This week was amazingly long: Fritz was in Germany. I went out of town overnight to do some training for my new job. My Dad flew INTO town to help take care of the kiddos. My youngest one graduated from preschool. And I was given an incredibly frustrating project that I couldn’t complete. I missed a lot of sleep, resulting in a pretty grouchy version of myself.
The long weekend is well-timed...I will appreciate every minute of it.
Here are two thing I’ve been reading and thinking about this week:
Published a few months ago, but I keep going back to it as I think about my own sons and my own experiences. "What we need to talk about is training men to read women the way women have been trained to read men."
This week, the kids and I are trying to memorize the lyrics to Purple People Eater. Bonus: multiple lyrical parts for multiple kids! Why you might want to crank up the volume on some music with your kids.
Hope you had a good one.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Friday, May 18, 2018
Thinking
This week I am thinking about how much I appreciate having Fritz around. Without him, the kids seem needier. The days seem longer. And there's no other adult with whom I can decompress. I feel more tired than normal.
***
The kids have taken an interest in gardening this year. All those years of helping me plant and this year: it clicked. "Plants grow! We can make cool spaces and have stuff to eat with growing plants!" They've used up all my spare seeds planting a garden around the playhouse. They have strings running everywhere in hopes that the sweet peas and grape vines can be trained to make a canopy. They've created stone paths running through the mulch. It looks surprisingly...good! I don't know why it took so long for them to get to this level of play. But it's really nice to see.
***
It's so scary and so exciting to begin new things. And uncomfortable. This week is my first week at a new job and I feel...slightly bored. I mean: I love learning new things, but sometimes I wish the process was quicker. It's so rewarding to be productive and crank things out. I like to feel productive. The first week on a new job is not productive. Or at least, mine hasn't been. I think about how much I could be getting done at my old firm, and I sigh. I miss my productivity. But I don't miss the bad aura that hung over the old office. Not that I believe in auras. But then again, maybe I do.
***
I'm drinking wine tonight, before I put the kids to bed. That's unusual for me. But I have a really good wine. So that's encouraging me. It's suppose to rain all weekend. I'll be stuck in the house with three kids. That's bad. I'll be lonely, even though I'm surrounded by kids. Drink more wine, I think.
***
My former coworker is a foster mom for abandoned kittens. The kittens are adopted from her when they get old enough for adoption. Right now, she has two itty bitty kittens. Females. They get along really well. They sleep in a pile. I would like to adopt them. The kids would like to adopt them. Fritz is not on board. Maybe I just need to adopt them while he's gone. Cats might be better than wine when I'm sitting here, feeling alone.
***
Also: are we done with this school shooting problem? I am. I'm done with the guns. Like, just done. Let's get rid of them. F@#$ the second amendment and your interpretation that I disagree with. I am done. We are done. It's time to step up and be done collectively.
***
The kids have taken an interest in gardening this year. All those years of helping me plant and this year: it clicked. "Plants grow! We can make cool spaces and have stuff to eat with growing plants!" They've used up all my spare seeds planting a garden around the playhouse. They have strings running everywhere in hopes that the sweet peas and grape vines can be trained to make a canopy. They've created stone paths running through the mulch. It looks surprisingly...good! I don't know why it took so long for them to get to this level of play. But it's really nice to see.
***
It's so scary and so exciting to begin new things. And uncomfortable. This week is my first week at a new job and I feel...slightly bored. I mean: I love learning new things, but sometimes I wish the process was quicker. It's so rewarding to be productive and crank things out. I like to feel productive. The first week on a new job is not productive. Or at least, mine hasn't been. I think about how much I could be getting done at my old firm, and I sigh. I miss my productivity. But I don't miss the bad aura that hung over the old office. Not that I believe in auras. But then again, maybe I do.
***
I'm drinking wine tonight, before I put the kids to bed. That's unusual for me. But I have a really good wine. So that's encouraging me. It's suppose to rain all weekend. I'll be stuck in the house with three kids. That's bad. I'll be lonely, even though I'm surrounded by kids. Drink more wine, I think.
***
My former coworker is a foster mom for abandoned kittens. The kittens are adopted from her when they get old enough for adoption. Right now, she has two itty bitty kittens. Females. They get along really well. They sleep in a pile. I would like to adopt them. The kids would like to adopt them. Fritz is not on board. Maybe I just need to adopt them while he's gone. Cats might be better than wine when I'm sitting here, feeling alone.
***
Also: are we done with this school shooting problem? I am. I'm done with the guns. Like, just done. Let's get rid of them. F@#$ the second amendment and your interpretation that I disagree with. I am done. We are done. It's time to step up and be done collectively.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
With It
Originally published on my other blog.
My new firm is really with it, at least relative to the last firm. Shiny, new business cards arrived on my fourth day, which seems like a million times better than my last business card experience. When I asked my last boss about business cards, he turned to his clients after a meeting and asked whether or not his employees needed business cards.
Nice.
Let us not mince words: the old boss *wanted* me to go.
Okay: over it. Life goes on.
One of the cool things, from my perspective, about starting over at a new firm is you realize just how many different ways there are to do things. I love this level of learning: where you compare one system to another system. I like to think about the pros and cons; I like the way the comparison allows me to strategize third and forth versions of operating. I think if someone looked at the choices I've made in my life, one could see this love for systems evaluation: I married a foreigner and moved abroad, I had multiple children (not just one), I've lived on three different American coasts (did you remember the third coast? Some of us forget it!), I attended two schools of architecture...and so on.
It's a challenge, though, to live this way. And the older I get, the less I want to be always challenged/challenging. I'll be happy to stay put for a while now. And so far, it really looks like I've chosen well.
My new firm is really with it, at least relative to the last firm. Shiny, new business cards arrived on my fourth day, which seems like a million times better than my last business card experience. When I asked my last boss about business cards, he turned to his clients after a meeting and asked whether or not his employees needed business cards.
Nice.
Let us not mince words: the old boss *wanted* me to go.
Okay: over it. Life goes on.
One of the cool things, from my perspective, about starting over at a new firm is you realize just how many different ways there are to do things. I love this level of learning: where you compare one system to another system. I like to think about the pros and cons; I like the way the comparison allows me to strategize third and forth versions of operating. I think if someone looked at the choices I've made in my life, one could see this love for systems evaluation: I married a foreigner and moved abroad, I had multiple children (not just one), I've lived on three different American coasts (did you remember the third coast? Some of us forget it!), I attended two schools of architecture...and so on.
It's a challenge, though, to live this way. And the older I get, the less I want to be always challenged/challenging. I'll be happy to stay put for a while now. And so far, it really looks like I've chosen well.
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Wild Cards
Every now and then, life seems to deal you some wild cards. Sometimes these come in the form of people and sometimes they come in the form of opportunities or news. Sometimes, the wild card is something that you hold in your hand, unsure how it fits in with anything else in your life, and sometimes the wild card is something you must play right away.
Fritz came into my life as a wild card. He didn't really fit my plan. We met. We were friends for about a year. We dated for a month or two, but then: I was going to grad school and leaving Portland far behind; he was heading back to Munich to take his first faculty position. On our first actual date, I was really upfront about his potential status in my life,
"Well, I'm applying to grad schools. For my masters."
"Where are you applying?"
"Harvard. Princeton. MIT."
"Oooh. What's your back up school?" he asked.
"MIT."
"Huh. Nothing close to Portland? Nothing on the West Coast?"
"No."
I just wanted him to know, as we were sitting there, on a date: he didn't fit my plan. Sure, we could go on a couple dates. But he was just a wild card.
That was, of course, before I really knew how powerful wild cards could be. I thought I had a lot of control. I thought I had everything all figured out. I had the typical confidence of a 27 year old, and the typical lack of wisdom of a 27 year old. Oh wild cards! How they could make you shift course: move across the Atlantic, pause a career, bring three little lives into the world.
***
Then there was the Denver interview. We had been living in Munich for about 4 years. Noah was almost a year old. I'd taken a job teaching business English and was surprised to find that I not only loved teaching, but it was providing the perfect complement to my life as a first time mom. After a rough 18 months of culture shock, and what seemed like a hopeless search for work as an architect, I had STILL managed to settle in to life in Germany. I even managed to attract the attention of some Americans looking for a Munich-based architect... would it lead to anything? Who knew, but at least things were beginning to feel like they fit.
One night, Fritz came home with the news that he had a job interview in Denver. I was shocked. I didn't even know that he had applied for a job in Denver! Two years before, I would have been overjoyed. But now? After all the hard work of settling in that we had done... was I ready to walk away and move back to the States?
***
These days, when I catch whiff of a wild card, I'm cautious. Really cautious. I try to skirt away from them. Earlier in life, I grabbed those wild cards and held on tight, without so much as a second thought. But now I wonder, I really wonder...are they worth it? Do I hold the wild card, play it, or drop it? Shouldn't I just continue the path I'm on?
***
Recently, I dropped a wild card. I dropped it right down on the floor and then I stepped on it, while clamping my eyes shut. It was one of the more challenging things I've done lately. I think whenever you have an opportunity at my age (regardless of the form it comes in), you realize that passing up an opportunity is not just passing up the possible outcomes, but passing up people, adventures, and a part of yourself that could use some developing. With age, life feels more finite and you know that you are most likely passing an opportunity that will never come again. You are choosing comfort over thrill, familiarity over growth.
But then: I also grabbed a wild card: a new job, which I start tomorrow. I think that this job will be a much better fit for me. But I must confess, I'm having some pretty ambiguous feelings about starting over AGAIN. The part of me that wants to just sit still, smell the flowers, and enjoy the ride? That part of me is sulking about the transition. I talked myself into this, in part, by telling myself that this was coming anyway and it's better to just rip the bandaid off and move on. Still. Still.
Fritz came into my life as a wild card. He didn't really fit my plan. We met. We were friends for about a year. We dated for a month or two, but then: I was going to grad school and leaving Portland far behind; he was heading back to Munich to take his first faculty position. On our first actual date, I was really upfront about his potential status in my life,
"Well, I'm applying to grad schools. For my masters."
"Where are you applying?"
"Harvard. Princeton. MIT."
"Oooh. What's your back up school?" he asked.
"MIT."
"Huh. Nothing close to Portland? Nothing on the West Coast?"
"No."
I just wanted him to know, as we were sitting there, on a date: he didn't fit my plan. Sure, we could go on a couple dates. But he was just a wild card.
That was, of course, before I really knew how powerful wild cards could be. I thought I had a lot of control. I thought I had everything all figured out. I had the typical confidence of a 27 year old, and the typical lack of wisdom of a 27 year old. Oh wild cards! How they could make you shift course: move across the Atlantic, pause a career, bring three little lives into the world.
***
Then there was the Denver interview. We had been living in Munich for about 4 years. Noah was almost a year old. I'd taken a job teaching business English and was surprised to find that I not only loved teaching, but it was providing the perfect complement to my life as a first time mom. After a rough 18 months of culture shock, and what seemed like a hopeless search for work as an architect, I had STILL managed to settle in to life in Germany. I even managed to attract the attention of some Americans looking for a Munich-based architect... would it lead to anything? Who knew, but at least things were beginning to feel like they fit.
One night, Fritz came home with the news that he had a job interview in Denver. I was shocked. I didn't even know that he had applied for a job in Denver! Two years before, I would have been overjoyed. But now? After all the hard work of settling in that we had done... was I ready to walk away and move back to the States?
***
These days, when I catch whiff of a wild card, I'm cautious. Really cautious. I try to skirt away from them. Earlier in life, I grabbed those wild cards and held on tight, without so much as a second thought. But now I wonder, I really wonder...are they worth it? Do I hold the wild card, play it, or drop it? Shouldn't I just continue the path I'm on?
***
Recently, I dropped a wild card. I dropped it right down on the floor and then I stepped on it, while clamping my eyes shut. It was one of the more challenging things I've done lately. I think whenever you have an opportunity at my age (regardless of the form it comes in), you realize that passing up an opportunity is not just passing up the possible outcomes, but passing up people, adventures, and a part of yourself that could use some developing. With age, life feels more finite and you know that you are most likely passing an opportunity that will never come again. You are choosing comfort over thrill, familiarity over growth.
But then: I also grabbed a wild card: a new job, which I start tomorrow. I think that this job will be a much better fit for me. But I must confess, I'm having some pretty ambiguous feelings about starting over AGAIN. The part of me that wants to just sit still, smell the flowers, and enjoy the ride? That part of me is sulking about the transition. I talked myself into this, in part, by telling myself that this was coming anyway and it's better to just rip the bandaid off and move on. Still. Still.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Transfer
Originally published on my other blog.
Lately, I'm reading about how to quit a job. And if you are reading this blog post, it means that I've already quit my job and am proceeding forward into a new job that I've spent a lot of time chasing.
A few months ago, I was ready to leave my job and post a cautionary collection of experiences on
Glassdoor, warning any future employees of just what they might be getting into.
Now that I'm staring down the reality of resigning – and now that I'm reading all the rules about resigning – I'm getting cold feet about posting anything on Glassdoor.
If you haven't read any advice lately on how to resign from a job, here's what they say (and this is pretty universal): tell you employer first. Be grateful and thankful and focus on the positive aspects of the job in the exit interview, no matter what. Write a brief and polite resignation letter; remember it will go in your employee file. Don't tell your colleagues before your boss. Be willing to accommodate/complete office projects and train new people to take over as much as possible. Work hard until the end so that you can get a good reference, you never know when you might need to come back (for something/anything). Last impressions matter.
I've already started reframing the act of quitting in the most glowing terms possible. I started the reframing process as soon as I started applying for jobs and it's still on-going: I'm not quitting because of the misogyny. I'm quitting because I wanted more opportunities to grow. No! Wait! I'm not quitting, I'm resigning!I'm not resigning because I felt black-balled, I'm resigning because I want a more collaborative environment. Oh, oh! I'm not even resigning! Did I mention that? I'm transferring! I'm transferring into a position with more opportunities for growth and collaboration!
GAWD. Even I, myself, feel a little disgusted by how marketed I've become.
As I reframe and market myself, I can't help but wonder if I'm really doing anyone any favors. Like my colleagues. I like my colleagues. I would like to tell them personally why I am leaving. I would like to thank them - because really, if there is anyone I'm thankful for, it is my colleagues. I've heard my boss spin his own version of why past employees left and I have learned that his versions are not to be trusted. I don't really want him to speak for me... or if he is going to speak for me, I, at least, want my version to offer a check and balance in their minds. When I tell my boss that I am resigning, how quickly will he ask me to leave? I don't know. But I do know that I might not have a chance to talk to my colleagues AFTER I talk to my boss.
Also, here's the thing about burning bridges: It's a small place in the profession. I get that. But I resent the notion that I have to put up with being treated unfairly and act grateful because nobody else will hire me if I don't. I mean: oomph. In the case of this job where women were treated with repeated disrespect, the advice distills to this: Swallow, ladies. Now swallow again. Good job. You passed the test. You may stay (and continue to swallow because if you don't swallow, you're out).
Really? Is this it? Is this in my best interest? Your best interest? Or just my employer's best interest? Is this really the type of advice that is wise for our society? Or is this the type of advice that furthers inequity?
I respect the need for some discretion. I accept that we need to think before we speak. I remind myself that the next employee, or the employee sitting next to me, may not feel the same way that I do. The remaining employees at my office, presumably, don't feel as I do. Or, at least, they don't feel as strongly as I do. I tell myself that all of this is subjective. Then, I'll put on my well-rehearsed, marketed face. And I'll keep my mouth shut. I hope.
Lately, I'm reading about how to quit a job. And if you are reading this blog post, it means that I've already quit my job and am proceeding forward into a new job that I've spent a lot of time chasing.
A few months ago, I was ready to leave my job and post a cautionary collection of experiences on
Glassdoor, warning any future employees of just what they might be getting into.
Now that I'm staring down the reality of resigning – and now that I'm reading all the rules about resigning – I'm getting cold feet about posting anything on Glassdoor.
If you haven't read any advice lately on how to resign from a job, here's what they say (and this is pretty universal): tell you employer first. Be grateful and thankful and focus on the positive aspects of the job in the exit interview, no matter what. Write a brief and polite resignation letter; remember it will go in your employee file. Don't tell your colleagues before your boss. Be willing to accommodate/complete office projects and train new people to take over as much as possible. Work hard until the end so that you can get a good reference, you never know when you might need to come back (for something/anything). Last impressions matter.
I've already started reframing the act of quitting in the most glowing terms possible. I started the reframing process as soon as I started applying for jobs and it's still on-going: I'm not quitting because of the misogyny. I'm quitting because I wanted more opportunities to grow. No! Wait! I'm not quitting, I'm resigning!I'm not resigning because I felt black-balled, I'm resigning because I want a more collaborative environment. Oh, oh! I'm not even resigning! Did I mention that? I'm transferring! I'm transferring into a position with more opportunities for growth and collaboration!
GAWD. Even I, myself, feel a little disgusted by how marketed I've become.
As I reframe and market myself, I can't help but wonder if I'm really doing anyone any favors. Like my colleagues. I like my colleagues. I would like to tell them personally why I am leaving. I would like to thank them - because really, if there is anyone I'm thankful for, it is my colleagues. I've heard my boss spin his own version of why past employees left and I have learned that his versions are not to be trusted. I don't really want him to speak for me... or if he is going to speak for me, I, at least, want my version to offer a check and balance in their minds. When I tell my boss that I am resigning, how quickly will he ask me to leave? I don't know. But I do know that I might not have a chance to talk to my colleagues AFTER I talk to my boss.
Also, here's the thing about burning bridges: It's a small place in the profession. I get that. But I resent the notion that I have to put up with being treated unfairly and act grateful because nobody else will hire me if I don't. I mean: oomph. In the case of this job where women were treated with repeated disrespect, the advice distills to this: Swallow, ladies. Now swallow again. Good job. You passed the test. You may stay (and continue to swallow because if you don't swallow, you're out).
Really? Is this it? Is this in my best interest? Your best interest? Or just my employer's best interest? Is this really the type of advice that is wise for our society? Or is this the type of advice that furthers inequity?
I respect the need for some discretion. I accept that we need to think before we speak. I remind myself that the next employee, or the employee sitting next to me, may not feel the same way that I do. The remaining employees at my office, presumably, don't feel as I do. Or, at least, they don't feel as strongly as I do. I tell myself that all of this is subjective. Then, I'll put on my well-rehearsed, marketed face. And I'll keep my mouth shut. I hope.
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