Today, I would like to write about my dad. Most who know me well know that he passed away when I was 10 years old. Those who don't know me hear me talk about my mom and my sister always and wonder why I never mention my dad. Some of those people, like a coworker today, are upfront and ask about it in their own way. Today I was sharing my mom's opinion on something, and my coworker said, "And what does your dad think about that?" When something like this happens, I am momentarily speechless. I don't realize that I was doing anything strange by saying "my mom" instead of "my parents." The word "parents" is one I rarely use. "Dad" also rarely leaves my mouth in everyday conversation. It has become so natural to just speak of those things that are comfortable, familiar, and normal to me. Talking about my dad does not feel comfortable or normal. It leads to questions and curiosities and unfelt feelings that I would rather avoid.
Now, to say that my feelings about my dad are unfelt is unreasonable. I have felt a slew of feelings over the years about my dad. Mostly sadness and confusion. Never, or very rarely anger. If you are unaware, my dad killed himself in the midst of a divorce with my mom, caused by his infidelity. This may seem a generous divulging of information for the internet, but it does not make me uncomfortable. What does make me uncomfortable is when something happens like what happened with my coworker a few minutes ago. Back to that story: When she asked me "What does your dad think about that?" I responded after a few moments of thought, "My dad isn't around anymore." She persisted with "Oh, sorry, where is he?" I replied, "He passed away when I was a kid." She responded, "Oh, I'm so sorry." Then after a few seconds "How did he die?" This is not an unusual conversation; I've had it dozens of times in my life. I am used to it, yet still extremely bothered by it. It makes my blood rise up inside of me like a tidal wave, and I want it to crash down on the person who was rude enough to make it swell. I used to lie or evade the question by saying "It was very sudden," or "Heart attack." I've given up trying to protect the people who are rude enough to ask this question from the discomfort that will come with my answer. I lay it on the table in three words: "He killed himself." Hopefully they realize a little bit of how I must have felt as a child faced with those same three words.
This response usually leads to more "I'm sorry"s and I don't mind all that. I mind that the conversation occurred at all, and that thoughts about living without a father were brought to my attention once again, when I feel I have done immaculately well in coping with them and loving my situation without a father. My mother is strong and steady and I have never seen her shed a tear. I loved my dad, still do, but his death made me who I am today. I try to be strong like my mother, but I am emotional and sensitive like my father. That being said, I feel I am wise beyond my years for not only having to go through his death at such a young age, but for having sporadic reminders of it throughout my adult life. I know I have dealt with his death, but it still lives inside me, a sleeping dragon that has been prodded awake by a minute of conversation. My heart beats faster, my palms sweat, it's 25 years of repressed memories, every moment I shared with him, every moment after he died that I was reminded of him. And I'm expected to walk away from this conversation and carry on my day as if nothing has happened. I think this is why I keep my dad's younger brother at arm's length. I love him dearly, and he is a link to my father I hope never to lose, but he has a habit of reminding me of my dad in every interaction we share, whether in word or otherwise. I wish we could have a relationship without this barrier between us, but I fear neither of us knows how to. I remind him of my dad, he reminds me of my dad, we have so many complex feelings buzzing around us, it's hard to focus and just get to know one another as who we are instead of always thinking of the other as "Dad's Brother" or "Mickey's Daughter."
Thanks for reading this unplanned, super sensitive entry... I needed to get it out.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Good enough?
Why are people stupid?
By Katie Brown
It really is no wonder that I have been praised by my supervisors for my ability to complete tasks correctly and on time. I have just had an epiphany and I have a sneaking suspicion that just about everyone I work with is stupid and lazy.
In the government world, there is a wonderful task called “CM.” This acronym can be used as a verb, as in the phrase “I’m CMing his work, and it sucks.” It can also be used as a noun, as in the phrase “I need you to do some CM on that project.” CM stands for Configuration Management, and for us lay men, means fixing peoples crappy work.
I have officially become the CM SME (Subject Matter Expert) for our team. This is a very unfortunate turn of events, because as it turns out, CMing sucks. I began to CM the work of someone who was integrally involved in developing the system of standards off which I am basing all my CM efforts. I thought that would mean that this person would actually follow the methodology we developed. Oh, such naïveté.
So now a job that is already delayed because the [expletive deleted] moron left some documents open, therefore unable to be edited by anyone else, before they left for vacation, is going to take 3 times as long as I thought. Why, oh why, are people so stupid?
A long story short, work is slightly frustrating, due to the stupidity of my coworkers. My relief comes from the following activities:
1. Listening to audiobooks on my iPod while CMing
2. Daily doses of Dilbert
3. Taking solace in the fact that I, unlike my coworkers, am not a lazy moron
Perhaps it is because I refuse to apply the phrase “good enough for government work” to any of the work I produce (which is ALL government work, by the way) that I almost daily receive an email from one of my (many) superiors praising my efficiency and dedication.
Dedication, pfft. I leave this place every day and don’t think about it until I walk through the doors the following morning. I refuse to take the advice of my coworkers to take engineering coursework at a local college to make myself more employable. If these dummies make up the rest of the work force, I will be employed forever.
By Katie Brown
It really is no wonder that I have been praised by my supervisors for my ability to complete tasks correctly and on time. I have just had an epiphany and I have a sneaking suspicion that just about everyone I work with is stupid and lazy.
In the government world, there is a wonderful task called “CM.” This acronym can be used as a verb, as in the phrase “I’m CMing his work, and it sucks.” It can also be used as a noun, as in the phrase “I need you to do some CM on that project.” CM stands for Configuration Management, and for us lay men, means fixing peoples crappy work.
I have officially become the CM SME (Subject Matter Expert) for our team. This is a very unfortunate turn of events, because as it turns out, CMing sucks. I began to CM the work of someone who was integrally involved in developing the system of standards off which I am basing all my CM efforts. I thought that would mean that this person would actually follow the methodology we developed. Oh, such naïveté.
So now a job that is already delayed because the [expletive deleted] moron left some documents open, therefore unable to be edited by anyone else, before they left for vacation, is going to take 3 times as long as I thought. Why, oh why, are people so stupid?
A long story short, work is slightly frustrating, due to the stupidity of my coworkers. My relief comes from the following activities:
1. Listening to audiobooks on my iPod while CMing
2. Daily doses of Dilbert
3. Taking solace in the fact that I, unlike my coworkers, am not a lazy moron
Perhaps it is because I refuse to apply the phrase “good enough for government work” to any of the work I produce (which is ALL government work, by the way) that I almost daily receive an email from one of my (many) superiors praising my efficiency and dedication.
Dedication, pfft. I leave this place every day and don’t think about it until I walk through the doors the following morning. I refuse to take the advice of my coworkers to take engineering coursework at a local college to make myself more employable. If these dummies make up the rest of the work force, I will be employed forever.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
0745-0915 10 MAY 2011
I get a look from the security guard as he hears that I am listening to an audiobook and he rolls his eyes as I struggle to get my badge, roll down my window, and shift into first gear to inch up to him. In this job, I feel like I have to apologize for driving a manual transmission vehicle. He waves me through the gates with a “welcome back ma’am.” I park and march toward the door, leaving my cell phone in my car so as not to violate operational security. If I would have left it in my bag, nobody would ever know. Marching with me are 6 or 7 men in dress shirts tucked in. We walk zombie like through one door, then another, successfully sealing ourselves away from the beautiful 70 degree sunny day. I show a second security guard my badge, and get another “welcome back ma’am.”
It feels strange to be called ma’am by people old enough to be my parents. I make a conscious effort to call men “sir” and women “ma’am” in this building. It’s a nice homage to a more polite past, but it is the military’s present. Yesterday, I was walking with a colleague, a government civilian who was a helicopter pilot in the Air Force during Desert Storm. That is as much as I know about him, and I have worked closely with him for 6 months. Walking down the hall, a group of men saw him coming down the hall, said “attention” and froze, staring into space directly under my colleague’s line of sight. How do they know? I asked my colleague if he gets that often, probably an inappropriate question, but he knows I’m woefully out of touch with the ways of the US military. He said he used to get it a lot, back when he “was somebody.” I’m sure it’s strange for these men to go from being top dog to the point that people literally stop what they’re doing because you walk by or walk into a room. Our facility is specifically noted as a “no hat, no salute” location, but I can’t count how many times I’ve witnessed someone freezing and standing at attention because of the presence of another individual.
It’s strange to me to treat people differently based on a rank they achieved. Even if they are in uniform and I can see their rank, I have trouble being nervous or acting differently simply because of a title. I choose to treat people as people first, and equally, and if they give me a reason to treat them better or worse, I’ll adjust as needed.
I pass through the door after waving my badge in front of a dark gray sensor on the wall and hearing it beep and click open. Sealed further from the beautiful day. My ex-cubemate used to say I had “pretty-day-itis” when I would leave early on pretty days and make up the hours on ugly ones. Said ex-cubemate moved out 3 weeks ago, working for another contractor at another military installation, doing something. I don’t really know what most people here do outside my own team. Then a second cubemate left. It is down to me and Mike, and I have no idea what he does here. We rarely share more than a “good morning” and a “have a good day/weekend.” This is another place where this job feels like a bad fit for me, as we spend 8 hours sitting 5 feet from each other, and never speak. Not that I’m the most social creature in the world, but I would like some friendly chit chat from time to time.
I take my lunch out of my bag and walk it to the freezer, plug my Common Access Card (CAC) into my computer, and type in my pin, agreeing to the statement that discourages me from using this computer for anything other than “mission critical” work, and informing me that my use of this machine is subject to being monitored. I read my emails, two, both calendar invites for meetings in June. I look at where they showed up on my calendar. I like days that look full. So many of my days here are empty.
At this point, I opened up this word document and began writing my thoughts. I have been listening to some beautifully descriptive books and reading my roommate’s “Pre-College English” papers he brought home to grade, and have been inspired to write, if only for the fact that I can do it well. Additionally, Matt Arnold inspired me with a facebook post that simply sang with creativity and big-word-itude, that it made me feel lax in the creativity department.
I look at my schedule for the day. I work on several different projects and see, unfortunately, that I only have one thing to work on today. Research. In college, I loved research. The purpose of doing the research in that case was tangible and real, it was to produce a paper, on which I would be graded, and in the process I will have learned a lot about the topic. The purpose of this research is a mystery to me. It is to produce a “systems interoperability matrix.” Basically, to annotate which Command and Control (C2) systems do what, and with which other systems they interface. Thrilling stuff, really. I can see the end result, but I don’t see how it will be useful. Several other people on our team have created “interoperability matrices” and we have them on our portal to look at as examples, but I am not sure if their matrices ever made an impact or were used… at all. From what I can tell, they were developed and now sit unused on our portal, collecting e-dust. They look nice, but they become irrelevant and the introduction of a new version. Basically, this is a long term project that I have zero motivation to finish.
Someone just heated up a breakfast treat in the microwave and it smells like bacon in here. It's officially time for my morning cup of tea and granola bar.
It feels strange to be called ma’am by people old enough to be my parents. I make a conscious effort to call men “sir” and women “ma’am” in this building. It’s a nice homage to a more polite past, but it is the military’s present. Yesterday, I was walking with a colleague, a government civilian who was a helicopter pilot in the Air Force during Desert Storm. That is as much as I know about him, and I have worked closely with him for 6 months. Walking down the hall, a group of men saw him coming down the hall, said “attention” and froze, staring into space directly under my colleague’s line of sight. How do they know? I asked my colleague if he gets that often, probably an inappropriate question, but he knows I’m woefully out of touch with the ways of the US military. He said he used to get it a lot, back when he “was somebody.” I’m sure it’s strange for these men to go from being top dog to the point that people literally stop what they’re doing because you walk by or walk into a room. Our facility is specifically noted as a “no hat, no salute” location, but I can’t count how many times I’ve witnessed someone freezing and standing at attention because of the presence of another individual.
It’s strange to me to treat people differently based on a rank they achieved. Even if they are in uniform and I can see their rank, I have trouble being nervous or acting differently simply because of a title. I choose to treat people as people first, and equally, and if they give me a reason to treat them better or worse, I’ll adjust as needed.
I pass through the door after waving my badge in front of a dark gray sensor on the wall and hearing it beep and click open. Sealed further from the beautiful day. My ex-cubemate used to say I had “pretty-day-itis” when I would leave early on pretty days and make up the hours on ugly ones. Said ex-cubemate moved out 3 weeks ago, working for another contractor at another military installation, doing something. I don’t really know what most people here do outside my own team. Then a second cubemate left. It is down to me and Mike, and I have no idea what he does here. We rarely share more than a “good morning” and a “have a good day/weekend.” This is another place where this job feels like a bad fit for me, as we spend 8 hours sitting 5 feet from each other, and never speak. Not that I’m the most social creature in the world, but I would like some friendly chit chat from time to time.
I take my lunch out of my bag and walk it to the freezer, plug my Common Access Card (CAC) into my computer, and type in my pin, agreeing to the statement that discourages me from using this computer for anything other than “mission critical” work, and informing me that my use of this machine is subject to being monitored. I read my emails, two, both calendar invites for meetings in June. I look at where they showed up on my calendar. I like days that look full. So many of my days here are empty.
At this point, I opened up this word document and began writing my thoughts. I have been listening to some beautifully descriptive books and reading my roommate’s “Pre-College English” papers he brought home to grade, and have been inspired to write, if only for the fact that I can do it well. Additionally, Matt Arnold inspired me with a facebook post that simply sang with creativity and big-word-itude, that it made me feel lax in the creativity department.
I look at my schedule for the day. I work on several different projects and see, unfortunately, that I only have one thing to work on today. Research. In college, I loved research. The purpose of doing the research in that case was tangible and real, it was to produce a paper, on which I would be graded, and in the process I will have learned a lot about the topic. The purpose of this research is a mystery to me. It is to produce a “systems interoperability matrix.” Basically, to annotate which Command and Control (C2) systems do what, and with which other systems they interface. Thrilling stuff, really. I can see the end result, but I don’t see how it will be useful. Several other people on our team have created “interoperability matrices” and we have them on our portal to look at as examples, but I am not sure if their matrices ever made an impact or were used… at all. From what I can tell, they were developed and now sit unused on our portal, collecting e-dust. They look nice, but they become irrelevant and the introduction of a new version. Basically, this is a long term project that I have zero motivation to finish.
Someone just heated up a breakfast treat in the microwave and it smells like bacon in here. It's officially time for my morning cup of tea and granola bar.
Monday, April 11, 2011
For your Situational Awareness (FYSA)
For 6 months now, I have been working for a government contractor in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Even as I write this, I am hesitant to write the name of my company, or the name of the government agency to which I am contracted. My time with the government has put a fear in me that I am now a target for any number of attacks, from terrorist to viral. As an entry level technician, I have been providing administrative support to a project, helping at their meetings and conferences after an unfortunate discovery of my unparalleled ability to take verbatim notes.
I started as a receptionist, and was quickly requested to assist one of our company’s projects with this sort of administrative support. They set me down in front of a laptop and said, “Just write down anything you hear that sounds like a tasking or an action item.” As the meeting progressed, I got more and more bored and daunted by the grandiosity of the 8 hour meeting ahead of me. To keep myself from dying of boredom, I wrote down every word I could make sense of. Big. Huge. Mistake.
The project was very impressed with my note taking ability, I continued to support their meetings and conferences on a part time basis, and 6 weeks ago was offered a full time spot on their team. Now not only do I continue to take wicked awesome notes at meetings, but I also am learning low-level systems engineering processes and doing all the crappy administrative jobs for the team that nobody else wants. I am happy to have a job right now, especially one that doesn’t stress me out and pays me well.
I have toyed with the idea of getting a master’s degree, and have actually gone so far as to apply and be accepted for a library science program, but have mixed feelings about that path. I’ve been told that “master’s is the new bachelor’s” and have watched as people around me at work have gone back to school and completed programs for Systems Engineering and Library Science, but still I remain uncertain. In my current field, it seems almost expected that you obtain a higher higher education degree… however, I don’t expect my current field to be my field for very long, and if I can avoid tens of thousands of dollars of debt and years of the added burden of classes, papers, and tests on top of my current job and other obligations, I feel like I should do that.
I am not optimistic about staying in this field for long. I have dreams of opening my own business, and I don’t foresee a master’s degree helping me reach that goal at all. Every time I’ve looked into a master’s degree it has been simply to get me into a field in which I could TOLERATE working for an extended period of time. Now that I’ve had my breakthrough about owning my own business (which I’ll expand upon at a later date) I feel no need to waste time and money on something I don’t believe I will ever use. I hope to ride the wave that is this government job for as long as I can (probably another couple years), save up as many dolla dolla billz as I can, and start making movements toward my dream.
This is my first entry since returning from Mexico just over 6 months ago. My time there was beautiful and I’m incredibly grateful for the friendships I formed and strengthened, but my home is here. In my house with my friends and family I feel so completely at ease and myself. When I step out into “normal” American society, I feel like a bit of an outsider, but on the whole, I’m alright with that. I’ll tell you what I’m alright with, specifically (in homage to my last entry in Mexico):
I don’t have cable. We have sing-alongs on Friday night instead of going to a bar. My family are my friends. My cats are spoiled rotten. I wake up in the morning and greet the ocean, sky, trees, and birds before anything else. I read. I have little trinkets in my house that make me happy (and drive my boyfriend crazy). I come home from work and don’t think about work until I arrive at work the next day. I live next door to Razzo. I live across the street from Tienda Jessy. I feel inspired to dream about the future. I feel comfortable financially. I can walk to the beach in less than 30 seconds. I am healthy and happy.
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