by Lauren Randolph
#3
…in which Lauren Gets Caught Up in a Bit More Analysis – and Cleaning – before Moving on…
I’m finding it hard to let the issues at work go since I still experience them a few days a week.
My sweetheart advises me to move on.
But that environment raised some troubling issues that I still need to investigate so that I can embrace them as if they were friends I’ve had a bad falling out with and need to release in peace.
Work had become a burden, drudgery. Too much of it, never enough time to get it done properly – or feel good about it.
Everyone was running at breakneck speed, and that was a constant topic of conversation around the office. Like it was a badge of honor. It wasn’t enough to be overwhelmed all the time. You had to hear everyone complain about it too. I heard about it so much that I didn’t want to add my personal burden to the supply.
I began to question the generality of such excessive demands on otherwise rational people. Why was no one else objecting to this?
Quality control was becoming an issue. I wasn’t willing to spend the amount of time needed to do everything well (forget perfectly), so some things started to slide. I couldn’t find things, I didn’t have answers I should have had to questions about my projects. But I’d always been so organized, I told myself. I heard the same complaint from others.
My temporary answer: “I’m only human; just keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Surely, life should bring more reward than that…
I began to realize that the high premium placed on productivity was the antithesis of communication, which was so central not just to my job description but to the very teamwork we all claimed we believed in. We were so busy doing, we didn’t have time to talk to each other. That was due to the supposed “liberation” of the Internet: We could be more productive without talking to each other. Was that desirable?
Related to this was my realization that I had lost the ability to have casual conversations. Men don’t do it, or if they do, they do it in a way I don’t understand. It’s not a useful (re: productive) way to spend time. (I can just hear my father complaining in the background: “All women ever do is yak, yak, yak!” That must have something to do with why I was never much good at it anyway.)
I got to the point, which I noticed at the barn, that it was easier to come, do my thing with my horse, and go, rather than hang out and gab with my friends who were so adept at it. Intrigued, I spent time studying how they did it. But that missed the point of its spontaneity, wherein lies its value. Predictably, this issue came to my attention over a financial issue that had once again separated me from the pack. I still struggle with it.
Maybe this is why I’m not so good on the phone either…
One of the final indications that I needed to make a change at work was a low-level but chronic stomach ache.
So during my free time while the fall colors last, I sit on my deck listening to beautiful red leaves. That’s right: listening. It’s quiet enough that, when the leaves fall, they make a gentle crackle, which I find very soothing. I’m hoping that the peace and solitude will bring some clarity about the way forward.
I’m also cleaning out my house.
Well, it’s more a purging than a cleaning. My experience in the technical world has taught me that such small differences in word choice matter. I’m planning to finish by the holidays.
I’m starting in my bedroom, moving through all rooms on the second floor, then onto the downstairs. I’ve already accumulated BAGS of stuff to give away. My kitchen in particular is a problem; it’s long been on my hit list. But the garage…well, the garage may never be a target because it’s filled mostly with stuff that doesn’t belong to me. What was once an empty garage became the envy of my neighbors who practiced playing the “let’s fill up Lauren’s garage” game. I won’t even go into the series of “toys” my sweetheart has since supplied.
So it feels like I’m cleaning out my life – literally.
Part of it is to eliminate as much clutter as I can. But part of it is that I want to live more simply, less tied to the material things we’re constantly told we want. I do think I can live without that new pair of earrings, really… I fought that battle and won it the other day. I’m taking it as a sign.
I’m also starting to say no – something women are forbidden to do in our need to be of service to everyone and everything. Sometimes I do it for the right reasons, at other times I just do it because I’ve allowed myself to. Now it can be a no, meaning “I’m not sure,” whereas before it would have been a yes with the same meaning. Can life really be reduced to a single word choice? How is it “yes” and “no” can mean the same thing?
Other changes…
In my environment: I’ve intentionally allowed some of my plants to die. I only want the most stalwart ones to go forward with me.
I’ve also embarked on some home improvements – small ones, mostly: enlargement of my deck, new covers for living room chairs and futon, curtains to replace those yellowing vertical blinds. And getting the carpet cleaned. One of my cats has decided the cat box is optional…We can’t decide if it’s dementia or laziness.
And then the renewed attention to emotional support. I’m focusing more now on building up a network of female colleagues and friends. It’s amazing how much we have in common once we put our cards on the table with each other. But you have to trust each other. And that’s one of the things sadly missing at my male-dominated workplace: Trust seemingly isn’t compatible with competition.
Recently, I had a surprising conversation with one of the associate deans of the school of engineering, whom I don’t know particularly well. I told her that I’d cut back to 60% time and was searching for ideas on what to do with the rest of my time.
Apparently with free time comes serendipity.
She, too, was wondering about the next step, then, out of the blue, suggested I get involved with designing and teaching a communications curriculum for their students. This is something I’d suggested to the dean three years ago, but she was not likely to have known that. Given that she too may be moving on, this is probably not the right time to pursue this. I hear the dean may have higher ambitions of his own. Doubly not a good idea.
And as always fighting fear. I have a mental block about formally retiring at age 51 because that’s when my father did. It happened suddenly when our family company, due to some things my mother’s “bad boy” uncle did, became vulnerable to an unwelcome takeover. So my father and nearly everyone on the sales staff, which he managed, resigned – literally over night. I was a senior in high school then, back in 1973, and this occasioned the one and only real letter I ever got from him.
My father never saw it coming.
And he never got over it…
I only realized that because he talked about it several times recently when I was living with him, helping him recover from the nearly simultaneous loss of his girlfriend of 15 years and a very bad fall. But for the last 30 years since his “retirement,” he has sat in front of the TV watching the stock market report with little else to occupy himself…
That’s a stark example of the importance of working through the paralyzing effects of disappointment. Otherwise, apparently it can hold you hostage indefinitely.
Time to move on, indeed.