I had another major throat episode last evening. We had Chinese takeout and I was forced to go to the bathroom three times. This almost never happens any more unless I am really avoiding something. After I was back at the table the last time we talked about it a little and Michele offered a suggestion as to what might be the cause. It isn’t about some issue that I am avoiding, or any unexpressed emotion on my part. It is about the general atmosphere here at work. People here are scared, angry, inward, worried, and just generally zooey. Even though I am working daily to center myself and to deal with my emotions, I am subject to the toxicity here.
Imagine working in a place where no one knows what is going to happen. You know change is coming, but you don’t know how dramatic it will be, or when it will occur. Everyone is going a little crazy, some are angry and tense, others seem fatalistically resigned to the outcome. What little comradeship that existed in the past has been shattered by the fractioning of groups by the uncertainty of what maybe coming. Everyone wants to talk at once, but no one says anything real. It’s all rumor, innuendo, and false allegations.
Coming into this place everyday is tearing me apart inside. I want to connect with these people at a real level but they aren’t capable of that now given the circumstances. My views and concerns feel unimportant when I share them, no one wants to listen anymore. Everyone wants to talk and dump their stuff, and they want it validated by me. However, I feel as though no one will validate my feelings.
So I come into work and slowly cook in this toxic stew of unexpressed emotion and then I go home and try to have a normal life there. Only I haven’t been able to because I haven’t been taking care of myself around the baggage I’ve picked up from my work environment. I need to focus some of my energy on dealing with the contamination I am getting just by being here.
I am good at taking care of myself emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually once I know what rocks I am carrying. Until last evening I wasn’t aware of the toxic rock I was getting here at work everyday. Now I can focus some energy on not picking that rock up anymore. And I will then be able to come back to me.
Tonight for the first time in weeks I had a fairly major throat episode. I have been doing much better managing my Shotski’s ring of late, but this evening it took three trips to the bathroom and a complete emptying of my stomach before I was able to relax and eat. When my throat reacts this way it is always a sign that I am holding something back. I am figuratively swallowing something I don’t want and my body reacts by clamping down on my throat.
After I returned from the bathroom Michele tried to draw me out a bit to see what might be causing my anxiety. I wasn’t very responsive and we moved on to other subjects. Through out the evening I was focused on the negative aspects of our new kitten. Dinkus, as she is called, is full of energy and attitude. At one point in the evening she walked across my laptop keyboard causing the Mail application to open a new window for each and every piece of mail in the current folder. I was forced to shut down my computer in order to regain control of it. My anger reaction to this upset me as I am not normally that volatile.
After going to bed my wife and I were bombarded by our little Dinkus. She was everywhere on the bed at once. Chasing her tail, nipping at our hands, under the covers, on the covers, and on and on and on. I grew very short with her and unceremoniously dropped her on the floor. I felt like I was ready to explode. My beautiful, incredible wife put her hand on my chest and asked what was going on.
The dam inside me burst and I poured out a torrent of fears big and small. I cried and described how out of control I felt about our situation. I railed against the unfairness of it, and I talked about how helpless I feel. Not knowing what will happen is taking an emotional toll on me. One that I need to heed and vent or I will pay a steep price. I feel as thought I am walking a thin line between being okay with this and slipping into a deep depression. I know that by talking about it and letting my anger and tears out I will be able to stay safe. And yet when I think about talking about it I become afraid that it won’t do any good and I keep my fears inside.
Ultimately I know that I do have control over what I do and how I react to this situation. The trick is knowing that in the moment. At home it is easy to look back at the events of the day and put them into a perspective that I can live with. It’s when I am at work, in the midst of a sea of uncertainty, fear, and anger that I can’t see things from my perspective. I get caught up in the mood of the day.
I am truly fortunate that Michele is here for me. She gives me a safe place to fall, a safe place to let my guard down and cry. Without her I would not be able to face this situation and be true to myself. Deep inside me I know that is the real lesson here ~ being true to myself regardless of the current situation. In the tear-washed clarity that follows a night like tonight I can see my truth clearly. And the memory of that insight is what will carry me through the next valley, until I can see myself again.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was in high school I was fortunate enough to learn basic programming via a TTY teletype terminal, optical scan cards, and time sharing with a local manufacturing companies mainframe.
The Greene County (North Carolina) Board of Education unanimously endorsed a plan Monday night that would provide iBooks to every student and teacher in the middle and high schools, according to a <a href=http://www.kinston.com/Details.cfm?StoryID=11706" target="_blank">Kinston.com article. Under the project, the school system will buy 1,783 computers for grades 6-12.
Can you imagine going to school and being handed a brand new iBook to use for the school year? Being able to run a program or two a week via time sharing was enough to spark an interest in technology that is still burning strong in me. To have a whole computer of my own at age 12 just boggles my mind.
I am having a crisis of faith this morning. My employment situation is such that I may have to find a new job soon. It has been almost three years since I found my current position. In that time the technology that I have been using recently has gone from a cutting edge, in demand skill; to a little heard of dead-end.
My entire career has been based on staying current with new technologies and trends. I have always managed in the past to sense when it was time to shift to a new area, and I have always managed to improve my skill set and advance my career as a result. Now, for the first time, I feel like I am faced with entering the job market without any one outstanding qualification. I am not current in the latest trendy technology skill.
When I look at the requirements for jobs listed on Dice or Monster I start to question why anyone would want to hire me. I know that I need to stop thinking of myself as a programmer and start thinking of my self as a project leader or manager. I have done those jobs in the past and I have excelled at them. But it was always an outgrowth of the situation I was in; I have never gotten a job where my base responsibility was that of leader or manager.
If I could find another job using my technical skills I would be very confident of myself and my ability to accomplish the job. While I am confident of my leadership skills I start to lose faith in my ability to use them when I consider marketing myself as a leader. When I have marketed myself as having this or that techie skill I have been able to back up my claims; I can talk the talk and I can walk the walk. When I start to market myself as a leader I get nervous because I have not walked the walk as much as I’d like.
Sure, I have come into more than one new job situation as a tech resource only and rapidly grown into a leader and manager. In those situations I had time as a programmer or engineer to learn the company, to see the lay of the land. Coming in as a manager would rob me of that opportunity. I would have to hit the ground running and learn the lay of the land while simultaneously leading the way across it.
In my mind I need to start seeing my leadership skills in the same light as my programming, designing, or testing skills. I have a viable, marketable skill as a leader. I understand people, I excel at seeing the big picture and translating it into workable requirements and goals for others. I am very good at communicating with everyone, and I can explain complex issues to people, technical and non-technical alike.
I know I can do the job if I am given a chance. I am afraid that I won’t be given the chance. If I don’t express my fears about this then they will be apparent to anyone I talk to about employment. There won’t be a flashing neon sign over my head proclaiming to the world that I am unsure of myself. But there will be sense of something left unsaid that the other person will sense. And not knowing what they are sensing will create a gap in their understanding. Being human they will fill that gap with their own fears, and in the end I won’t get an offer.
Only by talking about my fears can I address them in a safe place and time. If I know what my fears are and how to comfort myself around them, then I can face the challenge of moving my career in a totally new direction. I will be able to approach employers with confidence and truth rather than need and hope. I won’t be making them responsible for taking care of me.
That is the key here: I am responsible for me. If I go to a situation expecting the other side to take care of me I will fail. I must discover my fears and doubts and learn how to comfort myself around them. Once I have done that then I am not bringing my needs to the table. Instead I am coming to the table as an equal, as a positive force, as someone who has faith in himself.
My wife now has her own blog and her own site. For years as a therapist, when confronted with a patient who would claim, “I don’t know,” to questions, she responded with a question of her own. “And if you did know?”
Today she is undergoing a journey into herself. She is chronicling her thoughts as she moves along her path. Today she is asking herself, “And if you did know?”
You can read along in her diary here: andifyoudidknow.com. Or you can click on the “michele” link on the menu to your left.
We have a new cat in our household. Her name is Dinkus. She’s a 3-month old black-on-white tabby with a pink nose. We brought her home from the Animal Protective League shelter yesterday afternoon. Going from a smallish 4 foot cage there to our 1800 square foot house filled her with energy. She spent much of the evening racing about in her new space.
Our other cat, Nekko, is less than amused at this new intruder. Their initial meeting was accompanied by hissing and spiting. Seeing as how Nekko is all of 16 pounds, and Dinkus is a mere pound or so, it hardly seemed fair to leave the two of them to themselves over night. However, we know from past experience that there is little we can do to ease their introduction to each other.
Unlike Nekko, Dinkus spent her first night elsewhere in the house. Nekko scaled the side of the bed and spent her first night climbing back and forth on top of Michele and I. Given that she had needle sharp front claws then this made for a painful night. As Dinkus still had her front claws yesterday we were grateful to not have her in the bed with us all night.
She is at the vet today getting her ears cleaned and her front claws removed. We get to bring her home for good tomorrow. I’ve got some digital pictures that I’ll try and post soon.
I find myself feeling anxious most of the time now. With my current contract ending in just 28 days and no certain income beyond that I am starting to feel very out of control. I want to attack this situation intellectually; with lists and phone calls, networking and favors. I want to map out tasks for each day. I want to exert control on a situation over which I have no control.
In the past I have tried to do just that: exert control over things beyond my control. It hasn’t worked very well. Not that making lists or planning tasks is a bad idea or ineffectual. On the contrary, those are useful and constructive activities. What I wasn’t doing in the past was including my emotional center in the process. I was trying to take care of my emotions by thinking. Trust me, this doesn’t work.
Today I am focused more on my emotions than my intellect. I am listening to my fears and concerns, and trying to soothe myself when they swell. No one can take care of my emotional state except for me. If I stay intellectual and task oriented, I will ignore a huge part of my current set of needs. And ignoring those needs will hamper everything I try to do and eventually cause me to stumble and fall.
The male-centered society I live in tells me I shouldn’t have strong emotions or allow my actions to be driven by feelings. I should be macho and gain through pain. Real men don’t cry. I find that this is all a load of horse shit. Real me do cry, real men do have emotions, and they can make decisions that take care of their emotional self.
What I am striving for here is a balance between my intellect and my emotions. I know how to make lists and break things down into tasks. I can calculate what it will take to move, and I can play the hiring game to get a new job. But all of those activities are wasted if I don’t listen to my emotional self. If I shun the feelings I am having then what I end up with won’t be satisfying.
Three times in the past 6 years I have gone through this process. Three times I have focused on the physical goals. I have excelled at the process and ignored the content. And three times I haven’t been able to find happiness or satisfaction in the new situation. I know know that by ignoring my emotional content I crippled my changes of success. I programmed these situations to fail.
So today I am anxious about the future. I am worried about what will happen July 1st. I don’t know what the situation will be, but I do know that I am not going to settle for anything less than a situation that meets my emotional and intellectual needs. I have learned that, intellectually speaking, most employment situations are identical. The process of getting a new job is intellectually the same each time. And the process of moving is the same intellectually as well. Focussing just on the intellectual side of this change hasn’t gotten me what I wanted. Continuing to focus on just the intellectual side of change expecting to get a better result would be insanity.
This time I am focused on the emotional side of change. I am not ignoring the intellectual side at all, but it is not my primary focus. By now I have enough experience to know what to do almost without thinking. I have done the intellectual exercises enough times that they have become almost routine. This frees me up to focus on the emotional aspect of change. I can allow myself to feel my way through this transition. I can learn what my emotions are about this kind of life event, and I can grow to meet those emotional needs in a positive way.
Change is hard. Change is painful and confusing. Change can be the worst experience you’ve ever lived through. Change when you are out of balance with yourself is awful and only sets you up for more change.
Change is good. Change is growth and learning. Change can be the best growth experience you’ve ever given yourself. Change when you are in balance emotionally and intellectually with yourself is true growth and true progress along your life path.
I am not looking forward to the tough emotional days ahead. Nor am I thrilled about the intellectually challenging negotiations I’m faced with in the next few weeks. But I am resolved to keep myself emotional and intellectually centered. For it is only with that balance that I’ll get what I truly want and need.
My first experience with a computer was in the winter of 1978, using a thermal paper terminal, an acoustic coupler (at 300 BAUD!), and time share on a local mainframe computer.
Previously I had wanted to be an architect, even to the point of studying mechanical drawing in high school. However the fates had other plans for me as my best friend’s father brought home this odd suitcase-sized terminal one evening. After he finished his work he showed my friend and I how to play text based game called ‘Star Trek.’ We played almost all night. Cam was interested in playing the game. I wanted to know how it worked.
In subsequent sessions I learned how to list the source code and later modify it, and thus my programming career was underway. I was fortunate in that my high school had a time sharing arrangement with a local manufacturer and I was able to take a course of basic programming, followed by a COBOL course at the local community college.
In the 25 years or so that have followed I’ve worked on many different computers, using several languages, for purposes large and small. I’ve developed scripts for my own personal use, and distributed applications that are used by thousands in their jobs daily. And through it all I’ve never lost that initial spark, that most important question, what makes this work?
Michele and I are going to see Eddie Izzard in October at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago. We have been avid fans of his comedy since Michele “discovered” him on HBO a few years ago. His razor sharp wit, combined with great delivery and mime, makes him the best comedian touring today. No one else is doing Sean Connery as Noah in a speed boat, shooting across the water for photos in the Bible. No one else could.
If he is coming to your town do yourself a favor and get tickets to go see him.
I have been focused on my job situation for the past few weeks. My current contract ends on June 30th and there is some question as to whether I’ll get another contract here or not.
In the past when I’ve been faced with this kind of situation I’ve gone off my tracks a bit and reacted out of fear. This time I am doing a much better job of taking care of myself emotionally, and that is allowing me to be far more open to other possibilities.
I know that there is likely a traditional way to approach the end of a contract with no certainty of a new one, and no other job prospects in the immediate area. I don’t care for tradition, however. I find that most traditions are fear-based and therefore are punishing to me rather than helpful. Instead of following my fears I’ve been listening to my heart and following it instead.
In some ways not getting a new contract here would be very freeing. Michele and I could sell our house, pay off all that we owe and move to the west coast again. I would be free from the anger and upset that seems to permeate this place.
I guess I’ve finally come to the realization that having a job isn’t about the job any more. For me it’s about whether my employment situation is meeting my needs. And what is the cost of having those needs met in this fashion. My current situation is not perfect by any measure. The community we live in has few attractions for us, and the job itself can be very trying. It is tolerable, and unless an offer comes along that is far better, I doubt we’ll incur the cost of moving just to leave here.
For me the job is going to be the same anywhere. There will be politics, bureaucracy, in-fighting, crazy deadlines, stress, achievement, reward, and fun. And all communities are pretty much the same as well. Theaters, restaurants, lakes, traffic, expenses, stores, and people. What is different are intangibles. How does the place feel overall? Is it peaceful and calm or tense and angry? Is it liberal or conservative? Is there accepted diversity?
Instead of just moving again to stay employed, we want to explore some places that intrigue us, and move towards a place that we feel meets our intangible needs as much or more than our tangible ones.