Working for a living

Still awaiting my opportunity to become a diamond-studded whore of the oligarchs.

Sorry!

Back at work yesterday after two weeks off for the winter recess/holiday break/holiday-that-must-not-be-named. Lately on Facebook, I've taken to referring to work (and my boss) as the board game (or bored game?) Parcheesi. It's a none-too-subtle way to bitch about my job and the associated ridiculousness of it all while keeping it light and breezy, reminding myself and others not to take it too seriously.

And sometimes I'm actually successful at that. Well, every once and a while.

But yesterday, the first day when everyone was back after Christmas and New Year's, Chanukah and Kwanzaa, was more like a game of Battleship or Stratego. Or Chutes and Ladders, as one friend put it. Or Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots with a Barrel of Monkeys thrown in for good measure.

Or Sorry! as another friend said.

But when I think of Sorry! I think of this:



The Carol Burnett Show's classic Eunice and Mama sketch of the most dysfunctional, passive-aggressive (or perhaps just aggressive) family let lose on American culture (other than Dick Cheney's family, of course). It's the perfect homage to my workplace: Obsessive rule-making, using the rules as a cudgel, hurt feelings, recounting of past grievances, constant recriminations, insincere claims of "Sorry!" when offenses occur . . . .

And on and on and on.

Part two is worth a look as well:



"It looks like we're all going to be stuck here for a while!"

Sadly, yes, we are.

Here's hoping to new opportunities for me and for all of us in 2015.

Whinnying and whining, or, a horse is a horse (of course)

"Maestoso Basowizza & Oberbereiter Hausberger"
by Machoxx - Licensed under CC BY-SA
3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Common

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this. I am Mister Ed.

--Mr. Ed theme song (Source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/mredlyrics.html)

Sometimes I think I'm a Lippizaner. At other times I realize that I'm just a Belgian Heavy Draft--or, worse, an old nag, a worn-out old workhorse.

Last week I managed to feel mostly like the latter. I don't want to get too specific--and, in general, I don't in this blog, which is kind of a drag for both you, the reader, and me, the writer. But let's explain a bit anyway.

I realized early in the week that I was probably passed over for a promotion--or at least a new focus--because I was denied an opportunity earlier in the year. Big Daddy said yes, but Brick said no. The two people who were allowed to do so were assigned to a new initiative that has a direct relationship to that opportunity and, in part, the work I do.

Also last week, I was passed over for a position for a state organization in my profession of choice because--well, who knows? I don't know exactly why. I haven't schmoozed the right people enough? I'm not employed at a rival institution in the "centre" part of the Commonwealth? I work in the independent fiefdom of West of the Alleghenies? Believe me, Pittsburgh is a land unto itself, in Pennsylvania as well as in human consciousness.

I may have done myself in on this one. I edit a journal sponsored by the organization. Due to other commitments and in an effort to give someone else a chance to edit the journal (really, altruism!), I expressed an interest to pull back over the next year but to still keep my hand in. I enjoy the work, I have a lot of expertise in the area, and my continued participation is beneficial to the organization because of other affiliations I have.

But when the new, untried editor was offered a position as liaison to the organization's board--serving as the main contact between the journal and the board--I became concerned and asked about my status on the board. When I learned that I did not have one--never mind that I have made significant contributions to the journal's contents and success and that my affiliation with the publisher is key to this success--I became angry. After wisely (?) talking it out, and encouraged not to jump to conclusions, I calmed down and followed my co-editor's suggestion: Request that I be made a member-at-large on the board because of my experience and connection with the publisher. Doing so would help them in more ways than one: It would allow me to contribute the organization in other ways, including writing for its blog. And doing so would give me some much-needed credit for my expertise, as well as an official role in the organization.

However, I was told no, I wouldn't be made a member-at-large. I was told that my editorship was valued and that I could continue as long as I wanted to, but that I would not become the liaison to the board. And then I was told that if I wanted to, I could ask to be considered for the liaison position--in two years' time.

Nothing like feeling appreciated for the work you do, the weekends and weeknights spent editing, re-editing, proofing, soliciting articles and peer reviewers, and counseling authors--all for exactly $0.00 per year.

The final bailiwick of hay to go up in flames this week was my not winning an award for "best in show" at my, um, "corral." This award goes to the person in the corral who has contributed the most to "horsemanship" over the last year, i.e., who's made the most significant contribution to my profession. I was nominated, which is lovely and it's always nice to be nominated and we're all winners really . . . but I did not win.

This surprised me, which probably neighs loudly about the state of my unbridled and easily bruised ego these days. I wasn't eligible to be nominated previously--I am a visiting horse, not one with a regular stall in the barn, on contract rather than tenure-track--but I learned later that the eligibility rules had been changed because someone had wanted to nominate me but previously could not.

I lost out to a very good show horse indeed, someone who I think is deserving but someone whose influence is much more specific to our horse farm--and not even within our corral. He does some work in Pittsburgh that is well-regarded, he does a very good job at what he does, and he is well supported by his boss (there's a hint for you), and he is well-liked. Yet I would hardly say he has made significant contributions to the profession, certainly not at the regional or state level or even within the corral itself.

The previous winner was also a worthy horse, but even his influence was strictly local, limited to just our institution. And I nominated him for the award.

So I'm beginning to wonder if I'm knackered if I do, knackered if I don't.

As a colleague told me, "the other horse was tough competition, and you don't have as much of a local profile as he does." Really? But I co-edit a statewide journal, working closely with the authors to improve their works and can copy edit like a mad fiend; was elected president of a regional organization this year; make presentations at the local, state, and even national levels; serve on committees in my organization; am well-regarded by my colleagues (or so I hear); and do my job well, despite being hamstrung by Brick's conflicted interests on a regular basis . . . how am I not considered "tough competition"?

And essentially, the statewide organization is telling me my profile isn't high enough and certainly not likely to get any higher under the current regime, despite editing its journal (and being eligible to "edit it for as long as I want") and being a key presenter at its spring conference.

Admittedly, I've yet to find a real way to break into things at a national level, especially as I'm not high enough in the organization to get my pick of conferences and committees. (Although my work is good enough to be used by Big Daddy at a major national conference last summer and at an international one this year.) And even within our organization, I seem to be more "show" or "place," rather than "win," in the race due to . . . whatever. I'm called upon often, I do the work that needs to be done, I generally do well at it, I am often praised for it by at least my colleagues . . . and yet, I feel like I get very little respect from above and only little opportunities that are not exactly challenging, especially when I've done so much else and so much more over the last 19 years.

A little more whinnying and whining--and if you've made it this far, why not buy a ticket, sit in the orchestra stalls, and hear the whole horse opera?: I was even turned down for a position this year, although on paper I was by far the more qualified candidate (but admittedly lacked the necessary permanent resident status or citizenship to work in the country where the job was located).

So I'm left with this feeling that I'm good but perhaps not good enough. Maybe I'm not as brilliant as I think I am (which, for the record, I don't), or maybe I'm just underselling myself. The director at the place where I failed to get the other job told me I was an "impressive candidate" and encouraged me to apply for several other positions, both there and elsewhere, but at a much higher level.

I am hesitant to do so, mainly because of the nightmare that is personnel management in any organization, something that requires every ounce of diplomacy, skill, and finesse and then only works for about a day before you have to start all over again.

And yet at 19 years of career and 52 years of life, I feel as though I'm punching way below my weight in this current job, having to get permission to do practically everything from a boss who tells you you're doing a great job, then nitpicks over every little thing, then praises you for your initiative, then tells others that you don't take enough initiative.

Again, knackered.

So onward and upward? Time to do some high jumps, chase some steeples, long for some furs? Make myself more taxed in my professional life in order to gain praise, awards, and income? Or just give up the race altogether, put myself out to pasture, and graze in the grass until retirement, a good 13 to 15 years away (if I'm lucky)?

I don't know the answer to all of this, and this has been part of the problem over the last three-and-a-half years. I feel stuck professionally, and I feel stuck geographically.

A horse is a horse off course in my case. Somebody skilled grab the reins, please, to prevent me from continuing to go in circles in the same stupid corral I've been stumbling around for the last three years.

Snort. Whinny. Neigh.

All this mendacity

Thick as (a) Brick - Source: Wikipedia

I have come to think of my workplace as similar in social structure and cultural milieu to the one represented in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof--either play or movie version, all y'all take your pick.

The head of our entity is indeed a Son of the South, one of the Caucasian persuasion and of a class accustomed to leading and ruling based primarily on privilege. While I can talk Southern with the best of them and am as pale as an Osmond's buttocks, I am definitely not a member of the landed class. I'm not denying that I benefit from white privilege--I most certainly do, probably in ways that I don't even realize. However, I don't think I've ever felt entitled to anything. Honestly, I'm too insecure in this world and unsure of myself to be acting out plantation and private academy fantasies. And too damn cynical.

So I like to think of our fearless leader as Big Daddy.

Hey, it's that or Foghorn Leghorn.

My more immediate overseer is obviously Brick, stressed out, unsure of which end of the stick to grab onto, all the while straining to live up to Big Daddy's vision. And BD is all about the vision thing.

And who am I? Maggie the Cat? Mewling, frustrated, repressed, ambitious.

Perhaps, but perhaps I'm more akin to Gooper and Mae, Brother Man and Sister Woman: (And, really, what was Tennessee Williams on when he came up with those nicknames?) More grasping and slightly White Trash when compared to Brick and Maggie.

I am definitely not Big Mama. This much I know. I simply refuse to play a character that old.

Alas, at the end of the day, I suspect I'm more of a "hand," either confined to the house or the field. Repressed, yes, but no matter. I just do what I'm supposed to do: Keep things running with no muss or fuss, nary a whine nor a whimper.

All the while looking for my chance to escape.
 

Work it on out

Wakey wakey. It's Monday, peeps. Time to find your groove on the trek to work.

Here's mine. Now it's yours.

Word to the unwise

My word of the week: "Synapstasy" - an ecstasy of synapses firing and misfiring in a professional meeting. Lots of ideas, dreams, desires, and plans get discussed and launched. But nothing much ever comes of it. Mainly because the next synapstasy overwhelms the previous one.

So pretty much Monday through Friday for me. How about you?