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| My cube is pretty hidden at work. I sit on a floor that is far away from my team (I think it had to do w/ space availability). At any rate, people almost never come by since it's so off the beaten path, so I think I've gotten a little unprofessional. One person from my team happened to be on my floor, so he came by. I looked around and saw it through his eyes... my cube is equal parts Jeremy Lin, puppies, and flowers. Only one stuffed animal though, I kept it under control hahah. It's a baby penguin. It's from South Africa. XD ...there's also a bit of corporate branding, but definitely overpowered by the other stuff haha
"I didn't buy those magazines," I explained hastily. (Wow, that sounds weird. haha) We place a lot of ads, so we get tons of magazines to check on them. I ...tore out the Jeremy Lin articles from Time and Newsweek and put them up. A well meaning coworker found a JLin article in USA Today and gave that to me. Visiting Coworker was like, "right... I would believe that, but the towel?" He pointed at a "Linsanity #17" towel I bought near Madison Square Garden and hung up in my cube. "The towel I bought," I confessed. I admit that that wall of my cube looks a little "Beautiful Mind"-esque, like a Jeremy Lin shrine of press clippings. The newspaper articles started to yellow with age not long ago, a reminder that Linsanity is a relic of the past. The three month anniversary of the death of Linsanity is coming up. How should we commemorate it... lol
It's ok, my team already knew about my Linsane fandom. I've been joked on in staff meetings. XD I can't help it. It was our "Obama moment." I should also note that I practically work in China, since several of the people who sit near me are Chinese nationals who work in something super technical. It's fun, I'm practicing my Chinese hahah. When Linsanity hit like a tidal wave, I had so much to talk about with my cube neighbors. Neighboring Chinese guy speculated with a pure heart about whether JLin would join the Chinese national basketball team for the Olympics. He was so well-intentioned and wishful, I smiled even though the idea seemed absurd to me. (Actually, if JLin did that I might renounce him hahaha).
I once read a study that said that successful people keep only two personal items at their desks. Should I redecorate? Maybe I'll tone down the Linsanity memorial. At some point it might be like being surrounded by photos of dinosaurs lol But the puppy and flower pictures keep me sane at work, and let's be real - I spend more time in that cube than I do anywhere else. It's important to be in a workplace where you can be yourself; that might be the best definition to work/life balance. | | |
| Despite my best intentions, I am generally too swept away by life to blog here much these days. Add to that the increasing transparency of the Internet - back in the newer days of the Internet one could blog without wondering if Big Brother was watching. These days one should assume that Big Brother has your blog on RSS feed. Disaster. XD And yet, I love to write and writing is one of the best ways for me to process all the numerous thoughts that pass through my head at a dizzying pace on a daily basis.
"He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue." - Proverbs 28:23
It has come to my attention that I am a people-pleaser. More specifically, baby-pleaser. I have the worst time saying no to children wanting things XD Hopefully this will be cured if I become a mother, but for now anyone's cute kids who waddle up to me demanding or politely asking for things from me will get them promptly. Somewhere inside I just want to make everyone happy, which is in itself not a bad thing, but in excess anything can be detrimental.
Yesterday I was manning our church-sponsored, community-wide Easter Egg Hunt, and there were kiddies wandering up to the registration table wanting stickers for their nametags. Which is in itself fine, but actually the stickers were red dots that designated the nametag wearers as belonging to a particular group. Ergo, we couldn't just give the stickers to them because that would totally throw off our carefully-orchestrated, frankly already-pretty-much-shot system XD I waffled and looked for stickers to give them anyway. One of the organizers at the table fortunately did not miss a beat. "We're out of stickers. Sorry." Done. Maybe it comes with experience?
I gotta hand it to those Children's Ministry / Sunday School teacher types who are good at saying no. The Egg Hunt itself was split into three age groups, and the 0-2 age group filled up immediately, leaving a mini-revolt swelling in our midst. Some moms who came before registration and were told to come back at 3pm started to flip out when our registration started at 2:45pm (internal miscommunication on our part). "We were here before ANY of those others!" I immediately wanted to let them all in just so they would stop complaining, but the organizers held their ground while strategizing. Fortunately some shuffling saved the day, but in the meantime people were starting to get pretty salty over what was a free event. I have to conclude that rude parents will breed rude children, and that giving in to and rewarding disrespectful speech or behavior does not pay off. And yet, I still have hope in humanity's ability to treat their own kind with dignity.
I will hold steadfast to my Bad Day rule for strangers, which assumes that incidental bad behavior from people I just met stems from external circumstances that I am not aware of. Stressful day at work, insecurity since childhood, verbally abused at home and continues the vicious cycle on others. But this rule has a short shelf life - what about repeat, intentional offenders? More than the unpleasantness I feel feel when they are rude to me, they are really the ones who pay the price. Mistreating others earns them disregard and dislike from those surrounding them, and ultimately, I always conclude that mean people should be pitied because no one likes them. As antithetical as it seems, the best way to please them in the long run is to curb their bad behavior by saying no when they are misbehaving. Maybe we should all remember to just say no to even the really cute babies, because they'll be a lot less cute as mean, lonely adults. | | |
| So I'm barely four months into my new job. Kids, my job is great. Life is pretty good - I cannot complain. I feel so blessed. Work/life balance is not bad. My work is interesting and lets me be creative. The people at work are nice. It feels great to work in a place where everyone is just friendly to other people. When I walk down the hallway around the cube farm, people smile at me and greet me even if we don't work together. This is quite the refreshing contrast compared to my previous job where people would tend to just hole up in their offices.
I've traveled for work a few times now, which has been pretty interesting. Riding the Amtrak to and from NY is always an adventure. Actually, the last two times I've come back from NY I've had conversations with the passenger next to me the entire way back. That might seem strange, but I find it fortuitous. They were both great conversationalists who made the trip go by faster. One of them was the man who cured prostate cancer. Lol that's right kids, I met Dr. Patrick Walsh. Go Google him. XD As my sister says, you know you've made it when you auto-fill in a Google search hahaha
I sat down next to him on the train and he was on his phone. He was talking to his wife, who I later found out is an interior designer. (He confided that in this kind of economy, it's hard to run an interior design business. I believe it.) When he hung up the phone, he asked me with a smile if the dining car was still open (I had no idea) and then he went off and came back with a hot dog, some chips, and a beer. "And you, young lady, where did you go today?" he asked after he sat down. Dr. Patrick Walsh, by my estimates, is somewhere in his 70's, and he bears a striking resemblance to the old guy in Up. (lol!)
And so you can see why I felt totally inclined to talk to him. He was outraged by the Republicans, profoundly admiring of President Obama, and didn't hesitate to lambaste... well, anything he felt needed lambasting. Maybe when I'm 70 I won't care about filtering my opinions either XD He showed me pictures of his half-Asian grandchildren on his phone, because apparently he has two Asian-American daughter-in-laws and maybe that's why he was so friendly to me.
He had just come back from giving a lecture in New York. He regaled me with the story of his eureka moment of how he discovered the cure to prostate cancer, and how his discovery has saved countless lives. "So what is your plan for your life?" he wanted to know. ... I felt that his "curing cancer" and "saving countless lives" talk was a hard act to follow. Um... I kind of want to write a book, I said. "Oh, I've written a few books!" he replied. (I feel silly. His book is all over Amazon, hah!) "So then why haven't you written it yet?" he asked matter-of-factly. "I don't know, I've been pretty tied up with other stuff... I actually spend a lot of time on church activities," was my response.
His expression changed. "What kind of church?" Presbyterian. "Oh, that's very good," he said, and a look of wistfulness or regret flickered across his face. He confessed that he hadn't spent as much time with the Lord as he would've liked to in his life. He averred that religion is a very important thing in one's life, and talked about the divine circumstance in the chain of events in his life that led up to his insight into curing cancer. "I asked the Lord for help!" What are the odds that Dr. Walsh would happen to be in a country at a conference, feel a whim to invite an as yet unknown fellow doctor to have dinner with him, and then four years later be in that doctor's home country in Europe, where he would suddenly receive a major inspiration? (Imagine if he had taken the host doctor up on his offer to go sightseeing that day instead of insisting on visiting the lab!) I listened actively, asking a lot of questions like that kid in the Never ending Story movie lol. What happened next?? This was the point where I felt compelled to say, "Excuse me, can I have your name? I am going to Google you when I get home." hahaha
We talked about a few other things. He counseled me on my love life like the white grandfather I never had lol He advised me to meet some nice boys at church. There is some freedom in talking to someone you've never met before and will probably not see again. As we neared my stop, it was near midnight. "I'm going to take a nap now, and I'll likely be asleep when you leave, so I just wanted to tell you now that it has been very nice speaking with you tonight," he said, smiling benevolently. I returned his goodwill. Sure enough, when I got off at my stop he was reclined in his chair sleeping peacefully, and I paused to watch the train pull away from the station from the platform. I wonder who I'll meet next... | | |
| I heart you, new iPhone. Where have you been all my life lol XD. | | |
| So it would appear that I officially work for the Man. Call me whatever you want to call me, but I ...like corporate America. Being part of huge numbers makes me feel safe. And I enjoy economies of scale and employee discounts. I've worked in a small company and for government before, but large companies just have lots of benefits and events that smaller companies can't offer.
I drove past Occupy Philadelphia yesterday unintentionally. I saw the tents set up outside City Hall and I wondered if there was some sort of festival going on. And then I remembered about the protests. I fully support freedom of speech, but I am not a fan of poorly thought out arguments. "The banks got bailed out, but what about the working people?" It's as if no one has drawn the line between the banks and the people. They are not completely independent, folks. There's a reason the government couldn't let the banks fail - the people would've definitely felt it then. T.T And then there is Russ Feingold, a politician giving an interview and voicing his agreement with "the people." Ughh he's just trying to get re-elected! Begs the question... do you want total income equality or freedom of speech? Communist countries wouldn't have this huge wealth gap, but their citizens also don't get to speak their mind. (China is not really a "true" communist country, since its economy allows for capitalism and thus does indeed have a gaping income gap, also a major source of unrest.)
Yesterday morning I watched "The View" play a clip of the wealthy drinking champagne on a balcony and smirking while they watched protests. Thank you Whoopi for asking the question "Now, are we sure this happened when we think it happened?" because that was a fair question to ask given that there was no direct shot of the protests in the footage. It's all so French Revolution. It makes me wish that a higher power would come down and waggle a cosmic finger at everyone involved. Richer people, come now. Share your toys. Poorer people, stop coveting toys. This is a gross oversimplification, since some of the underprivileged really do lack basic resources and the "super-privileged" do engage in charitable giving, but the end result is the same: we all need to accept the reality is that life is not "fair." We all are born into different positions in life. If there's any place in the entire world where you can make a socioeconomic turnaround with some good faith effort, it's gotta be here in the States. But of course people all have their lot in life and it's not so simple to draw a line between lower income folks and less hard work.
Yes, I see that there is income inequality, and that is unfortunate. But simply scapegoating banks or the wealthy can't be the answer. (Incidentally, how come no one's mad at celebrities? They are super rich!) So wealth is concentrated in the upper percentile of the people. Maybe they worked the hardest or were born the luckiest. But then I need to ask, is the American Dream ultimately about hoarding all your hard-won goods and enjoying them on your own while others fall on hard times? (Is the "1%" even doing this? Unsubstantiated - what do they need to do to be politically correct, give away all their money without questions?) Rich or whatever gradient of "poor," in zealously guarding the rights of each individual to the pursuit of happiness, did we inescapably sink towards becoming the most selfish nation? The beauty of capitalism, the opportunity to seize opportunity and ride its wave to a crest or simply crash into the surf, is at once what has made the U.S. prosperous but is also the cause of its unrest. I guess America can't have its cake and eat it too. | | |
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