News Flash!

Because I spent my time last night researching data encryption for work, I didn't have time to write a post. And since I've spent the last few weeks making excuses as to why I can't write posts, I'm feeling kind of guilty. I like to keep things moving around here.

So, I'm going to cheat a little bit by repurposing some other recent writing of mine.

Every Friday, my office puts out a "News Flash" email that has all the weeks' happenings in it--new hires, promotions, birthday, computer tips from our IT department, etc. And one section is called "Who's Who" and it features one person in the office per week. Last week it was my turn.

Below are my responses:

·         What practice are you in and what accounts do you work on?

I’m in the consumer and tech practices. My clients are Stop & Shop and Nestle Waters (mainly Perrier) on the consumer side, and Veracode and PTC on the tech side.

·         What was your most embarrassing work moment?  

Luckily, my embarrassing work moments are minimal for now. Sometimes I give myself stress headaches from reading and re-reading emails before I send them to make sure I haven’t said anything dumb.

However, that doesn’t stop me from just actually being dumb. So, just recently, I had completely forgotten about an internal Veracode meeting and arrived about 10 minutes late. Typically, we call our London counterparts for this meeting. So I snuck into the room quietly, waving my hands and making sad facial gestures to express to Ellen and Caroline that I was sorry I was late. Ellen told me it was ok and then began talking to who I presumed to be the London office. In the 20-30 seconds she was speaking, I admittedly was paying no attention because I was still flustered about being late (I really really hate being late for anything, even internal meetings). All the sudden, the room goes quiet. I look up, and Ellen is staring at me. Turns out she had been talking to me the whole time, and I hadn’t heard a single word.  She and Caroline thought I was nuts. But that’s probably nothing new.

·         What’s your favorite 2 p.m. pick-me-up?

I like to switch it up, but a grande iced non-fat vanilla latte from Starbucks never disappoints.

·            If you could share some work-related advice with your peers, what would that be? (ex.   What do you do to prepare for a pitch? How do you keep track of billable hours? etc…

Never underestimate the power or skill of being in the right place at the right time with the right information. Even if you have no prior relationship with a reporter—that won’t matter if you give them the information they want before or as they realize they need it. Vice versa, the reporter could be your BFF but if you don’t have what they want when they want it, even they can’t help you.

·         What was the last book you read?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s weird and quirky enough so you feel like it’s speaking directly to you, but what makes it so great is that everyone who reads it feels that way too.

·            What’s the best song on your ipod/mp3 player right now?

I’m obsessed with “Springsteen” by Eric Church. I took a trip to Seville and Paris with a friend of mine last spring and that song was her alarm for the entire trip, so now whenever I hear it I think of all the fun and crazy times we had there. As Church says in the song, “Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a true-life Saturday night.” So true!

·         If you could go anywhere in the world on your next vacation, where would it be and why?

I would go to Austria because I have an embarrassing affinity for The Sound of Music and want to see all of the places it was filmed. I’ll be damned if I don’t march around that giant fountain singing Do Re Mi at least once before I die. In that same trip I would also go to Germany because I feel as if telling people that I drank a lot of beer in Munich would somehow even out the fact that I flew to Austria because of The Sound of Music.

·         If you had a million dollars how would you spend it?

Re-filming The Sound of Music with myself cast as Maria.

No, I’m kidding.

I think I would have to buy a house. I spend a lot of time worrying that I’m going to live my whole life never owning anything more valuable than an Ikea wardrobe, so buying a house would make me feel better, I think. (House owners are shaking their heads right now thinking, “no, no it will not make you feel better.”)

Oh, and was I supposed to say charity too? …I’d give some to charity.

·         Tell us something that your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you.

I know all the lyrics to a very large amount of rap songs—from Jay-Z to Nelly to Eminem to Drake, and so on. I understand it’s an embarrassing talent because I have no actual rhythm and a terrible voice, but if you ignore that, I’m pretty good. I rapped Busta Rhymes’s verse in “Look at Me Now” for the PTC (internal) team one day. They can attest to my skill in being able to say a lot of words really fast, as well as my lack of rhythm and actual rap talent.

·            What is your favorite cell phone/ tablet app?

Anything that can tell me the news. I scan CNN.com and Boston.com probably 50 times a day. I have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Sometimes, when I walk outside and the streets are really deserted I get paranoid that something really huge is happening and everyone is inside watching it on TV. That’s when it helps to have the news on your phone, and a good Twitter feed. 

·            What is your favorite blog/blogger?

I’m a big fan of Jarrett Bellini’s blog on CNN (shocking) called “Apparently This Matters.”

http://www.jarrettbellini.com/p/writing.html

·            What is your motto/what words do you live by?

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle.”

Even though this post technically would have ended with a quote ^ see above, I've already used that one here before. So I'm offering up another.

"At 56 percent, German companies appear to have the highest rate of sensitive or confidential data transferred to the cloud."

-"Encryption in the Cloud," Ponemon Institute

Oh woops, sorry. I mean...

"I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel."

-Maria (Julie Andrews), The Sound of Music

In Defense of Generation Y

I have never been a fan of people scolding me for things that I have no control over.

I don’t actually think that anyone is a fan of that. That’d be weird. But I’ve always been pretty vocal about my hatred of being blamed for things that aren’t my fault.

So, one thing that’s been grinding my gears lately has been all the hate towards “Generation Y.”

I had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was born in the late 1980’s. You’ll have to bring that issue up with my parents.

The reason I don’t know about movies from the 1940’s isn’t because I’m uncultured. It’s because I didn’t grow up in the 1940’s, and I’m not a huge movie buff. I don’t even really know too much about movies from the 2000’s.

The reason I don’t know how to use a record player isn’t because I’m stupid. It’s because by the time I was old enough to listen to my own music, records and record players were no longer easily available. And CD players were. And guess what? The sound quality is actually better. I promise.

The reason I don’t know my friends’ phone numbers by heart isn’t because I’m too self-absorbed to remember them. It’s because there is absolutely no need for me to remember them when I have a tool that does that for me. You buy butter instead of churning it yourself, don’t you? And it’s not because you’re too weak to churn it—why would you bother spending your time doing something that’s completely unnecessary?

I’m tired of hearing about how I’m socially inept because I text instead of calling or meeting people in person. Since the founding of the Pony Express people have been looking for ways to not meet up with people face to face. It’s not just the people born between 1970-1995. 

I’m tired of being called lazy and entitled and unwilling to settle down and disrespectful and irresponsible and all of the other things people who complain about Generation Y say about us. And then, when I defend myself by saying any of what I’ve written above, they say something like, “Oh, not you,” or “Well you got a job right away so that’s better than most other people your age,” or some other placating remark that somehow suggests that I’m not “as bad” as the others. THAT is the exact reason we all supposedly feel entitled! Now I get to walk away from the conversation thinking that I'm special and better than the others because you told me so.

And for other Generation Y’s who have lamented about your own kind, I hate to point out that that makes you no better than the people you’re putting down. It means you somehow think you’re better than other people your age, and you’re exempt from their perceived flaws and shortcomings---but their perceived flaws and shortcomings is that they think they’re better than others, and exempt from flaws and shortcomings. See what I’m saying?

So I’m not even going to talk about the things I’ve done in my life that supposedly "prove" that I’m not lazy or entitled or socially inept or whatever else. I'm not going to distance myself from Generation Y. You mess with Generation Y and you mess with me.

And luckily, I have that college-level rhetoric training that you scoffed at, so I’m up for the challenge.

"They're all mistakes, children! Filthy, nasty things. Glad I never was one."

-Miss Trunchbull, Matilda

Words I Live By: "The Busy Trap"

If you only read one thing today, don’t even make it this blog post. Make it the article that this blog post is about: "The Busy Trap"

If you read two things, then I guess the second thing could be this post. I wouldn’t complain.

If you just said to yourself, “well, I already clicked on this blog post, and clicking on another link to read that article is just too much work,” then I’ll just give you a quick summary and some of my favorite pieces from the article here, and you can pretend you read it:

Summary: 

In short, the author describes how Americans make themselves so busy that they lose out on leisure time, mistaking it as an unimportant or unnecessary part of life, when the leisure time is actually what makes life what it is. And when we really delve into the heart of why we do this, the author believes it comes down to some sort of self-assurance that we need to feel, because others have decided they should feel it, and everyone has to keep up with the next person. 

Excerpts:

“I recently wrote a friend to ask if he wanted to do something this week, and he answered that he didn’t have a lot of time but if something was going on to let him know and maybe he could ditch work for a few hours. I wanted to clarify that my question had not been a preliminary heads-up to some future invitation; this was the invitation. But his busyness was like some vast churning noise through which he was shouting out at me, and I gave up trying to shout back over it.”

“It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.”

“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

“More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.”

The thing about articles like this is that, while they are great and inspiring and I’d love to model my whole life off of it, sometimes you just have to pick and choose what to take out of it. Because, let’s be real, I’m not going to just take to the forest, learn how to whittle and sit in a rocking chair (that I whittled myself) whittling more things and drinking tea (from a mug, that I most likely whittled myself).

So while it’s impractical and impossible to not ever say that I’m busy, what I really took away from this was trying to not use “busy” as some sort of masochistic badge of honor, or as a “one-upper.” Or, as the author puts it, “being a part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school.” So I try my best to duck out of “the busy trap” anytime I see myself falling into it. I see it as being a part of the solution. Nobody’s perfect, but it’s always good to try to improve, right?

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans"

-John Lennon

Words I Live By: Loyalty

I'm going literal with this week's "Words I Live By" because it's actually just a single word.

Loyalty 

I'll start with a couple defintions:

• Being loyal can take on a few different forms: loyalty to a person, loyalty to a cause, loyalty to certain beliefs. And in that sense, what it means is that you don't stray from the moral code and guidelines that are implied by whatever relationship/affiliation you have with said person/cause/belief. 

• Having someone be loyal to you means trusting your friend/partner to not do you wrong or hurt you, knowing someone will always help you if you need it, understanding that someone else understands you and your intentions completely. At least, that's what it means to me. Maybe you have other ideas?

Loyalty is one of those things that you don't realize how important it is until you experience the opposite of it. Once you know disloyalty, how can you be on board with anything else but loyalty?

Throughout middle school and high school I was lucky enough to have probably the greatest group of friends a 13-18 year old could ask for. My friends and I were all nerds. We loved Student Council. And we never fought. Over time, I got spoiled thinking that all friendships were like this--never worrying if your best friend was secretly mad at you, or talking about you behind your back. 

And then, I learned that they weren't all like that.

And it hurt. A lot. And it was confusing and scary and unsettling to know that something I had learned to be true--that all close friendships were positive ones--maybe wasn't so true.

Lots of people learn about loyalty and disloyalty through relationships. To me, loyalty within a romantic relationship isn't different from loyalty in a platonic friendship. If you say that you would never cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend, then you should also be saying you would never sell a friend out. Loyalty is loyalty--it's something that you either practice, or don't practice.

Like I said earlier, loyalty is something that matters once you realize how badly disloyalty hurts. Or once you realize how badly you feel when you are disloyal to someone else.

I've felt both. You probably have too--in some degree or another.

It's easy to look back and find a time where someone has been disloyal to you.

Ever noticed that when you're playing "Never Have I Ever" and someone says "never have I ever been cheated on" almost everyone puts down a finger? Everyone's got a story about the time they were cheated on....

But then have you noticed that when you're playing that game and someone says "never have I ever cheated on someone" barely anyone admits to it?

Look, I'm not a mathematician, but statistically, this just seems impossible. If 9/10 people have been cheated on, but only 1/10 people has cheated...who the hell is doing all this cheating that is supposedly going on?? That 1 guy or girl is REALLY making the rounds, huh??

My point is--it's hard to admit to yourself, and to others, that you've been disloyal. But it happens. And it's worth fixing so it doesn't happen again.

Whether it's loyalty for and from those that you love, or for an idea or cause that you believe in, loyalty, in my opinion, is something that everyone should learn, live, and expect nothing less than.

To end on a high note, I really do believe that if you are loyal, you will find loyalty in others. 

I know that I have.


“You think I'm a fool?" demanded Harry.
"No, I think you're like James," said Lupin, "who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends.”

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Words I Live By: Be Kind...

Continuing this "Words I Live By" series, I have a much shorter one for this week:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle."
-Supposedly this was said by Plato, but no one really knows

Of all the things people try to make themselves (smart, successful, rich, popular, etc.) kind is something that can often get overlooked.

Which is understandable because I feel like we use "nice" as a synonym for kind, and expressions like, "Oh yeah, she's nice" get thrown around without really meaning anything. So kindness gets really downplayed. Like, anyone who isn't a sociopath is considered "nice." It's not really something you have to work too hard to achieve.

But if you really think about it, being kind is a lot more than just someone shrugging and saying "yeah she's nice." To be kind you are going out of your way to do good for someone. You are putting aside an impulse to be selfish, or to be impatient, or to save yourself hassle because you know it will make someone else's day easier or better.

The other half of this quote revolves around a really important life fact: we are all the same.

Of course, we are all unique and different, and whatever other stuff your parents told you when you were little to make you feel special. But everything in life can always be looked at from both sides, and the flip side to "you are unique" is that "everyone is the same." We all generally want to be healthy and happy and comfortable, we all think that we are the most important people in the world, and we all have problems. Sure, some people's problems may be more severe than others, but to the person who only knows how it feels to have their own problems, it's all relative. So, everyone is always fighting some sort of battle, whether it be publicly known, or an internal battle. Everyone's always got something going on that's weighing on them.

We owe it to others to always keep this in mind.

I feel like it's kind of weird to end posts about a quote with another quote, but I can't give up the tradition now!

Since I feel like my impatience most often gets in the way of my kindness I'll go with this one:


"Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request."
-Lord Chesterfield

Words I Live By: Jane Eyre

Lately I've been having some writer's block. I've been busy working, and going on vacation, and thinking about going on vacation, and creating excuses to not go to the gym, and because of that I've had a harder time posting blogs. 

So I started trying to motivate myself to write more. And I did this by revisiting some of my favorite articles, books and quotes. 

I'm a sucker for a good quote (which is why I end every post with one), and it's probably my ultimate writing goal to compose at least one sentence, at some point in my life, that resonates with someone as much as certain writings have resonated with me.

Good writing isn't about technically sound sentences, or using the biggest, most descriptive words. It's about summing up all the nuances of a complicated situation in a sentence, or a paragraph, or a chapter. It's about convincing others that you know how they feel, and you know why they feel how they feel.

So, I've decided that my next couple posts are going to be about various writings that have stuck with me over the years, that I keep going back to for inspiration, and that comfort me or motivate me in one way or another.

Probably my favorite book of all time is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. And I've decided that it's my favorite book because of a single chapter.

Jane is a young girl at a strict boarding school in the nineteenth century. She was sent there by her wicked aunt, Mrs. Reed, who just wanted to get rid of her. At school she meets a girl named Helen Burns, and the two fall into a discussion after Helen is hit for not paying attention in class. Jane, who is a bit hot-headed, talks to Helen about why she could never endure what Helen endured. And Helen, who is pretty much a saint, explains why she endured it.

I've skipped some of the middle parts so I don't lose you, but do your best to work your way through this. I'll even bold the best parts!

"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it."

"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you CANNOT BEAR what it is your fate to be required to bear."

I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
...

"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"

"Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness."

"A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."

"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl."

"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."

"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it."

"How? I don't understand."

"It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."
...

"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible."
...

Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?"

"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."

In my time, I've been known to register a few wrongs. I've been inclined to strike back at those who I believe have struck me for no reason. Sometimes I have to be reminded that hating someone is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

I feel like Jane in this chapter sums up exactly how I'm inclined to feel when I perceive something wrong has happened to me. And reading Helen's response always reminds me to just chill the heck out.

Peace. Love. Helen Burns.

I promise that some of my other "words to live by" will be shorter than this. But not all of them.

It seems only right to wrap this up with another great Jane Eyre quote.

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”

-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Jane is such a badass.

How Cliche!

I'm not big on cliches and generic, canned phrases that people always use to sum up a variety of situations. I'm not an "everything happens for a reason" sort of girl. Or an "if you love someone let them go" kind of person.

However, there are definitely a couple of cliches that I'm on board with. Sometimes you just can't dispute evidence that proves that these phrases are straight truth.

"It's a small world." -- Seriously, it is SUCH a small world. And this is both comforting and terrifying to me. I have learned over and over again that even when you say goodbye to people, there is a really good chance you'll run into them again. Sometimes that's a great thing, and sometimes it's a really annoying, terrible thing. There are lots of Murphy's Law-type rules when it comes to the "it's a small world" principle:

• If you say something mean about someone in public, you will say it within earshot of someone who happens to know them.
• If you see someone from college or high school and think to yourself, "Hm, I haven't seen them in FOREVER," you will inevitably see them everywhere you go for the next 6-12 months.
• If you just begin dating someone, you will soon after meet someone, or catch up with an old friend who happens to know their most recent ex.
• If you meet someone brand new, say, on vacation, you will meet their cousin or someone else who knows them in the next month.

"Good things happen to good people." -- This is not to say that bad things never happen to good people, or that good things never happen to bad people, because of course, that's just not true. But I really do believe that when it all nets out, good people have it better. I also have learned over time that good things happen to positive people. Essentially, you get what you expect to get in this world. And if you expect the worst, that's what you'll find. But I'm not sure they've turned that into a cliche yet, so in the meantime I'll stick with "good things happen to good people" -- even though "good" and "positive" do not always go hand in hand.

"The grass is greener on the other side." -- Ok, I really only strongly advocate this phrase when it comes to girl's hair. The grass is always greener on another girl's head. Err--ok so that doesn't translate well. What I mean is that every girl with curly hair wants straight hair, and every girl with straight hair wishes their hair would curl. The hair care industry thrives on this principle. Perms and curlers and straighteners and sprays and gels and chemicals exist so girls can force their hair to do what other girl's hair does naturally--but you would never know her hair does that naturally because she's too busy forcing her hair to do what another girl's hair does naturally. 

So,  while I may not be down for the "everything happens for a reason"s of the world (which is another blog topic for another day), there are at least a few other expressions I can get behind.

"Someone once told me the grass was much greener on the other side. Well, I took a visit, and it's possible I missed it. It seemed different yet exactly the same."

-Macy Gray, "In Between" ...yes, the As Told by Ginger theme song