Solidarity and what happens when you don't have it

So after my post of last week, the very next day in fact, I caught up with a professional acquaintance for a coffee. I have met this lady only once or twice, face to face, but I spoke to her just before Christmas (about a job offer, actually, but that's a story for another day) and she suggested we catch up for a coffee in the new year.

As an aside, this is the sort of stuff that makes me feel really vulnerable. Even though it was her idea to have a coffee and swap notes, I cycled through some interesting feelings when I texted her - I actually put it off for days. What if she thinks I am an idiot? What if she was only offering to have coffee to be nice? What if I am annoying her? This happens to me a lot.

It was a timely follow on to this post. When we caught up with spoke about a bunch of issues in our industry, gossiped about who had moved where and who had quit what. But, inevitably, we got to the issue of how we struggle with certain perceptions / issues in the work place as as woman.

The same questions I had asked myself - how many times do I have to fight? Haven't I proven myself enough by now for you to respect me without me having to stamp my feet? If I get angry and pull you into line, am I going to perceived as emotional? - were the same ones she was grappling with, and nowhere nearer to drawing a conclusion than I was.

So of course, we both commented that it was fantastic to know that someone else was going through these issues, that there was someone else out there that we could feel solidarity with, knowing that these challenges arise for most people. A wonderful feeling, in many respects, however, it left me with a slightly niggling feeling - in the two hours that we caught up, we shared swapped war tales of some pretty untoward treatment - but, you know, at least we had someone who could offer a sympathetic ear and knew how fucked up this kind of behaviour is.

It disturbed me - not because we both had some stories (concerning as that is), but because I thought of all the other people (not just women) who are marginalised in the workplace  - for their gender, religion, race, sexual preference, whatever - who don't have anyone to turn to, no one to compare notes with ? I know that there are lots of resources in Australia that promote workplace fairness in a bunch of ways - and I'm thankful for that - but what about people who don't even realise that they are being unfairly exploited or treated, and may not necessarily be aware of the agencies out there to provide assistance? This article immediately sprung to my mind:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fair-work-investigates-claims-massage-parlour-fined-staff-for-running-late-20150119-12t48j.html

Pretty damning, right? Imagine being fined $100 for showing up late to work, and what's more, thinking that this is a either 1) a perfectly legitimate work place practice or 2) pretty unfair, but I can't say anything or I'll lose my job.

It infuriates me to think that this sort of thing is happening in Australia.

Everyday sexism

Late last year I read Laura Bates' excellent book, Everyday Sexism, which (I believe) stems from her Everyday Sexism project. As I read the book, I recoiled in horror at the awful stories of overt and disgusting treatment of women and pondered how lucky I was that I had (mostly) avoided these sorts of incidents in my own life. However, as I've stopped to reflect - particularly in my new role, where I am the only woman in senior management within the company - I've realised all the insidious, covert ways in which women are exposed to less than savoury treatment, particularly in the work place.

Please don't get me wrong - in a world where women are marginalised, fighting to vote, being forced into domestic / sexual servitude, suffering violence at the hands of their partners, being paid considerably less than their male peers,  I don't mean to imply that I have got it bad. I know  - and thoroughly appreciate - that I am living as a privileged young woman in an exceedingly wealthy country, a country which has excellent social safeguards and opportunities for those who want them.

The thing that strikes me more is that most - if not all - covert sexism, particularly at work - isn't malicious, planned, strategic, or even particularly considered. It just ... happens. Why? Generational issues, yes, to some extent? The presence or influence of a few particularly macho or blokey guys? People in positions of privilege or seniority who are just used to women being administrative assistants?

Whatever it is, I realised I have had jack of it today when, as the second most senior person in my company, an external consultant sent me a copy of a powerpoint presentation and asked me to transfer it to a company template for PPT slides and to please put them on a projector for him to present. At a meeting which I was not attending.

Now, this may not seem like much, but to give you context, this person:

• actively discouraged the recruit of a woman into a senior role because of 'issues' in her personal life
• has asked me to set up meetings for him on his behalf after giving me a copy of his diary 
• has told our managing director that he thinks I should be taking minutes in various senior     committees (as an aside, I have been involved in these committees as part of my role, not simply to take minutes, and each of these committees is attended by other staff - men - equal to, or more junior than me). 

I don't want to seem precious, or as though I am not a team player. I am normally a person who loves to help out and willingly do so. However, I'm always a bit miffed when I think such assistance is EXPECTED by virtue of my gender.  As a friend pointed out to me, this particular person wouldn't dream of asking one of our male managers to undertake these tasks. 

These things have led me to consider the broader undesirable treatment I have received in the last 8 months in my role. Again, nothing serious from my perspective - I am pretty confident standing up for myself and call out this stuff when I see it. I once told a person  to leave a meeting for not giving me the respect I deserved.  Overall, I still find my role challenging and exciting and enjoyable. But here are some examples (and to be fair, I think some of these may be also partly the result  of me being YOUNG and a woman. I am on a management team where the next person - age wise  - would be 20 years my senior): 

• After telling a colleague that I wouldn't be changing my name (after getting married), having him roll his eyes and say 'oh - you're one of THOSE girls'.
• Having the same colleague size me up in the weeks before my wedding and say 'you're getting TOO thin now. Time to put on some weight'. Comments about my weight - and appearance - are par for the course. Never insulting or rude, just always..... noted. 
• Being consistently spoken over in meetings by a male colleague whenever I raise a point he doesn't want to hear (hence my comment above about asking someone to leave a meeting)
• Having my boss try and talk me out of a pay rise because people my age are 'cannon fodder' in this industry, implying that I should shut up and accept my salary (I didn't), which albeit, is not specific to my gender and perhaps more accurately alludes to my age, but I firmly believe that he would never have made these comments to a male colleague.
• Being told that a potential hire had 'tickets on herself' for asking a salary that was the going market rate.
• Struggling to work out a laptop / projector combination and having a male colleague say 'it's because you're a woman!!'

I'm not even covering off the whole list here. These are just some highlights. 

So I understand if you're reading this, it may appear that I am a pushover and maybe not standing up for myself in the workplace. But the thing is, that's just not the case. I fight. I pushback. I say 'no' when I am asked to do administrative tasks which are not my role.  I even say no rather bluntly, with no apology. I'm known as a little feisty, a little bossy and a great leader (I'm not blowing my own trumpet here). 

So my question is - do you stay and keep fighting, hoping that you're making things better for women in that business further down the track (noting of course than in my workplace, all the other women  - in my business - and there's not that many of them -  are in customer service, or other administrative roles), or do you deduce that this place is incredibly backward, a regressive boiling pot of dinosaurs who should be left to dig their own graves in a world that is rapidly changing?

I guess that's a question for another day. I only know this  - some days being in charge and not tolerating shit from people makes me feel positively energised and other days, like today, you wonder whether or not you're fighting a losing battle. 

I'm dreaming of a 32 degree Christmas.

I've posted on this blog before about returning to Perth and always being pleasantly surprised. This year is no exception as we were lucky enough to attend a gorgeous wedding on Rottnest Island the weekend before Christmas, and so stay on for Christmas with my family here.....

 Hubby and I en route to Rottnest on the most choppy boat ride ever.

My sister's gorgeous Christmas tree.

My little cousin very excited the day before Christmas. 

Rottnest

More Rottnest

 En route to wedding

 Floreat Beach

Sweet sweet nectar

Have you ever heard of a nectar list? It's like a challenge to the bucket list. Rather than setting goals and achieving challenges, it's all about acknowledging what you HAVE - the 'nectar' of your existence thus far. A brilliant idea, one I first read about in women's health magazine, but I believe ultimately coined by Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sierra-vandervort/the-nectar-list_b_5753464.html

So. Here's my nectar list for 2014.

1. I've purchased two houses
2. I've reduced my alcohol intake by more than half.
3. I've done my first hip hop yoga class (and many more since).
4. I've married the love of my life.
5. I've ran around Hoan Kiem lake with my friends and written funny post it notes over Vietnamese iced coffee in Hanoi
6. I've changed jobs and found an incredibly interesting / challenging position.
7. I've attended three beautiful weddings.
8. I've eaten at Tetsuya's.
9. I've started the foundations of my own business with my best friend.
10. I've swam in the glorious Maldives.
11. I've eaten fabulous tapas in Barcelona and strolled the streets of this gorgeous city.
12. I've visited - and loved - Hobart. For the first time.
13. I've been spoiled rotten and inspired by my beautiful friends over a weekend in Sorrento.
14. I've written off a car ( a first, hopefully a last).
15. I've attended the 80th of my stoic, loving grandmother.
16. I've eaten at Messina.
17. I've done by 5 km PB.
18. I've seen Wicked for the second time.
19. Michael and I have welcomed our first nephew into the world.
20. I've shopped up a storm in Kualan Lumpur.
21. I've cleared 7 years of clutter and junk away.
22. I've seen my favourite band - The National - in concert.


And I'm not even sure it's the half of it. Pictures to follow!

Thanks 2014. You've been bonza.

Space, space, space ....

I've been thinking the last few days that I need some space - physically, emotionally, mentally. Building space into our lives is necessary - not only to rest and digest, but also to develop resilience.

Don't get me wrong. 2014 has been a bonanza - two houses, a wedding (mine), four other weddings (close family and friends), three countries, a new job (for me and Michael), flatmate moves, new business opportunities and massive lifestyle upheavals. But there's a point where you start to feel like you need to do less 'doing' and more 'being'. For example, I've made all these weird, scatter brained little mistakes lately which are just ... not me, and I think, a sign of stress and overwrought. And I think a sign that I'm crying out for some quiet minutes / hours / weeks.

It's easy, too, to get enveloped in the rush and to lose sight of the bigger picture. For those of you who are in Australia and have watched the news unfold, the Sydney hostage crisis which ended tragically for some in the early hours of this morning serves as a timely reminder - goals, jobs, errands and to do lists will always be there. Things that are beautiful and special can often be fleeting. Put down your lists people! I'm going to do that just now - my dog is begging for some much needed play time.

x

She was a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people pleaser.

The concept of addiction is all around us. People for centuries have been addicted to alcohol and drugs. The concept of addiction has now stretched into our modern world - we can be addicted to social media, addicted to technology, addicted to sex.

But what about the more subtle and subconscious addictions that can manifest without you even realising? These can go months, years, even a whole lifetime without ever being recognised, named, and 'treated'. They might impact your health and happiness in ways that you can't articulate and may never even notice, and you might go through life feeling stuck or not quite right in some aspect of your life.

My addiction? People pleasing.

Yeah. Weird, right?

It started long before I was an adult for reasons I won't get into here, but suffice to say, it's been evident for most of my life. Being perfect, getting the tick of approval, always being there to offer a solution or assistance to anyone, making sure I worry about everything else and everyone else.

Not such a bad thing on the face of it. I mean, what's wrong with wanting to be liked? What's wrong with wanting to help others? Especially when those people are the people close to you - people you'd go to the ends of the earth for, or even watch an Adam Sandler film with.

Nothing, on the face of it. Just as drugs and alcohol aren't problematic, in and of themselves. That's the thing with addiction - it only a problem when it becomes a problem, right?

For me, being a little purple people pleaser has manifested itself in some less than ideal behaviours for me. The perception of being perfect, capable of anything. The fear of asking for help or showing vulnerability. The stress when someone has a problem or issue that I can't fix. The exhaustion of trying to be 'all things to all people' (a concept that anyone who has read the excellent Rushing Woman's Syndrome by Dr Libby Weaver will be familiar with).

This year has really brought this to the fore for me and I can see it causing damage.  I'll get into that in a later post. So how to tackle any addiction?

Action plan - to break the cycle of habit. For the next two weeks, I will:

 - Put a buffer between being asked to do something and responding
 - Asking for help (I will be writing a list tomorrow of all the things I am going to ask for help with)
 - Starting to accept help where it is offered to me


Bananas, right? All seems pretty intuitive, right? Well, not for this little purple people pleaser. It's gonna be hard. Here goes....

Shoot that poison apple through my heart.... no, wait. File that poison apple away for later.

We all know that feeling right? You're stressed. You feel like you're being jolted from one thing to another and it seems never ending and you feel like you don't have a second to yourself and DAMMIT you just feel overwhelmed.

And then.

Just when you think you're at breaking point it hits.

A nasty rebuke from your boss.
A snarky email from a friend / partner  / family member.
A rude stranger on the train.
An unhelpful person in your professional life.

BAM.

It's on. You're indignant. You're furious. You're enraged. You think 'HOW FUCKING DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME CAN'T YOU SEE I'M UP TO MY EYEBALLS / ABOUT TO POP  / CRAZY STRESSED, DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO ME YOU INSUFFERABLE BUFFOON WHY IS THE WORLD SO UNKIND ETCETERA'.

I like to call these little babies 'poison apples'. A psychologist coined this little anecdote for me years ago. He may have gotten it from somewhere else, hell, it may be a known turn of phrase in psychological circles (though the internet doesn't seem to think so, I checked).

These things come up in life, yes, when you're stressed, yes, when you think you can't handle anything more happening in your life, and yes, when things going wrong. Sometimes they are malicious. But most often, they aren't (because they can't see. They don't know. They didn't realise the world was being so unkind to you).

I used to complain bitterly to my psychologist about things that people did that I perceived as unkind / unfair / downright wrong. On and on I would go, decrying other people's deplorable behaviour and the negative impact it had on me.

So here's what he said (and I'm paraphrasing here):

These things  that people say and do to you are like poison apples. They are bad for you, undoubtedly. The are nasty to receive. They might even be given by someone who KNOWS that the apple is poisonous. But you are the one who chooses to eat the apple. You are the one taking the first bite. You could give the apple back. You could put the apple in the bin. You could even put the apple aside until later and decide what to do with it at a later time. 

Food for thought, isn't it (haha, apple, haha, food). I was forced to think about this today, as I received a rather unpleasant email from a friend. I honestly thought I was seconds away from losing at her, ending our friendship, telling her what an idiot she was being.

But then, I remembered this analogy. Sure, I was angry. Sure,  I had a massive rant to my husband. Sure, I was upset. But after I gathered my rage, I filed the email away in  my 'personal' file and thought - yeah, with everything I've got on my plate at the moment, I'm just going to have to put that poison apple away and decide how to deal with it later. I don't have to take a bite, and if I do, I'm not sure I'll like to outcome.

As an aside, my friend sent me an email before I'd had a chance to respond the original, saying that she was sorry and regretted sending it. By then, my head was clearer. Not only was I less angry, but I was more equipped to get to the root cause of her original email - are you angry at me? is something personal going on with you? how can we fix this? or are you just having a shitty day, like I am? 

Do you ever feel like someone is handing you a poison apple and you have to take a bite and react NOW?

image from illeander.deviantart.com