"The reward for competently doing your job is basically nothing in American culture."
This is one of the hardest lessons I had to learn as an adult. Kids in America, esp. smart compliant kids, are over-praised, and it's a hard transition going from that to having to realize that if someone isn't screaming at you for having screwed up, you're probably doing okay.
Though I would also say a huge morale-killer for me is micromanagement, and the fact that in the past I've had higher ups who were too chicken-livered to confront someone breaking a rule, so they made the rules all the more onerous for the rest of us. (For a while, our "sick day policy" would have been so hard for me to fulfill all its requirements that I would have just taught sick. Because a few people abused the policy, they changed it so that it was basically impossible for people who taught early classes and lived alone to meet the "reporting" requirement)
All I can say is, if I were given an early afternoon off (along with everyone else, I presume) to go shopping, I wouldn't go shopping...
"Here, leave early on Friday afternoon! Go to the mall! Just like all the other harried workers AND the retired people who are bored AND teens who just got off school!"
Though maybe having to live in Japan's cities burns one's hatred of being in a giant crowd out of one....
In my family, it was called "the boarding-house reach." Considered bad manners, but not as bad as, for example, chewing with your mouth open.
"Excuse my boarding-house reach" was something commonly said at the dinner table in my family, usually if something was out of "passing" range of someone else at the table. (Small family; big table)
Oh, crikey. I remember when getting your "season" done was all the rage. My mom is a "winter" and I guess I am a "summer" - though ironically, I look pretty good in black (a color I was told never to wear) and in jewel tones, a lot of the "summer" colors back in the 80s were fairly insipid pastels....
"1) calling Rick an MRA fascist, when he was nothing of the kind (and would do a lot more in the end than just punch Nazis)"
Reminds me of the article I read today that claims the alt-right is trying to co-opt Jane Austen as some kind of heroine of "White female purity" and it just makes me shake my head and go "Can we not? In whatever direction we are going with this, can we not?"
It makes me cock my head like a confused dog, and not because I thought I heard a high-pitched whistle, either.
I know I protest I am a Bear of Very Little Brain but sometimes I just want a gorram STORY without all kinds of modern sociological/political claptrap tied to it.
I remember reading somewhere that etiquette is knowing what fork to use in a situation, and manners is picking up the "wrong" fork for something if your guest does, because you don't want to make them feel uncomfortable....
And yes, you're right. I've known some real jerks who had great table manners.
“There’s nothing more impressive than somebody that can eat correctly with their knife and fork,”
Wow. Setting the bar low, there. (I'm now wondering what Einstein's table manners were like)
(I CAN eat correctly but when I have five minutes between classes to shovel in my yogurt, fruit, and other lunch-foods, I generally drop any pretense of manners)
"Etiquette and Millennials": we had a (now-former) admin who was super-micromanagey. This person got offended at graduation one year because "the students don't know how to shake hands properly" (I don't know if they were referring to a dead-fish handshake, or wrong-hand-offered, or what).
The suggestion went out: why not have the faculty carve out a little time in their classes to teach handshaking.
This led to much consternation on the faculty's part, seeing as some of us are mildly germophobic (flu season!), some of us came up during the era of "alternative" handshakes, and some of us are just like "that's not really part of our duties and we also have a career preparation center that could do that."
A semester later the idea of having some kind of a meal so we could teach table manners was floated, and it seemed not to be in jest. (I remarked to my colleagues: "You have seen me eat when I am in a hurry. I do not think this person wants me teaching table manners to the students")
I tend to feel ALL of this is the parents' responsibilities. (Cranky Gen-Xer here who had Silent Gen parents who were big on teaching the social niceties....)
I dunno, I kinda like the older child (Daughter? I presume) - she's walking in there like she's walking into a club, going "What up?"
I dunno. I just find the video funny. Yes, I'm sure it was frustrating for the parents to have dad's presentation interrupted, but no one died, nothing bad happened. So it was just funny.
I have several times in recent months said, "Maybe there's no place in today's world for someone who wants to be civil and kind but I cannot do otherwise" and then contemplate becoming a hermit.
It does seem sometimes like the jerks are winning, but then again, that may just be on social media. (Then again: I haven't quit Twitter yet because I do have friends on there who are not jerks and often we get into little threaded conversations, and that's fun, and Twitter can be good for more "immediate" communication).
But I don't know what we can do - if there are even enough people who want to - stop the snowball of jerkiness from rolling all the way down the hill and becoming some kind of Abominable Snowman. (To use a horribly mixed metaphor)
And the problem is, every side seems to have its jerks, and those jerks seem to be winning. Perhaps the only strategy is to not pick a side.
Though as someone with some funky sensitivities to some things, having a doctor saying "We're gonna shoot you up with this stuff" makes alarm bells ring for me. (Sulfa antibiotics are perfectly safe. For MOST people....)
Out of morbid curiosity, how high do they want the heart rate? I usually hit about 120 bpm when working out, which is borderline "vigorous exercise" for someone my age.
The climactic scene in Big Hero Six. Gets me every time.
Also, "We....are Groot."
Other than a few specific scenes like those, whether or not I cry at media depends on what else is going on in my head. If I'm in a bad place otherwise, I can cry over one of those sappy "Foundation for a Better Life" PSAs. If I'm particularly strong, I can watch most death scenes and be relatively unmoved.
Though I admit, such "enemies" as I have, I'd much rather have them come to some reasoned understanding of my position, than I would have them "cry." Reconciliation rather than me emerging as some kind of short-lived Pyrrhic victor.....
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
People who are unwilling to reconcile or even consider other points of view? Eh, stuff 'em, I'll just ignore them.
Yeah, it's actually rare that I can't, after five or 10 minutes go, "Okay, time to pull it together and get back to it." It takes something really big - or a serious progression of things - to tip me over to the point where I can't control it.
A friend tells me that I stuff things down too much and it's ultimately going to be bad for my health. But he's a man, he's older than I am, and he works in a different field so he doesn't always understand that sometimes I have to keep that brave face up. (Though more often than not it's anger I stuff down, not sadness)
For me, sometimes anger manifests as tears, especially if it's that impotent anger that comes because a system is broken and there's fish-all I can do to fix it.
I've had friends off and on suggest to me some kind of biochemical intervention when I was frustrated with circumstances of the world, and my reaction was, "Why the hell should I blunt my feelings about a situation that sucks? The situation needs to change, not me!" (Mostly in response to my malaise over last year's budget cuts)
I figure if I'm mostly enjoying work/hobbies/food/etc., I'm still remembering to shower, and I'm not self-harming, the occasional bout of tears over the stupidity of modern life or the jerkholery of some people is a totally normal human response to a screwed up world.
Well, I've never lived in that close a proximity to men (my dad and brothers' bathroom habits were mostly mysteries, and I wanted it that way). So I have fifteen different shampoos (the one I really like but that is too expensive, the cheaper similar one I tried that wasn't as good but I need to use up, the one that's a new brand I'm trying, etc., etc.) and I kind of assumed guys were, if not similar, at least a scaled down version of that.
I have seen bar-soap shampoo, but mostly sold for camping when you need biodegradable and don't want to carry a lot of stuff. (Dr. Bronner's would also work - but wow, would hurt if you got the mint version in your eyes)
Well, my "nerd school" was actually prep school (Or as they insisted on being called: "An independent secondary school"). Represented a SIZABLE economic sacrifice on my parents' part but wow did it make my life better, and I think I did more and went farther in my life for having gone there.
I.....don't like to think about what I might have turned out as if I had continued on the trajectory I was on. I don't *think* I'd have wound up abusing drugs or killing myself or being a teen mom, but I don't know.
One thing I have never really understood: if so many people claim to have hated high school (or junior high*), why do so many people insist on living as if it never ended?
(*that was the deepest pit of hell for me: seventh grade. High school was better because I was sent to the nerd school with other nerds and I actually had friends)
Even beyond the whole question of crying, and men crying, I think of the old maxim attributed to, but not actually said by, Plato: "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
That's what frustrates me so much about modern discourse; it's like there's this giant peeing contest over whose battle is harder and no recognition that we're ALL tired of fighting our own personal battles....
Also, a side effect of the whole "men don't cry" thing I've experienced is "Women working in male-dominated fields don't cry" and I admit there have been more than a few times I've closed my office door and put my head down on my desk and cried because at that point I just couldn't any more. And I've cried in front of my chair (also a woman) twice, though one time her reaction was, "Wow, you held out longer than anyone in the department did about coming to me and expressing how upset you were about the situation...."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Morning Ed: Labor {2017.03.21.T}”
"The reward for competently doing your job is basically nothing in American culture."
This is one of the hardest lessons I had to learn as an adult. Kids in America, esp. smart compliant kids, are over-praised, and it's a hard transition going from that to having to realize that if someone isn't screaming at you for having screwed up, you're probably doing okay.
Though I would also say a huge morale-killer for me is micromanagement, and the fact that in the past I've had higher ups who were too chicken-livered to confront someone breaking a rule, so they made the rules all the more onerous for the rest of us. (For a while, our "sick day policy" would have been so hard for me to fulfill all its requirements that I would have just taught sick. Because a few people abused the policy, they changed it so that it was basically impossible for people who taught early classes and lived alone to meet the "reporting" requirement)
"
All I can say is, if I were given an early afternoon off (along with everyone else, I presume) to go shopping, I wouldn't go shopping...
"Here, leave early on Friday afternoon! Go to the mall! Just like all the other harried workers AND the retired people who are bored AND teens who just got off school!"
Though maybe having to live in Japan's cities burns one's hatred of being in a giant crowd out of one....
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.03.20.M}”
In my family, it was called "the boarding-house reach." Considered bad manners, but not as bad as, for example, chewing with your mouth open.
"Excuse my boarding-house reach" was something commonly said at the dinner table in my family, usually if something was out of "passing" range of someone else at the table. (Small family; big table)
"
Oh, crikey. I remember when getting your "season" done was all the rage. My mom is a "winter" and I guess I am a "summer" - though ironically, I look pretty good in black (a color I was told never to wear) and in jewel tones, a lot of the "summer" colors back in the 80s were fairly insipid pastels....
"
"1) calling Rick an MRA fascist, when he was nothing of the kind (and would do a lot more in the end than just punch Nazis)"
Reminds me of the article I read today that claims the alt-right is trying to co-opt Jane Austen as some kind of heroine of "White female purity" and it just makes me shake my head and go "Can we not? In whatever direction we are going with this, can we not?"
It makes me cock my head like a confused dog, and not because I thought I heard a high-pitched whistle, either.
I know I protest I am a Bear of Very Little Brain but sometimes I just want a gorram STORY without all kinds of modern sociological/political claptrap tied to it.
"
"Soft skills" is a term I've also heard used. I suppose as opposed to "hard skills" like coding and labwork.
"
I remember reading somewhere that etiquette is knowing what fork to use in a situation, and manners is picking up the "wrong" fork for something if your guest does, because you don't want to make them feel uncomfortable....
And yes, you're right. I've known some real jerks who had great table manners.
"
“There’s nothing more impressive than somebody that can eat correctly with their knife and fork,”
Wow. Setting the bar low, there. (I'm now wondering what Einstein's table manners were like)
(I CAN eat correctly but when I have five minutes between classes to shovel in my yogurt, fruit, and other lunch-foods, I generally drop any pretense of manners)
"
"Etiquette and Millennials": we had a (now-former) admin who was super-micromanagey. This person got offended at graduation one year because "the students don't know how to shake hands properly" (I don't know if they were referring to a dead-fish handshake, or wrong-hand-offered, or what).
The suggestion went out: why not have the faculty carve out a little time in their classes to teach handshaking.
This led to much consternation on the faculty's part, seeing as some of us are mildly germophobic (flu season!), some of us came up during the era of "alternative" handshakes, and some of us are just like "that's not really part of our duties and we also have a career preparation center that could do that."
A semester later the idea of having some kind of a meal so we could teach table manners was floated, and it seemed not to be in jest. (I remarked to my colleagues: "You have seen me eat when I am in a hurry. I do not think this person wants me teaching table manners to the students")
I tend to feel ALL of this is the parents' responsibilities. (Cranky Gen-Xer here who had Silent Gen parents who were big on teaching the social niceties....)
On “Breaking Down the Father on BBC Being Interrupted by His Children”
I dunno, I kinda like the older child (Daughter? I presume) - she's walking in there like she's walking into a club, going "What up?"
I dunno. I just find the video funny. Yes, I'm sure it was frustrating for the parents to have dad's presentation interrupted, but no one died, nothing bad happened. So it was just funny.
On “It’s All Right To Cry”
I feel this.
I have several times in recent months said, "Maybe there's no place in today's world for someone who wants to be civil and kind but I cannot do otherwise" and then contemplate becoming a hermit.
It does seem sometimes like the jerks are winning, but then again, that may just be on social media. (Then again: I haven't quit Twitter yet because I do have friends on there who are not jerks and often we get into little threaded conversations, and that's fun, and Twitter can be good for more "immediate" communication).
But I don't know what we can do - if there are even enough people who want to - stop the snowball of jerkiness from rolling all the way down the hill and becoming some kind of Abominable Snowman. (To use a horribly mixed metaphor)
And the problem is, every side seems to have its jerks, and those jerks seem to be winning. Perhaps the only strategy is to not pick a side.
On “Weekend!”
Though as someone with some funky sensitivities to some things, having a doctor saying "We're gonna shoot you up with this stuff" makes alarm bells ring for me. (Sulfa antibiotics are perfectly safe. For MOST people....)
Out of morbid curiosity, how high do they want the heart rate? I usually hit about 120 bpm when working out, which is borderline "vigorous exercise" for someone my age.
On “It’s All Right To Cry”
The climactic scene in Big Hero Six. Gets me every time.
Also, "We....are Groot."
Other than a few specific scenes like those, whether or not I cry at media depends on what else is going on in my head. If I'm in a bad place otherwise, I can cry over one of those sappy "Foundation for a Better Life" PSAs. If I'm particularly strong, I can watch most death scenes and be relatively unmoved.
"
True.
Though I admit, such "enemies" as I have, I'd much rather have them come to some reasoned understanding of my position, than I would have them "cry." Reconciliation rather than me emerging as some kind of short-lived Pyrrhic victor.....
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
People who are unwilling to reconcile or even consider other points of view? Eh, stuff 'em, I'll just ignore them.
"
Yeah, it's actually rare that I can't, after five or 10 minutes go, "Okay, time to pull it together and get back to it." It takes something really big - or a serious progression of things - to tip me over to the point where I can't control it.
A friend tells me that I stuff things down too much and it's ultimately going to be bad for my health. But he's a man, he's older than I am, and he works in a different field so he doesn't always understand that sometimes I have to keep that brave face up. (Though more often than not it's anger I stuff down, not sadness)
For me, sometimes anger manifests as tears, especially if it's that impotent anger that comes because a system is broken and there's fish-all I can do to fix it.
"
Now I really want to embed that one scene from that old Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob kept stepping on all the rakes....
"
And I suspect that that smooshing it down and stuffing it in your bowels contributes to the development of various chronic things like IBS.....
"
Yeah, I think my instance was "pain hurts." And 2016 had more pain than it should have. So far (knock wood), 2017 has been better.
"
I've had friends off and on suggest to me some kind of biochemical intervention when I was frustrated with circumstances of the world, and my reaction was, "Why the hell should I blunt my feelings about a situation that sucks? The situation needs to change, not me!" (Mostly in response to my malaise over last year's budget cuts)
I figure if I'm mostly enjoying work/hobbies/food/etc., I'm still remembering to shower, and I'm not self-harming, the occasional bout of tears over the stupidity of modern life or the jerkholery of some people is a totally normal human response to a screwed up world.
"
Well, I've never lived in that close a proximity to men (my dad and brothers' bathroom habits were mostly mysteries, and I wanted it that way). So I have fifteen different shampoos (the one I really like but that is too expensive, the cheaper similar one I tried that wasn't as good but I need to use up, the one that's a new brand I'm trying, etc., etc.) and I kind of assumed guys were, if not similar, at least a scaled down version of that.
I have seen bar-soap shampoo, but mostly sold for camping when you need biodegradable and don't want to carry a lot of stuff. (Dr. Bronner's would also work - but wow, would hurt if you got the mint version in your eyes)
"
Well, my "nerd school" was actually prep school (Or as they insisted on being called: "An independent secondary school"). Represented a SIZABLE economic sacrifice on my parents' part but wow did it make my life better, and I think I did more and went farther in my life for having gone there.
I.....don't like to think about what I might have turned out as if I had continued on the trajectory I was on. I don't *think* I'd have wound up abusing drugs or killing myself or being a teen mom, but I don't know.
"
One thing I have never really understood: if so many people claim to have hated high school (or junior high*), why do so many people insist on living as if it never ended?
(*that was the deepest pit of hell for me: seventh grade. High school was better because I was sent to the nerd school with other nerds and I actually had friends)
"
Crying in the shower, because then no one can tell if it's tears or water.
And if your eyes are red after you get out, well, you just got that danged not-tested-on-animals-so-of-course-it-burns-human-eyes shampoo in them.
"
Yeah, but the Four Yorkshiremen sketch was actually *funny*
"
Even beyond the whole question of crying, and men crying, I think of the old maxim attributed to, but not actually said by, Plato: "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
That's what frustrates me so much about modern discourse; it's like there's this giant peeing contest over whose battle is harder and no recognition that we're ALL tired of fighting our own personal battles....
Also, a side effect of the whole "men don't cry" thing I've experienced is "Women working in male-dominated fields don't cry" and I admit there have been more than a few times I've closed my office door and put my head down on my desk and cried because at that point I just couldn't any more. And I've cried in front of my chair (also a woman) twice, though one time her reaction was, "Wow, you held out longer than anyone in the department did about coming to me and expressing how upset you were about the situation...."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.