Here’s to your guts!

I have started using evenings in my quiet office to get a lot of work done. Sometimes I’m the only one around. The other night I walked out to refill my water bottle and there was a guy I never saw in the hallway. My gut reaction was fear. Why? This man did not jump out at me, he did not yell, he was wearing khakis and a button down chatting on his cell. He was likely a graduate student and the scariest thing about him was probably the student debt he is incurring. 

This got me thinking about gut feelings. We all know what gut feelings are because we have all experienced them. They are that pit in your stomach, getting the butterflies, or just knowing that a situation is not quite right. Some think of these as our intuition, but whatever you call them I thought a lot about them in grad school.

My dissertation was about gut feelings and moral emotions. Specifically, guilt, contempt, sympathy, and inspiration. I wanted to know if the organizational context in which we work impacts how we react to these emotions. 

For example, if you work in a place that encourages competition, loves to use sports metaphors, and feels like a locker room, are you more likely or less likely to listen to your gut instincts and moral emotions? 

In this case I found you were less likely to listen to your gut. My hypothesis was that the (dude-centric) context sent signals that emotions aren’t a thing we do around here. You punt those someplace out and focus on results!

I thought it was a cool idea, it went through three rounds of revision at a great journal and was then rejected. Academia is super fun. Anyhow…

Since I finished my PhD, a lot of new research has come out about what is being called the gut brain connection and it is cool! Turns out our brains have a direct link to our stomachs, and intestines via the vagus nerve and vice versa. Because of this two-way street, when your gut is a mess so is your brain. Some research is positing that better gut health can lead to less anxiety, depression, fatigue, and chronic pain. That has yet to be totally confirmed but it’s promising but how do we make sure our guts are good? Do we just eat a shit-ton of yogurt and call it a day? Sadly, no. Turns out you have to eat healthy (preferably filled with fiber and non-meaty) food, take a probiotic, exercise, and try to limit your stress among other things. So, next time we hang out let's eat some sauerkraut and go for a walk. That way we get our probiotics in and our farts out.

Don’t be a bitch

It is exceptionally easy to be labeled a bitch at work. All you need to do is be assertive or have your own ambitions and BOOM #uabitch. You may not care if people think you’re a bitch but unfortunately, once you get the label it’s much easier for colleagues to ostracize you and devalue your work. If you don’t want to be the office bitch the logical fix is to go in the other direction. Act really nice (even if you’re not) and then people will like and respect you. But guess what? That won’t work either because then you run the risk of being too nice. And when you are too nice, and do things to help everyone around you suddenly you are the office Mom, a particularly interesting trope. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people we work with had a Mom or some sort of Mother-figure at some point, yet it would seem they don’t respect her enough to want to work with (some version) of her.

What’s crazy to me is that this was first noted in 1977. Dr. Rosabeth Moss Cantor wrote that women are seen as the default housewives and mothers of the corporate world. Gross. But fast-forward to today and not much has changed. Women still do the majority of the office “housework. ” This includes any person-oriented task that isn’t directly related to your actual job. There are the more obvious things like buying presents on behalf of everyone else, picking up/making coffee, bringing in treats, or cleaning up the communal space. But there are other tasks like taking notes, scheduling meetings, filling out forms, or mentoring that aren’t a function of your job and happen to fall to you because you are “so organized” which is just code for “a woman.” One of the reasons this is especially frustrating is that many of us either don’t mind doing these things or take on the task because we want to make sure that box is checked. A lot of this is incredibly subtle and it’s really difficult to recognize as problematic particularly when we’ve learned to accept it in basically every arena of our lives. Additionally, women (generally speaking) have the instinct to “tend and befriend” and this plays out at work in a variety of ways. Much like fight or flight, tending and befriending is a response to stress. 

Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. [The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend and befriend pattern appears to draw heavily on the attachment/caregiving system, and considerable neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core].

When we spend our time doing these things we do not get credit for them because our altruistic behavior is (thought to be) just part of what women do. That makes it seem inconsequential, gets us nowhere and our male counterparts actually reap the benefits of our work. And speaking of the men, when they do these types of tasks they are rewarded and praised because office housework is clearly beyond their job descriptions. A smart lady might think to herself, “Noted, I will not be the Office Mom.” Turns out that is also problematic. When women don’t pitch in to help with tasks thought of as “office housework” we are seen to be violating those pesky gender roles. I believe that is called a lose/lose. We are literally wired to engage in these behaviors but when we follow these instincts we are punished and deemed to be “too helpful” to be taken seriously. YIKES!

So what the hell do we* do? The most obvious option is to just say no. Unfortunately, we all know that is easier said than done so it’s something we end up tightroping. There are small things we can try to start. Instead of agreeing to take the meeting notes, say that you would prefer to be active in the discussion (or something like that) and then (helpfully!) suggest someone else in your place. Don’t bring in treats or make the coffee or offer to get that condolence card. Basically, ask yourself: would [insert name of any guy from your office] do this? And if the answer is no: then move along, pretty lady! If you just absolutely can’t say no to these tasks for whatever reason, keep track of the time you spend doing them and include that in your annual review discussion. That way you have a record of all the time you spent doing shit that wasn’t your job! 

Don’t be the office Mom, and don’t just be a bitch. Be the HBIC 👑

*I hate that we have to help solve this problem that we didn’t create

Quiet trend setter

This all things quiet trend is too much! Now that quiet quitting has run its course, people are talking about quiet firing. I find this newest iteration equally annoying. Quiet firing is when a supervisor is generally unsupportive on purpose. They are passive aggressive or not giving an employee a promotion or pay increase with little to no justification. That is a terrible way to operate and a surefire way to create a nightmare of a corporate culture. It isn’t clear if the quiet quitting leads to the quiet firing or vice versa but it all makes me want to quiet scream. 

You know what this all reminds me of? My dating life in college. I was one of those people who would mentally break up with someone but not want to have the actual conversation. Instead I would ignore calls and messages (left on my answering machine that sat on my kitchen counter!!!), cancel dates, or just start dating other people.* My theory was that whoever I was dating would get sick of this behavior and eventually break up with me to save me the effort. I was quiet firing people way before it was a thing. But that approach was nothing to be proud of. It was wholly immature, dragged things out unnecessarily and created confusion and hard feelings that likely could have been avoided. It also led to some very awkward interactions while I was bartending.**

Canceled dates = canceled check-in meetings or 1-on-1s

Waiting to get broken up with = waiting for employee to quit

Ignoring calls = unwilling to provide direct feedback

Move on to someone else = give attention to employees with more “potential” 

Actual quiet firing is worse though because it’s happening at work and can impact people’s livelihoods. If employees are underperforming, TELL THEM. If you are not happy with what they are producing, TELL THEM. The idea that this is the approach adults with authority are taking in the workplace goes against pretty much all we know about what good managers do. These aren’t 21-year-old college bartenders, they are leaders whose actions impact the rest of their team and the organizational culture. There is so much research on how to motivate employees and what to do when employees aren’t meeting expectations. There is also a ton of information on how to give feedback that is clear and constructive (even to people who are reactive). I think the people doing the quiet firing may also be missing the HUMAN aspects of their employees. If their performance started slipping all of a sudden what triggered it? Are they ok? Are they struggling with issues outside of work? Great leaders care and ask questions founded in empathy and psychological safety.

If you have tried all of these things with an employee who just isn’t cutting it and nothing changes then it’s time to let them go. You will need to actually tell them this or have HR do it for you. I realize firing people can be exceptionally difficult emotionally, and in some states practically, but there are ways to do it that are humane. Don’t be a quiet fire-er or a quiet quitter be a leader and remember that leadership is an action not a position (that’s a quote from Donald H. McGannon, I didn’t come up with that gem). I hope the next quiet trend to emerge is quiet eating because the sound of other people chewing makes me crazy (#Misophonia). 

*Yes, I was a jackass back then. Also, social media didn’t exist so it was much easier to be a shady lady.

**Once the guy I quiet fired came into the bar and sat next to the guy I started dating instead. NEXT TO HIM. That was not a great shift.

Circling back to quiet quitting

After I wrote about quiet quitting (a term that I still despise) I kept talking about it more with friends and colleagues. A thought provoking comment on my post and an intellectually stimulating conversation at Dave and Buster’s (a sentence that has likely never before been uttered) made me realize that I didn’t really address the organization's responsibility for this trend. My (made up) estimate is that it’s about 85% the organization’s fault. Leaders and managers are ignoring the signs of burnout all around them which is crazy because 72% of employees say stress or burnout is an issue for their organization. They are also failing to recognize that their employees are PEOPLE. Actual human beings with needs and desires beyond their jobs. Sadly, this is not new, it has merely been brought to the forefront by the pandemic. Companies have been mistreating employees in a variety of ways for long enough that many laws are on the books to protect employees. Are they working? That’s a post for a different day…

Much of the employee protection legislation deals with physical safety and non-discrimination but that’s not what quiet quitting is about. This phenomenon is driven by the overwhelming mental burdens being placed on employees. American workers are some of the most stressed on the planet. The combination of the lingering uncertainty of coronavirus and being asked to do more with less has brought many to their breaking points. For some the answer to this untenable situation was to quit. The Great Resignation saw millions exit the workforce (for a variety of reasons). Perhaps quiet quitting is just the next best option; it allows employees to reclaim some of their time and still get paid. But it’s not an actual solution to the problem. It’s like taking two Advil the morning after drinking four Mai-tais in the Maui sun. Theoretically it should make you feel a bit better but if you really wanted to feel better you should have not had so many Mai-tais, taken Advil before bed, and drank some water.* 

The actual problem is much larger, it’s the organization's culture (or the sugary Mai-tais). It’s also the pressure from up the chain attempting to drive performance without much thought to the resources provided or the impacts on their employees. This disengagement from the humanity of employees just isn’t going to work anymore. If companies want to attract and retain talent they have to do better. McKinsey & Company just put out a great report on what they are calling the The Great Renegotiation. Companies have to understand that employees have more options now and better organizational cultures attract and retain the best people. 

Creating a good culture doesn’t just happen. Leaders have to be purposeful in considering what will work and how to implement it. A great place to start is by taking a look at what is done to show employees that they are valued. How are managers truly acknowledging the work of their employees and their contributions to the company? If the answer is a shoulder shrug there is work to be done. Showing employees they are valued doesn't take a huge investment, it’s a combination of a lot of little things. There is so much research about how to motivate employees and some of the things are so easy and make a big difference. Remembering that employees are people is key. They want to be seen, to have their opinions heard, and to know that their work is appreciated. 

Please know I am not saying that a hearty “thank you” or free bagels are going to eliminate quiet quitting. Thanking people visibly and loudly for the work they do is a start, but there needs to be specific attempts to lessen employee workloads. Here are some things I think will work:

Make a plan to remove some of the extra work from their plate so they see light at the end of the tunnel

Run interference when other employees try to delegate to already overworked members of your team.

Advocate for compensation that aligns with what people are actually doing, not just what is in their job description. 

Organizations are run by people. We need them to do better on this so we can move on to the next catchy yet annoying workplace fad!

*This is definitely a made-up situation (no it’s not) #mauifever

Persevering down the rabbit hole

Graduate school teaches you a lot. One of the things you learn is that we really don’t have any new ideas. Every great thing we think we came up with someone else already said/wrote/did. It can be really disheartening to think you have a brilliant idea only to realize there is already research on the same thing from forty years ago. When this happens you have to get to the original source and find out if they really said what you are trying to or if there are ways to expand the idea in some way. Sources and citations are key in research for better or worse. They are our currency. The impact/importance of our work is often considered in terms of how many other authors cite you.* Not giving credit to someone via citation in a paper is plagiarism. That is bad. As a Professor of Business Ethics I do not want to be the person who didn’t properly cite someone (#unethical). 

When I started working on tightroping I did my research. I looked at Google Scholar, I tried every key word similar to tightroping and I didn’t find anything. I looked at social psychology and sociology as well to see what those researchers were up to and I decided that I was on to something. Yes, there are other concepts that make up part of tightroping (i.e., impression management) but they are not the whole story. So off I went! 

About sixteen months into my research and writing I was reading an awesome book called Delusions of Gender (2010). And there on page 58 I saw this written: This catch-22 positions women who seek management roles on a “tightrope of impression management.” This sentence took me to a citation that says this: A phrase (tightrope of impression management) coined by Janet Holmes, author of Gendered Talk (2006), cited by Cameron, 2007, p. 141.

As you can see from my thoughtful margin notes this threw me for a loop. 

From the way this is written, it seems like this is a phrase people know. How did I miss it? “Coined by” makes me think this is something people say often!!! Was I stealing some other woman’s idea? Had I heard it and (accidentally) just repackaged it? Am I an idiot? Should I stop writing about tightroping? This was all followed by a flurry of texts to friends, a little bit of crying, some Scotch, and trash television to get it together.

I needed to find the Holmes citation to see what she was talking about. So I looked up the book and saw that Dr. Holmes was a sociolinguist (I am not) so I felt better about not bumping into this phrase. I also saw that the complete title of her book was Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Social Identity Through Workplace Discourse. That’s a wobbly start. This told me that it was likely that Fine cited Cameron who cited Holmes and Fine may not have read the original quote. Still with me? Ok. No big deal so now that I had the Holmes book, I will see where she COINED this phrase. But guess what? She didn’t. On page 35 Holmes said: Joanna Brewis cites research on senior women who trod a tightrope of impression management. I looked up that citation in the index and found that, Dr. Joanna Brewis (Professor of People and Organizations), wrote: Telling it like it is? Gender, language and Organizations theory. This is a chapter in a book titled The Language of Organization (2001). By some miracle our library had an e-copy of this book. There, on page 299, Brewis said: Sheppard makes reference to the fact that her women managers had to be careful to tread a ‘tightrope” of impression management. 

At this point I believe I literally lost just a bit of my mind. WHO IS SHEPPARD????

Off to Brewis’ bibliography where I found that Sheppard was a sociologist in Canada. She wrote a chapter titled Organizations, Power and Sexuality: The Image and Self-Image of Women Managers that appeared in a book from 1989 titled The Sexuality of Organization. I had to request an actual physical copy of this book from the library, wait for a human to find it, and then go to the library to pick it up. Like the olden days. Now, with The Sexuality of Organization in my grubby little mitts, I started reading her chapter. On page 145 this phrase appears: They (women) live in the spotlight, highly visible, and they are very much alone up there on the corporate tightrope. CORPORATE TIGHTROPE! Wait, WHAT??? After several long, slow, deep breaths, I checked to make sure Sheppard didn't cite anyone. She didn’t. I had come to the end of the citation rabbit hole. And what did I learn? 

No phrase was “coined”

Sheppard is not using “tightrope” in the way other citations say she is

There is no direct mention of impression management 

People don’t read the things they cite

I wasn’t stealing some other woman’s idea

The library pick up desk is on the ground floor

Academia is maddening (I knew that this was just a reminder)

If you made it to the end of this harrowing tale you, my friend, have perseverance. It has a lot of different names: grit, determination, moxie (that is a fun one!!), tenacity, stamina and it is absolutely vital to achieving your goals. When this is how you operate, you muscle through even when things suck. The initial research on grit indicated that it was the key element to success, but new studies show that you also need passion about what you are doing to truly get you through the muck. That makes sense to me. I always say I don’t have my PhD because I am a some genius, I have it because I am determined. Even when I was wallowing in statistics-related self-doubt I was writing a dissertation I believed in and that drove me to keep going. That little dash of passion definitely helped. 

If you are thinking that this just isn’t something you have, it turns out you can work on it. Perseverance is a skill. There are some specific things you can do to develop your perseverance over time and part of making these changes is a growth mindset. If you  aren’t currently feeling the growth mindset and don’t want to persevere through any of these readings, let me offer you Dr. Duckworth’s TED talk. Baby steps count on the road to developing this skill!

Now that I have confirmed no ideas were stolen, I am going to keep writing about tightroping. I made it a verb and filed my trademark application. This website is the initial citation and I coined the term. I hope it becomes popular enough to get mis-cited. 

*If you ever use Scholar.Google for research look @ the citation count of a paper. That is usually an indication of the degree to which other researchers find it valid and useful. Alternatively, the count is high because this researcher is already “academic famous” and everyone cites them without actually reading what they wrote. 

Why leaning in is trash

Writing about quiet quitting the other day made me think about “leaning in” because it feels like the exact opposite. Leaning in was a huge deal a few years ago and is all about women looking for new and more opportunities as a work. Sheryl Sandberg popularized the idea with her book of the same title which came from her TED talk. Leanin.org offers “circles” women can join, resources, research, and articles. All great stuff! There are some suggestions in the book that I particularly like*:

1. Sit at the table. Rather than being on the periphery (literally or figuratively) we (women) need to pull up a chair and make our presence known.

2. Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t pass up opportunities because you think your life may change. She gives the example of pregnancy and women who have passed up promotions because they are trying to get pregnant. Basically that will take at least 8-9 months (likely longer) and other people are advancing while you stagnate waiting for something to happen. 

Awesome advice from the (former) COO of Facebook.** Here’s the thing though. Sheryl was writing for a very specific audience (crucial if you want to get a book deal which I very much do) but her book was touted as if it was a game changer for all working women. I wish! I wish that book existed (and that I wrote it), but it doesn’t and it won’t. Every woman faces unique challenges for a multitude of reasons (#intersectionality) so leaning in was never going to be the solution. 

A brief summary of the life of Sheryl Sandberg:

Her dad was a doctor (ophthalmologist), her mom taught college french 

She was a National Honor Society member in high school 

Her undergraduate is from Harvard and she was the top graduating student in economics (that is exceptionally impressive!). She made connections with faculty there that allowed her to work at the World Bank. 

She earned an MBA from Harvard with highest distinction (that is very bad ass)

Sheryl is highly educated, white, wealthy (her reported net worth is $1.5 billion. With a B.), straight, married, and well-connected. There is no doubt that she  is an exceptional and brilliant woman but she is NOT the norm. Many, many women do not have the advantages she had from birth so her advice sometimes goes off the rails a bit for regular ladies. For example she addresses the important issue of partners stepping up and fully taking on ½ of the responsibilities of a parent and member of a household. Great. They should, but there are a lot of single moms out there with zero help. Added bonus, even women with partners can’t allow themselves the opportunity to lean in when childcare is insanely expensive, not readily available, and women continue to be the “default” parent when something goes wrong. And these are only the starting point of the issues being faced by working women.

This all makes me want to scream. Our systems are broken. We need support for women in so many ways but suggesting we do more is definitely not the answer (BTW there is a book titled Lean Out and it’s great!)  but neither is quiet quitting. We need some sort of happy medium. I’m hoping tightroping can be part of it.

*There are other suggestions that are good but a little obvious. “Work hard” being one of them. No shit, Sheryl. 

**Please note this book was published at a time when we didn’t all understand the depths of Zuckerberg’s terribleness

SMART Goals

Good morning blog readers! In my first post a few weeks ago I laid out my SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals for sabbatical. As a reminder here is my plan:

• Weekly or bi-weekly blog posts on academically-adjacent ideas about the invisible burdens on women @ work and tightroping

  • I am consistently posting Tuesday and Thursday @ 11am

• Monthly blog posts where I rant about how Sheryl Sandberg sold us all a lie and that leaning in is a bunch of bullshit and/or stories about my son

  • Son stories ✔️

  • Sheryl Sandberg post coming next week ✔️

• Six or seven completed book chapters

• An additional dog

• A book contract with an actual company so that I don’t have to make hard copies of what I write to give as gifts

It’s been less than a month but I am feeling good and that’s probably because making progress on your goals is shown to make us happier. It feels great to write and, weirdly, science also shows that it also makes us happier. You know what else makes us happier? DOGS!!!

Please meet our newest family member: Mango San Carlos 🥭

His brother, Mr. Crenshaw Sniffers (L) wavers between indifference and slight jealousy. Human son is very happy with this development. A New Life Rescue was wonderful if you are looking for a dog-faced friend. I can officially cross this (measurable) goal off my list!

I already knew how much I love having a dog but the actual research on what they bring to our lives is so interesting! Dogs are shown to increase our levels of oxytocin thus literally making us feel better. They also decrease stress levels in us and our kids and can make us healthier. This begs* the question: do these benefits carry over to work? It looks like they do! Workplaces that allow (well-trained) dogs in the office decrease absences and increase employee retention. They also increase productivity and communication between employees and it’s a great way to attract younger employees. There are clearly people who do not appreciate doggie licks or barks during meetings so having dogs in the workplace can be a tricky thing to establish. Understanding your employees is crucial to making this work and there are some great suggestions if this is something you want to implement or pitch at your office. If just thinking about having your furry friend with you all day sounds like a dream here is a list of companies that will let you.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a baby dog belly to rub!

*unintentional dog pun

Free to be

This tightroping idea has been in my brain for a while now. I like the word. I like the concept and women know EXACTLY what I am talking about when I say it. But so what? 

“So what?” was the question my PhD advisor would ask (after a painfully long pause) any time I told him a new idea I had for a project. It seems like such an innocuous question and yet it can totally destroy your day and your confidence.

I sat down the other day and started thinking about my “so what” and realized I have several. Today I want to talk about this one: I’m a Mom. In case you are wondering, I am 100% one of those annoying Moms who will show you pictures of her kid that you did not request to see. He is adorable. That is a fact. One of the (many) jobs I have as a Mom (as far as I am concerned) is to instill confidence in my kid. I want to make sure that he is comfortable in his own skin as he moves through the world and that the opinions of others don’t affect him. This is not easy. Have you hung out with any kids under 10 lately? They are savage with their opinions, disheveled, and generally terrible.* 

We are trying to develop his confidence by creating an emotionally healthy home that offers psychological safety. Having long talks about how and why all people are different. Validating his feelings. Playing songs with important messages. And reading books that highlight all the great things that result from just being yourself. 

The current favorite song  is W.I.T.C.H. by Devon Cole. You haven’t lived until your 6-year old is singing “she’s a woman in total control of herself” while doing his chores.

If you are rolling your eyes I GET IT. Before I had a kid I would have made fun of me. But these little maniacs make you just want to protect them. Unfortunately, at some point he has to leave the house and interact with people that aren’t his loving, accepting, delightful parents and friends. That is when I hope that all of those talks, and stories, and hugs are enough to make him not compromise himself or dull his shine for others. 

But GUESS WHAT??? I was doing the exact opposite in my own damn life. At home I was preaching the Free to be You and Me gospel but out in the world I was dulling my own shine. My words hold zero legitimacy if I am not applying them to myself so I decided I needed to make a change. I needed to cultivate the confidence of a six-year old dancing to his favorite Lady Gaga song in the living room. 

To clarify, I don’t lack confidence in a general sense. I claim my accomplishments and think I am generally kicking ass at life but there is room for improvement. I realized that I was holding parts of myself back at work. I was reluctant to speak up In certain circles because I didn’t want to come off as “pushy.” I was unwilling to contradict some colleagues for fear of repercussions. I didn’t wear the nose hoop piercing that I love for fear it would look unprofessional. I let the inappropriate comments go. All of this was me sacrificing part of myself and letting the (potential) opinions of others determine my behavior. 

That’s a hard pass from here on out. Me tightroping all of those behaviors and thoughts wasted my time, my brain power, and compromised the true expressions of my opinions which might have helped other women at work. I’m sure I will still tightrope things from time to time but when I catch myself I course-correct. Now I proof-read emails for errors not to check my “tone.” My nose hoop is in and I am committed to dismounting the tightrope at work. Watch out, I’m a W.I.T.C.H. 🪄

*I said what I said

A tribute to the G.O.A.T

Serena Williams is the epitome of a powerful woman. She owns her talent, strength, and opinions. In short-she is an icon. Last month she talked about the U.S. Open being her final tournament. Yesterday was the second round of the U.S. Open. Serena, currently ranked 605 in the women’s singles standing, beat Anna Kontaveit, the player ranked second. That in itself is impressive as is the fact that Serena is 14 years older than Anna. 40 year old bodies do not move and work like 26 year old bodies…

But here’s what I think is even more significant. Serena returned to tennis time and time again when people counted her out.* She came back from injuries, mental health struggles, and having a child. I can’t pretend to know what it is like to get back in Grand Slam shape after any of these issues. 

I do think it’s important to acknowledge my own illustrious tennis career. As a high school freshman I played third singles. In theory that was because I was the third best player on the team. In reality it was because the team just started that year and there were about five players total. My sophomore year I was “demoted” to the first doubles team. I am not a team player. I do not trust people to do things the way I do. I have control issues. I am working on them in therapy. So we had a doubles team consisting of one player who wasn’t happy to have to be a teammate and another who thought she was too good for doubles. It wasn’t good. We didn’t work together. We didn’t like each other. And then one day she didn’t run for any shots and I threatened to hit her in the head with my racquet. I was demoted to third singles. We were terrible. I switched to track the next year and that is a story for another day (#longjump). The end. 

In her on-court interview after the match yesterday there was a moment that was spectacular. Here’s how it went:

Interviewer: Are you surprised at yourself with your level (of play)?

Serena: Literally CHUCKLES

Interviewer (apparently just  realizing who she’s talking to-the damn G.O.A.T.): No. I know.

Serena: I’m mean, I’m just Serena, you know.

Just Serena. Just the greatest tennis player (and maybe athlete) of all time. Just a barrier breaking, African American woman who is a role model to millions of women and girls. Just a player who rocked a catsuit in protest of gendered dress codes in tennis. Legendary. Her comment in that interview is a lesson to us all. We can’t be shy about owning our accomplishments, ladies! Serena knows she is good. It’s not a fluke. It’s because she works hard. We do too. We have to own our accomplishments (this isn’t bragging!) because if we don’t someone else will take credit for our amazing work. 

Here are some tips on how to claim credit without being insufferable. If you still aren’t ready to toot your own horn, have someone else do it for you. Maybe even get together with a few women and decide to form a group (coven?) where you purposely highlight each other’s work. Don’t fly under the radar. Be like Serena. Be the G.O.A.T. in your office!

*Let’s be honest, people were counting her and Venus out for years. Until they started kicking everyone’s asses.

Loud working

My friends and I have been texting about quiet quitting a lot and, per my earlier blog post, we all think it’s dumb. In one of our threads, my amazing friend and colleague Dr. Justine Farrell said, “what about loud working?” This is a truly inspired turn of phrase. What is loud working you ask? Well, (according to my smart lady text thread) it’s when people need everyone to know that they are working. That they are BUSY. We all know these people (we sometimes are these people). No matter what the situation they fill you in on all of the very important things they are doing even when you did not ask. They will spend 20 minutes doing something that could have been done in 5 just to make a point that they “add value” and they are often energy vampires.* From what I can tell, there are two types of loud workers:

1. The ones who talk about how busy they are but a lot of the work is self-created busy work that isn’t important or useful

2. The ones who talk about how busy they are but are actually barely fulfilling their duties and/or doing a whole lot of nothing

I’m not sure which is worse but both of them drive me bonkers. I wish this didn’t annoy me so much but it does and I think it’s because WE ARE ALL BUSY. Just because we aren't bragging about our overloaded calendars, looming deadlines, or jammed inbox doesn't somehow make us less busy. Research shows that some people have an inherent need to be busy (or at least say they are) because busy = important and busy = valuable to the organization. But really, busy is generally a facade.

Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe they are just not organized or lack time management skills. Studies show that some people are simply more efficient with their time which leads to increased productivity. No matter what the cause, it turns out always telling people how busy you are is potentially harmful to your career and can impact opportunities for you at work. This need to be busy is also bad for your physical and mental well-being. If you're reading this and you are or know a loud worker here are some things to say instead and some suggestions for how to stop. 

I’m going to try and be less annoyed with loud workers because it’s not a business competition and if it is I am not interested in winning. I want to do my job (well) and have the opportunity to spend time not doing my job and that’s ok. In fact it’s healthy and makes me MORE productive. So take note loud workers! Spend less time telling everyone how busy you are and more time doing the actual work. You’ll feel more accomplished, you may improve your standing at work, and your colleagues won’t feel drained or angsty after every interaction. Everyone wins!

*Please watch this if you aren’t familiar with energy vampires and their powers. And if you love absurdity I highly recommend What We Do in the Shadows. Vampires + Staten Island? Yes, please.