have been cooking the books. The lead scientist seemed unengaged, at best. The worst was one crazy scientist who wouldn’t follow any guidelines for safe handling of tissue, tumors, animals, needles, pretty much anything that required safe handling.
Ain’t nothing like a call from building maintenance asking if those were your mice in the dumpster.
I persevered, but I knew this wasn’t my permanent solution.
Enter C. We’ll call her C., because it doesn’t match her real name and no reason to implicate her with my rambling.
C. worked at one of the nearby hospitals that collaborated with the center where I worked. She told me about an opening for a grants manager at her hospital. I applied, I got it, and C. and I became co-workers.
C. is younger than me. At the time, it was a ginormous age gap, as she was in her 20s and I, like Methuselah, was in my 30s, wizened and wise. We talked a lot, and she credits me with teaching her everything she knows about grants. She also credits me with dropping work philosophy gems, like “Don’t thank your employer for paying you or giving you a raise. That’s what they are supposed to do.”
Then, one day, my blog got me a visit to HR.
As the HR rep read through printouts of my comedy writing–pages and pages of printouts–she focused on a particular story where a disgruntled office administrator “shivved” a coworker over office supplies. AKA, high comedy.
I had been reported to HR as a risk for workplace violence. The notion was that these writings were my diary, and I was a burgeoning unabomber.
Sparing all of the details, what happened next involved my passing a psych exam, an informational chat with a counselor (who wanted mostly to talk about radical comedy and Lenny Bruce), lawyers, paperwork, anguished phone calls (off the record) with the director, who said I was ruining my life, faxes, more calls and finally a mutual agreement with my now former employer.
What I left behind was a messy office and a lot of work, but also processes and documentation. My colleague, C., who helped me find the job, picked up where I left off. Ultimately, she not just took over my stuff, but she became the center manager that I would have likely been had I not imploded. (There’s a whole backstory there with a wealthy donor and planned construction, which I would have helped implement.)
The person who reported me, as it turns out, actually was gunning for me. Or, in line with the story that sunk me, had intentionally shivved me in the back. He looked for flaws in my work, and failing that found my personal, comedy life. I believe, if I understood the ironic twist correctly, he had forgotten how much I had done for him at work, and he lost his job without my input.
Ultimately, I moved west and put the chapter behind me.
I didn’t know about my backstabber or C.’s career until she also moved west. We had a coffee and chat here in California and caught up on a decade or more of seeing how the story ended. Not only did she pick up my work, her career blossomed, and she developed a deep relationship with the director who once supported me. She honestly deserved/deserves it all.
One thing we’ve both shared in our careers is a reluctance to lead. Since moving to California, I’ve mostly managed to avoid managing. I was incredibly happy to take a job in which I would not have to manage people and had less responsibility and was really a 40-hour week not a 50, 60, 70-hour week.
C. came out here and ostensibly tried to also limit her management, but she’s failed at not succeeding. Despite what she claims is her best efforts to lay low, much like the work she inherited from me long ago, she keeps getting promoted.
Now here we both are about 20 years later. We are not the young career gals we once were. I’ve mostly steadily worked and mostly steadily avoided management. C. is a director at a major Silicon Valley place that funds research.
As of today, I am back working in the world of scientific research grants. As of today, I report to C.
It’s a story of redemption. Or it’s a story of relationships. Or it’s a story of burning bridges with organizations but not people. Or it’s a story of moving west like the Joad family, weathering twists and turns and ending up somewhere in California.
It feels like a wheel. And, maybe this time I’m spinning above the motion not under it.
Another March has rolled around on the calendar, after a March last year that I thought would be the March to end all Marches.
Here we are, still sheltering, as the world scrambles to get vaccinated now. The speed of the vaccine is an improvement. You can’t not think of pandemics and health emergencies past, and how they were handled. We now have new president, Old Joe, at the very least asking the country to behave. I don’t know that people had to be begged to be conscientious and careful for polio.
I still think of Pat, my mother all the time. Especially when I do things like buy a roll of green burlap and try to convince M. that I can make something with it for his holiday decorating. Crafting with bits and bobs and junk and trash and bailing wires and whatever else you have on hand, and visualizing that something might be possible in a pile of rubbish, was Pat every damn day.
Today, she would have been 92. She would have been a 92 full of so much to say about the past year.
I’m certain she would have hated Donald Trump almost as much as she hated Cardinal Bernie Law. Although, she’d always hate Law more for his role in letting little kids get hurt. Repeatedly. For years. Horribly. In Pat’s judgement there can’t be a hell big enough for the priest scandal and any child molester or person who looked away from the molester but did nothing.
I’m sure, if Pat were here, I’d be getting an earful on not working. Whenever I’m between jobs, I hear her worrying voice. Will I end up in some Dickensian debtors’ prison, if I don’t get a J. O. B.?
At exactly the same time, she’d be telling my husband that it’s a poor family that can’t take care of one bum. (The immortal words of her uncle Joe, opining on the unemployed.)
She’d have to admit that between the extended unemployment from the government, the craziness of COVID19 and the fact that M. is working, we’ll be fine.
I have to give equal space in my head for Pat’s worry about work with her equal conviction that you can’t let the bastards of any workplace bring you down. From everything she ever said behind your back, you’d find out that Pat was actually pro-fun and doing your own thing.
All of the above is pretty dull. It’s not a fitting way to honor her birthday. Let’s try some chestnuts from way back when, when Pat was alive and kicking. Really kicking.
One of the things that I definitely inherited in my DNA from Pat (although rumor has it my dad Earl probably had a dollop, too) is a willingness to add a little kookiness to any workplace. Sometimes begrudgingly, but always with gusto, she’d take on decorations or gifts or ceremonies, and throw in some straight out of her head crazy touch. Pat’s head contained Pinterest well before Pinterest was born.
When I left my old job, my first California job, my first job in a long time with a healthy run and leaving with goodwill, I left the familiarity to do wacky things. A group of friends, among the coworkers with whom I still try to stay in touch, we held impromptu contests and challenges and mini events. They weren’t official company events, but they were sufficiently goofy to not get stopped by management.
This time of year, it would be all about Peeps. Peeps are wads of sugar, ostensibly marshmallow, shaped like bunnies and chicks with all sorts of radioactive food coloring. Given their hardy, some would say inedible, structure, they lend themselves to construction projects.
The Washington Post had a famous diorama contest for 10 years. They killed it, coincidentally or not, with the beginning of the Trump Administration. At my old job, we maintained the tradition.
In the heady days of Trump’s first 100 days, I knitted pussy hats and handed them out alongside my sister and aunt and cousins and some of their families and friends in the streets of Washington, DC, while marching with thousands of angry women.
I also contributed to tiny little Peeps-sized hats, along with my coworkers, who also marched. We made an epic, historically accurate diorama, based on our lived experiences as marchers in despair at Trump’s ascendency. Had Pat been around, I believe she would have marched along with her sister, too.
If Pat had been around, I believe she would have found the source of Peeps with the ultimate discount, bargain, cheap (pun intended) rate. She probably would find a Peeps coupon.
And, she would have spitballed diorama ideas like no other. She’d probably pitch me ideas to use for future pranks and challenges at work.
I do miss that between my unemployment and the pandemic, there’s no place to pointlessly entertain yourself while earning your daily pay.
Pat would also embrace the pandemic. Not only would she not mind being forced to stay away from people — kind of a utopia for some of us — she would have figured out some angles for fun. I am certain, if you were Pat’s friend or family, she’d anonymously be sending you packages or leaving suspicious bundles with old shopping bags on your porch with something fun or tasty inside or maybe just something she bought on sale.
If anyone reads this post, try to carry on the goofiness that is still possible. Wear a hat on your next Zoom call, maybe even a balloon hat. Or change your zoom background to something out of the ordinary — not the Golden Gate Bridge or a tasteful Apartment Therapy interior — try a ball pit or bar or Chucky Cheese’s or PeeWee’s Playhouse.
Make something. Even if it’s lopsided or imperfect. Use a milk carton as a vase. Bring a treat to work, if you go to work, or send a treat to a coworker, if you don’t. Send an anonymous package or leave something on someone’s porch.
Fun is something you can make. Make something for Pat the Maker.
I had the worst first day at a new job, beginning the worst, first week. I’m part of an administrator affinity group on Facebook and posted the blow by blow all week to that circle of colleagues. Here’s the cut and post of those entries
Remember kids, work doesn’t need to steal your soul. There are also NO administrative emergencies. Even when I worked at a hospital, pushing paper didn’t save lives. Speak up and don’t take bullshit whenever you can. Worst case, they find another chump and you move on to the next adventure.
Here we go!
Posted Tuesday, 2/16/21
Sharing, just in case this helps anyone feel either a sense of camaraderie or maybe feel better about how well they do their jobs.
Literally started a new job yesterday. It’s a startup, so I’m mentally prepared for some intensity from a genius founder. Job description is the standard stuff, lots of calendar action, dealing with emails. Felt pretty good that by the end of the day, I had started to clean up a bunch of calendar conflicts and dropped scheduling requests.
Then, at about 5 p.m. I get a Slack. New boss wants to re-route a flight back home Wed. to add an extra leg to another city tonight for an important meeting. So, when I was just about to call it a day, I had to (1) figure out flights, (2) figure out Covid-19 quarantine requirements for the new leg, (3) book the new flight based on when he could get testing, (4) find and book a hotel, (5) fail to be able to change the flight home to be from the new location, so (6) cancel the flight home and (7) rebook a new flight from the new location. Then I woke up this morning, and he realized that the flight tonight wouldn’t work with the Covid test waiting time, so I had to rebook
ALL of this on Alaska Airlines and Southwest, which were clobbered by all of the snowstorms and bad weather. So wait times on the phone or texts were like 10 hours. (Alaska called me back at 3:30 a.m., per the bot that obviously got my voicemail.)
I lost track of the number of mistakes I made!
New boss may be convinced I’m slow.
I simply didn’t have any/all of the details I’d usually start with, couldn’t get through to the airlines, rushed because of the timeline, and generally just wasn’t up to my own usual standards. He actually only today gave me access to all of the logins in 1password.
Sadly, my Slack is now full of friendly nudges, like “in the future, please remember…” or “Let’s try to keep these details straight…”
I’m honestly insane on details, and I actually have a form I use to write down all of the frequent flyer, known traveler numbers, name, DOB, etc., etc. Just made the BIG mistake of thinking day 1 would be onboarding and setting things up and hadn’t sent to him.
I don’t even have my own work computer yet! I’m doing all of this from my personal computer.
Feels better to write it down for people who will probably feel my pain.
Posted Thursday, 2/18/21
TL;dr: The adventures of the worst onboarding ever, a short story.
Hey it’s me again! I should have a blog dedicated to just this new job. Thought you all might to hear the latest.
I very much appreciate the outpouring of virtual hugs, encouragement, understanding and humor. Hopefully you all will read this post like a short story of how not to start a job.
I’m timeboxing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeboxing) my decision on whether to quit. I’ll decide by mid-March. Fully prepared to cut my losses, given it was the worst ever first day of any job in a long, and storied, work history.
Meanwhle… Captain’s Log, Day 3 in the new job, Wednesday, 2/17:
New exec made it back and forth on all of the travel I arranged. He did almost miss two of the flights (one he blamed me, because I hadn’t put all of his travel info in his portfolio). For both flights, he arrived at the airport <30 minutes before departure.
He sends several scheduling emails, mentioning me by name as “Dennise.” I finally point out in Slack that my name is “Denise.” He blames spellcheck but does say he’ll watch it.
In our check in 1:1, I told the Ops person who is my manager “on paper” that I need a reset and a one-on-one with the CEO to kick off a fresh start.
I mentioned it was my worst first day ever.
She said she understood my frustration. However, he’s really a great guy when you get to know him, and that I’d get used to how his brilliant brain works. She advised if I meet with him to use “soft words” and be careful what I said. She then explained to me (again) about his special brain, how engineers work and how you get used to MIT types.
(Side note: Pretty sure she graduated college in 2018, and this job is her first non-internship/fellowship job. I’m in my 50s, graduated in 1985 w/~30 years relevant experience. I literally worked for years at MIT for MIT Faculty. My last job, I was part of the Engineering team at a startup. I text my science and engineering friends. They laughed and point out assholes are assholes.)
Day 3, Nighttime We were messaged along with the other execs: The CEO has a “family emergency.” He sent a complete list of what I needed to cancel/reschedule, tagging me by name in Slack and in relevant emails, and this time made sure I had all of the info.
I was not told the details of what was wrong and sent what I hope was a polite and caring note that I would take care of everything he asked of me and I could do more. Didn’t hear back (and knew his plane was just landing around 10 p.m.), so certainly didn’t press him w/questions, etc.
At around 10:30 p.m. the Ops person sent some passive aggressive notes about how she’d take care of everything, because I was new. She had started her plan – email people immediately (i.e., at 11 p.m.), cc me, tell them to contact me to reschedule, and I could handle the calendar later. I pointed out that since there were no meetings that weren’t internal until the afternoon, I could simply send notes in the morning. She stopped messaging me.
Captain’s Log, Day 4 in the new job, Thursday, 2/18:
By 10:30 a.m., I had everything in his calendar today and tomorrow canceled, and every person was sent options for rescheduling or a note that I would send times soon.
(Personal reflection — decades of admin have taught me that no one wants your 11 p.m. email about a meeting tomorrow. A canceled meeting is a blessing, and people don’t mind that news.)
Finally, someone gave me details around 11 a.m. about a major medical issue in the CEO’s family. Apparently, it was in some emails that the person who told me was like, “Oh, you should have been cc’d.”
Fresh 1 on 1 check in with Ops person. She asks me how I’m doing today, and I’m low-key. Nothing new to say, just worried about the CEO and his family. Vibe in the virtual remove is awkward AF.
She seems out of sorts, thanks me for the calendaring, but then explains why she was going to handle it and was just trying to do me a favor.
She brings up another thing I supposedly did wrong and over explains context (the context she had not given me, when I did what she originally asked).
She switches gears and says she hasn’t read a follow-up I sent on updating the annual company holiday calendar, because there were too many words.
“Let’s skim together, and {seeming exasperated to my ears} asks what the problem is.”
No problem, I say. I just wanted to review the holidays that fell on the weekend, and why a major federal holiday was skipped entirely. (My too wordy note was a bulleted list of dates.)
She argues that U.S. Labor Day is not a “real” holiday, News to me.
Finally, she reminded me of the “tradition” they have. New people have to present a game or activity at the weekly company social. She wanted to know if I was ready.
When I said I was surprised, given the CEO’s family emergency, I got a lecture on how he’d want us to still have it.
When I said I wasn’t sure what to do, since I hadn’t met anyone at the company at all, she got snippy, reminded me she told me about it my first day, and said she’d do it. She would need to know right away, if I couldn’t do it, since she’d need time to prep and do it herself.
Pretty sure her picture appears on Wikipedia next to passive aggressive.
I sent her a short version of a trivia game I wrote for my last job and asked if it was OK. She seems iffy, because I couldn’t answer how I thought it would work (since I’ve never been to their socials before). Oh well.
So, tomorrow, I host a social and trivia game for a dozen strangers. It’s really quite remarkable I’m sober right now (and still employed). If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed the journey. And please forgive my taking up so much space. And time. And oxygen.
Posted around 4 p.m. Friday, 2/19/21
TGIF y’all!
If you’re following my adventures in the worst first week, I’ll be updating my log after dinner.
(I actually wrote it all up on the company’s clock, but computer glitched and I lost it.)
Hope everyone is safe, dry, getting food and water, and is ready to rock the weekend.
Remember, they need all of us more than we need them. Afterall, we have usable life skills.
Posted after dinner. Friday, 2/19/21
Wine at sunset
Captain’s log: Friday, Day 5 of the worst onboarding ever. I’m back. And, I must confess it’s Friday night, and the picture shows the very real sunset from my very real first week on the job. I may have had >1 glass.
I haven’t loved this group as much as the enthusiasm I’ve gotten for my posts. You all gave me so much this week. The perspective has been to infinity and beyond, and it all really helped me feel grounded.
Thank you! Really, thank you.
So, here’s what happened today.
I woke up to finding out the CEO’s grandfather died. I sincerely feel bad about that, and with COVID19, it’s a big deal.
I’m given a list of what to reschedule and what the priorities are and, honestly, that’s where I am solid. I get to work with calendar voodoo and polite emails. And, since I’m not a monster, I want to help. So, I do.
On my last post, the big item was today’s company social. I had to host a “fun” activity for a dozen people.
Full disclosure, I’ve done standup comedy. I’ve hosted open mike nights. I’ve entertained drunks. This morning was definitely easier. But all in all, still crazy.
I found out that one of the reasons people were not friendly this week is that there’s a software deadline for a potential product sale that was almost missed. Missed by a long shot actually. Several people pulled an all-nighter for today’s deadline.
They were happy, though, and excited to have the social, because they pulled out all of the stops and made progress.
People were happily chatting and letting off steam at the “social.” It felt nice.
{Personal aside, why would a company social be at 10 a.m.? Is that a fun time?}
The main character in my last update was the passive aggressive Ops person. She was in rare form.
While people chatted and seemed to just relax at the social, Ops person had to stage manage. First, someone suggested (given the all-nighter) that we should start all weekly socials with shoutouts, thanks and acknowledgments. Anyone in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere, is familiar with all-hands meetings and offering gratitude.
Ops person made an awkward joke mocking the idea, comparing it to the Bachelor TV show and roses. The joke died on the vine. Visibly died. Like 12 people blinking into their Zoom screens.
The person who suggested giving thanks plowed on and thanked half the people on the call for their hard work and commitment.
Conversation resumed. It was fun. Ops person interrupted. She tut-tutted and shushed and said I would be presenting a game. TADA!
What you really never want for “fun” is an introduction predicated on shushing. But, hey, I’m flexible.
So, I present my trivia game, which started with a photo matching game of rare bird photos (that I took in a lot of travel). Before I can get it centered on screen sharing, Ops person asks me to make it bigger, blah blah blah.
People dug it. Everyone is speaking up, making guesses, talking about rare birds they’ve seen, guessing where the birds live. Three photos were from East Africa trips I’ve taken, so there was a lot of interest in those birds. It was kind of great and relaxed.
Ops person interrupts to say she’s going to keep score and asks how had I structured competing. I mention I’m a hippie and hadn’t structured as a competition. She starts announcing who’s “winning.”
We move onto the next part of my trivia game, straight up sports. Again, free flowing, joking. I give some hints for the tough ones. For one of the questions, the answer is Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Ops person asks “What are the Bulls?” Much laughter follows and even the French guy laughs at her and makes a joke about the best basketball team ever. Kind of awkward when a European makes fun of an American about basketball.
I cut off the game when I realize part three, the anagrams, is too hard. I said I’d simply put that section in the Slack random channel. And I do. From there, it’s a relaxed, fun conversation. Weather, snow, skiing, children. Normal social conversations. Score one for me for not caving and for engendering a warm conversation.
I felt good about myself. After the social, I had a conversation with the only dude to reach out to me all week, who started last month. He told me the company is chaotic and could use me and hopes I’ll stay.
I get through all of my work. Ops person thanks me for answering emails. I think someone told her managing is always saying “thank you,” whether it sounds insincere or not.
Full of Friday afternoon not giving a shit, I sent a Slack message to the only executive still online, the third of the 3 cofounders.
I send him an emoji wave, and say, “I didn’t want to end the week without at least saying ‘Hi.'” He immediately replies and essentially apologizes for not initiating contact. I tell him that I understand the pressure. I continue that I have never experienced such a negative onboarding, so I just wanted to reach out, given that I felt quite isolated.
Coincidence, I think not — Right after that message, I get invited to a meeting on Monday with #2 cofounder. #2 then sends me a Slack message. We share pleasantries. I then tell him I am very much considering if I’m a fit for the company, and that I suspect the answer is “no.”
There was more back and forth, and he thanked me for being honest and telling him that I had issues. He claims the company values frank and honest feedback. I tell him that while Ops person seems like a nice human, she is not at all an appropriate manager, and therefore my experience has been untenable.
In the end, he asked I don’t do anything until we can talk. He also said that he will not bring up what I told him to the Ops person until he and I can talk. Also, from what I said he really does hope that we can work something out.
Meanwhile, he did ask for my help on rescheduling their board meeting. He seemed to really sincerely want my help. And, he seemed really afraid if I didn’t help, because they need help.
I promised as a professional and an empathetic human, I would do everything I could until we could talk.
Friday night. Some wine in my belly, at least I stood up for myself. Monday will be a new chapter…
(In case you’re curious, I plan to review with him my observations on all their dysfunctions. I will offer two solutions: (1) They retain me, assign an appropriate manager, structure things so I am successful, fix their glaring holes, and it’s all happy or (2) they pay me off as a consultant, I’ll provide a report on what I see are the gaps, I cover a quick transition to not leave them hanging, but then we call it a day. (3) is unspoken – we break up.) Hope you all are keeping on keeping on.
UPDATE Posted Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021
Hey Facebook universe, I have a job update sooner than I expected. If you saw my blog post or Friday post here, I had the worst first week of any job ever.
Now, I just resigned.
Here’s the post I shared with the admin group where I’m an active member. Holy Schnikeys, joining this company was a mistake.
****
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or check to see if I’m in an episode of Black Mirror. This shit is so sideways, I’m gobsmacked.
I spent a lovely Sunday on a hike in the sun. My game plan was to write an agenda to keep on track for my meeting tomorrow with #2 cofounder. I was typing away on my computer, doing just that when I heard the alert for Slack.The CEO wrote me a loooooooooonnnnnnnggggg Slack message.
Started OK. Brief apology for the week being crazy sort of generally, you know, COVID, virtual, busy week for the company, yada yada. Like an apology for the circumstances, so not really an apology, more like a whoopsie daisy.
Then on to the meat!
Apparently, I’m terrible. I’m quite bad. Not proactive, poor communicator, passive aggressive. I may have kidnapped Lindberg’s baby. I’m not sure.
There’s a fun little corporate twist in all of his words. In their little corporate doc they say they “have a culture of overcommunication: there’s no such thing as giving someone too much information.” I reached out to management, when the CEO was rushing to his family home, and I shared how I felt. #2 cofounder dude said that kind of thing was welcomed.
Oops. Guess that’s not true. Among the CEO’s bulleted notes against me, it was supremely uncool I did that and evidence of my passive aggression. I was being wicked naughty and bumming people out by talking to them.
Meanwhile, his main beef is that I didn’t accomplish everything that first week. He really hoped I’d do all of the things. I think my favorite paragraph is this:
– A lack of proactivity. As I’m writing this, the state of my inbox is considerably worse than when you started, I haven’t seen much activity in Front, and the calendar has conflicts. I know your work computer has been delayed, but it’s not required for any of these areas.
It’s my favorite for three reasons:
(1) He hasn’t been checking his email, I only just started and now it’s worse. How do you think that could happen?
(2) I’ve explained several times that my personal computer is set up for my personal stuff, you know, because it’s mine, and I cannot get everything to work.
(3) His calendar doesn’t have conflicts, or at least it didn’t on Friday.
Strangely, it’s the first job in decades, maybe even going back to when I scooped ice cream cones at 15 1/2, that I’ve been told I lack proactivity. I’m actually kind of annoyingly proactive.
After several paragraphs of my inadequacies, he offers me two ways forward. (1) I admit all of my evil, quote, “internalize the feedback, work to improve…” and together we forge a new relationship or (2) not.
My dear husband helped proofread a couple of paragraphs that I sent as a reply in Slack. I wasn’t in the mood to match him crazy length to crazy length or tit for tat.
THEN, and gloriously then, I emailed my resignation letter to the lot of them. They probably won’t miss me at all. Yet, I can say with certainty, they will miss me more than I will miss them.
Every year, well actually a lot more than that, I think of Pat, the champion mother and unsung iconoclast, not that one usually sings about iconoclasts. March 15, her birthday, she would have been 91, it’s a day I will always mark, a day I will hold in high regard.
This year, this crazy fucking year, I cannot not think of Pat. She would still be getting newspapers delivered, probably. But, she’d also subscribe to Apple News or something else. Not just surfing news websites, she’d be swimming in news sites. There would be too much news to risk missing it.
Her hatred of Donald Trump would be full of righteous rage. She wouldn’t stop pointing out all of the pasty smug faces of evangelists selling their souls within Trump’s orbit. The whitest of white, holier than holiest roller Pence, I think she’d just mock his weasel face and feel bad for his wife.
Pat would remind us all of the decades of Trump horribleness. She’d remember the ugly divorces in detail, and remind us all of the things that Marla and Ivana said back in the day.
Morons were never safe in her laser sights. But this, the president, I’m not sure there would be enough words in the language for her. In short, in one of her favorite words, she’d be livid.
All of the news and politics and questioning the sanity of the voting population and railing at the GOP aside, and the grumpy old men vying for the Democratic Party nomination also aside, there would be the pandemic. I really wish I could talk to Pat about COVID 19.
As a teacher, at various times with middle schoolers and little, little kids in elementary school, Pat was a hand washer extraordinaire. She packed hand sanitizer before it was ubiquitous and certainly before it became a target for price gouging.
Many of Pat’s extracurricular contributions to the classroom were straight up common sense with a soupçon of ancient crone wisdom. Some kids came to class without basic lessons like hand washing or shirt tucking, and Pat marched them to the sink and the mirror for lessons. She had tissues and wipes as her personal arsenal against kids who came to school sick.
Over the years, she had a lot of colds and at least one case of pinkeye. I’m certain she fought off mountains of contagions, though, more often than she succumbed. Sick days were for wimps.
But, what I truly miss from Pat’s not being here for all of the news headlines of today, the voice I would love to hear, the missing wry observations would be her total embrace (and she was not one for embracing), her enthusiasm for social distance.
I can hear inside my head that phone call. The glee in which she pointedly would tell me (and anyone else who called) to stay away. With books, crosswords, the TV and news, Pat would be just fine all alone, at least until the coffee ran out.
So, for Pat and to spite the president for whom she absolutely would not have voted, wash your GD hands. And stay home.
I’ll get this out of the way, the picture is not related to these words. But I took the shot this week, when I was thinking. And, owls are fucking cool.
So here’s the thing. Virginia Woolf had a notion of a room of one’s own, and that notion is in my head. But mine is all about time not money and space. Either way, it’s about agency, liberation, freedom. It’s about having something of your own.
When I first started at my last job, I didn’t have to count my hours. For two jobs before that, I didn’t have to count my hours. I, in fact , managed people who did have to count their hours. I also paid contracts at all of the jobs to consultants who had to count their hours, and each hour was more than I could imagine making.
Once upon a time, I even had to help make sure that people on government grants complied with the letter of the law to be paid hourly. I read the Fair Labor Standard Acts regulations. I enforced the FLSA standards. I wrote or interpreted company policy on this shiznit.
So years into my last gig, after years of not worrying, one day I day I was told that I had to count my hours. The new HR director decided on the most conservative letter of the law. And so it goes.
So, I started counting my hours. It was me, and we, a bunch of administrative types, who had never done time cards, suddenly asked to do time cards. We acquiesced, and there was training.
The payroll woman (who incidentally sucked, and caused me to lose money on my disability when I got my bum hip fixed) trained me and others on this fabulous new process. She said, basically, it just doesn’t matter. She said, put in 4 hours, put in an hour for lunch and put in another 4 hours. The new HR director, she said, it’s still the same, don’t worry, just put down 8 hours.
The other manager in HR, she said, we were lucky for all of the great things the company offered, and she watched your hours and would keep you in line. You got paid 8 hours, unless there was a dramatic reason for more. There was seldom a dramatic reason for more.
So I did what they said. For years. I got paid for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. No more than that.
Then new people came. They weren’t trained the same way. They counted all of their hours. They put in overtime.
Then, I got a new director. She said, I want to know if you need to work more. But, really I don’t think you do, so put in 8 hours.
And so it went. I got paid for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. No more than that.
Some weeks, I would lie in my own favor, because god knows I wasn’t counting the times I built social and political currency in the hallways. Although in guilt I’d worry for not holding my nose to the grindstone. God knows, I didn’t count YouTube videos or reading long articles interesting for the context of my work, but outside of its scope. I figured I was ahead.
Some weeks, I would lie in favor of the work. I stayed late, because I knew something was important. I stayed late, because I had a bad day and felt behind. I stayed late, because I wanted to get ahead for the next day. I stayed late, because I felt guilty. I stayed late, because the traffic report said don’t even bother to try to get home. I figured it was worth it.
Meanwhile.
Meanwhile, my director, my boss, the person who had to review and approve these time cards, she told me not to stay late. She told me to hew to the letter of the policy. She told me that I should not work overtime. She questioned me anytime I worked over.
Still, she wanted things done.
Still, she’d hold me to a high standard. Still, she’d work weekends, and email floodgates would open on Sundays.
Still, I would come in to a chipper email at the end of a pay period, “hey, I signed your time card, but I noticed that extra half hour (reflected in my calendar, because someone called a meeting during lunch), and you didn’t ask me.”
Still, I knew, because many people told me things, in hall way conversations or other moments, they told me they put in extra hours all of the time. Or they said, they told their direct reports to put in extra hours, and they’d sign the time card.
Their bosses, they never said don’t, so they did.
I knew people were balancing out what they considered a low wage with extra time, because they told me. One woman told me she was the highest paid in my position, because she claimed so many hours.
Sure, in the end, it caught up with her. But, her bank account was none the wiser.
I knew there was inequity, because people told me. I knew there was inequity, because I helped research it. And, in the end, I betrayed my own pocket book. I helped management figure out the new policy.
I helped write new HR policies to make it clearer when to put in hours and when not to do so. I helped clarify that overtime wasn’t the baseline expectation. When, I helped clarify all of that, I said others should stay in the same box as me.
My boss, knowing I not only knew the letter of the rules but helped write them, she made sure I didn’t waver and followed it all. She grumbled when one week I had overtime, it was overtime that I needed to not just because of all of the work that still needed to get done, which had never stopped, but because I needed more time to spend time helping to define overtime. Begrudgingly, I felt, she OK’d my time.
Irony, you literary, Alanis-Morrisette-loving bitch. Irony, you complete me.
Check it out and let’s be clear — I held paper to pen, or keyboard to digital records, I helped my company write policies. The president knew I was helping. The general counsel knew I was helping. The HR director knew I was helping.
HELL. They all asked me to help.
But, going back to the Fair Labor laws AND California labor laws, they all somehow thought it was fair and cool and fine and just and all sort of regulatory right, that I should be punching a clock and filling out a time card and was not worthy of a salaried position. Because even while helping write the rules, I was not responsible.
They said I was not responsible, because they paid me like a secretary who held no responsibilities. But, they sure as fuck held me responsible.
For anyone playing the home game — I exceeded the FLSA guidelines for contributing to the work and should have been salaried, paid higher, and, as the lingo goes, exempt from overtime.
And, even in California, where the fair labor shit is a motherfucker, my duties should have made me salaried. There’s a “white color job” standard. Check. Then, there’s this paragraph:
Examples of duties that relate to management or general business operations include responsibility for marketing, research, budgeting, finance, accounting, purchasing, quality control, human resources, labor or government relations, regulatory compliance, and database administration.
Every single damn day at that job, those things fell into place. For example, the whole company trained and trained and made everyone with my title experts on regulatory compliance of grant making more than anyone in the damn building.
So, why am I writing this shit down?
How the hell do I know?
But, I will say, this week I woke up and realized how much this stuff all bothered me.
Call it PTSD. I’m getting saltier than the sea right outside of Jordan. I’m getting so salty, the FDA is gonna say I cause hypertension. Today, I’m looking back at about two months ago, when I submitted my resignation. A couple of months when I accepted a similar job. A job still in California, making many, many more ducats an hour, and no one is expecting me to count those hours. I am salaried, and a much better salary it is.
Back to Virginia Woolf. I feel freedom.
The emotional toll of even the nicest most generous system (which I didn’t have) is still pretty fucking high when you are a grown ass woman, and someone outside of you looks over how you spend a day.
A humongous weight is lifted. I show up to work when the subway brings me to the neighborhood, and no one watches. I leave when it feels like things are done enough, and no one watches. I check my email or I don’t. I read Slack or I don’t. I do what needs to get done, and I go home.
For years. I got paid for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. No more than that. No extras for caring, reading, reading supplementary stuff, getting criticized for things I didn’t do. Getting criticized for reading emails, answering calls, sent outside of those 40 hours.
Now, I am not in a fortress of 40 hours. It’s not clear what a day is, and there’s no time card to lie on and pretend we agree on a work day. When I arrive, no one knows or cares. They, the bosses, the company, the job, they are not watching me by hours. The work gets done the best that I know how to do it. And that’s enough.
I get more money. I worry less. People are nicer about it.
The kicker is, the pockets where I work now have so much less money in them than the last place. They MUST worry about money, because the company’s existence depends on revenue and wisely managing what they have.
At my last place, they gave money away. That was the business. Their pockets were deep, their endowment solid, their worth in the billions with a b. And, that’s where they used to watch my time. That’s where they not only watched my hours, they stopped giving me cost of living increases, because my pay was the highest it could be at the job. They have billions in the bank, I made 5 figures.
I know their scale is wrong. I know my position should have been salaried. I know because when I decided to leave and get exactly the same type of job — both non-profit and profit — they offered me more and with a salary. (I will, surely perish from this earth not comprehending the riddle of why ALL other jobs I chased were willing to pay me more and how in god’s fucking name the old job sets “competitive” wages.)
I get to contribute on my own terms. And, today’s shallow pocketed company may very well become deep. Who knows.
How absurd that I spent so many years justifying time. How absurd I was even asked. And how crazy the ending of this story should be if I end up with successful corporate shares enough to create my own philanthropic world that will be better than the one I left. But, even without that thought, my life is measurably improved by walking away.
