Author Archives: oinsketta

The Bossy Type

There is a personality type whose fondest wish is to be in charge and able to punish and fire people who oppose their will.  The thrill they extract from being the decider is somewhat alien to me, but there are literally millions of this type walking around the earth.   They are bosses, leaders, experts of every stripe, many of them more or less complete assholes.  I have never had much sympathy for the “my way or the highway” type, but recent events give me, if not sympathy, a bit of understanding.

I have a little program I’m running.  I don’t say “little” to disparage it or minimize its potential importance.  It is a great program that should have about six to eight people working on it by now– it could really be a bright, hot new pilot light on this rusty but essential stove outgassing here in the stinking global kitchen.  It is little because I am the only person working on it, trying to do the jobs of a half-dozen dedicated people by myself.  The program is currently exactly as big as I am, which is big enough, especially if you factor in imagination, talent and persistence, but for purposes of a program, quite little.

I recently spent great effort planning and attempting to hold a productive meeting to raise funds so I can hire some bright experts help to move the program forward.  I’m told the meeting went well.  After all, I managed to hold my tongue for the most part when the carping began, when I was called a hypocrite for calling the organization wehearyou.net yet not being willing to listen to an avalanche of criticism from well-intentioned people doing me a favor, supporters whose help comes largely in the form of opinionated criticism, frank and unvarnished, and, thoughtful or not, strictly for my own good.  

The results of the meeting I spent hours working on could have been revealed to me in an email from the people who deigned to attend: your website sucks and has to be redone before you can think of mounting a crowd funding campaign.  Of course, I had virtually no replies to any of the emails I sent any of the attendees, before or after the meeting, so I guess it was worth the $100 I spent to buy everyone dinner to get that great insight.

I pay a couple of people to help and they spend as much time looking at their smart phones and drawing their own pictures as helping do what I pay them to do, namely working with the children.  I thank them as I hand them their checks, smiling, and thinking as I do “you stupid, fucking useless bastard.” This thought applies as much to myself as employer as to them, since I have not figured out how to extract what the program and I need from the mercenaries I’ve managed to recruit.  Or how to recruit people who are willing to work as devotedly as I do.

And so I get the first inkling into why someone would be a prick boss as I ponder this:

The young man misspells the name I sign to every email and writes:

I’m applying for another social media position and they are asking for people who can vouch for my social media skills. Would it be alright if I listed you?
 
Thanks,
I decide, for the time being, to apply the tonic that has done so much for me: silence.  No need to rush to reply to this guy.  I’ve paid him about $500 for what appears to have been a total of about six hours of work.  His rate was $15 an hour, and I suppose he figured, since I didn’t press him to do any of the things I asked of him that he didn’t do, since I’d be in the lurch if he walked and I had to conduct the Monday workshop by myself, since I seemed easy going, that it was better to get $90/hr. than $15 and made adjustments accordingly.   The first week he was on the job there was a huge spike in social media, 500% increase as his friends checked out the various sites.   The next four weeks the spike was less impressive, 0%.  After paying him for weeks I told him truthfully that the corporate coffers were almost empty and I could no longer pay him for “social media”.  
Yesterday I paid him to help at the original workshop so I could interview kids one on one for a promo I need to make very soon.  Yesterday was actually my last chance to do this in time for the timeline I’m desperately aiming for.  He was 5% better than useless and I was unable to interview anyone, since I was the only one of three adults in the room actively helping the kids throughout the workshop, then cleaning up alone at the end.  No sound bites for the promo.  I suppose I could write:  
Think carefully about what I could say about your social media skills and work ethic.  After an impressive increase the first week, the arrow went straight down to zero every week after that. Tasks I asked you to do were never done, or were done sloppily and uselessly.  Your checks from me were always on time, and you were quick to ask the one time I delayed by a day to pay you, yet you don’t take a moment to spell my name right when asking me for a favor.  A favor, moreover, revealing the almost imponderably large size of your testicles.  
 
So I say this both as a fellow human being and a prick boss: think carefully about how my honest appraisal of your work might help your chances of finding more employment.

How To Crush An Idealist

There are many ways, but this one is elegant in its simplicity.  It may be more fun to find one niggling detail, (detail unimportant, in fact, the pettier the better), grip it tightly in bulldog jaws and keep pulling at the idealist, but I think this one is better.  Less is more.  

Do nothing, say nothing.  No matter what the idealist says or accomplishes, remain quiet.

This way the idealist is left to wonder if anybody is home, and the sneaking feeling that nobody’s home will crush that sucker faster than a steamroller flattening the coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon.

There’s no place like home

I’ve got to be quick, because there is not enough air in here and I’m told it’s beautiful outside and I need to stretch the legs and breathe.  I am just thinking about the games we learn as kids and how much deliberate and focused attention and hard work it takes to unlearn the bad ones.

It’s a tiring story, but my father was a tormented soul.   Great, dark sense of humor, but essentially a well-defended fortress against all potential invaders.  Everyone was included in this category.   If I had a problem being raised by someone like this, it was not something he was obliged to concern himself with.   That was his position for our long, difficult relationship, his answer to every attempt on my part to have him lower the bridge so I could cross the moat: I was the one with the problem, not him.  A position he apologized for quite sincerely hours before he died.

He gave me the gift of belatedly acknowledging that my painful childhood was largely the fault of an adult incapable of being a better parent.   He acknowledged that I was right to be hurt and saluted, for the first time, my many attempts over the years to improve the relationship.

While he was alive and on his feet, however, he’d fight to the death any suggestion that on his deathbed he’d have the regrets that could be so easily seen by anyone who wasn’t him.

They Had A Vision

I dragged myself to the workshop in a state of exhaustion this afternoon, half blind with fatigue for reasons too tedious to detail.  I arrived first, five minutes before the session was supposed to start.  Tim got there a few minutes later.  Luckily, the kids didn’t arrive until five minutes after they were scheduled to arrive.  It was an odd day, slight underwater feeling, everybody sort of floating around jellyfish-like.  I don’t think more than 20 frames were shot all session, the usual number is two or three hundred frames.

I called two kids over, gave them headphones and the three of us began making a soundtrack. I couldn’t get the wonderful new Audiobus interface to work, but I gave them a taste of the cool sounds and after a few minutes of futility, apologized for not having had time to learn it well enough before the session.  I shut it down and switched to garageband, which I know well, and which neither of these kids had used.

Within moments Lily was moving her hands purposefully on the touch-screen.  They recorded an adorable track of childish bickering, but neither of them liked it much.  I deleted it as they watched and they did it again, less contentious and still adorable.  They still didn’t like it.   I told them to leave it, we could mute it.  Lily dragged a drum loop they chose into the track.  I told them to listen to the beat and play along.  I urged them to play only a bit, since they could always add more on the next track, and it was impossible to subtract if they otherwise liked the track.   They pulled up another mic and began pounding the table in time with the drums.   They played a piano together.  I took my headphones off and walked over to see what the animators were up to, after muting the piano at their request.

When I got back I saw they’d deleted their adorable vocal track, along with the piano.  I was dismayed, and told them so.   They were too busy to pay much attention to my dismay, another girl was with them now, drumming on the table.  I put a pair of headphones on her and walked away to start cleaning up, as Lily’s twin brother laughed, headphones on, pounding the table.

As we were leaving I said to Tim, “that’s what happens when you let the inmates have complete control of the asylum, you get no input into the output.”   Tim commented that kids always find their own voices weird and distasteful when they first hear them played back, and that’s probably why they’d wiped out the adorable tracks.

I walked a good way with the heavy pack on my back, and a duffel bag hanging at the end of my arm.  I was actually too tired to stop walking, and as the temperature began to drop I paused to pull my hood over my head.  I sat on a bench.  I ate a slice of pizza and took Excedrin.  I eventually got on the subway and listened to Bill Moyers when I was not nodding out, and when I was.

Made it up to my apartment, took my clothes off and got under the covers.  Charging the iPad I decided to listen to the track, see what they’d wound up with.  I’ll be damned, they had a vision.  They weren’t going for adorable, it was the percussion they were after.   Two tracks of poly-rhythmic table banging, along with the drum track.  They had an idea they were going for.  I was impressed.  They hadn’t opted for any of the fancy gimmicks they’d tried in garageband, they were going for the real thing.   Playing the only instrument they had, the table, they jammed, creating a convincing jungle of percussion.

Neutrality as kick in the pants

Though there are circumstances where neutrality is a virtue, such as when a person in a black robe is applying the blunt instrument of the law to a vicious conflict, there are many others where neutrality is a hard sidekick to the crotch.

One need only think of Switzerland’s puckish neutrality– we are fair, we are decent, we don’t take sides– standing suavely and stoically aside as Mr. Hitler did his very best to wipe out millions of people he hated.

The neutrality I’m thinking of is on a more personal level.   When seeking comfort from a friend, say the confirmation that you are right to feel aggrieved, for example, if you receive a neutral response, it will not comfort you.  It will ring, in the way these things do, and leave the unpleasant melody hideously repeating, never to be resolved — maybe I really am a jerk to feel hurt by that?   The confirmation from a loved one that you are right to be hurt is worth 1,000 Switzerlands brokering deals with scrupulous fairness between Nazis and those who hate Nazis.

Plus, sixty years later, you won’t likely learn of the neutral party’s complicity in war crimes, stolen art treasures and the laundering of loot plundered from people sent to their deaths by a regime that, arguably, by the logic of neutrality, is no different from the one fighting it.

I Love Music (Just as long as it’s groovin’)

The O’Jays, a group of singers who knew a few things about how to work a groove, had a great hit called “I Love Music”. It’s here, for anybody who wants to hear it right away.  It speaks so well for me, as it pumps through the computer speakers,  that I have almost nothing to add here at the moment.

But it would not be like me to hold tongue or pen, especially now, trying to remain conscious not to speak ill of anyone, and having only good things to say.

Here at 2:27 goes that great guitar, sallying into the mix like a saxophone.  I’m no expert, but when I hear a mix like this I know what moves me– and I’d spin this disk again just to hear that guitar break.  Then at 4:19, presumably that same guitar player starts making with the jazzy riffs.   Hot damn, the bongos and everything, that percussion section, the piano, bass– all kicking in to make that joyful noise.  Here come some strings and the vocalists come back, everyone leaving room for the others.

I started off nodding along to a mix of a recent jam session very well recorded in a basement in San Francisco, wondering idly where this love of a groove comes from.  Part of the answer is this track by the O’Jays, it seems to me.  Also beloved to me, that space in between the instruments, where they put their parts down against the others, listening intently as they dream their own dreams.   Best image I know of the best way to live your life.

The enduring injuries of childhood

Some, I imagine, did not receive traumatizing injuries during their upbringing.  I would like to meet and talk to someone who didn’t some day.   Most people I know, in a candid moment, will describe self-hatred, shame, rage, humiliation, terror, depression and several other shades of pain they don’t deserve   My father, at 80, on his death bed, admitted for the first time how the brutality he’d endured as a child had doomed him to live in a black and white world, holding off rooms full of potential abusers wherever he went, instead of using his great gifts to bring more color into the world.

No tears for us, please.  Like the fact that we all die, that injuries we suffered as young children endure is no mystery, nor anything to get tearful about.  How do we face the fact of our eventual deaths?  Outside of not thinking about it, by living as well as we can.   How do we endure the enduring hurts of childhood, even as adults, even as tough people who would rather kick somebody’s ass than admit how much we hurt?  That is hard work and does not yield to a simple answer.

We pay careful attention, think unhurriedly, use our words to describe things as clearly as we can.  We model the way we want others to treat us.  We do not do to others what we hate done to ourselves.  We consciously work to do better, to replace an angry reflex with a kind gesture.   It’s not easy, or, even, it must be admitted, in some cases, even  possible.  People may be too damaged, too bitter, crazy, anxious, desperate, invested in the needs of their egos or their justifiable rage to even imagine another way to live their lives.  Imagining a better way to live is the first step, like imagining anything is the first step to anything different.

No time at the moment to do anything but the best I can.  And wish strength to you to do the same.

Writing is as easy as crapping to some people

And when I say writing is as easy as crapping to some people, I’m not talking about people who don’t move their bowels once or twice every day.

Guy writes:

And my apology to anyone who may have felt slighted or stepped on by me as I attempted to chair an open and productive meeting.  

I’d intended to mention the changes in myself (in addition to the changes in the group and in certain kids that we discussed) that I attribute to developing, and working in, the program:

increased patience, decreased temper
increased ability to focus and listen 
sense of purpose and accomplishment
regular recharge of the creative batteries from the kids
general satisfaction and more gratefulness
increased confidence
 
I think these are all real benefits.  I predict that many of them will be shared by anybody working in the program.   They will only increase when an actual living wage is attached to the work.

His biggest supporter, not buying any of this pie in the sky rhetoric, responds:

So…I’m not sure why you get defensive when the people who are your biggest supporters share ideas.   It’s kind of ironic when your motto is “We hear you” and then hold up a sign that is not supportive of expression.
 
I am in this primarily because of our friendship and desire to be a part of something that brings you joy and open hearted devotion.   Secondarily, my desire to be a part of something that inspires children’s creativity…… Not on my list at all…..is living up to anyone’s expectations….and certainly no desire to burn out or to be burned.
                  He spends the next day or two, instead of focusing on several important things he needs to do, figuring out how to reply to his biggest supporter’s peevishness without expressing how much her approach once again scorches his ass.  He thinks about the expression-crushing sign he held up “there are 1,000 reasons the thing won’t work, all we need is the one reason that it will” and shakes his head.    After all, sitting at a meeting criticizing all attempts that are not hitting the mark is valuable to everyone but an overbearing asshole, no?
As I said above, writing is as easy as crapping to some people.  That said, some people do not find it that easy to move their bowels.
That said, somebody who does not know the first thing about business:  financing, pricing, branding, advertising, marketing, accounting, leveraging, partnering, brokering, managing, staffing, HR, IT, etc., has no business dreaming big fucking dreams about helping kids in misery he has never even met.  It makes no difference that his program works– it only really works if it attracts investors and succeeds.
Better to help himself, I say.  Learn to get up at dawn and work 15 hours a day like everybody else who has a dream worth dreaming.
And try crapping less, my writerly friend.  Words are only worth something when you sell them in America.

Bigfooted By A Billionaire

Imagine getting to sit down with a magnate in your field, someone who can open any door, introduce you to the people you need to meet.   A man who loves ideas tells you he likes your idea very much and wants to help.  Only trouble is, there’s a stretch limo waiting for him downstairs, you may have seen it on your way in.   It was sent for him by his former intern, now, at age 26, about to become a very, very wealthy man.  Touching that the kid would send the limo for his old mentor, he was a teenager when he worked for the magnate for free.  A brilliant kid, a great kid.  Anyway, not to waste time– and I promise you a full meeting at a later date– but in four minutes or so, fill me in.

So you fill him in.  And as it’s your idea, and you know every detail of it intimately, and you’re a bright kid yourself, you are able to bring it to life to this guy who loves a great idea.  His eyes shine like the eyes of a kid in a candy store as you talk.  He asks an intelligent question, you give a snappy, succinct answer.  A few laughs are laughed.  It is with regret he stands, on the fourth intrusion by his secretary, and shakes your hand. “We’ll do the full meeting soon,” he says with warmth, and then is on his way down to the limo.

You later read about the sale, it’s all over the news.  The young man, David Karp, 26, has sold Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars. Sitting next to him on the dais, the man you were just talking to.  It’s an amazing world.  

But that all happened in April, why are you thinking about it now?