Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

work

Goodbye, Big Blue

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IBXThis is my last week working at Independence Blue Cross – also known as IBX. I have been an IBX associate since March of 2003.

It still doesn’t seem real to see those words written down – not just because they represent the end of a ten-year chapter of my life, but because during that decade the name of my employer has never appeared here on CK (aside from perhaps an archived tweet or two).

No one ever told me not to mention IBX. I had blogged openly about all of my previous jobs and colleagues, and even blogged a bit about my introduction to corporate culture at IBX. I don’t think Google Alerts existed when I first interviewed, or if they did they were not very prevalent.

Yet, as I sat in the interview for my initial cooperative education experience in Provider Communications back in 2003 talking about how I was trying to triangulate my way to the perfect job for me, I must have decided that it was for the best to keep mum about it.

I never thought I would enjoy a corporate job, but my initial co-op position as a Communications Assistant proved that wrong. I loved working with the nuances of words and communicating the position of a brand. [Read more…] about Goodbye, Big Blue

Work/Life balance is bad for you

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Editor’s Note: For reasons unbeknownst to me, I never hit publish on this post when I first wrote it on 11/30/11. I have a slightly different perspective on this topic now, having worked at a start-up and become a parent, but I still find value in the thoughts of a prior me. That’s the entire point of this blog. I’ve edited about five words, added about 30, and retroactively published it to the blog at the point it was written. – PM, 6/14/2016

If you are striving for work-life balance as if it is some complex and delicate equation where both sides can be equal at all times you are doing it wrong. I don’t think I would be as happy or as successful if I had terrific and constant balance between the two.

Over the summer I went out to lunch with an intern from outside of our department who I only knew from hallways and elevator rides. While we ate she quizzed me on what I do for a living, and what I do at home. Her jaw dropped as I unfurled my litany of activities and relationships – and this was a super-active student at an Ivy League school!

She asked me what I skipped to keep myself going, and I answered truthfully. “Meals, laundry, current events, going out at night.”

And I love it. Not just my life, but my friends who are marathoners and magazine editors, fundraisers and foodies.

Work-Life balance says we should learn how to keep the peanut butter and jelly of our home and work separated. Stop working after work. Stop bringing devices to the table. Build downtime into your schedule. Do some chores every day. The theory is, if we make more time to live as people at home, we’ll have less distractions to work with focus at the office.

On this, I call bullshit. If I strove for that kind of balance I wouldn’t average a promotion every 22 months, or be on an unbroken streak of playing a show every month for over a year. All that would be different is that I’d have perfectly folded laundry and I’d watch a lot of inane television shows.

That said, I don’t think the things work-life balance experts suggest are entirely wrong. Instead, I think we need to focus on a “passion/passive” balance.

What’s the difference? I think of it in two parts.

1. Work and Life should be interchangeably exciting

Why should we treat the work brain and the home brain as two separate entities, like hoopy frood Zaphod Beeblebrox? Our goal in life should be engaging 100% in what we’re doing at all times – even when we’re sleeping!

If what makes me feel engaged is writing a project plan at midnight, so be it. Similarly, if I didn’t have the passion of my blog or my music tugging at my brain, my creative work would have no urgency.

Does that mean I should skip dinner for a project plan, or interrupt a meeting to post a blog? God, no. That would make me a moron. Do I need work-life balance to not be a moron?

If you let your passion drive your life, both work-you and home-you can be engaged and productive. Instead of listless email checks at night just to be the first-responder, you might whip open your laptop late at night when a bolt of inspiration about a big project hits you.

That’s totally healthy, and totally passionate.

2. Idleness is the holiday of fools.

That’s what the Chinese food fortune presiding over my desk reminds me every day. I disagree with the idea of scheduling daily chores and regular downtime. Do you want to remember your year by the amount of daily chores you did or the amount of time you made to sit on your couch?

Instead, recognize that even when you love life you can’t be passionate all the time. When your passion ebbs it’s time for some high quality maintenance and planning.

A few weeks ago I worked five days, took two classes, played two shows, held a rehearsal, and loaded in and out of a conference. It was awesome – one of my best weeks ever – and I would have never accomplished it if I had scheduled in downtime. But at the end of it I had a Saturday of reading in my PJs, which meant I also had the chance to catch up on maintaining my life.

Everyone is a different blend of introvert and extrovert and we all need a different mix of passive downtime relative to our passionate uptime. Prescribing that we need thirty minutes a day of meditative dish washing might not be for everyone. You can’t prescribe idleness the same way you can recommend how many ounces of water to drink each day.

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In the words of my thought-partner Britt and I, this is “FAME.”

FAME isn’t being famous. FAME is the act and feeling of constantly achieving your wildest dreams (they start small at first, then grow; FAME is never over), and having friends, family, and eventually strangers support you in your endeavors.

Don’t you people watch disaster movies?

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I work on the thirty-eighth of forty five floors, and sometimes the floor shakes.

This is the reality of working in a high rise office building. There is not always a reason for it. There seems to be a certain square of carpet positioned half the office away from me that, when walked over with vigor, causes my chair to shake.

I’ve never quite discerned which square of carpet it is, but yesterday a little bit before 2pm I was ready to find it because clearly someone with a little bit of heft to them was jumping up and down right on top of it.

I stood up from my chair.

I kept shaking.

Plan B. Maybe I was having a white-out? I used to have them in high school when my diet consisted entirely of allergy pills and Altoids. The world begins to go white around the edges and you have the sensation you are shaking and try to correct it, but really you weren’t shaking in the first place, except the shaking correction turns into you anti-shaking.

It’s all very confusing. Except, yesterday I didn’t feel confused. Well, I was confused about the shaking, but it didn’t seem to be originating from my person. And I wasn’t seeing white.

Also, I had just eaten a really big lunch.

It was at this juncture that I picked up my phone and tweeted:

Um, did Philly just have an earthquake? Our building is shaking.

Here my cultivation theory kicked in. If life is like the movies, we’ve all seen the disaster movies – we all know what not to do.

I checked to make sure my enceinte cube neighbor was okay, picked up all of my things (people are always going back for their cell phone or laptop), and walked to the doorway to the fire tower stairway, where I continued tweeting. After all, one wall of my cube is solid reinforced glass windows. Not where you want to be in the event of an earthquake or alien attack.

I just watched Skyline. I know what’s up.

Camped out by the stairs it took one swipe through my Twitter stream to see the shaking was not localized to Philly. I noticed mentions from Syracuse and Arlington.

We all know the story from there.

There is a beauty in shared experiences on the internet. And, while a pretty big percentage of people might see a certain television show or comment on a political revolution a world away, nothing tops direct, personal experience with natural phenomenon. Twitter was abuzz for Snopocalypse and it’s been abuzz during our summer deluge of rain.

For an earthquake felt by the entire disaster-deprived northeastern seaboard, it was electrified.

I felt only slightly reassured once tweets identified the source and magnitude of the earthquake was in Virginia. What about aftershocks? Or, what if it was just a pre-tremor tremble presaging the big one?

Also, there was still the alien angle to consider.

Plus, I still had that pregnant co-worker. If this really go down like a real disaster movie my chances of survival as a gawky meta-aware white guy were ever lower with her in the cast.

I have seen 2012.

With our expectant friend safely making her way home our office belatedly made an announcement about our relative safety and encouraged us to do the same.

Everyone in the building ran for the elevators. It was practically an aftershock. Because you totally want to be packed into elevators with 3,000 of your closest friends right after an earthquake. That sounds awesome.

I proceded back to the fire stairs and walked down them. All thirty-eight flights. I emerged from the lobby just ahead of my co-workers who took the elevators.

Then I walked twenty-five blocks. Sure, I could have jumped right on the El near my building. But I thought of people. People on the El are incredible stupid and rude on any day of the week. In the aftermath of an earthquake with the entire city dismissed from work all at once?

I have seen War of the Worlds. I know how that turns out.

I had no interest in being underground with other human beings. I walked to 46th street and waited in beautiful sunlight for the El to carry me home.

lime popcorn and how I nearly died

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I nearly died yesterday, due to a combination of popcorn, caffeine, and my remarkable skill and poise in professional presentations.

Allow me to back up for a moment. Last year E and I sent our spit to 23andMe so we could receive genetic profiles. Mine revealed many interesting things, including that the fact that my body metabolizes caffeine differently than most people.

Anyone who knows me could have told you that without the benefit of a state-of-the-art genetic test. Where a 12-ounce coffee makes most people perky, it turns me into a jittery, speed-talking demon that cannot operate touch screens or complex machinery.

It was with full knowledge of that potential outcome that I grabbed a 20-ounce soy chai latté on the way into an informal client presentation, figuring that I needed at least a slight edge of insanity to get through my fifth meeting and subsequent all-nighter of writing.

You would think I would be too traumatized by the events in this post to want to eat the popcorn ever again, but it was actually really good. I mean, there are worse ways to die than to asphyxiate on a delicious snack.

Fast forward to the meeting.

Slightly high on my caffeine buzz, I am at the head of a conference table filled with my clients, one of whom made individual bags of lime-tinted popcorn for each of us.

Things are going well. I have a rhythm down: gesture to slide, explain, solicit feedback, eat two kernels of popcorn, respond, repeat.

On the umpteenth repetition of this ritual, I finish explaining, solicit questions, and place the first of two pieces of popcorn into my mouth. The question is brief, and I inhale sharply to fuel my answer.

My first piece of popcorn skitters back across my tongue and lodges itself firmly in my windpipe.

“Excuse me,” I wheeze, patting my chest gently to expel the rogue kernel.

It does not expel.

I try to gently cough it up without causing a hugely gross scene in the middle of my presentation. and discover that I don’t seem to have any air to do the coughing with.

My entire client group is now staring me down as I slowly asphyxiate in front of them. I hold up one figure in a gesture to them to wait a moment and try again – with slightly less tact – to cough up the kernel, still lodged in my windpipe.

Nothing seems to be happening. I am acutely aware of the inexorable passage of time, both from a biological “I need to breathe” perspective and a business “this is kindof a long pause in a presentation, even an informal one with popcorn” perspective.

The entire client team continues to look on, now in mute horror, as my thumps to my own chest become less and less delicate. Finally, now nearly half a minute having passed, I turn to my left to one of my clients and in the barest of whispers state the following:

“I think I might require your help.”

Said client solemnly rose to his feet, walked around my overstuffed chair, and thumped me solidly three times in the back.

The kernel popped out of my windpipe, and I promptly swallowed it before it could wreak any further havoc. I re-took the inhaled breath that got me into trouble to begin with, and plunged forward.

“Now, as I was saying…”

Actual thing that just happened in my office

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(scene: Peter and co-worker giggling maniacally in the hallway in front of our manager’s office)

Manager: What are you doing out there?

Me: If we tell you, you have to promise to not fire us for doing it.

Manager: Sure.

Me: We’re making a human pyramid in the middle of the hallway.

Manager: Why?

Co-worker: So we can take a picture of us in a human pyramid. I’ll be on top! [strikes a legitimate cheerleading pose.]

Manager: Cool! Can I watch?

(scene.)