(R)Evolution of (Im)Proper Practices

When a company or organization is growing, the leaders of the group usually is forced to play it by ear, making up processes and et cetera as they go along. This is completely understandable. Instructions often change, practices evolve, and point people shift as responsibilities are moved around. Also understandable.

However, it's one thing to move forward, rethink things, and change the methods by which tasks are done, and informing the people involved as the system is revamped; it's a whole other to do it and expect your employees or colleagues to just intuitively know that something subtle is different today in the way your coworker or supervisor is doing a small everyday task.

I don't have ESP. When I get told to do something and that steps one, two, and three must be followed in XYZ format, I do it. I get it right and then I do it again. And again. And again. That's how workflow and proper guidelines for completing a task are established. But if the person above you decides suddenly that way is inefficient and changes the way it's done, you can't be expected to know without being told, entrenched in your own responsibilities as it were, what tiny difference is now the new ground rule for taking care of that task. I mean, if no one TELLS you anything, how do you know???

Well, this is the problem I'm having. Time and time again, I'm being told many months after the fact that the way I'm doing things is outdated. I'm left out of the meetings where these miniscule details are discussed, and then am forced to shoulder the blame as to why I'm still doing things the old way. Or better yet, that I made up this method and got it out of the blue, since "no one ever" did it this old way.

It's extremely frustrating to be told you're in the wrong when you know you're not. How is it doing something wrong if you're still following instructions you were given that no one had anything to say about for months? How can it be an error on your part if you were never told that the rules you were given were superceded by a new law? And how can you avoid being kind of pissed when you're told that you made up the instructions that you were previously given?!

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm the last person to be shy of asking questions. If I don't understand something, I'll be the first one to raise my hand and the first one to ask for details and examples. So it's absolutely impossible, based on my nature, for me to be running around "making up" processes. It's even more impossible that I'm just creating my own guidelines when I remember specifics of the conversation that established the practices I'd been following, even if I don't remember exactly who I was talking to (names and faces all blur together for me ...).

It's insulting. It's offensive to my intelligence to make any kind of inference that I got my instructions out of nowhere. It's frustrating to not be able to say that since the person making that inference ranks above you. And you know what? It's not efficient to just assume people will pick up on the little different ways you do things when the topic at hand never overlaps since said superior's work on the task happens AFTER your own. That almost gives me the right to say, "Well, didn't you notice that I've been doing it this way, since my work happens before yours?"

I'm just a little annoyed right now because this is a situation that has happened over and over again, and it annoys me that I'm annoyed or have to be annoyed at all, since I also happen to LIKE my bosses as people. A huge internal conflict; I know. But this fatal flaw is going to force me into defending myself in a way that is actually counterproductive to that like, and screw me over. And it makes me nervous that one day, I'm going to have to fight that losing battle and say, "No. You're wrong. I can't read minds, so you're wrong and it's not my fault."

The Sickening Nature of Human Nature

As I get older, it seems that I get more anxious about wrongs, things that mess with my ideology. I'll fixate on stuff, something that really bothers me--which is usually something stupid and just has to do with PRINCIPLES rather than anything else in the grander scheme of things--and lose sleep over it. For example, when I was a kid, and I still remember this clearly, I was so stuck on the wrongness of the fact that this girl at school, Angel Federline, promised to get the threads for those silly friendship bracelets at the craft store, and never got them ... but also never returned my hard-earned $20. (Which, when you're about ten, is a fortune.)

It still bothers me a great deal that my "producer," a talented scumbag and thief by the name of Alan Scott Plotkin out at Virgo Studios in Hempstead, absorbed the $3,000 he bullied out of me and refuses to honor the contract he signed and give me my music. It eats at me even more that I know he regularly rewrites and pitches songs that I've written, and tries to sell them as his own for this "rock opera" he's been working on.

Going further down the timeframe, I had a rabbit that my friend left behind when evacuating for Katrina. And rightly so; it was supposed to be a two-day evacuation and it was the bunny or two people, since the rabbit cage was huge. Well, we all know what happened after that, and my landlord reported to me that the rabbit died, and I would be subject to a $400 decontamination fee to clean up the carcass. He described the scene in bloody and sad detail and I cried with guilt for days. Actually, it still makes me feel goddamned awful and makes my eyes burn. But then, wonder of wonders, Animal Rescue contacted me and said they were able to save my rabbit! ... So then, what did my $400 pay for? What was that about?

I guess that goes to show that stemming from a young age, injustices have always really gotten to me. But the worst thing is feeling powerless to ever say anything about it or get the situation resolved. With Angel, I was afraid that if I said anything, she would make fun and call me cheap or poor. With Alan, I tried calling him every two days for an entire year and a half and he just refuses to return my call and, as I know full well having borne witness to this practice, screens every call that comes through. And with my landlord, he's my only housing reference, and he was a nice old man that'd never done me wrong other than that suspected situation in the two years I lived in his building. Even if he did lie, can I even really blame him? The roof was torn off his beautiful home and insurance was screwing him real hard.

I hate unresolved issues. And unfortunately, some things will always remain unsolved mysteries. I just find that as my idealism slips away the older I get, the more these things grate on me, since I get upset that I am becoming more cynical, jaded; I start to resent the situations that are wrong because it's taking away my faith in humanity to do the right thing, to listen to the conscience, and my belief that people can make the right choice and be "good" people.

I suppose that my nausea, then, is not a result of being wronged, but disgust in humans and human nature, which is to look out for one's own gain rather than consider someone else's circumstances. It's extremely saddening ... tragic, really.

So then, when I choose to be the better person in any situation, what are the odds I'll be rewarded when there are so many people looking to climb over any person with a naive streak of nobleness? In fact, I could even go the opposite route and say I'm jaded enough from the former situations as well as others yet unmentioned that I can go ahead and a self-serving profiteer.

However, I don't think I'm sick and anxious enough to essentially lose to inherent animalistic selfishness and become one of the very people that upset me so. I have to believe that there are others who feel the same way, because with each good-hearted person I meet, a wave of nausea ebbs away.

Call for Courtesy

Cell phone etiquette seems to be something Miss Manners or whatever new-age Emily Post out there should put on the "To Be Addressed" list, since it seems that common courtesy is something that needs to be taught, rather than something to be ingrained in a person. A lot of people seem to think, in typical human egocentricity, that their conversations are extremely important and that people will understand or pardon them. I find that attractive young women and businessmen in expensive suits tend to find themselves exclusive of the most basic rules of politeness, I guess because pretty girls that know they're pretty often find themselves forgiven because they're too pretty to be mad at, and that businessmen, as "captains of industry" and all that just think that they're very important, and a lifetime of getting their whims met further substantiates that entitled-and-exempt rule.

Basic rules need to be laid out, and just for myself, I'm going to do them right here in hopes that one day, someone will have the decency to Google "cell phone etiquette" and stumble upon things that really, really annoy people.

1. Conversation Volume: The people on the other line, even if you whisper, can hear you. As long as you enunciate, I swear, they can really, truly hear you. So don't shout it. It hurts. And it doesn't just hurt the people around you as you yell in close proximity, it hurts the people on the other end, since it comes through screechy and pitchy.
2. Cell-evators: Thank the good Lord that cell phone reception doesn't usually hit more than one bar of service in lifts. However, for those with strong signals, keep in mind that there are many other people in this claustrophobic, enclosed space, and that none of them care about what's going on in your life. No matter how cute you are. In such a small space, sound is amplified, might I add, so even if you're trying to have a private conversation ... it's just not. And there can't possibly be anything so urgent that you can't wait the five minutes it takes to get to a landing an resume your conversation.
3. Personal Soundtracks: They only happen in the movies. Sorry, folks, but blasting gangster rap through a tinny cell phone speaker doesn't make you gangster, it makes you a loser. And also, people should stop to consider that not everyone has the same taste in music as them. For example, the general populace seems to really like Beyonce Knowles. However, the sound of her flat, emotionless voice and repetitive jokes of melodies makes me want to stab myself in the face. Do you want to be responsible for someone being stabbed in the face?
4. Bluetooth: Have we really gotten that lazy that we can't even summon the energy to lift a phone up to the sides of our faces? Instead, we practically paste these little nub-looking devices to our heads, radiating ourselves while thinking we look cool. News flash: it's not that cool. It makes you look like a crazy person walking down the street talking to yourself. And it makes crazy people look like people with Bluetooth headsets. This is dangerous. Someone could get stabbed in the face by a crazy person. Again, do you want to be responsible for someone getting stabbed in the face?
5. Speakerphone: I'm all for speakerphone if you're having a conversation in the privacy of your home or your car and you're doing stuff. Or if you can't hear very well or just can't aim the speaker in the actual phone to your ear-hole because you have coordination issues. That's fine, and I can empathize with having a low physical skill level. But if you're somewhere crowded, please, keep your conversation to yourself. I can't begin to stress enough this: NO ONE CARES.
6. Mobiles in the Mobile: I can always pick out who's on their cell while driving without even looking at the passenger. It's the person going ten miles under the speed limit, swerving a little bit, stopping short, thinking really deeply about making that right turn, cutting someone off as they enter traffic, and has zero knowledge about how to use their blinker(s). Or, they're just a driver from Texas. But if you have that hard of a time focusing on the road, maybe you should GET OFF YOUR PHONE! All joking aside, this is so dangerous, and one misstep because you were so busy chatting or texting and gesticulating about could result in someone losing their life. And if your hand were free, maybe you could use that handy-dandy turning signal to tell someone you needed to get into the lane rather than barrelling into the lane and forcing the people behind you to stop short to avoid a pileup. Or, better yet, if you weren't on your phone and paying attention, you would have realized you needed to change lanes.
7. Celling in the Workplace: Dude ... just don't do it. Or step out of the office. It looks really unprofessional, unless it's a work-associated phone and you're an AE, President, PR rep, or other occupation that requires you to be available 24/7. But anyway, it's a great way to look like you're having a personal conversation during work time and that's an awesome way to get your ass fired.
8. At a Place of Business: It's extremely rude to continue a conversation with a person when nearing the front of a line, and even more rude to do so on the phone. The person in front of you gets priority, and if you're at a restaurant/drive-through/check-out counter/cashier/coffee shop, that means they SHOULD have priority since you came to their space to see them, explicitly. Also, there are people behind you waiting, so wrap it up! Even if you're not super hungry/thirsty/rushed/etc., someone else may be. Consider that.
9. When "Supervising" Children: Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that when a parent is watching their child, they should ACTUALLY be "watching" said child. Too often, in public places, you see kids running amok, crying, banging into people, pulling items from shelves, or other types of behavior that, in my youth, were deemed unacceptable, while their parents are chattering about their nudist gay neighbors whose rooster kept them up last night. Realistically, even the people that try to control their kids have a hard time doing so when on the phone, and it's extremely unpleasant for the other person on the phone to listen to you barking orders every few minutes, interrupting your actual conversation. Your friend is far too polite to say it, but it truly is obnoxious. However, I will reiterate, this is not worse than ignoring the bad behavior of the child (which is probably spurred from the adult's negligent care and lack of attention), for whom the poor people who work at the said public place will have to clean up after, or keep an eye on to avoid a lawsuit.
   

Anyway, that's all I've got for now, but it's a good start, right? I hope I'm not the only one that gets extremely annoyed by this type of behavior, and that preserving common courtesy will again become a focus as cell phones continue to be a dominating part of their lives. I mean, I'm not saying I'm a Cell Saint all the time, but I'm just putting out a general call to action for people to at least recognize that some behavior is simply not acceptable and is disruptive to the people around them, who have enough of their own shit to deal with without having to listen to your drama in the elevator.

I believe in a friendly world, but TMI is always a little TMI.

No Lessons Here

I like to think that good things are going to happen to me. When things that seem like they could potentially be good, I start to get worked up inside. Anxious butterflies, flapping around in my chest will start to take over everything until I can't see anything but what I'm getting excited about. In fact, I get carried away by my own excitement a lot, and it bubbles up all over everyone until my life becomes a big, soggy, soapy mess of disappointment because I couldn't hold it in long enough to avoid being sabotaged. And sabotage it is, sometimes, when someone is given a chance to show their true colors. Unfortunately, it seems that I make the fatal mistake of giving particularly damaging people the chance to show who they are inside, since I like to believe the best in folks.

So is it because I'm stupid that I trust people? I like to think not. Naive, yes; idealistic, to a point. Stupid? Well ... maybe a little.

Case in point: when I worked at Estee Lauder corporate, I completely ignored the warnings that my coworkers threw in my way almost like little flare guns. *Danger Ahead, Danger Ahead!* But, nooo ... there was no way Ginny would betray me! She was on my side. She called me sweetheart, encouraged me, told me I was fun and smart, that I was too good for the job. I reached high and overachieved, coming out with new ideas and putting in extra time without getting paid for it, even though I was told that she was easily threatened and had a habit of ousting people who outshined her. But she praised me to the skies, and so, I trusted her. I told her about an opportunity that had been offered to me that I made very clear to her I turned down in hopes of greener pastures where I was. She had known and was fully supportive of when I needed the day off to go to New York City to talk to an editor at Rodale, and told me she was glad I was staying. She then encouraged me to apply to jobs within Lauder and volunteered to be a good reference for me. It was all love and hunky dory-ness.

Then, one week before I hit the mandatory minimum three-month mark, the day I got her a lovely bottle of Valpolicella for her birthday, she fired me. She me told the day before to go for a copywriter job I was really psyched about and then, she fired me the day after I submitted my resume.

Actually ... scratch that. She didn't have the decency to fire me and give me a reason. Friday evening, out for a drink with a coworker, she had the temp agency call me on my cell and lie to me, saying that my position was eliminated due to budgeting constraints. And how did I ever find out it was a lie? Simple. My friend, who I was with, took over my job at a dollar less an hour and watched someone else fill her position.

Now, this may have been a few years ago, but that was the worst betrayal I'd ever felt. Ambushed, blindsided, and completely out of nowhere, just when I thought I'd made the right decisions, played the right cards, and talked to the right people, using honesty as my policy. I cried over that miserable $16/hour contract job, for sucking it up, driving over an hour every day to that horrible, depressing fluorescent-lit gray hole, and taking a job I didn't even necessarily want in hopes of hanging on for the carrot on the stick they promised me. It was the first time and only time I'd gotten fired, which was devastating and incomprehensible to my hard-work-is-rewarded ideology, and the first cold dose of harsh reality of pettiness in a lipstick jungle. My tears were for my shattered innocence and belief in the inherent good of people who claimed to look out for me, and for all the time I wasted on an ungratifying position that made me so depressed, I gained about 30 pounds.

However, in the long run, this was one of the best things that ever happened to me. The next job I had was for a web firm in the city, K Street Partners, a former subsidiary of MediaCatalyst., a big web agency based in the Netherlands. The pay was great, the hours were awesome, my boss was amazing, and Sara, my former supervisor (and pastry chef; now a Nomad with Cookies), is someone I am proud to count as a friend. That led to my having adequate experience to make the transition Boy's pursuit of education made necessary -- moving back to N'awlins -- and getting a job in a similar capacity, which they were kind enough to hold for a month until I got my ass down there. And so on.

What's the point in that bitchfest about Jerkface Ginny, then?

I guess there isn't one. I mean, sure, I'm still kind of bitter about it, but although horrible or bad things happen to me, I'm still convinced that really good things happen to me, too. I still get the butterflies of excitement, and I still share that enthusiasm with others.

So it's your call. Stupid or not?

If Looks Could Kill

This blog is proving to be a therapeutic medium, but unfortunately, due to the fact that it's a public listing and all, not quite as therapeutic as it could be.

To start off, yesterday was just a day gone completely awry. A job for my fiance that we'd had our sights and hopes set on didn't pan out, which was just devastating. Then my dog was attacked by another dog, completely unprovoked, and has a hole in his face. But anyway, I understand that with the downturned economy and the fact that the finance industry is essentially bleeding jobs right now, it's hard to get an advance offer. But the company was actively recruiting, and the Boy was the most qualified. I mean, think of it this way: actual real life work/managerial experience vs. part-time student employment; 3.93 GPA vs. your standard 3.5 GPA; work for the Burkenroad Reports, a serious analyst publication and candidacy for the exclusive Darwin-Fenner program at Tulane's internationally acclaimed Freeman School vs. UMiami jocks.

So what gives?

My only conclusion is that Boy was indeed overqualified, and that worked against him. They probably figured that he would have bad habits they'd have to break, or that since he had significant experience, he'd be okay if they didn't offer the opportunity to him. And companies that recruit straight out of college look for blank slates. Young, pretty, brainwashable blank slates, so blank that they can be molded into anything at all. Lumps of colorful clay.

Unfortunately, although Boy is a malleable medium, he's not quite as colorful as the bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked fresh meat that is now his competition. A little older, more mature, heavier-set, and without a doubt shorter, aesthetic plays its part as well. I've always found it interesting in my psych classes that the better looking, more fit people of the world would receive preference, even if a sloppier candidate was more qualified. Obviously, you would want your future leader that you're taking the time to groom to exude authority and project a certain type of image, but how much more brains do you need to beat out beauty?

Don't get me wrong -- I think Boy is adorable, his eyes are the sweetest shade of brown, he's smarter than I give him credit for, and I just think it's funny I get to mess around with him about his height and weight. But objectively, I know he's no European Adonis or statuesque swimmer, and to some, consciously or subconsciously, that matters to some people. No one wants to introduce their CEO, the Hobbit. And though Boy is far from Hobbit-like, the principle is still the same. Everyone likes their figureheads pretty. Now where does that leave the average American? Beauty is a more lethal weapon in the arsenal than intelligence in a society that values aesthetic, connections, and power more so than qualifications. As we grow fatter and lazier, the powerful and/or wealthy people that have the leisure time to spend on their appearance and first impressions get yet another advantage of standing out. Zoolanders of the world, your time is now.

Multiple Ways to Skin a Blog

I grew enamored of the idea of having a blog as yesterday progressed, and found myself killing time by (rather than reading Twilight, my book du jour) virtual window-shopping different blog templates online. I had specific goals: I wanted something grungy, not particularly feminine (I feel like pink things, flowers, and butterflies tend to overshadow the content and make whatever you write that much less important, and the last thing I need is for people to read my stuff with a vision of a prepubescent Harajuku girl with glitter in her pigtails), easy to implement, a bit edgy, and me.

There are a whole bunch of options (some of the best free ones being on btemplates.com and blogskins.com), as I found, but it seems that I enjoy window-shopping so damn much that I can't just commit. There are so many great and unappreciated graphic designers out there that just put out amazing work just for the f* of it, for sheer love of the craft. However, there are also many who basically just "fancy themselves" designers just because they know some tricks in Adobe Illustrator and can manipulate brushes. Others seem to simply lack taste, smashing Technicolor Dreamcoat color schemes in whatever acid trip-inspired order as they please.

Now, I've found that as the Internet revolution grows, the Web and world has become inundated with wannabes and hacks, thinking that since they "took a class" or something, that they're automatically really good at whatever it is they've decided they are. And I can't help but take offense to that.

Working as I do as a project manager for a small web design firm, Mudbug Media (see? My picture's even on the site :), it seems that each and every day, I encounter someone else that thinks they can do my coworkers' jobs. That since we use pre-existing designs for our orthopedic surgeon sites that they're just templates to "pop and drop" information into. That whatever it is they need done can be completed RIGHT THEN, since it's just that simple.

Well, word to the wise -- it's not. And it's completely disrespectful for people to call and say, "I designed my own page/blog/MySpace, and it was just that easy so I don't see why you can't just do it ..." and etc. It's almost like, in defense of my coworkers, I just want to shake their Fine Arts diplomas at these rude people and shout, "People go to SCHOOL for this!"

I guess that just goes to show how devalued our society's standards have become, that the unwashed/uneducated masses (I say that with tongue in cheek) seem to think they can do anything now ... conquer the world via T1. Perhaps that's the whole point of the American dream, to feel uninhibited and unrestrained, climb every mountain and all that hoopla. But maybe, just maybe, limitations and some kind of moderation needs to be set online so that our collective consciousness isn't constantly being attacked by mediocrity, and those who love what they do aren't insulted on a regular basis by hackneyed jobs presented with beaming, smiling faces. Seriously ... let's set some standards, folks.

Hello There, Old Acquaintance

So apparently, in a stroke of genius some months back, I was inspired to register a blog. It seems that in said stroke of genius, I thought I'd have, in the future, some deep, meaningful, possibly poignant things to say, and that I would say them in a deep, meaningful, and possibly poignant manner, salt-and-peppered with outstanding punctuation.

Fast-forward to now, and it seems that I haven't the faintest idea of what is blog-worthy, who would read this blog, or what nuggets of wisdom I'd be compelled to share on it. In hindsight, it must have been during a serious lull in work that I thought this would be a brilliant idea, since I've been fortunate enough to be swamped with writing assignments for the past season. Which is something I'm definitely not complaining about. In fact, I wish I were so neck-high in writing assignments that I wasn't babbling in this asinine fashion on this page, but there you have it. I apparently have plateaued for the time being in work, and am in desperate need of something NOT day job-related to do.

It's even possible, now that I think of it, that I started this blog in lieu of the online portfolio I've begun to put together with my buddy up in Brooklyn, Ben Paddock. Although we only worked together for a few months before he made the move up to New York, my stomping grounds, we hit it off and after many Adium conversations, decided that a portfolio site for me would be a fun and rewarding project for him to build his own portfolio with. (And offering creative control always causes artistic eyes to gleam with excitement, which almost justifies the bargain basement rate he quoted me.)

Anyway, that's obviously my main job/gig-hunting platform, or will be once the damned thing is finally up, so the blog becomes nearly a moot point.

Or does it?

Ramblings like this do need a vehicle, right? If not for an intended audience, this is far less depressing and pointless than a diary or journal entry, far more sane than mumbling out loud to oneself, and far enough out there that it could be fun. After all, I could very well have some Very Important things to say as I pack my rucksack as I attempt to journey the road to Important-ness. Maybe when I get to where I hope I'm heading, I'll look back at this post and go, "How trite! How very cliche! How utterly EMBARRASSING!!!" ... or go, "Wow, I was good even then" ... or even, "How pretentiously British (no offense, of course) I sound in stream-of-consciousness." But hey -- every mile needs its marker, potential shame and all.

Here's to high hopes, big dreams, hard work, and maybe the beginning of something really big as this year and this month celebrates my first appearance in Real Glossies, society mag St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans Bride, and Louisiana Cookin'.

And for you, my imaginary reader who may or may not exist now or in the future, here's hoping that I'll have something good to say. Words, punctuated.