Life: Under Construction

Success, defined

Currently I'm reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. It's an interesting book (when I get around to dipping into it) in which Gladwell argues that our society has brought us up to believe that success it purely a matter of talent and hard work while in reality many other factors unrelated to natural talent influence who is successful and who is not. This is not to say that talent, brains and hard work do not play into success. There is no doubt that an athlete needs to be good at their sport to make it to the professional level or that original leaders of the PC industry knew their stuff. What Gladwell argues is that talent is a necessary condition for success but it is not sufficient. It wasn't enough that Bill Joy, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were all very intelligent individuals. They also were some of the few people in the world in the 1970s who had access to a computer, all for different reasons, on which they could practice the new skill of programming. It was this access to computers, in addition to being just the right age to be willing to break out into the uncharted waters of personal computers, that set these men apart from the rest of the field.

Similarly, in professional athletic leagues, a disproportionate number of athletes have birthdays that are at the beginning of the year. The difference between a child who is 9 years and 10 months old and another child who is 9 years and 2 months old is small. The older child has had slightly more time to practice the sport in question, he may be a little more coordinated and also a tiny bit bigger. This slight advantage will translate into coaches and leagues choosing, on average, the older children (i.e. those born at the beginning of the year so they are old for their age group). These children will then have access to better coaching, get more time playing in games. Over the years it takes them to get onto the track into the professional leagues, these advantages will translate into an increase in their skill level. Being older and being chosen ahead of younger children turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy where they actually do become better than the younger players.

Some people might be disheartened by this news, taking it as a sign that even if they may be talented, they probably won't end up with success. I, instead, take it as a sign that our life experience is giving us tools for life. Since everyone's life experience is different, we are all gathering different skill sets, different sets of contacts and when an opportunity arises, we will use everything at our disposal to make the most of it. 

One of the most interesting things that Gladwell writes is that '...autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward--are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.' I don't believe I have ever heard happiness in the workplace put so succinctly and coherently. It is so obvious: you need to have some independence, it needs to be interesting and you need to have an incentive to work hard. Here we have an explanation for why almost any job can seem great in the beginning when everything is new and interesting. 6, 12, 24 months later you could do the job with your eyes closed and are sometimes tempted to do so. In addition, after that amount of time in one office, you become aware of the politics of the office: who slacks off, who the boss has a soft spot for and the result is that the relationship between effort and reward becomes murky giving you a disincentive to take care with your work.

As someone who is still trying to find her 'calling' in life, I felt the need to share Gladwell's insight with the greater worldwide web. It might be an answer for those questioning their life's purpose, but it is a road map of sorts. To close, I will just share another of Gladwell's gems: 'Hard work is only a prison sentence if it does not have meaning.' Thank You Malcolm!!

Holding out hope or just plain holding?

I moved to New York when I was 13. It was the mid-90's when the economy was beginning to surge out of the recession on the strength of the newly expanding tech sector. Giuliani's efforts to revitalize the city were in full swing. The city vibrated with hope and possibility. I remember vividly one day, walking down 5th Avenue with the sight of the Washington Square Arch and the Twin Towers in front of me, I suddenly realized that I had to power to shape my own life and make of it what I wanted.

Over a decade later and that hope is gone. Instead of encouraging myself to reach for the stars, I now tell myself that I should just be happy to have a job, any job, even if it is boring and wastes my talents. I suppress any desire for adventure or branching out because it's best to stay put right now, and for the next year or so, while the economy is tanking.

The hope that my generation had a few years ago has been replaced with a holding pattern: 'I'll do this graduate work while I wait for the economy to recover', 'I'll take this crap job until something better comes along', 'I can't get a job, I might as well go traveling'. Many of us may have chosen our holding pattern thinking it would only last a few months, but now we are stuck for longer...how much longer is anyone's guess which is perhaps the most depressing thing about it.

Times like this I wonder if this is what aging is...letting go of hope and accepting the limitations of the world.

You Gotta Serve Somebody

I'm not sure if anyone else saw 'The Thomas Crown Affair' that came out in 1999, a remake of the 1968 version with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen. The newer version boasted Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. There is a scene at the end of the film that was inspired by Rene Magritte's paining 'The Son of Man' (man in a bowler hat whose mouth is obscured by a green apple). The scene in the movie is a witty play on the anonymity and uniformity of the businessman in a suit.

Working in a corporate office as I do, there is plenty of opportunity to observe men in suits. While Crown uses his uniform and likeness to escape capture, I often wonder if businessmen use the suit as a way to escape judgment. I had a strange moment today as I gazed out into the hallway and elevator bank and I saw numerous men in blue shirts and black slacks walking hither and thither, on the elevator, off the elevator. It was choreographed by fate and though it was interesting to watch it felt eerily like I was watching clones, or perhaps soldiers going about their business. The unnerving thing about uniformity is that it implies that you are one of many, here today, gone tomorrow. It exposes the transient quality of life, as far as the individual is concerned and removes the delusion of uniqueness that comforts all of us.

As Bob Dylan once crooned 'you gotta serve somebody'. The suit has become the uniform of the modern-day soldier, signaling that their time is not their own but belongs to their boss.

Announcing Your Unemployed...Awkward Much?!

I moved out to San Francisco for a yoga teaching gig. After 4 months there, my unhappiness was only growing. I knew it, my bosses knew it and more importantly, they had someone who could replace me. While it was me that declared that I no longer wanted the job, it felt as though they were not sorry to see the back of me and so in that sense I was fired as much as I quit.

I returned to New York to begin putting humpty dumpty back together again. Awkward moments abounded as I ran into old friends and acquaintances who would yell with excitement 'Are you visiting from San Francisco?', 'How are things out there?', 'How are [insert names of bosses here]?'. As an article in today's New York Times discusses, there is no easy way to handle the subject of unemployment. For the most part, I chose to be direct explaining that I no longer worked in San Francisco and that I had just moved back to New York. This was not always the easiest thing to say as invariably people would either ask 'So, what are you doing now?' or they would go digging for gossip.

As adults we define one another by the jobs that we hold. This makes unemployment, even if it is only transitional, a very difficult road to tread. During this time I was stopped on the street by a photographer who was taking pictures of stylish people for some publication. She took several photos of me (what can I say, I'm a fashion star!) and then asked what I was wearing and when and wear it had been purchased, then she asked what I did for a living. I tried to explain that I was in between jobs and looking for something new. This answer did not fit into her desired blurb so eventually I gave up and gave my occupation as 'yoga teacher'.

It was a humbling time but what struck me most was how sympathetic and encouraging most of the people I spoke to were. They reminded me how talented I was and that this situation would only be temporary. That support is pivotal as people deal with unemployment. It is compassion that can turn an awkward moment into an uplifting one.

25 going on 23

Over the weekend I was walking down the street, conversing with a 23 year-old who had just finished up an internship at an investment bank and was flying back to London that night. 'What do you have lined up in London?' I asked. The response: 'Nothing. I figure at 23 it's OK to just faff about in London for a bit.' True. At 23 it is perfectly acceptable to laze around in a direction-less manner, just working enough to buy yourself alcohol and food. Unfortunately for me, I am 25 and at 25 it is somehow not quite so acceptable to have no idea what you want to do with your life and to be in a dead-end job. Then I read this article on the Guardian and it got me thinking...

Kate Garraway is a British TV presenter who has for years allowed people to think that she was a year younger than she actually is. On the eve of her 41st birthday (everyone else thought it was her 40th), she came clean. It all began with an article that mis-stated her age, Garraway just never went to the trouble to correct it. She was glad of the down-size in both her professional and her personal life. A survey in England found that one in five people have lied about their age. When you look at people between the ages of 19 and 34 that statistics rises to one in three.

With so many people lying about their age, why not join them? It occurred to me that by shaving a couple of years off of my age, I could go from someone who has slightly screwed up their life to one that is actually very mature for her age and has done a lot with themselves. I think I could pull it off too. I am, in this instance, lucky to be petite and blond, two characteristics that make me look younger than I am (just the other night I got carded going into a club and the bouncer asked me to recite my address to make sure my i.d. wasn't a fake!!). I should just stop correcting people when they think I am 23 or 21, instead I should play it up and watch all my ducks fall into a row.

The only down-side, as Garraway found, is once you take up this farce, you are rather stuck with it but then by the time you are in your 50's the difference between 53 and 55 is small. 23 here I come!

It's Not In Your Head...It's In Your Office

In offices, people always seem to conjure with sickness: 'Oooh yes, there's a nasty virus going round. Michelle down the hall was out for TWO whole days and I am feeling a slight tickle in my throat!' I would like to ask when was the last time that there was not a virulent bug flying around the office? On Monday, one of my co-workers came in sick. She was pale, she was groggy...it was THE ATTACK OF THE STOMACH BUG! And she was kind enough to come in to work when she was so unwell, exposing us all to her sickness. I immediately began questioning where her germs might be....Were they on the phone? Were they on the keyboard? Had she breathed on the candy bowl? Or had she touched the pen I was inadvertently putting in my mouth (Yikes!)? I, the girl that used to go by the moto 'God made dirt, dirt don't hurt', ran out to get those antibacterial hand wipes.

Despite having taken all reasonable (and some slightly neurotic) precautions to protect myself from those germs, I began to feel slightly queasy. I was sure my head was throbbing. And why was I feeling so light-headed? Oh God, had I caught it? Was I going to be laying low for the next week with the Western version of Delhi Belly? OK, I admit it, I was being a bit of a hypochondriac. All of my symptoms could be put down to eating too many cookies and not getting enough iron but that does not mean that my worries were invalid.

The Guardian reported this morning the results of a study a microbiologist did for Which? Computing magazine. The scientist took samples from 33 keyboards in a perfectly ordinary office and found a variety of bugs including E coli and S aureus which can cause skin irritation and make you ill. One of the keyboards tested was five times dirtier than the office toilet, which was tested for comparison. Some of the keyboards also tested positive for coliform bacteria which is found in fecal matter (ewwww!).

The reason for keyboards being a good nesting place for bacteria is the fact that people eat at their desks. As you eat, crumbs from your food drop down into the cracks and crevices of your keyboard. The encourages the growth of millions of bacteria. The other main culprit is poor personal hygiene, specifically after using the toilet (surprise, surprise). The easiest solution: wash your hands regularly and clean your keyboard with an approved solution to keep bacteria at bay.

But even if you take all these precautions...your office may still make you ill. Workplace allergies, in particular occupational asthma, accounts for 10 percent of asthma cases in the U.S. and leads to over 24.5 million missed workdays nation-wide! Irritants for occupational asthma can be anything from astringent cleaning products that are used, poor ventilation or a co-worker's pungent perfume. Some workers have immediate allergic reactions to their environment but many find that their sensitivity grows over time and then never goes away.

An occupational illness is identified by its symptoms: you feel gradually worse as the day goes on and then your condition improves at night and on the weekends. I used to work in the cramped reception desk of a yoga studio. There was little to no ventilation and with all the students sweating in the practice rooms behind us, the oxygen seemed to get used up in no time. By the end of the day I would be feeling nauseas and faint. Occupational illness can sometimes be resolved simply by cleaning the air filter or changing the cleaning products used. Other times it can be more complicated (and costly) and can lead to a rift between the 'sensitive' employee and management. In the worst cases, affected employees may have to switch companies to get away from the toxic environment.

So next time you think you are imagining your symptoms or you think it might psychosomatic, consider that it may not be you...it's your office!!

 

Job Interviews Are Like Dates...

While both hold the potential of a better life, they both require you to look your best and not confuse Tasmania with Tanzania. For an amusing comparison of interviews and dates click here.

(hat tip: Susie)

Pigs Fly

In my previous post, I said that I was not a feminist. Let me clarify that and say that I was brought up in a time and in an environment in which feminism (in the 1970's sense of the word; meaning equality between the sexes) was the status quo. Throughout my schooling we were taught that girls were just as smart, just as tough and just as likely to be successful as the boys and most of our teachers treated us as such. (The one major exception was my elementary school gym teacher who expected the boys to run a mile in under 10 minutes but didn't mind that us girls slowly walked our way around the track immersed in conversation; but then, I was quite thankful for these low standards since I am not what you would call 'sporty'!) The closest I have come to encountering sexism is construction working glaring at me like they could sprinkle me onto their BLT and devour me. It therefore completely blows my mind when I hear of people having to put up sexist pigs in their work environment. My friend Jodi recently had an unbelievable encounter with a customer. Check out her blog and prepare to gasp!

Short-Run Depression...Down-Sized Long-Term?

In life there are certain targets that you are supposed to hit. At 22, college should be behind you, as should impressive internships. On leaving college, entry-level jobs should be applied for and pursued. By 25 you are expected to have a certain amount of experience in whatever field has taken your fancy. At this point, while your future isn't completely mapped out, you should be able to convince others of your talent and dedication. But what happens if you miss these targets? Specifically what happens if your career path is initially hampered by a slow economy...will the affect your entire career?

When I first moved to New York, it was 1996 and New York was showing the first signs of speeding away from the slowdown of the early 90s into the tech boom at the end of the decade. By 1997 the city was rolling in dough. Success was inevitable, failure impossible. And while small tech firms everywhere launched themselves onto the expectant world, students of New York's universities excitedly joined the workforce. It seemed recent graduates could do no wrong. No matter how much you had slacked off in school, how few internships you did, how little real world experience you had, there were opportunities for you. We can definitely assume that plenty of those start-ups didn't make it in the long run. For sure, lots of firms that expanded during the boom subsequently had to downsize. But from the point of view of those recent entrants to the labor force, the benefit had already been gained and added (opportunistically) to their resumes. I was in high school at the time of the boom and I remember hoping that the current good fortune would last until I entered the labor force.

It was recently reported that the U.S. economy lost 80,000 jobs in March. Things are very different than they were in the late 90's. And for anyone prospectively looking at the job market things may look slightly bleak. The nature of the business cycle is to expand and contract so we can assume that this current downsizing will not be permanent. But, if you are headed out into the labor force in the next year, there will likely be fewer jobs, fewer opportunities. And as a result, at 25 this latest round of graduates may not have much to show for it...they may have had a harder time finding initial employment and their jobs may not have been as desirable as liked. Will employers give them a pass knowing that they entered the market in tough times? Or, will employers judge them on their resume's face value? If the latter is the case, a short-term depression in the economy may turn into a long-term depression for these new workers.

Generation Why Us?!

Awhile back I was listening to Carolyn Myss's radio talk show and she was asking her viewers why they would assume that their 'life's calling' would also be able to pay the bills, provide health insurance and send their mothers flowers on her birthday?! I thought of this comment on reading a recent article in the New York Times entitled 'Prepping Children for the 9 to 5'. In it, Lisa Belkin argues that Generation Y has and is being brought up in such an idealistic way that disappointment and failure are likely outcomes on entering the workforce.

As a member of Generation Y, I can attest that I was brought up with high expectations of what it would be like to 'work'. In school, creative talents were always commended; independent thinking encouraged; and lack of responsibility allowed. My first wake-up call arrived in the form of the SATs. Here was a task that neither imagination nor tears would help me through. There was only one thing for it and that was old-fashioned hard work. Generation Y-ers are slamming up against brick walls everywhere as they realize that the traits that were so coveted in their childhood are not enough. I think it is important to stress that it is not that creativity, free-thinking, a desire to love what you do are negative or somehow not useful...it is just that they are not sufficient and being too attached to any one of them is likely to get in the way.

Generation Y is the epitome of the 'American Dream'....a teacher asks a little boy what he wants to be when he grows up and the boy replies 'I want to be an astronaut but only after I'm a first-round draft pick in the NBA and I invent ice cream that no one has ever thought of before.' The teacher's reply to a Generation Y-er? 'Go then, become the best damn ice cream inventing-basketball playing-astronaut the world has ever seen!!' We were never taught that constraints exist. We were never told that drawing pretty pictures of flowers may not pay the rent or that writing poems about gut-wrenching emotions will not put kids through school.

My own experience on entering the workforce was to be drawn into Yoga. I liked taking classes, the people were nice, I could read lots of interesting books and call it work...what more could a girl ask for?! So after completing a teacher training course I threw myself into it. And I was a natural. I could easily discourse on various philosophies as well as create interesting sequences of poses. Most people had to slave away, subbing classes for ages, until they got their own. But for me it was easy. It was this easiness that made me think this was my dharma (yogic word for Destiny). I moved out to San Francisco to teach full-time. My path was marked. The stars were aligned....And I hated it. I hated having to perform each and every day. I hated having to worry about how many students would show up and if that would be enough to buy me food for the day. I hated having to pay lip service to the owners who were manipulative and self-centered. I was horrified that this wasn't working. This was my Path, my Calling...what was wrong?! I am not alone in my experience of going after a dream only to find it is less like a dream and more like a nightmare.

I believe that the worst result of all this idealization is not so much the rude-awakening that we are receiving (to which I might add that surely previous generations have experienced similar shocks on stepping off the boat or moving to the big city) but the worst of it is that if you haven't found a job that you L-O-V-E or a career that is your Destiny, you feel you are somehow failing. It is the perceived failing that causes the most anguish and forces us to keep 'searching'. Some might argue that Generation Y needs a reality check and a kick up the old a@#...I think Generation Y is already getting plenty of that. What we really need is permission from ourselves and those around that it is ok to not be running down a dream and to just put in the hours as we figure things out.