Another doozy.

Today, I'm going to tackle one of the most serious issues yet.   Again, it's controversial and often a topic that is generally avoided, but, in my opinion, it's a real problem with no clear solutions.

I've been a victim of it many times - some situations were borderline laughable and others were outright predatory.

As a female in the workplace, there is  no "right way" to handle sexual harassment and frankly it just sucks.  I think there should be a special place in hell for men (or women - Horrible Bosses anyone?) who harass coworkers.  If we use Dante's Inferno as a reference, many would probably place them in the second circle (Lust), but I'd throw those punks into the ninth circle (Betrayal).  Harassers betray their work community and can make the victims feel helpless.

My first experience with sexual harassment was during an internship at the age of twenty.  I was working in the Marketing Research department of a large, well known company. My immediate boss was a lovely woman who treated me incredibly well.  Unfortunately, her boss was an older (un)gentleman who didn't seem to know how to act appropriately to save his life.  He once asked me what sorority I was in because he had seen sorority thongs with rhinestone greek letters and wouldn't I want that? Umm. no.  Not only would I have never bought those for myself to begin with, I certainly don't want them from a boss. Shit, I don't even want to talk about thongs, or cotton granny panties for that matter, with a dirty old man.

Later, at a dinner party, he asked if the female professor who recommended me for the internship was a lesbian because both of the interns she had sent to their program were "hot girls."  Well, that was a load of shit right there. I was offended that I was spoken about in such a manner but I was more offended that he said something like that about a beloved mentor.  It was just an asshole thing to say.

Thankfully, I didn't take that man seriously at all.  He asked if I might be interested in a full time job after graduation and I'm pretty sure I laughed awkwardly and said no thank you without any effort of telling him I appreciated the offer etc etc.  I can tell you that a short time later H.R. canned his ass so at least these things were not tolerated over the long term.

The next incident I had with harassment was the laughable one. This guy was old as dirt, cocky as hell, and thought people should care that he was rich.  He was a VP at the company I was working at.  I was a recent MBA graduate who was working too many hours and honestly, trying to prove myself.  He implied that I should get him coffee more often, that I didn't have the dedication that the men did, and that maybe I should wear shorter skirts.  Arrogant son of a .... The reason this was laughable was because I marched into the COO's office (immediately), interrupted a meeting, and told him, he could handle this son.of.a. or I would, and I promised it would not end well if I handled it.  The COO did me a solid.  Not only did he talk to him, he had his bulldog, take no shit, executive assistant (who I loved despite the fact that she scared me) tear him a new one.  Despite the fact that this VP outranked everyone involved, at the end of all of this, he apologized, brought me a coffee and NEVER talked to me condescendingly again.  While I never forgot, I eventually forgave.  It didn't make it okay but at least he made an attempt to make it better. While it wasn't laughable as it was happening, watching him grovel later certainly made him borderline pathetic... a sad, little comedic man.

Finally, my last encounters were the worst. I worked at a company where leering at women was completely accepted.  Jokes about strippers were commonplace and married men didn't even try to hide their affairs.  I am by no means saying that the girls were innocent in this but they were often helpless to change it.  The culture was so bad that I began to dress more and more conservatively....not that it really helped.  You know it is bad when you look in the mirror every morning and wonder if there is any way your outfit will encourage negative attention.  I was called "hot" in a board meeting.  I was told by a C level executive that I was welcome to sit in his lap if there weren't enough chairs.  WHAT?  Sadly, these kind of comments were common place (and they got WAY worse, these are tame examples) and I know other girls had it worse than I did.

I never thought this behavior was okay (and for the record, I'm not a prude nor am I that uptight) but my options were to quit or deal with it.  I had gone to HR and because these actions were committed by the VP of HR's bosses, well she told me honestly she could do nothing about it.  This company was sued more than once (they lost every time) for sexual harassment.  I honestly thought about suing when I left.  (It wasn't why I left but eventually it would have been had I not had other plans.) Sadly, if you sue, it feels dirty, if you stay at your job, it feels dirty, and if you just quit, well, you're screwed.  Thankfully, I didn't have golden handcuffs and could afford to leave.  But, why shouldn't I have sued?  I just didn't want to deal with the drama, the negative feelings and the feeling of "dirty money."  They got lucky that I decided it wasn't worth my time/energy.

The really sad part is that I wrote a long note about my experiences upon leaving.  I wrote down every detail of every negative thing that had happened to me before I left.  I didn't do this for me.  I did it hoping that the next girl who came along might not have to deal with it.  The VP of HR admitted during coffee months later, that my letter is sitting in a file in her office and that no one has seen it.  She just didn't think it would do any good and would only cause her issues.  I could blame her for not doing her job, but I don't.  I understand her predicament.  She is in a lose lose situation.  I could blame myself for not doing more but I don't.  I did what I thought was the best thing at the time.  My blame goes on the perpetrators.

I'm not writing these things down to drudge up old, very yucky feelings, or to make anyone feel sorry for me.  I'm writing them down to encourage others to not be afraid to talk about bullshit harassment and to also recognize that this is a problem EVERYONE needs to work on.  Maybe one day, the perpetrators will be openly shunned and we won't make the women feel bad about speaking up.  I know there are places where that happens but sadly I think harassment is still something that gets swept under the rug entirely too often. 

Games I play...

So this goes back to the previous post about goal setting, but I totally play this game, ALL DAY LONG, where I set little mini-goals for myself (because.I.am.a.weird.kid.) 

For instance, this morning I decided to deep clean my house - literally scrubbed virtually every inch.  I did this between (and sometimes while on) numerous conference calls (the joys of working from home.)  That part is all well and good - clean house, work calls completed - A+ for multi-tasking.  Here's the weird part - Let's say my next call was in thirty minutes.  In my head, I would list out all the things I HAD to get done in that thirty minute time period and then I'd try to do them as quickly as possible.

Now, let's be clear here,  I did NOT have to do those things in the thirty allotted minutes.  (To be honest, the house wasn't horribly dirty, so I didn't have to do them at all.  But for the sake of argument, we'll go with the cleaning being necessary.)  While I had a lot of things I wanted to get done today, I had plenty of time to do them.  They could have waited until the afternoon, or even until the weekend.  There was no big party tonight where someone might have noticed that my toilets weren't scrubbed to perfection..so why in the heck did I give myself these time limits?

The answer is:  that's just who I am.  I like to challenge myself and set goals (even if they are totally meaningless.)  

Now, please don't think I'm totally nuts.  I can settle down and watch a movie with no agenda or goal in mind, but if I am in work mode, the games get played.  Does anyone else play these crazy games?  

 

Goal setting at its worst..

Ahh...the good old days.  When I reminesce about college, I don't think about partying (though I did enough of that) or bars (despite frequenting them often), I think about the fact that in many, albeit odd, ways, life was easier.  So, I was broke, and my furniture and home weren't all that nice, and I did often have to work and go to school in order to get through, but that wasn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.  For the Type A, achievement oriented, control freak of a girl that I am, there was a well lit path of "right" things to do which made life SO much easier.  

You remember in kindergarten when you got a gold star for being good? See, I like gold stars. Kindergarten was my jam.  I like "achieving" things and having an obvious way of knowing I've achieved it.  In college, there was firstly your report card.  The report card was a very obvious indicator of achieving something.  This led to honor societies.  Grades plus volunteerism and social sororities etc led to Motor Board which was generally a sign that you did good stuff for the College.  So, while I didn't get into every single thing I may have wanted to,  the path was there and was obvious and it felt good.

Then there were internships to apply for, scholarships to try to win, GRE's to take, grad schools to apply for - the list goes on. It was just pretty obvious what you were "supposed" to do to get ahead.  Maybe it makes me a total nerd, but I really enjoyed having a fairly clear path of things I "needed" to do.  

Out in the real world, things get a little blurry.  Now, there are some professions that still lend themselves to this path - for instance, the military, certain consulting/law/accounting firms, and academia.  They aren't exact paths but you generally know what you have to do to get to the next level and there is a clear next level that you can strive towards.  I'm sure there is a downside to those professions too, but I am jealous that they all have a path that gives you some feedback on whether or not you're a rockstar.  

Currently, I have no path, other than maybe personal fulfillment?  While I chose this semi-retired life and am happy I did, the lack of a path is still hard to deal with at times.  Which clients should I go after? How do I achieve more? How do I even set goals?

I used to set goals like you would a check list.  Go to this city. Check. Save this amount of money. Check. Buy this item in cash. Check.  Blah blah blah.  None of that feels like anything important.  I mean, they are things I want to do, but I would do it whether I made it a goal or not.  It certainly doesn't feel like I'm achieving anything ...more like I'm just passing time.  I guess because the only competition with these so called goals is with myself?  That's not all that special. 

So what kind of goals should I be setting then?  And what do you do when you try to set goals that contradict with each other? I.E. travel vs saving money vs not being OCD and just enjoying myself?  It really can be a hard thing to balance all that stuff.  So then, all the goals just feel dumb, and I'd hate to think I'm just passing my time.  I'd like to be doing meaningful, achievement oriented things that maybe could help me be less crazy and help others in the process?  If anybody has any suggestions on how to accomplish such a thing, I'd love to buy you a coffee (or hell a steak dinner) and have you teach me your magic powers.

The Joys of Motherhood

I have two full bred Shiba Inus.  I love them with all my heart.  They are my children and I promise you I will feel that way even when I have a crying babe in a cradle. 

My baby girl, Gracie, just delivered a litter of four beautiful, healthy baby boys.  This was the most terrifying, yet wonderful thing I've gone through, possibly, ever.  For starters, Gracie was SO tired at the tail end of her pregnancy and generally seemed miserable.  (I'm sure I'll be no different when I'm as round as a beach ball one day.) She didn't want to eat, play or really even leave her bed except if she needed to go outside.  This is not my puppy.  It was so hard to watch her go through all that and not be able to do anything but pet and coo at her.  

I kept coming to check on her (because I was a nervous, worried wreck) and found her not in her bed, but instead on mine...oh...and her water had just broken...on.my.bed.  Now, normally I'm sure I would have been upset that my bed was covered in "water" but I was so excited and scared that I couldn't care less. 

Jayson came in (after I yelled his name like a madwoman) and we immediately started unpacking our delivery supplies.  Seriously, maybe 10 minutes later, our first baby boy was born. Now, Gracie was fairly freaked out.  She clearly was unsure of what was going on and she wouldn't hold still.  To say that it was a little messy is an understatement.  Despite her confusion and fears, she quickly figured out how to care for her son.  She licked him clean and got the fluid out of his nose and mouth before her next puppy made its way to the world.  By the third puppy, Gracie no longer really needed our help or reassurance. In twenty minutes, she was an old pro at this whole labor thing.  The forth and final guy was born while she nursed the first three pups.  Girlfriend didn't even get up to push the little guy out.  I  honestly didn't even realize we had four until I counted again..sneaky mommy.

Now, she's so devoted to these four squirming, whining, constantly eating, little guys. She is a different dog altogether.  She's eating and drinking but really will only think about herself when I bring it to her - she's left them once to go outside to do her personal business and ran right back to them when she was done.  She has no interest in toys or treats - just her four baby boys.  Perhaps I'm just sentimental, but to me it's beautiful.

She feels about these little baby pups, the way I feel about her.  Being a mama - to a child, an animal, or to your less responsible friends ;) can be incredibly rewarding.  I'm sure being a dad is cool too, but motherhood, in any form, makes me pretty happy to be a woman.

Women are crazy...Part 2

Body Image.

Again, a controversial topic that makes us crazy.

I watched the new Dove commercial again the other day.  This commercial is so interesting. It is plain old, good advertising.

(If you haven't seen it, please go here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk.)

It took their slogan of "Real Beauty" and made it less controversial than previous campaigns on size and health, and instead was something 99% of women could relate to. The moral of the story with this campaign - We are too hard on ourselves.

Let's face facts ladies. Our bodies can be improved (diet and exercise are miracle workers), sculpted, treated like temples, lathered in lotions, and tanned by the sun's rays, but without surgery (or, in the case of the media, photo editing) we have to work with what our mama's gave us.  DNA truly does give us some limitations.

For instance, I'm 5 foot tall.  This fact alone means I will never be a model.  I can't reach the floor when I sit down half the time and forget reaching the top shelf.  It also means that a maxi dress looks atrocious on me and walking shorts are a no go.  I am also "curvy".  I have legitimate curves that will not go away no matter how much weight I were to lose.  I can't pull off blousy tops because I either A) look like a milk maid in them or B) (even worse) look pregnant.  It is what it is.  

I am overall pretty happy with my body but not because I look perfect.  I've just accepted that there are things that would be VERY hard to change without going to extremes and frankly I just don't think that  4 hours of cardio a day and absolutely no cookies ever are worth having a magazine worthy body.

Instead I'd like to focus on generally eating healthy, getting exercise in ways I find fun (running = torture for this girl, kayaking = awesome and sculpted arms too!) and having good self esteem.  I totally understand that this is hard to do and I'm far from perfect at any of it.

I think I have a "one up" on many of the fairer sex though because of my background in both psychology and advertising.  There are studies that show that men ALMOST ALWAYS like their women bigger than the woman would choose to be.  That's interesting right there...I think the biology gods played a trick on the female mind and laugh at us as we obsess over our bottoms.  In addition, there is seriously no ad that isn't air brushed...none..zip..zero.  Once you know that, you stop caring what the girls in the magazines look like because THEY'RE NOT REAL!

But even if you can get over the girls in the magazines, you still have gorgeous, skinny, tan women with large bosoms to deal with in real life.  There aren't many of them, but they do exist, and even those of us with high levels of self esteem can find ourselves comparing ourselves to these ladies from time to time.

The other day a girlfriend of mine came over and we were discussing body image as a whole.  She was talking about fitness and weight and how she felt about herself.  Her self image is fairly healthy (and it should be, she's fit and beautiful!) but she still finds herself comparing her body to other women in a negative way.  I finally asked who it is she would want to look like if she could choose.  I happened to know all the girls she named off and every single one of these girls is teeny tiny (almost boy like) with fake boobs (thus no more boy like).  When I said "Friend, do you know that every girl you just listed has had a boob job?" she cracked up laughing and admitted she had no idea.  (No judgment on boob jobs from me!) So, my poor friend, has been comparing herself to an unnatural ideal.  Of course she can't compete with surgery!

So, ladies, don't compare yourself at all.  Eat healthy, exercise, get lots of sleep, drink lots of water, tell yourself that you're beautiful everyday like 10 times., and smile a lot.  Or at least try to. That's the best we can do.

Women are crazy

Okay, so I'm all for women's lib and equal pay, for equal work and 99.9% of all other modern feminist movements.  This is because I believe everyone (man or woman) should have the choice to fulfill their dreams anyway they see fit.

If you want to stay at home and be a house wife, good for you! If you want to be a CEO of a giant company, good for you too! Basically, I like women's lib because it let's women be who they want to be and is supposed to take away societal pressures to conform to some Stepford Wife norm.

Well in theory this is all great and I do think the woman's movement over the past 100 years has done amazing things for women...BUT....let's be real, societal pressures are still there for women.  The "norm" has in some ways has just gotten worse.

Now this will be controversial to many people, but I think women had it easier (easier, not necessarily better) when men were supposed to be the breadwinners and the women ran the home.  I mean, if your husband sucked, life sucked, but assuming you had a half way decent spouse, the pressures would have likely been more manageable.  It was probably boring to intelligent women and I'm sure it was frustrating to not go fulfill life's passions, so there's the bad part (granted that's a pretty BIG bad part.)

Today, this whole "do it all" thing is semi out-of-hand.  So, now we have the ability to make any choice and we ruin it for our damn selves by stressing out about having to have it all, do it all, be it all.  We want careers where we make crazy money and achieve great things, we want to be stellar moms, run beautiful homes, and keep our bodies beautiful as well, because we not only do it all, but we are sex kittens to boot.

WHYYYYY do we put so much pressure on ourselves?

I have friends that work HARD (because they have to feed their children - single motherhood is tough) and LOVE their children fiercely and always feel bad because the stay-at-home mom's can go on the field trips or volunteer in the classroom.  I have other friends that feel like they have to choose between their future family and their career because they make so much more than their male counterpart and don't feel comfortable bringing kids into the world quite yet.  I have other friends who really don't want to work anymore, and whose husbands are fine with them staying home, but some part of them just isn't ready for the potential judgment of "oh you don't work? aren't you spoiled!" from some family member or another.

I'm certainly no better at any of these things than any of my friends.  I am the queen of having the mini crisis where I question the meaning of life, and if I'm doing enough, saving enough, working out enough, saving enough orphans from burning buildings etc etc.  I question how I will both find meaningful work and be the mother who makes every soccer practice, ballet recital and science fair.  I don't even have children and I already worry about this.  (Yes, you're right, that's crazy.)

I think we need to give ourselves a break, try to be happy and just.do.our.best.  Make the decisions that are right for you, no matter what someone else might think!  I am well aware that that is easier said than done but I'm working on it.  I adopted the phrase "Give yourself grace" for 2013 and try to say it out loud whenever I catch myself being crazy hard on myself.  All the pressure is a waste of time and energy and us sex kittens have better things to do with our time. ;)

Money/Things versus Freedom

I regularly am befuddled on the average American's view on money for numerous reasons.  But the two   cases that stand out to me are as follows:

1. They are always broke and cannot live a happy life.  Their lack of money stresses them out daily and causes them to have to wonder where they will live or how they might eat the next day/month.  Sometimes the situation is not quite so dire but even then there is constant stress on how to ever save for a down payment for a house, or how to get a car when their current vehicle kicks the bucket.

Now, there are people in these financial straits with good reason - illness, divorce (a sort of good reason), or a dead beat ex spouse who doesn't pay child support etc etc.  My heart goes out to those people.  Unfortunately, more often than not, those reasons are not the reason for such financial hardship.

So many people talk to me about stress over money, and then eat out constantly, get tattoos, buy flat screen TV's....When I explain to them that to have peace of mind you have to make sacrifices in terms of material goods, well, no one likes me.  I try not to preach, so now, I try to just avoid the conversation altogether.  The problem comes in when people ask me for help!  It's a hard balance to give real advice that people might actually follow....but I guess the following part is on them, right?

A great example of this is a close friend of mine - a man in his fifties.  He doesn't own a home and really has no assets to speak of whatsoever.  I have attempted to get him to get his ducks in a row before, but so far, no dice.  His work is very physically demanding and he already has had one heart attack.  During that time, he had to borrow money from friends (including me) to survive.  He has no health insurance, no retirement plan...nothing.  When I ask him why he felt the need to buy new speakers the other day, his response was "God provides for me."  Oh man.

Now, I'm not going to even touch the religious side of that statement...but on the practical side, why is it God's job to manage your finances?  He may have a part in your health, and helping you find work, but in my opinion, whether you save or squander your resources, well that's all free will, baby.

When I ask about what he will do when he is too old to work...his response was "I plan on dying on the job."  I hope that plan works out for you buddy, because if not, life could get way worse.

Now, if he's happy and has managed to scrape by through life to this point, and this doesn't bother him, then who am I to say that it's wrong?  But, I worry.  I worry for everyone in this situation.

This brings us to example 2.  Now, these people I don't worry about at all..I just don't understand them. (I'm probably the weird one, not them.)  Yesterday, I went to lunch with a woman I adore.  She is in her 40's and has had a long and successful career.  She is married with no children and her husband also has done well.  I can't say that they are loaded but I'd imagine that they are more than comfortable. Now, this lovely lady, HATED her job.  She never admitted directly but I'm pretty sure she was miserable.  And technically speaking, she didn't have golden handcuffs.  She could afford to not be employed.  Recently, blessing or not (this is still TBD), she was laid off from her job.  She did receive severance, so for a few months, she can blissfully be paid to lay in the sun, work out etc.

I asked her what her next move was going to be. She told me very honestly that she wasn't sure yet. She also said that she really didn't want to go back to work at an 8 to 5 job for someone else who may or may not treat you like crap.  (I didn't blame her, obviously.)

I said "Great! Are you going to do volunteer work? enjoy being a house wife? turn into a lady or leisure?"

Her smile faded a bit and she said "Well to live the lifestyle of spending I'm accustomed to I have to go back to work."

I asked her very openly "What's more important, freedom and your apparent (just looking at her you could see it) new found stress free happiness or going shopping?"

She said she didn't know yet.

Now, there is no judgment from me here.  If you want pretty, shiny things, and you're willing to work for them, more power to you.  I don't get it, but more power to you all the same. For me, personally, there is no material good, Louis Vuitton or otherwise, that I would not trade for a healthy emergency fund.  I guess I'm wired differently than most, but the freedom and peace of mind that comes from never having to think of how I'll pay my bills is priceless.   If my boss is a jerk, I have no golden handcuffs.  I can happily tell him to "go to hell!" and walk.  That's worth a lot to me.

I hope my friend chooses a stress free life even if it means buying less shoes.  Or maybe, she can live the dream and find something she loves to do that still allows her lots of discretionary income...wouldn't that be nice for everyone??