The Dry Line

One of the intriguing aspects of our new house is the clothes line in the backyard. Since we moved in I have wanted to take advantage of the clean Athens air and dry my clothes in the yard. Before today I had never used a clothes line. Grayson's diapers and clothes were used in the inaugural clothes line experience. There was no breeze to make the clothes billow and I was attacked by mosquitos, there was something great and simple about adjusting the clothespins and clothes along the line.

Redefining The Basement Blogger

I did it. I allowed my blog to collect dust. I know I am not the only one to let my blog get a little out of of shape. There must be so many cobwebs in cyberspace. I have recently started browsing other blogs - mainly to look at pictures - and I have decided that I would like to have a blog where I post completely random photos of events and things that inspire me.

My first instinct was to create a new blog, but when I realized that I have a handful of unused blogs, I figured I should just stick to my roots. I don't let go of old friends, why let go of old blogs? So, even though I no longer live in a basement, and I am no longer suffering through unemployment or corporate warfare, I still like the under-the-radar feel that the Basement Blogger offers.

The Basement Blogger will not be so much of my perspective from a basement, but it will be more like a basement - it will contain anything and everything. I would like to think that visiting this blog will be like visiting a fun yard sale, or an eccentric person's basement.

Certain Death

http://health.howstuffworks.com/death-by-cubicle.htm

What do Brazilians Talk About When They Work in Cubes?

My office is comprised predominantly of female employees. On many days the only man I see between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm is the security guard who holds open the automatic door in the morning. I always take the security guard's gesture as a true sign of chivalry, as we really does not need to hold open the automatic door. Since there are many employees in my office, the HR department is actively on the promoting events that will hopefully inspire life-long friendships within the company. The HR representative in my office recently went to a conference that taught her that the best way to staff retention is to facilitate friendship and bonding moments for employees. The theory is that if employees share memories together they will be less likely to move onto another employment opportunity.

The HR representative tried to encourage camaraderie inviting everyone via email to "grab drinks" after work and possibly engage in a trivia contest or two. I appreciated the HR representative's enthusiasm and eagerness to put into practice what she learned at her conference (she wrote in the email that she was suggesting the outing because of what she learned at the conference...another secret to a corporate trick revealed). Little did the HR representative know, however, that one floor above her office the women were planning a team-building exercise of their own.

Sometimes working with all women leaves nothing to the imagination. I can learn more than I would ever care to know by sitting in a group of women for a few minutes. I believe that speaking from cubes has the ability to make women more vulnerable. The six foot barrier does wonders to get women to talk about anything. For some reason the cube seems to make women feel like they have privacy to speak about extremely intimate things. I'm not sure men act the same when confined to a cube.

The same day the HR email arrive in my inbox a woman began talking about waxing. Since she was sitting in her cube it was uncertain who she was directly speaking to. I think she was just throwing out her comments as bait to see who would continue the conversation with her. That's usually how it goes - one person tosses a comment out to the community, and then voices across the room start to chime in. The waxing comment interested a good portion of the cube community. I listened as women told some of their most embarrassing waxing stories. One woman recalled a horror story. Another woman raved about her experiences.

Without ever seeing each other face-to-face one woman convinced a group of women to get Brazilian waxed together. I wonder what HR would think of the unorthodox organization of such a team-building exercise. Memories are sure to be formed at the waxing salon. I think this could be a good case study for the next HR conference.

Finding Enjoyment in LinkedIn

I have been a member of the LinkedIn community for a while. For the past eight or so months my account has been left untouched. Many aspects of LinkedIn have overwhelmed me. The pressure to be professional on a social networking website was something I had to come to terms with. And I had to learn to look past the lack of photo albums and mindless banter that so many other networking sites provide.

My mom has been an advocate and user of LinkedIn since its inception. Recently my mom became much more involved with the purely unprofessional social networking site, Facebook. My mom's new embrace of the frivolous site spurred me on to embrace the not so frivolous LinkedIn. This morning I signed into my dusty LinkedIn account and finally created a profile.

There is something very vulnerable and exposing about posting your resume on a social networking website. I feel like I am on display. The Facebook is vague about what I have accomplished or how I spend most of my time. LinkedIn is all about documenting accomplishments for others to see. There does not seem to be anything light and jovial about LinkedIn, or so I thought.

I have some new ambitions for work in my field, and I figured LinkedIn could help me gain some valuable contacts for my endeavors. As I was browsing the bios of professionals I came across this bio summary:

Skilled psychotherapist, specializing in the treatment of depression and anxiety,
accomplished trainer, have conducted mental health seminars in 46 states,
published author, goals include expanding the scope and breadth of my
training seminars and developing a successful voiceover business voicing
commercials, corporate narration and audiobooks.

This professional mentioned the voiceover business multiple times on his profile. I know he is completely serious about his dawning voiceover career, but his enthusiasm made me feel like I was reading a personal ad. It was then that I realized LinkedIn bios can read like personal ads. Folks are writing about their accomplishments, dreams, goals, ambitions: all key components to compelling personal ads.

Reading LinkedIn profiles may become a new hobby. Maybe this professional networking site is not so serious afterall.

Life is a Stage. Make the Performance Good.

My husband says that it can never be said of me that I am a victim of hype. For some reason every cell in my body tries to counteract hype. My aversion to hype is nothing new. One of my friends has repeatedly recalled how indignant I was when other kids in my school started listening to Sublime. I liked Sublime “before they were big.” I am learning that hype has a cousin – motivational speaking – and it is one of the pillars of Corporate America.

Earlier this week I experienced one of Corporate America’s tricks of the trade. There are a lot of changes going on in my department. Motivational speeches are one of the strongest ways to combat fear of change. The director of my department began our weekly meeting in our windowless break room by “opening up the floor” to discuss any questions or concerns regarding the changes occurring in the department. I was not extremely attached to the former policies and procedures, so I had to rack my brain to think of any possible questions I could have. I was void of any feelings about the changes. I considered my lack of sentiments about the changes to be a testament to my adaptability, rather than apathy.

Before I could fully form any thoughts about the recent changes the director unofficially closed the “open floor” and began discussing how our department is at the cusp of moving “to the next level.” As the director spoke about not only maintaining our position as the number one team, but also raising the bar for what it means to be a number one team, I watched a number of my coworkers move to the edge of their seats in anticipation for greatness. The director asked, “What is our team based on?” I had no idea what the basis of our team could be, but many of my coworkers did not pause before they enthusiastically cheered, “Performance!”

As the excitement in the room rose to a level that makes CEOs smile I looked around at the HIPPA posters lining the wall, and I wondered why I was having a hard time getting on the performance bandwagon. I believe in doing a job well, but I am not concerned much with performance level. My motivation does not come from rankings. I realized that I am not sure how my performance in my current position is being measured. I may be at the bottom rank in performance for all I know. My thoughts spun around the idea of doing a job for performance measures while the director discussed “reaching new heights” and “building our resumes” so that one day we call could essentially run the show while others below us perform.

The more the director motivated the group, the more I wondered why I was not sitting in a booth at a strawberry festival in a small town somewhere far away. I started feeling guilty for not rolling with the enthusiasm. In my guilt I was tempted to shout an “Amen!” or “Talk about it!” to add to the group dynamic, but I resisted for fear that my involvement would not seem authentic.

Before closing the meeting the director reviewed her motivational speech by highlighting the techniques and buzz words she used to motivate the group. I felt like it was like a magician giving away his secrets after doing a trick. Essentially the director said, “Ah ha! Gottcha! See, I motivated you, and here’s how I did it.” Okay, maybe she was not rubbing her motivational techniques in our faces as much as she was training and “raising up” the next generation of managers.

The team left the break room like a football team running back on the field after half-time. All that could be heard for a while was the clicking of computer keys. Folks were ready to embrace the change and move up in the world. I went back to my desk and began working, too. I was embracing change. Maybe my adaptability will add points to my performance. I am on the quest to figure out how my performance is measured and what it should look like.

Let's Keep the Leisure in Weisure

I'm okay with embracing "weisure" as long as leisure does not get interrupted. I have a hard time with work bleeding too much into my life. I guess this is typical.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105751918&ft=1&f=1001

What Color is the Parachute for Underemployment?

Yesterday I was told by a reliable source that I am over-qualified for my current position at work. I had suspicions that I may be over-qualified when I the general reaction to my credentials was, "Oh, wow! Really?". Until yesterday I tried not to dwell on the idea that I may not be moving forward in my career at the given moment. I did not want to get overly confident about my background, nor did I want to admit to myself that I may have mistakenly taken a step back in my career (I would prefer to regard it as a step to the side, not a step behind), so I just assumed that the impressed and somewhat confused reactions of my coworkers was because I don't look the type to have letters behind my name. Tearing yourself down is not the recommended tactic for maintaining humility, but sometimes it works. Yesterday when one of my coworkers whispered under her breath that I am over-qualified for my current position I felt a sense of validation. Unfortunately, on the tail of validation was confusion about what to do with the fact that I am spending hours each day doing something that does not showcase my bag of tricks. I feel like a magician who has agreed to only doing basic card tricks all day. I would also like to use an analogy of a ninja, but I don't know what a very basic skill is for a ninja. So, basically, I feel like a ninja who is asked to only engage in white belt level movements.

There is a lot of press about underemployment. I am not sure if my employment counts as underemployment. I have pondered this for a bit. My salary is higher than ever - which is spectacular for this economy - but my skill-set is not being used at full capacity. It's all about the capacity level of the skill-set for me. On paper the position I am in requires my skill-set. In reality, not so much. Is this discrepancy between my skill-set and position considered underemployment? I think true underemployment would be if I took a job making less money than I have before, or if I worked in a position that required no degree whatsoever. Sometimes I think true underemployment would be exciting. It seems like a number of recent authors choose underemployment for research purposes. Maybe I should start telling myself that I am researching the affects of staying in a 6x6 cube (I estimated this measurement by stretching my body across the cube) for 8 hours a day. I'm confident that any such research would go only as far as an email forward that would circulate amongst office employees across the nation.

My thoughts about whether or not I can classify my employment as underemployment have led me to wonder if my preoccupation with living out my passion is a generational thing, an American thing, or just a Faye Black thing. I know I am not the only person who wants to spend my career doing something I really enjoy, so that scratches that it may be a Faye Black thing. I once sat next to a trial lawyer on a plane; he said his dream was to coach Little League. Somewhere along the line he got way off coarse from his passion. There are so many books about finding passion and living out your career dreams (I should know what color my parachute is by now). I'm not sure how much folks in other cultures care about finding and living out their passion. It seems that some cultures are naturally more in tune with passion; I doubt that folks in those cultures wrestle so much with following their passion. I have wondered if people decades before now have spent so much time trying to find a career. It seems that so many people were born into whatever career they chose. Was it easier to accept a career that was predestined? Did folks generations before now ever feel like they were underemployed if they were born into a career that did not match their parachute?

The Age-Old Battle: Nurture vs. Nature

I'm trying to figure out if I am a poor employee or if I am just a product of my generation. For the past years of my career I have repeatedly been the youngest person in the office. Sometimes I feel like a foreigner in the office; my perspective on what work should be all about has been noticeably different from my older counterparts. I would like to believe that I am a product of my generation. I exhibit all the symptoms of being an employee who spent her formative absorbing the culture of the 90's. Before I get too far into this issue, I would like to take a moment to pause and think about how amazing the 90's were. Everything was possible in the 90's.

Now that I have reflected on one of the greatest decades ever(I will defend that statement until I die), I am ready to determine whether or not my work habits are a result of nurture or nature. Everything in this world seems to boil down to nurture vs. nature. Since this is a face-off between my culture and my genetic disposition, I think it is probably easiest to simply list my work habits and determine the root of each habit.

Here goes:

1. I blog at work: Nurture. There is no doubt culture has influenced my desire to blog at work. When I was conceived my parents did not have 'blog' in their vocabulary. My parents don't blog; clearly my parents did not pass on the blogging trait. Now, there is the issue that I am spending time in the office to publish my thoughts on the internet. I have to argue that this is a case of nurture, too. I consider my generation to be the founders of the internet. I spent some of my formative years pushing the edges of the internet. Employment should not stop that sort of innovation.

2. I text and use Gchat at work: Tie, nurture and nature. This is very similar to blogging at work, except there is more an element of nature involved. Staying connected and involved with my friends and family is part of my nature. I am going to consider texting and instant messaging to be tied for nurture vs. nature because it's through cultural nurturing that I have become adept in quickly chatting through text messages or instant messages, but it is my nature that makes me crave the communication.

3. Somehow I feel like I can't get a bad report: Nurture. It's not in my nature to assume that I can't experience consequences. In fact, I make many decisions after weighing out the consequences. Interestingly, though, I have been employed for less than a month, and I am not terribly concerned about the consequences of texting at work, blogging my experiences, etc. It's not that I don't need this job - I do need this job. However, a formative experience of growing up in the 90s is that I watched many folks create a nice career for themselves with no corporate rules. According to the 90s anyone can be his or her own boss. Even though I am aware that I have bills to pay, I live under the illusion that I can always become self-employed, and even make millions while staying in my pajamas all day. In a way, employers are lucky to have employees who spent their formative years in the 90s make it into the office at all. I'm surprised anyone from the 90s actually works in an office.

I'm sure more symptoms of my work ethic will arise as the weeks go on. It is almost 5 PM, and I would like to get a head-start on traffic. For now, nurture seems to be winning when it comes to my corporate behaviors. Time will tell.

Back in Action

I have held true to the stereotypical blogger - I went months without updating my blog. I have realized that blogging takes a certain level of confidence that folks want to read about my daily life. Some may consider that confidence to be on the verge of arrogance. I had to restle with this dilemma. Since my last posting my daily life has changed quite a bit. There have been a number of times I have thought about taking my thoughts back to the keyboard. I have considered taking the blog in many different directions, some very serious and saddening. I have decided not to go down the path of blogging for therapy; fear not, the seemingly frivolous mission of this blog will not be compromised. Instead, I am going to stick with what I know: simply reporting what I see, hear, and experience throughout the day.

I am no longer the unemployed housewife. As of a few weeks ago I am a cash-winner for my household. This was very exciting news a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the honeymoon of working in the corporate world for the first time has already ended. Hollywood romances have lasted longer than my romance with employment. I went from planning my days however I fancied to sitting in a cube, staring at a computer for hours.

Fortunately for the blogging world, my monotonous days can lead to some rather interesting insights into human behavior and the insanity of the American work ethic. I have decided to blog about life in the cube farm, which feels somewhat like a basement, so I will continue to be considered the Basement Blogger. I am breaking some major blogging rules. 1) I am blogging about work, 2) I am blogging from work and I have not been employed long enough to earn such privileges.

This should get interesting.