Weekend Recap, and How I Almost Keyed Someone's Car

Thie past weekend was my moveout weekend. It was also the weekend closest to my boyfriend's birthday. So I was out of town when I should have been packing boxes and cleaning. Needless to say, that is what Monday and Tuesday were for, around a busy work schedule and other elements of drama. But it went suprisingly smooth. Even though I lost the number to the movers. Even though I thought that the move would take longer than the slated 2 hours. Even though I thought I had too much stuff.

On Thursday, after buying $80 worth of packing material, I attempted to find a parking space on my ever crowded street. Gripe no 893 about living in the midwest: people do not know how to park. Most of the parking areas can fit five cars. Most of the time they only have three, poorly parked and completely in the way vehicles of ditzy college girls who can't seem to understand that proper parallel parking requires you to back into the space. As you can see, I love my neighbors.

I properly approached a parking space, pulling ahead to back into it. Then all of a sudden, another car took the spot pulling forward. I was like, wow. Then I had a flashback to a moment in Boston, when I did the same thing, and the woman got out and threatened to key my car. But I am a Christian. I did not key this person's car. I drove up to my building, dropped off the boxes, and parked around the corner. But as I walked back to my building, past the prime parking space that was stolen from me, I had an unbelievable urge to pop the key out of my Volkswage Jetta key fob and send a line of hate down this horrid girl's white paint. But I quickly shook away the thought. This is not the east coast. I found another parking space not too far away. Boy, but Boston has forever changed me.

This incident was followed by a trip to the airport, where once again I received dirty stares from pedestrians I practically ran over with my luggage. I wasn't late; I was just in my perpetual state of moving quickly. Maybe it's because I have been working late. Maybe it's because I have been sleeping more. Or maybe it's because I will never adjust to a slow pace of life again. Actually, now to think of it, I have never done anything slow. I don't wait; I act. It's actually not a bad thing for a lawyer; not being afraid to act. But it is a horrible thing at the water park, when I rushed my boyfriend (on his birthday visit none-the-less) to pick what rides he wanted to ride. At one point, I think he gave up. I felt bad. But darn it, he was slow!

An eventful weekend.

Why Diversity is so Much Harder than You Think!

Diversity is much more difficult than people think because it's not all about whether or not you "like" one particular "race" or another. It's not about whether generalities are real, or whether one group is more disadvantaged than another. It is really about personal preference and comfort level, and how these reinforce the current power structure and lock individuals outside. It's about how people prefer people who look like them, and reserve what is good and best for those individuals. And as those who hold the power generally look very different from me, and are a different gender, this is very disconcerting.  It is about how minorities are uncomfortable being in the minority, because from an early age everything around them tells them they are different, and whatever culture they identify with must seek to insulate them from the popular culture. Diversity is really hard because of how we are raised. Take where you live: 

Currently, in the United States, cities are being revitalized. And cities are changing, from bastions of "diversity" as cities once majority one race or another are finding it harder and harder to hold on to their diversity. I don't think that they were ever really diverse to begin with. I think that people prefer people who look like them, mostly because of what you are told, and mostly because of what you are used to.

When I was in the 10th grade, someone took my books and my calculator. I wasn't sure who did it. I told a relative that I was worried about the situation, because I knew my mother would not buy me another calculator. I was going to "confront" the girl who did it.  It turns out my mother just bought me a second calculator, but what my relative told me as a cautionary approach to the situation has never left my mind: be careful, "they" will gang up on you if you say one of "them" did it. 

In 10th grade, I went to a school where I was very much in the minority. It was a Christian school. Aside from absolutely hating it, and almost all of the teachers who I felt were out to get me, being the young, headstrong, and independent girl that I was, this situation was made more problematic because none of my teachers were minorities like me, and this was a first.  I grew up in a Black working class neighborhood in Ohio. I went to a Black church. And these people were different to me because they looked different. I can only imagine how they viewed me; I dressed differently, talked differently, and looked nothing like them.  I had long dark brown hair at the time, and was a skinny ball of rebellion. I had just moved back to Ohio after a short stay in Georgia. This is after I was sent to a boarding school for rebellious teens, and then ran away.  At this school, I remember someone touching my hair and remarking that it was soft. I felt very uncomfortable; why was his hand in my head? My mother told me if someone did that again, to make them regret it. When a girl tried sometime later, I told her she might lose her hand. 

Some people who hear my stories have asked me if I think that my family is racist. Someone said that when they heard a story I wrote in college. I just think that my family is honest. The first thing people notice about me is that I am Black.  People perceive me to be different. My mother's comments were her way of trying to protect me from the cruel harsh world. While I know I am no different than any other homo sapiens on the inside, and I know about the experiences and the human truth we share, some people honestly think that they have nothing in common with the human being next to them if they have a different amount of melanin in their skin. And even if you do; what does it mean?  

I am comfortable almost anywhere, and this is a gift from my father. But I must say that, when I have a choice, I chose people who I perceive to be like me. It doesn't fall along race lines though or because of gender. And I like people who smile a lot. My family is diverse; I can't pick and chose like that without leaving someone I love outside the circle.  But I do think twice, in new environments where I am different. And I can't help but wonder what other people think.  My professor in law school said that minorities are drafted; we are forced to be representatives for our "race". Whatever that means, though mostly I think that if I mess up, I will be remembered as the "Black" girl who messed up, no matter how many people mess up before or after me.  

For the Love of Blogs!

Blogs are the new book. No really, they are. Practically real time writing from your favorite author in tiny bits that are easy to process and leave you wanting more. Don't believe me? Check out this site: www.leveragedsellout.com. I'll give you a minute. Yeah, you know you like it! 

As an avid reader I have discovered that good books, well, are starting to be more and more difficult to come by. Maybe it is because the national collective reading level is falling. Maybe it's because of the current president (people blame everything else on him; why not this?).  The letdown of making a $20 investment at Borders or Barnes & Nobles in a very non-entertaining and subpar written book is painful. It is so much better to read blogs now; the high of finding a new favorite writer and hearing their adorable prose is even better than the occasional $20 investment that pans out. 

Also, blogs are available on lots of different topics with many different voices. I happen to like "lawyer humor" and it is wonderful to find a perspective of a practicing attorney, professor, or even law student that really tickles my funny bone. Also, blogs tend to link to other blogs. You can find a whole string of favorites, like a gold mine, from one site. This is especially good on my other favorite blogging topic: celebrities. I don't like meeting them, but I love to read about them. It's like cooking!

The only down side is your favorite blog-author (blogger?) may not updated frequently. Or, their writing might not be consistently interesting, or even consistent. So you may spend days waiting for the next great post.  Having multiple blogs you visit solves this problem though. And having one consistent site for each of your favorite topics.

A Little Bit of Paranoia is Good

My biggest complaint about my summer experience at my current law firm was that my fellow summers were, to put it bluntly, boring and paranoid. They were not fun. They were very conservative. Well, almost all of them.

And while I was very sad to have no one to party with that summer but my beautiful but very busy defending her thesis roommate, their strategy paid off. We all got offers (all the conservative ones; I was conservative by default because I wasn't about to use my final option on those boring Saturday nights and go out with my boyfriend!). Businesses/law firms like their employees boring and the same. After working in the business world in general, and law firm work in specific, this is my final answer.

I think that at least initially, I didn't understand the market. I work in the midwest; people actually get married here (rather than obsess over it, but never do anything because in reality they like their single lives). People have children here, and I do mean more than one. People stay married too, even though they are unhappy. And it is the norm. And married people, they don't go out and party till 3 or 4 in the morning, sleep for three hours, and roll into work wearing the same eye shadow they were wearing last night. I do know that now. I haven't partied on a week night in so long, I don't remember what it feels like. Except I do remember that it ended tragically (ie was an adventure with the boyfriend).

There are a few perks to this new lifestyle though. I don't know how I would afford all the going out clothes and the work clothes. Banana Republic is kind of expensive regular priced and I don't think that Gap cuts it all that well anymore. Furthermore, I have experienced enough department store suits to know that they literally fall apart (the Macy's ones). I can't go to court with one hem longer than the other (I tried; not pretty).

I see the summer associates doing the same thing this summer. They are very boring. But maybe that is a good thing for their careers. And I wonder, maybe this is all part of growing up and why you shouldn't be at the same parties that college students are at when you have a job. Maybe it is a good thing that I left my college and law school town to be employed. But what, oh what, does a post-graduate school but still young a hip girl do to have fun around this place? Acceptably, I mean.

Sadness

My great short story writer's goal used to be, aside from having a book of them as cleverly written as "Runaway", to have my story published in the New Yorker. They publish only the most fabulous and interesting short stories and poems. I am fabulous and interesting (to me!) and so, if I ever have a short story finished, it is a match made in heave. Amid pages of half finished manuscripts, there is a note to myself about this, to inspire me to finish at least one.

But alas, today, after seeing the satirical picture depicting Obama, a Black man in America, as a terrorist (I have walked through the airport with my father, who happens to be a very tall and large (in a muscular way) biracial man and after 9/11 frightened everyone even more; it is an incredibly humiliating and disturbing experience and I would not wish it on anyone innocent) and his wife Michelle as some strange militant (really, she was a law firm associate for goodness sake; you can't be that militant), I have forever tabled that dream.

Now I will never finish a short story. The "Runaway" goal is far too ambitious (even for me) and there isn't another publication in my short list of unrealistic publication places with the New Yorker's buzz for short stories. Alas, yet another secondary career goal bites the dust (the last one was actress; tradgic, very tradgic).

Who care's who you sleep with (if you're not sleeping with me)

Today (Sunday, July 13), there was a replay of a 60 minutes segment about don't ask don't tell. I must admit that I don't understand a lot of things, the military included, but I do understand the stupidity of deciding about someone because of something that has nothing to do with you (race/gender/sexual orientation).

Listening to the army commander talk about how a macho and manly man cannot be homosexual, and US soldiers are more macho than any other soldiers in the world, I thought about how ignorant he sounded. And the language they use is just like the language people used during World War II to talk about Black troops in the US army. The US military, in it's defense, did integrate in the 40's, before almost any other public or private entity.

But why, why are people obsessed with aspects that other's can't control. And that have nothing to do with the people who are worried about them. Melanin doesn't rub off. You can't catch someone's sexual orientation like a cold. You won't become a woman by working with (or under) one.

Everyone is NOT a Leader, and Other Obvious Employment Truths

If there is one thing working at a law firm has taught me, it is that everyone is not management material. The skills that you need to be a very good attorney are not the same skills that you need to be a very good supervisor, and, if my experience is any indicator, there is very little overlap.

But law, and other careers, force people who grow to be supervisors who probably would rather not. I don't understand this, or some other aspects of our culture that don't allow people to be very good at what they do but rather mediocre in search of being very good at something they aren't very good at. 

Let me explain by example:

I happen to think that I am a pretty good lawyer. But you know what I am naturally really really good at? Cleaning. Yep! Everything about my personality makes the act of cleaning something I both enjoy and am spectacularly good at. I realized this the other day as I enjoyed scrubbing the kitchen floor in my boyfriend's apartment, and sweeping the bathroom. Gross? Not to me. Because I get an immense pleasure out of seeing it clean and sparkling, and if I want that feeling again, I just wait, and a few days later it will again need cleaning. In fact, I enjoy few things better than seeing things clean. It's my personality: perfectionist, detail oriented, a little OCD. I know that if being a cleaning person wasn't a bad thing, and if people wouldn't consider my education wasted, and if society wouldn't be so hard on me and tell me that I could do better, I would be a professional cleaner. And I would love it. I do it for fun. Why not pay me?

And a variation of my "deferred" cleaning dream happens to very good lawyers; the higher you go the less real lawyering you do. And the more supervisor you become. In most professions, the higher up you get the more your job evolves. And we are told this should happen. But should it really happen? Why can't we find something we are really good at, and that gives us joy, and do it to the fullness of our potential? Why must it be complicated by forcing elements and job requirements that are unrelated and that alter our function? Why it is assumed that if you are good at your job you will be a good teacher/leader/supervisor? The skill set for one is not equal to the other. 

This, along with the fact that prestige eliminates certain career choices, really gets to me. Because I believe that human beings are happier if they can incorporate things that make them happy into things that make them money. So work will be a career instead of a job. 

By the way, I could never fulfill my thwarted cleaning desires as a stay at home mom. Too political. So I feel I will just fulfill them once a week, when I clean and sanitize my entire kitchen and dining room area. There is nothing like a spotless kitchen (and I do mean spotless)!

What Those Job Postings/Advertisements Really Mean

Every year, senior college students, senior high schoolers, and college students going home for the summer begin to search, around March if they are like me, for jobs either for the summer or for "real life". And job postings, like every other aspect of the "employment industry" are trendy, and follow certain patterns. An example: everyone is looking for a "self-starter" these days.  This is an evolution of the statement "highly motivated individual" and it's predecessor "experience needed".  The thing is, theses phrases are a signal for something even more problematic: that the employer does not have a set training program in place for these new employees.  And furthermore, the employer would like the save the time and money necessary for that set training program by simply applying a "sink or swim" model to your employment experience with them. 

No matter how "experienced" you are, every company does things differently.  So the "self-starter" beware; no matter how driven you are, you can't do a job you don't know how to do.  And as young workers are accustomed to direction, teamwork, and being rewarded for following a formula for success (with their own twist, of course), being placed in a position where the rules are fuzzy, and the direction uncertain is a very problematic position. No matter how much "experience" you have (life or otherwise) being asked questions you don't know the answer to, at work in a high pressure position will never be fun. 

"Entry level" often means repetitive or even menial. It involves things like stocked printers and note taking, with the prospect of sitting in on a conference call in silence.   Be sure that there is a clear path for career growth, because you don't want to wake up three years from now, and still have the same responsibility, requirements, and job.

People/service oriented is a tricky one. It most often signifies sales. These can be wonderful job opportunities, but only if they suit your personality. If they do not, often part of your compensation is connected to your ability to make sales, and this can be very problematic. 

However, if "people/service oriented" doesn't mean sales, it can mean you will be part of a company's support staff positions. This is another career option where you must know what you want, and the potential for growth.  Also, in certain industries, these are very challenging positions. For example, in law, a legal assistant position pays very well, but has a steep learning curve. They can't teach you everything; it depends strongly on the needs of the fee earners you work for.  One lawyer might expect you to understand complicated legal software programs, and maintain busy aspects of their professional schedule.  Meeting an attorney like this early in your career might derail it (from personal experience). 

Finally, every job description highlights the good. There are, however, bad parts to every job. What you want to find out is just how bad these are, and how much of your workload they will entail.  This can be achieved by asking two questions: what are the additional job responsibilities of this position? (and) how much of this position will entail this or that particular job function?  If they don't list a function that is 50% of the time you will spend doing your job, or they can't tell you, this is a bad sign.   

Interviewing is like dating: companies put their best face forward, and hide all the flaws of a particular position.  But if you, like I, have had relationships and jobs where the hidden aspects outweighed the positive and made you regret the decision, you will want to take a closer look and read between the lines. Thankfully nothing lasts forever, but going into a situation prepared can make all the difference.