I've been on acetaminophen and have been applying heat at night. Slowly it's getting better. I'll get more of the autism, but I'd rather have than than a gammy arm.
Of course, this happened.
Officially, I'm no longer a member of the emergency response organization at work.
Not that I minded. Well, at least all that much. I know being an ERO member contributed to me surviving at least two rounds of layoffs, so I'm grateful for that.
But since I'm now assigned to work in town, it didn't make much sense for me to stay on board. I've been out of the duty rotation for a few months now, but yesterday got the training need taken off my record so they don't dog me with that anymore.
I'm free. More layoffable, but free.
Rainman Ray. I've been watching his channel for years. And it's odd, because I'm not a mechanic. I'm not even all that interested in cars. I mean, I know how to check fluids, I know what kinds of warning signs to listen for, but when it comes to actual repairs, it's either our mechanic way out in Woodville or our youngest, who has taken on brake work and other such stuff.
So why I've followed Rainman Ray comes down to this: He tells a good story with each video. He shares his failures as well as his successes. He's another human being using the Internet for what the Internet was intended for: Communication with other fleshy human beings.
And I love the celebratory tone of this video. Not only is he moving to a new place to expand his business, he just happens to be moving into a building he was employed at near the beginning of his career, and a business he was fired from. They apparently went out of business and now he's there, horning in on their racket.
He notes it, but doesn't rub it in. Too much.
Anyway, enjoy. I know I do.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Susan Cain turned her book “Quiet” and its follow-ups into a cottage industry, but she does know her audience.
Maybe.
I see she offers courses through Authoritive.com, meant to help introverts thrive. Can’t load any of the course sites on my phone at the moment.
Nevermind. I’m not all that interested. I know plenty of local introverts so if I need any community, I’ll chum up with them. After a fashion. In my own limited way.
Reading “Quiet” was helpful. I appreciate the strategies outlined – from proposing a “Free Trait Agreement” at work and at home to help make life better for introverts to taking introverts and extroverts through the concepts of masking, coping strategies and the use of roleplay to help introverts prepare for stressful situations. Those are sections I’ll read again to figure out how to implement that at the workplace. I’m back to the office full-time after over five years’ bliss of working from home. I won’t gnaw on that particular bone in this post. Or at least not a lot.
The last few chapters of the book meandered a bit and were tough to get through. I should probably read them again. But it is interesting to see many of the strategies I developed on my own recommended to other introverts.
Going back to the office after working from home showed me my use of these strategies has diminished through disuse. Not that I have more interactions in the cubicle versus my basement, but going from my cubicle to the bathroom is fraught with far more interactive risks now.
Reading the book has helped me realize there are more introverted people where I work than I recognized in the past. It also helped me realize that sometimes dealing with those introverts – even for a fellow introvert – can be a pain, so I have a better understanding of extroverts’ pain now. Though I still wish they’d go out of their comfort zones and shut up more.
What stood out a lot to me is that neither introverts nor extroverts need “treatment.” They need understanding, and in many cases, accommodation. And it’s made me a bit more wary of people who think they need to “fix” others.
From the book:
As Ethan grew older, his parents tried in vain to instill “fighting spirit” in him. They sent him onto the baseball diamond and the soccer field, but Ethan just wanted to go home and read. He wasn’t even competitive at school. Though very bright, he was a B student. He could have done better, but preferred wo focus on his hobbies, especially bu9ilding model cars. He had a few close friends, but was never in the thick of classroom social life. Unable to account for his puzzling behavior, Ethan’s parents thought he might be depressed.
But Ethan’s problem, says Dr. Miller, was not depression but a classic case of poor “parent-child fit.”
Compare their worried about Ethan to [child psychologist] Dr. [Jerry] Miller’s assessment: “He was like the classic Harry Potter kid – he was always reading,” says Dr. Miller enthusiastically. “He enjoyed any form of imaginative play. He loved to build things. He had so man things he wanted to tell you about. He had more acceptance of his parents than they had of him. He didn’t define them as pathological, just as different from himself. That same kid in a different home would be a model child.”
But Ethan’s own parents never found a way to see him in that light. The last thing Dr. Miller heard was that his parents finally consulted with another psychologist who agreed to “treat” their son. And now Dr. Miller is worried about Ethan.
The main message I get is that we need to communicate with each other. For introverts, that can be difficult.
I’m trying to understand something: The alchemy that seems to permeate portions of my workplace that makes “shall” preferable to “will” or “must.”
Today I made an appeal to our own writing standard. Follow, brave souls, if you dare.
Here are the definitions I’m working with:
Must Denotes requirement. Will and shall are alternatives. Compare should and may.
May Denotes permission, not a requirement or recommendation. Do not confuse with can, which usually denotes ability. Compare shall and should.
Shall Denotes a requirement. Will and must are alternatives. Compare should and may.
Should Denotes recommendation. Compare shall and may.
Will Denotes requirement, but is more dependent on sentence structure and tone than must and shall, which are alternatives. Compare should and may.
I want to concentrate on must, shall, and will, but included may and should since they are referred to in the definitions.
I feel like, looking at these definitions, that must, shall, and will are synonyms. They mean the same thing. Even taking in the added wordage that will’s definition brings into the situation, I fail to see the difference between the three words. (Will’s extra wordage could, in fact, apply to shall or must, so I see no reason for it to be there. The meaning of all words is dependent on sentence structure and tone. And tone is something we should weed out of technical documents as much as possible.)
Yet I find myself between the proverbial rock and hard place, regarding these words. The rock, engineers reasoning (I believe correctly, based on the definition discussion above) there’s no difference in meaning, and the hard place, preferring shall to will but more importantly gatekeeps what wording is blessed and what wording is frowned upon.
A little note for you from the “Guilt is Good’ department.
This from Susan Cain’s book “Quiet,” which I’m currently reading and have written about before:
(As an explanation, she’s writing about an experiment in which youngsters are handed a toy designed to be broken easily by an adult who tells them this is their very favorite toy and that they should be careful with it. At the conclusion of the experiment, the children are shown the mended toy and told by the adult that everything is OK, after their reaction to the broken toy and the adult’s dismay over its state is observed.)
In our culture, guilt is a tainted word, but it’s probably one of the building blocks of conscience. The anxiety these highly sensitive toddlers feel upon apparently breaking the toy gives them the motivation to avoid harming someone’s plaything the next time. By age four, according to [developmental psychologist Grazyna] Kochanska, these same kids are less likely than their peers to cheat or break rules, even when they think they can’t be caught. And by six or seven, they’re more likely to be described by their parents as having high levels of moral traits such as empathy. They also have fewer behavioral problems in general.
“Functional, moderate guilt,’ writes Kochanska, “may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, adaptive behavior in school, and harmonious, competent, and prosocial relationships with parents, teachers, and friends.”
Feeling guilty about anything? That’s good. Exercise that empathy and personal responsibility.
Had the following conversation on the family group chat earlier today. No response yet on the Simpsons video. I'll let you know if I survive.
I’m reading “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” by Susan Cain, a lucky find at the local thrift store.
It’s . . . enlightening.
First, for its discussion of our evolution from the Culture of Character, starting at the turn of the last century, to the Culture of Personality, the raging wildfire of alphas and grifters and even presidents to whom popularity and personal branding are far more important than, you know, leadership and character.
The book focuses on how the concept of extroverts versus introverts has skewed and is skewing perceptions of leadership in some pretty terrible ways.
In the book she talks about attending (in the lowest-paid tier) a Tony Robbins seminar bent on making extroverts out of everyone in what sounds like the most painful way possible:
[Usher} Stacy asks if I’ve brought my meals with me. It seems a strange question: Who carries their supper from New York City to Atlanta? She explains that I’ll want to refuel at my seat; for the next few days, Friday through Monday, we’ll be working fifteen hours a day; from 8 am to 11 pm, with only one short afternoon break. Tony will be onstage the entire time, and I won’t want to miss a moment.
Also:
Greeters wearing UPW T-shirts and ecstatic smiles line the entrance, springing up and down, fists pumping. You can’t get inside without slapping them five. I know, because I try.
This is all that came to mind:
Quickly the focus shifts, of course, to the grift, where for more money you can get seats closer to the stage – though attendees are encouraged to get up on their folding chairs and dance while Robbins does performative gestures on the Jumbotron, trying to foist investments of $45,000 yearly on attendees so they can go on vacation with Robbins and other like-minded power-oozing extroverted morons to connect and expand and network until light shines out of their bellybuttons and Robbins can afford two castles in Del Mar, California.
This is contrasted with the story of Rosa Parks, who encountered the same racist bus driver eleven years before the incident that led to the Montgomery bus boycott and who only got on the bus again absentmindedly all those years later because she was extra tired from standing on her feet ironing all day.
Guess which of the two has mightier power in our Cult of Personality today; it’s not the one who was overlooked by even the New York Times when the boycott proved successful and the Supreme Court called separate but equal on the bus unconstitutional.
True, I am an introvert myself, father to another introvert. Hoping as I read this I can better understand myself and maybe help that son of mine. I know he’s struggled with introversion in some ways holding him back. He’s intelligent and a hard worker, but he’s struggled to find employment because for most of the jobs he’s applied for, they pre-screen in ways that weed out introverts. (He’s talked about a few “personality tests” he’s had to take and it’s clear the questions skew to find those who love working with others or in groups or whatnot, and when he answers honestly that he’d rather work on his own, he’s screened out.)
Just a word to you extroverts out there: We introverts are always asked to step out of our comfort zones and mask or fake or cope or whatever it is we have to do to succeed in the extrovert world. Why is it no one asks extroverts to step outside of their comfort zones and recognize that they talk too damn much, that introverts can be effective workers, co-workers, and leaders when given the chance and shouldn’t have to be forced to play-act all the damn day just to bring home a paycheck?
