Tag: people

Saying No
Credit: flickr / sillydog

I’m terrible at this. It’s my biggest weakness, but also – the source of so many experiences and opportunities. So I can’t embrace saying no fully for fear of missing out. But certain things lately have made me think that I need to say no more.

Like, crossing campus on a hectic day when I have tons of stuff going on for a meeting – which the other person did not show up to. The meeting, get this, was one I didn’t think was worth having anyway.

Or, being left off the mailing list for an event with my friends that I’d tentatively scheduled, only to get caught off guard when I’m already 10 minutes late, putting my dinner in the oven and wearing pj’s. The following hour consisted of me getting lost downtown, having a panic attack trying to park, and getting upset when someone else has no problem saying “no”, and even hanging up on me.

Penelope Trunk writes a lot about making yourself likable. An easy way (I think) to make people like you is to say yes to requests. Cate, can you teach this ski lesson? Sure (even though I’ve taught several hours straight and haven’t had lunch). Cate, can you review this and write some test cases? Sure (even though I just found another conference and have about a week to write another paper). Cate, can we get together for coffee? Sure (even though that time is not great for me). Cate, can we meet to discuss this? Sure (even though I don’t think there’s much point). Cate, can you make this workshop? Sure (even though what you’re paying me does not offset the international tuition that I’m wasting by not studying).

If any of the people who’ve made these requests find this post, they may like me less. But here’s the thing – I may be coming across as resentful but I don’t mean to, because I’m not. What I’m trying to get across, is that there’s always a reason not to do things that someone else asks you to do. But often it’s worth it. Take ski instructing, I’ve said yes to basically everything that comes my way, and carried around protein shakes because they always need people at lunch and this way I’m available. So last Sunday, I turn up to see what I’ve had booked and the guy in charge grabs me and takes me to cover for a race coach. And yes, I was thrown off and without ski poles (not really that necessary when teaching 4-year-olds) but after a rocky start featuring a fall off the lift (child) a wrenched shoulder (mine, trying to catch aforementioned child), a fall, a suspected head injury, and the ski patrol (not me for once!) it was awesome.

Every day, I come across things that I would like to say “yes” to, but I don’t. These are the things where I don’t have to respond, so I just don’t. And the opportunity flows by, but it’s okay. Because I have tons of opportunities I’m taking advantage of, and I know that when I have more time I’ll be able to find, or make, more opportunities. I think this is part of learning to say yes slowly.

Where I struggle, is when a response is requested. And I know I need to draw a line – between those requests that are opportunities, or easy to fulfill, or worthwhile… and the things that are just people guilting me, or taking advantage. Because this is what happened with the passive aggressive – she made request after request after request, sometimes explicit, mostly implicit, and eventually I cracked because it was too much, too unbalanced. My giving wasn’t reciprocated at all – and wasn’t appreciated either. Why bother? It just made me miserable. And that “no” was liberating! People have tried to wear me down on it, but they haven’t. I can reason as to why – frankly it scares me when someone thinks unhappiness frees them from any standards of reasonable behavior (though, of course, they do not apply this to other people – no-one suffers the way they do). But ultimately, I sigh and say I just don’t have the time or the inclination. End of discussion.

So perhaps my problem with trying to be likable, is that there are lots of other people who don’t try to be likable. So in the situation with my friends, they probably don’t understand why I didn’t just say no because I found out too late what was happening. And I don’t understand why they don’t realize that I was trying to be nice, and not let people down, and why don’t they have that motivating them when I’m upset. I drove 10 minutes (well 20, but I got lost), they wouldn’t walk 20 metres.

And that’s okay, because we’re all motivated by different things. I’m no longer asking the question, “why wouldn’t they walk 20 metres?” and instead I’m asking myself why I left the apartment in the first place. I didn’t want to. I just felt obligated. And I didn’t have to be – that’s all in my head.

Saying no. I need to do this more. I need to ask myself – do I want to? Do I have to? Why do I feel I have to? Is that a good reason?

Or:
```
 boolean sayYes(Event e)
    if (doIWantTo(e)) {
        return true;
    }
    if (doIHaveTo(e)) {
        Reason r = whyDoIHaveTo(e);
        if (isGoodReason(r)) {
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }
    return false;
 }
```
(I bet robots don’t have these kind of problems)
March 5, 2010
Expat Adventures in Romance

Credit: flickr / Taylor.McBride™

I’m scheduling this post for Valentines day, when I’m sure the blogosphere (and everywhere else) will be full of romance.

I’m not a big fan of Valentines day, myself. Last year I was in Japan with the Passive Aggressive, wondering if her inability to even go to the corner shop by herself would cause me to lose my mind. I sent my boyfriend a fruit basket. Before that, I was typically single for Valentines day.

This year, paper deadlines, assignment marking and mid-terms mean that it won’t be a romantic evening a deux. My boyfriend and I may not even see each other. I’m okay with that, I think it’s how someone treats you the other 364 days a year that matters. I wish we saw more of each other in general, not just on this one “special” day of the year.

Being an expat, being, in general, a bit of a nomad… makes a relationship different, I think. On the plus side, I’m more attractive because I’m a little bit exotic. On the negative, I don’t have the same support network (so depend on my boyfriend more) and in general I’m not as “fixed” in position.

My first stage of looking for a job (underway at the moment) is through connections. Because I’m international, my connections are too. I know that if I leave, we’re over – my boyfriend can’t/won’t come with right now. But I’ve never stayed anywhere for anyone – this stage in my life is not the time to change that.

This conflict is a dull ache. I’m trying to focus on getting a great job – on opportunities in Ottawa and elsewhere. Then we’ll see where that happens to be.

February 14, 2010
5 Things I Learned at Boarding School
Credit: flickr / Tetsumo

For my last two years of school, I was at a fancy English boarding school. This is not something I write about or talk about much, because it was not the most enjoyable experience (so, normal for high school!). However like everything, there are some important lessons for life that I got out of it.

1. People and Power

I will tell you two things about my housemistress in my final year.
1. After I had my nose broken she said, “you know even if it stayed like that, for the rest of your life, you wouldn’t be like, deformed” (Just the thing a 17-year-old girl wants to hear, of course).
2. I always got the impression that she enjoyed, far to much, how much power she had over us.
Now, if someone’s in a powerful position, I always look for what motivates them to be there, and how they use it.

2. I’m not that great at math

In the state sector, I was always considered to be good at math, in fact when I was 14 I got sent to some kind of special weekend math classes (this is, of course, just what you want to do at the weekend when you’re 14).

Then I got to boarding school, and discovered that I was at best average in those who were taking A level math.

Your size as a fish is relative to the size of the pond you’re in.

3. Quality > Quantity

I worked really hard for my GCSE’s, but the teachers at the state school I was at… several of them seemed to have had the stuffing kicked out of them. Over 2 years I watched one of my teachers go from a young, bright-eyed idealist to someone who didn’t seem to have the energy to go on. They’d given up, and that was reflected in their teaching and their engagement with their classes. Because the government rewards schools for getting as many people as possible to some arbitrary (and fairly low) level, rather than for helping students achieve their potential – whatever that is – brighter students can be effectively left to fend for themselves.

No amount of hard work from me could compensate for this.

At boarding school, the teachers hadn’t been kicked around so much. They were more able and willing to push us to succeed. And they did. I continued to work hard, but my results improved dramatically. Because I was finally working on the right things.

4. Some people think process is more important than result

I wanted to take a kickboxing class on Sunday mornings, but on Sunday mornings we had to go to church. Another student got to do this, because he went to the Catholic service (which was earlier) instead. So I went to the chaplain to ask if I could too.

He asked if I was a Catholic, and I said no but that as an Atheist I didn’t see that it mattered which church I was in, not believing.

He didn’t see it that way. In fact, he said, “when you’re older you’ll realize that it’s not as simple as that”.

I am older, and I still think it’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.

I did not get to go kickboxing.

This will not be the only person I encounter with arbitrary, irrational distinctions between two very similar things.

5. How to be alone, even when you’re not

I was talking to someone yesterday, and she asked when I took “veg out on the sofa by yourself and chill out time”.

Mostly, I don’t.

It is near impossible to be alone at boarding school. You share a tiny room with another person, and there are people everywhere, all the time. If you go into town, you’ll see people you know. If you wonder out of town, you probably will as well. So I learned how to be alone, even when I wasn’t. This was when I started spending a lot of time in the gym.

I survived (just!) nearly 3 weeks with someone who couldn’t go to the corner shop by herself and would not let me shower alone for a week (not like that – she just insisted I leave the bathroom door unlocked and would be in the bathroom doing her hair etc).

It’s all about taking your alone time when and where you can get it – I learned that at boarding school.
January 1, 2010
Lessons Learned from a Recent Screw-up

Credit: xkcd

I offended someone recently. I really would never have meant to do that… but unfortunately I did.

Does spending some much time with people who are “on the spectrum” make you less attuned to people’s feelings yourself? I wonder. Anyway, I guess to summarize I thought I was suggesting something that would be easier for her and fit in well. But I was wrong. Worse, this means that I’m not sure I can suggest the better solution that has since occurred to me. And, obviously I need to sort this out. Urgh.

It’s really important to learn from this kind of experience, here’s what I have so far.

Work on the ask. Needs to be general enough to encourage people to approach you, but not so general that you’re compelled to accept everyone who does.

Don’t say yes, follow up. There will be a bunch of details that you neglect to mention. Later you may realize you didn’t clarify something you “always do” and they are expecting something different than what you’re offering.

Don’t say no, follow up. I’m pretty poor at saying no, especially in person. It’s easy to override me. This turns it into a yes – if I’ve followed up by email, I can think about it for longer and decide whether or not the objection is valid.

Even if you are the sole decision maker, behave like you’re not. Gives you more leeway.

Look for other options. Maybe you can’t give the person what they want, but know people who can. Allow yourself time to reflect on other connections that you can create, and the value that might come from them.

Just because someone offers, you don’t have to say yes. I messed up in this case, but more than offending someone I screwed up because I agreed to something that I’m not sure is in line with what I want to do. There are so many better options now I’m not standing in front of someone having to come up with an instant response, but I may have put myself in a position where I can’t suggest them without offending this person further – not good.

So to summarize – don’t just agree to things, buy time to consider your options and talk with other people who may be involved and can give you better perspective.

And if you see me doing anything else, kick me (I’ll thank you for it later).

December 26, 2009
Decisions

I have a confession about almost every big decision I’ve made. Going to Edinburgh, working in the US the first time, training in China, coming to Canada.

Someone else suggested it to me.

The other big things have mostly been opportunities, that I’ve said yes to.

Each one of these has taken me outside of my comfort zone.

With the end of my masters in sight, I’m seeking out advice and suggestions on what to do next. I’m drawing up a list of companies to apply to and opportunities to take advantage of.

I think I’m average, but the ideas I get from the people I know, suggest they don’t agree. The opportunities that have presented themselves to me lately, force me to acknowledge that even if I am average, I’m at least presenting myself and pushing myself outside my comfort zone in a way that is not. I think this is how you become not-average, but I’ll tell you when I get there.

Here’s the suggestion I received today:

Suggestion from @pinemud

I guess we’ll see if he’s right.

Seek out people who you respect, who believe in you. There are just 24 hours in each day and you need to sleep – don’t waste them on people who run you down.

Trust the suggestions from those people – even if you’re not sure you’re as capable as they think you are. There’s likely a reason why they believe in you.

Say yes. Sometimes you’ll fail, but that too is a learning experience.

Keep saying yes, even when you fail. This is how you eventually succeed.

December 24, 2009

Perspectives on Perfectionism

I was reading random posts on Penelope Trunk’s blog last week when I came across one on perfectionism. Basically, she was saying that perfectionism is stupid.

I have some perfectionist tendencies, but I’m not going to argue with this. I think perfectionism can mean you avoid the feeling of OK, what next, what’s inspiring me today? – you’re always busy “perfecting”, never happy with what you’ve done. My perfectionism has definitely calmed down, and I think this is in part due to some of the experiences I had on my gap year, so I’m going to share them with you.

China

In 2007, I spent 3 months in China, 2 of them training in martial arts near Yantai in Northern China. I trained with a shaolin monk, for about 6 hours a day Monday-Friday. I existed on perhaps 1000 calories a day. It was intense, but being so focused on the physical was interesting. I spent a lot of time reflecting. I lived for a week without internet access (where we were was pretty remote, Yantai is a small city and we were over an hour drive away).

Shaolin Monks can spend a year working on a form. A form is a memorized series of movements, like a dance with intent. It has to be perfect before you move to the next one – the first is a basic form, no weapons. Then you move on to the staff form, after that there are swords and stuff. It’s pretty awesome. The Westeners where we were, didn’t have to spend a year on a single form – it took around a month for each (where half the days were spent on Sanda – Chinese kickboxing – and fitness). But the quest for perfection was still extreme to me. One of the masters I trained with would threaten to deny us lunch if we hadn’t perfected something, and we would have to train instead. When you’re hungry constantly and lunch is where you get most of your nourishment, this is quite terrifying. Another time, we were doing drills of kicks to his count. I missed a count, and he hit me with his staff. It hurt, but I had to carry on. I effectively did extra (because I did the kick on the count as well) but it didn’t matter. Perfection was what was important.

There was a girl who’d been there longer than me, she was just 17 and behaved like a child – and a bully – too. I never fully internalized the quest for perfection, but she had – in front of the master, at least. Elsewhere she drank alcohol, slacked off, and was a bully. My master, from something he said to me, seemed to know this too.

Lesson? You can pretend to be perfect, but people will see through you if you don’t live by it. Perfectionism in one aspect of your life will not make you a good person, and will not make people like you.

View from the Top — View from the top of the hill we ran up and down 4 times on a Friday

On Fridays, we would run up and down the hill in the picture above, there were steps. Many people didn’t manage it their first week (you’re already exhausted) but I was determined to. It took about 2 hours, and I didn’t do it perfectly. I walked parts of it. I looked a mess. But I did it. The picture on the right shows what I looked like at the top for the last time. I’m beat! The next time was a lot easier.

Lesson? Sometimes, getting it done is what counts. Don’t opt out of something because you’re worried you won’t do it perfectly.

Me after my first 4 times up the hill — Me, after my first 4 times up the hill – killer! But I made it.

Europe

In Europe, I traveled with a guy I’d met in China. He was older than me, and frustrated that his life hadn’t turned out as he expected it too. He complained – a lot – he took things out on me – a lot. We had some fun too, though, and so when we parted ways in Switzerland, I thought I would be sad and miss him. Actually, I was just relieved.

Lesson? You can plan, and you can check all the boxes but things can still go awry. Complaining won’t change that, so you’ll just have to make the best of it.

Have you seen the Gaudi Building in Barcelona? From the outside, it looks like whoever created it was high as a kite.

But from the inside, it’s the most beautiful and light-filled building I’ve ever been in.

Inside the Gaudi Building - beautiful and full of light — Inside the Gaudi Building – beautiful and full of light

Lesson? Even if something doesn’t seem perfect, it can be.

Canada

After, I headed to Canada to train as a ski instructor. My parents had been learning to ski with the BASI ski school shortly before I left (I was with them). The difference was fascinating. The BASI way is to do a snowplough perfectly before you progress. The result is, my mother does an exemplary snowplough (better than mine!) but I wonder whether she will progress to anything more. She’s committed to it, but so much effort into it, spent so long doing it she’s scared of the alternative.

The Canadian way treats the snowplough as a tool. You have to do it good enough, and then you progress. The purpose of it is to start you moving on snow, get the sensation of the weight on your downhill ski and a sense of where your balance is… and that’s it. Then you progress.

Lesson? Don’t expend too much effort on something that’s just a tool, a means to an end. Don’t commit yourself so fully to something that should just be a stepping stone on your way to something greater.

In skiing, the quest for perfectionism comes later. I’m a perfectionist on my carving technique, I like to ski fast so I can’t really afford not to be. I’ll spend hours doing drills, focusing on where every part of my body is and making sure all my movements are in harmony. But – I want to be a great skiier, and the better I get the further I realize I am from that. For someone who just wants to ski for fun, good enough is fine.

The US

Back in the US again, I ended up working with a guy who’s job was impeded by his drinking habits. My inner perfectionist came out, and I kept picking up the pieces, anticipating where he would screw up and making sure I compensated for his shortcomings.

I resented him so much. He was having a great time, and I was not. I was exhausted by picking up the pieces and disheartened by him having been given the job that I proved every day I could do better. And I thought that someone would notice this, that our boss would realize that he was incompetent and drunk. But she didn’t. In fact she told me that I should have let him fail. I never knew, given the nature of our job, when would have been an OK time to do that. His mistakes all seemed too big, his oversights were on things too important.

Lesson? Don’t be a perfectionist for someone else. You won’t be noticed, because no-one notices disasters that don’t happen, mistakes that aren’t made.

The real kicker? He got the job again next year. I ended up in China, which is cooler, but still. I heard on the grapevine that he didn’t suck. So a lot of what I was doing he could have done all along, he just chose to let me take responsibility – and I chose to take it.

Now…

We spend a lot of time and energy seeking out perfection in places where it’s unrealistic. Sometimes we think we’ve worked so hard and are so talented that what we deserve will come to us. That’s nonsense. It wasn’t the case for the guy I traveled with in Europe, and it wasn’t the case for me in the US. Perfectionism is a free pass to ignore the bigger picture, but when you look at it… why would you want to? The bigger picture is a much more beautiful, exciting thing.

Learning to let stuff go when it’s not “done” is scary. But the thought of clinging on to things and missing out is, I think, scarier. Last week I handed in my report for my combinatorial algorithms class, on the clique finding I’d done for Twitter graphs. It wasn’t perfect, there was lots more I could have done, and wanted to. But here’s the bigger picture – my supervisors and I hope there’s something publishable there. So why worry about the micro-picture, my grade, when the macro – a publication – is so much better?

December 21, 2009

Reaching Out

Yesterday Sacha Chua put up a blogpost entitled “What can I help you learn? Looking for mentees“. I’d been following her blog for a while now, and got out of the lurking stage and started commenting periodically, so of course I was like, “me me me!”.

If you don’t read Sacha’s blog, go and grab the RSS – you can take your pic of categories too, which is neat. I should work out how to do that! In the meantime you can subscribe to separate categories by going to that page and clicking on the RSS icon in your navigation bar (where the URL is), here’s the one for visualization.

But I digress, Sacha was really nice in her response and has already left loads of great comments and insights in comments on my blog. I’m looking forward to learning even more from her than I have been already.

Credit: flikr / kelvin_luffs

And now I have three mentors! Two of them even know it, as well.

Tammy – I worked with and although we didn’t quite understand each other in the beginning, she thought I didn’t adore the Mall of America and was joking about going off to China to kick-box when we were done, she went from my boss to my friend. She’s super inspirational (she works three jobs and is still lovely, and still creative) and she (somehow) finds the time to take an interest in what I’m doing and cheer me on.

Treena – I met at Democamp, neither of us realized the other was British from our accents (I think we both think we talk normally) and she took me in search of PG Tips. Treena gives me great advice like, “Schedule at 80% of Capacity” (yes, she is a physicist – how could you tell?) and helped me clarify why I don’t want to do a PhD. She blogs here.

Sacha – as I mentioned above, I’ve been following her blog after finding it from one of her shy connector presentations. OK, I’m not that shy, but I do get intimidated by large groups of people and these presentations have some great tips. She’s also International (from the Philippines) and, I think, a programmer who speaks fluent human, which is what I want to be, too.

Yes, I’m super lucky to have encountered these people but I think they key is to be open to the possibility that you can learn from people, stay in touch, listen, give what you can in return. Some people are (genuinely!) so nice that they just enjoy feeling that they’re helping.

Sacha’s invitation for “mentees”, is really cool, I think. Indicating that you’re open and want to help invites people to interact with you. Who knows how long I would have continued lurking / commenting periodically if she hadn’t.

So I’d like to pass it on: if there’s anything you feel I could help you with, topics you’d like me to blog about more, slide-decks I could make (particularly about Java, and Processing but I might also do some stuff on Haskell and Functional Programming) – tell me!

I check my stats every day, I know you guys are here – but I guess many of you are still in the lurking phase. Talk to me! It would make my day, and if I could help you out at all, I’d be even happier.

December 16, 2009
Productivity for Minions

Google this, there’s nothing useful. Someone needs to write a book on this! I’d buy it, would you?

If not, hopefully it’s because you’re not a minion.

by drewdomkus / flikr

Grad students are basically minions. I am the minion of my supervisor (luckily he’s nice), the minion of any prof whose course I take (to a lesser extent) and the minion of the prof I TA for.

My supervisor is the reason I have a place at the university. He gives me a scholarship, too. So if he asks me to do something, I do it. It becomes my priority.

If I’m taking a course, we get assignments and deadlines which obviously we have to complete on time. The course I’m taking at the moment has set us in the region of 100 hours of homework, which finally ended last week. Now we have a project to complete, but the deadline is fairly early in December – reflective of her schedule, not ours. When she decided that it was not OK for me to code in Haskell (despite saying any programming language) I had to rewrite it in Java the following day – this was not what I’d originally planned to do then, my priorities had to change.

This is the least of it. I dropped a course, because the prof said openly that he wanted the “source code” to anything we did (including, say, word documents) so that he could use it if he wanted to. Lately, I’ve heard another prof doing a similar thing. Grad students are minions.

Then, there’s TA-ing. Being a bit tender-hearted (also, and probably correctly described as a “people pleaser” I end up as the minion of my students. I see them on their schedule, help them longer than I get paid for, and respond to their emails as fast as I can. Then there’s the stuff the Prof asks me to do – at the end of the semester, I have four consecutive weeks of marking (an assignment a week), plus students being sent to me for tutoring, plus… these things have to become my priority.

Lastly, there’s WISE. As President, you’d think I wouldn’t be a minion here but I am – I’m the minion of anyone involved who doesn’t do their job, because then I have to do it for them. My priorities have to change.

This wasn’t meant to be a long moan, just example of how, whilst I set my priorities, being a minion means that they get changed because other people’s priorities are more important than mine.

Lurching from crisis to crisis, panic to panic is not productive. It’s not effective. 7 Habits talks about this – your deadlines, your priorities need to reflect your values, not just be jerk reactions to events.

But what if you’re a minion? Because I try to do that, I make my list every week. I try and incorporate the minion activities (like marking) that I know I will have to do. But then I can get a request and have to rejig everything. Recently I came home to an email (at 11:30pm, sent at 6:30pm) asking for something to be done by the next day at 10am. Of course, it didn’t happen. But I did have to abandon everything else the next day to get it done.

Productivity for Minions – someone should write this. How to balance living a productive, effective life, whilst continually having to respond to others knee-jerk reactions.

Advice welcome!

By drewdomkus / flikr

December 3, 2009
Working With People Who Suck

This post has been formulating in my head for a while now, as I thought how much I loved 7 Habits and The 4-Hour Work Week (Amazon) and all the other great stuff I’m reading. However there’s one question they don’t seem to answer – what if you have to work with someone who sucks?

I mean, the boss who makes a mistake, causes you more work, but never apologizes, or the one that makes you take the fall for his mistake? The one that calls you incessantly, at all hours and at the weekend until your partner begs you to quit? The person who screws up every small task, from booking a car or buying stationary, to transporting something from A to B? The guy who doesn’t run his code before committing it, and doesn’t know what a test case is? The coworker who’s been there 10 years but can’t write an SQL statement? The person who makes their ignorance your problem? The guy you’re continually covering for because his drinking is out of hand?

(Yes these are all situations that either I, or people I know have been in.)

Tribes is the first book to give me that answer. Here it is: make change happen.

And then I thought, what if it’s just a job, not a career?

So? Make change anyway.

I’ve been struggling a bit with the organization of WISE lately – I don’t feel like some people are committed and I’ve ended up micromanaging and I don’t want to! I think this book has given me the answer though – I need to have more faith in what I’m doing and in myself, and lead.

October 30, 2009