Not Your Average Twentysomething

This is a guest post by Ti whose blog is at Tarnished Thoughts as part of the Big Blog Swap hosted by 20somethings.

I’m the original “Greenchild”, being born and raised in the Beaver State. My roots can be traced back to the Coquille natives on the southern Oregon coast. My lineage has been Oregonian since before there was even an Oregon. My ancestors never left and I guess that explains why I’ll probably never leave either.

There are a few stereotypes about Oregon and her people that hold some actual merit. Yes, the rain does come down sideways and for months at a time. Yes, we do mock people who actually attempt to use those rinky umbrellas that flip inside out at the first gust of wind. Yes, we love our coffee but you won’t see a true Oregonian sipping the Starbucks java. Yes, we are very earth-friendly and attempt to recycle everything. And yes, we have road rage but reserve it for those who sport a “California” license plate.

I’m basically the average 20-something Oregon girl. I can name more rivers than I have fingers and toes as well as tell you how to get there and where the prime fishing spots are. I can even bait my own hook, catch my own fish, clean it and cook it. I’m frequently found hanging around the Coffee House Café (see, no Starbucks) getting myself a totally organic, vegetarian wrap and a cup of caffeine-free Oregon Chai latte. My favorite beer is Dead Guy Ale from the Rogue River Brewery (Newport, Oregon) and while I’m there I usually pop by a fresh seafood market and pick up Oysters to toss on the BBQ. I love to recycle and become enraged when someone litters the most minute thing, like a gum wrapper. Every Saturday, during football season, I’m checking the online scoreboard for the Oregon Ducks. I wear green & gold with pride. There are several T-shirts in my closet, that should be retired, that have something to do with recycling, beach clean-ups or environmental efforts. I don’t wear flipflops because they become snowboards when the ground is wet but I will run around in my barefeet because I love the way the grass and the mud feels between my toes. I have several pairs of sunglasses but only really use them for the morning commute of sunrise and sunset. My jackets are Columbia Sportswear, Nike and Pendleton. When I drive I’m used to having my windshield wipers on max and have developed keen eyesight in the fog. Anything that has not erupted in the last century is a “hill” and not a “mountain”. I’m amazed at an accurate weather report. The water in Oregon is pristine and yet I buy the big pack from Costco.

Silly about me I guess. Most of my friends in other states tell I’m insane when I can’t throw away a can or when I burn into a rage over someone stapling a concert flyer to a tree trunk. I’m just me; girl, green, Oregon, proud.

While working at a Career Development event I met a gentlemen who worked as a senior recruiter for a company which will remain unmentioned.  I couldn’t tell if he was more enthused about the idea of working a 2 am to 5 am shift or that he had been employed by the same company for the past 22 years.  I decided to strike up the inevitable conversation that comes with sitting next to someone for six hours and asked him what kept him at the same company for 22 years.  Well, apparently I don’t look my age.  He began to explain how he stuck with them because they are a great company, but he can’t tell college students that because “they generally change jobs at least four times, and they aren’t concerned with job security they just want diversity and diversity sucks.  College students are all just dumb liberals who want Obama as president because they think diversity is good but diversity sucks.” He asked what my political views were and I said conservative, because I am conservative (I voted Obama) and politely said that I didn’t feel comfortable discussing politics with him.  He continued to pull numbers out of no where about how most people become conservative and republican as they age because they also become more intelligent.

I was told this by a senior recruiter for a Fortune 50 company.  A company which is profiled in every accounting book I own and studied in most operations management and logistics courses is being represented by this guy.  He then began talking about how every women in America should have voted for McCain because, “women have been bitching about wanting a strong woman in politics for years, and then when she finally came they wouldn’t vote for her because then they wouldn’t have anything to bitch about.”

I sat there, completely shocked looking for an escape because I knew that arguing with him would be useless.  A friend of mine asked how my weekend went and I knew that I had an exit, “oh it was okay but traffic was horrible Saturday morning on the way to the Synagogue.”  He looked at me for a moment, shock his head and turned away.  He said nothing more to me the entire day and I applauded the self control I exhibited.

I  use FedEx now.

I just finished reading When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner.  Though Kushner is a Rabbi and draws from his Jewish experiences this book is not strictly faith based and I highly suggest it.

My best friend growing up was a neighbor who was 88 when I was in 5th grade.  His named was Happy (not his born name, but few people knew what it was) and he lived the most exciting life I’d ever heard of.  Every day my grandparents and I would down to the local restaurant for coffee and I would sit next to him and just absorb everything he said.  I wrote a report on him in 5th grade because he was my best friend.  He quit smoking after years of the doctors telling to and soon after became very sick.  Three years later he died of lung cancer the first weekend of my freshman year of college. He didn’t have a funeral, visitation, or any sort of service when he passed.  He put himself in hospice care about a month earlier where his only visitors were his wife and my grandparents.  Happy didn’t say goodbye to anyone, he just wanted to go quietly without anyone making a fuse over his absence.  He said once, when I was little, that he’d already “lived beyond his purpose” so if it was his time to go then it was his time to go, that was just the way it was and being upset and bitching about it wouldn’t change anything so when his time came he’d go in peace and quite.  My parents died when I was young and I always looked to that view as rationale for their lives being cut short.

It held up until lately.  I decided to buy Kushner’s book after my professor, whom I was very close to, passed away from Leukemia in early September.  They day I finished the book I found out more bad news.  My neighbor and middle school science teacher was diagnosed with skin cancer on his head four years ago.  He went through Chemotherapy, fought it, and came back livelier then ever.  Then it came back and he fought it again and won.  Now it is back for a third time, and he won’t make it through.  The doctors gave him a very poor outlook and he has no will to fight.  He is a tremendous person and has positively impacted a lot of lives.

I have this theory going that no one ever really died of old age.  In all historical accounts of someone passing away from old age they really died of cancer, but cancer didn’t exist so they just called it old age.

Kushner offers that instead of looking for an answer as to why the world is so unfair and bad things happen to good people we should look for our response.  Response and answer can generally be interchangeable.  How does one respond when something bad happens.  He pruposes that we can find an answer through the response of foregiving the world for not being perfect instead of holding anger for the imperefections of life; becuase we only have one.

Each person is a representative for their employer, their organizations, and themselves (through their personal brand).  One aspect of being that representative is understanding that making an ass of oneself, insulting others, and having a poor attitude in general is detrimental to business and personal relations.  While most understand the aforementioned to be true, what about the people who don’t?  How do you confront the people who, though their poor or improper behavior, are hurting business?

1. Evaluate their current and past behavior.  Is there a pattern?  Do they only make an ass out of themselves when alcohol is involved?  Are they unbearable only when they are involved in a personal tiff with a someone?  Try to evaluate if there is a reason to their behavior because they may be unaware of it.
2. Try and understand the situation from their point of view?  Maybe they are allowing themselves to get a bit out of hand when drinking because they believe that it is okay.  There is a good chance that they do not view the situation in the same light as you do, its beneficial to try and find that frame of reference they are living in.
3. Absorb with others tell you, and don’t regurgitate it.  If the problem has escalated to requiring group attention then everyone is going to have an opinion about it.  Listen and absorb what others tell you, but don’t repeat it because (a) you don’t want to seem like you are ganging up and (b) you don’t want to promote ‘group think’ where people just agree to be upset because other people are. If you feel that you need to talk out the situation do it with someone not directly involved in the situation.
4. Determine an ideal solution.  If the coworker becomes angry and creates a hostile environment every time they have more then two things to do maybe the ideal situation would be for them to go to counseling for stress and/or management and for them to continue working in their current position.
5. Determine a worse case scenario.  If the aforementioned worker doesn’t want to participate in stress/anger management they have to be demoted to a less demanding job.
6. Consider other situations.  Maybe the person will start with stress management and temporarily take on less work.  Or they will start anger management and then work into stress management.  Any step is still a step forward.
7. If possible talk to the offending person with just yourself and one other person.
8. Talk to them in a neutral location, not at work or where meetings for your organization are held.  I suggest doing it toward the end of the day, or if at lunch give them the afternoon off in case they need some time to process the information.  Talk in a secluded location where you will not be interrupted.  Turn off your phones also.
9. Make the conversation a hamburger with the criticism as the meat.  Start off on a positive note and try to end on one.  Make a point to tell the person what they are doing write and their positive qualities. A lot of people tend to overreact also so instead of saying, “if you don’t stop being unbearable when you are busy then you are going to be demoted because we can’t take it.” Try saying, “You are doing great work in your current position and having taken on a heavier work load we are all becoming concerned about the stress you seem to be having and we would like you to enroll in counseling for stress management because we really value you as a member of our team and feel that it would be beneficial.”
10. If the person takes the criticism and adapts it let them know that you are proud of them and appreciative that they were able to take it.

Giving criticism is an art, just keep in mind that true friends stab each other in the front and your friend/coworker may not realize that their behavior is hurting others.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that frightens us.  We ask, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you NOT to be? Playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us it is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Nelson Mandela

Do you play small?  Why?

iTunes has an amazing section of their store called iTunes U where one can download podcasts and videocasts of fantastic speakers and courses from MIT, Oxford, Texas A&M, Stanford, and others.  It is a phenomonal resource and it is free.

If you have iTunes simply click on iTunes store, and then iTunes U to browse their selection.

“You need to learn how to be a courageous follower because upon graduation you will work in a cubical and be a follower”

I cringed when I first heard that two weeks ago, now I’m waking up in a cold sweat having nightmares about it.  I have a major issue with the fact that I am required to take this professional development course where I have to pay extra to subscribe to BusinessWeek.  (Sidenote: Hey McGraw-Hill, I’ve already dropped nearly $5,000 on books from you NOT counting the ones I bought for the two years I went to college when I was in high school stop trying to take my money)

BusinessWeek to the teachers (two of them, no PhD) is the holy grail of professional development and the business world.  Heaven forbid I bring in an article from Forbes, or Conde Nast Portfolio, or the Economist it just isn’t as high quality as BusinessWeek.  And blog?  Oh they are useless.  The course could easily be supplemented by spending a couple hours reading Dan Schawbels Personal Branding Blog.

We had one half hour devoted to the importance of having a mentor which immediatly gave me a glitter of hope, but when I asked for some advice on how to be a good mentee there was none.  Oh they loved my question but they were unable to provide information which would actually pertain to the class.  They said maybe they’ll teach that next semester.

This entire course is just telling us what we need, a mentor, a mission statement, MBTI type analysis, etc.  How about some ways to use our MBTI, or how to best utilize a mentor?  Oh, no, that’s to far. But maybe they just think that class is this far behind in professional development, that they need this basic kindergarden class.

The class is a different story though, and by class I mean classmates.  They make me feel old, though I’m younger then any of them.  I understand not everyone has expereinced of sense of necessity when preparing for life after college but how are you a senior with no resume?  How have you gone through atleast four years of post secondary education without even giving a minutes thought to the idea of maybe saving some work to throw into a portfolio, or participating in an internship so that you can have some ‘real world’ experience under your belt.  Of course when it isn’t expected of you apparently it isn’t worth doing.

The teachers asked who intended to lead.  As my desk mate and I proudly shot our hands into the sky received the ‘well isn’t that special look’ Dana Carvey did as the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live.

Is this what society expects of our generation, that we will enter the workplace as followers, as cubical slaves who meander through our work with minimal effort gathering potential energy to someday release?  Well I say to my generation, f that.  F that.

I will learn to follow because you must know how to follow if you are going to lead but I will not buy into this idea of being a follower for the rest of my life and I don’t think anyone else should.  If this is what they are teaching students in college, well someone needs to re-evaluate their cirriculum.

I have been given some interesting advice during the course of my existence.  I take all advice with a grain of salt and try to utilize the knowledge I am given, because most people don’t take the time to offer you assistance just to hear themselves talk.  But the other day I was given some advice that not only do I choose to not apply to myself, but I am disgusted at having received.  I was told that if I lowered my standards for other people I would be a much happier person.

If I were to expect less from people I would be happier with them; instead of being upset that there are people within my organization who exhibit unethical and morally reprehensable behavior I should lower my standards; I should lower my standards instead of expecting people to reach them.
If lowering the standards I hold my friends to, the same standards I hold myself to, means having more friends then I’m not buying.  Would you?  Would you lower your standards if it meant having more friends?

Everyone has been in an argument with an idiot.  It is that person who runs out of speaking points after the first round and deflects every single point you bring up or every question you ask back to that one thing that they support and understand; like having a political debate with someone who gets all of their information from 30 second TV advertisments.  And the worst part is that most of the time this person will not give into their opinion being incorrect, no matter how much support you show them supporting your opinion.  So how can you win an argument agains an idiot when you logically should have?

Admit to yourself that you probably will not win the argument because it is impossible to argue with an idiot, they simply do not follow reason (if they did they wouldn’t be arguing with you).  You must find a way to either (a) call a draw or (b) convince them that your opinion really is their opinion to.

If this argument has came about to kill some time, is with someone you will probably never see again, or isn’t worth fighting anymore it is best just to end it with no winner.  This can be done as easily as saying, “well we obviously disagree so lets just leave it at that” or something similar.  The key is to return the situation to a positive one by then talking about something you both agree in, like how awesome Wisconsin is.

If this is someone that you have to work with or deal with on a regular basis and you need them on your side then convincing them that your opinion is really theirs may be the best option.  There are a lot of people in this world who believe that the only good idea is their idea.

When I was a sophomore in college I was involved with our 1/4 Scale Tractor Design team where I had the honor of working with one of these persons, we will call him Doofus.  After 5 months of building a tractor from scratch we took it to competition where we failed our safety check because out exhaust was to loud.  Doofus was incharge of the exhaust and he wanted it to “sound sweet” so it was loud, no mufflers or anything.  We went out and bought mufflers to put on the tractor so we could still compete and he threw a hissy fit because then the exhaust wouldn’t sound sweet, but without the mufflers we wouldn’t be able to compete at all.  He cared more about his idea then the group goal and was willing to throw all of our hard work away because it wasn’t his way. After half an hour of arguing we convinced him that the mufflers were his idea and glorified him for saving the group because he welded the mufflers on. We ended up taking 22nd because Doofus also was in charge of the gas line which came off during the competition.  Our design took 5th, he had no part of that.  At the end of the day Doofus celebrated saving the team with his mufflers while we drank to him graduating and never having to work with him ever again.  Other teams knew what happened, they could see the truth and that was good enough for us.

Idiots tend to argue about stuff they don’t understand because they want to feel superior then others, and most of the time they only way to win an argument is to convince them that they have really won.

I am currently taking a professional development course with instructors from the Centre for Applied Leadership where the ongoing theme of this course is ‘learning how to be courageous followers’.  After hearing this for the eight time I started getting a bit skeptical about what I would be able to get out of this class until I head the statement, “we are teaching you how to follow because when you graduate you will go into the corporate world as a follower.”  My neighbor and I looked at each other with uneasy faces and I commented, “Why are we learning how to be followers when we’re suppose to be learning leadership skills?”  I want to leadership skills, not how to be a good follower which in my mind entails a life of menial work and servitude all in hopes of someday having a cubical with a view of a window (not necessarily a window view).  I was not ready to consider that my possible fate after graduation, that’s not the real world I signed up for. But as soon as that fear of neutral colored walls and dim fluorescent lights set in I had an epiphany, I don’t want to learn how to be a courageous follower because it is a skill that isn’t in my set yet.

I took on presidency of my Greek organization this semester and in preparation for the duty I read many books on team building, leadership, facilitating meetings, and spoke with many people about their leadership styles.  One piece of advice which I kept hearing was that in order to lead one must first learn to follow.  I thought I had that down, I haven’t had a lot of formal leadership experience but I sure have a had a lot of following experience.  It was a valuable piece of advice that I had ignored because I thought that I had already mastered it, that is thought in the past tense because I have indeed not mastered it.

You can’t grow if you don’t know what you don’t know.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or said that, and its great advice but I’d like to offer another piece of advice, you can’t grow unless you’ll admit that you don’t know what you think you know.