Innie or outie?

The other day I had this conversation with my son:

Leo: Mama are you an innie or an outie?

Me: Well, I have an innie belly button but when I was pregnant with you it was sort of an outie.

Leo (looking at me like I have lost my mind): I meant do you like it better when you are inside or outside.

Me: Ohhhhhhh. 

Turns out that sometimes kids ask questions that mean one thing to them and something entirely different to you. His innie or outie question led to a conversation about people who like to stay at home and people who like to be outside. I said some people feel good and recharge their bodies and brains by having quiet time alone (introverts) and others can do that by being around other people (extroverts/extraverts, either spelling works). He asked if you could be both and I said, “you bet!” because I sure am. The idea of people being introverts or extroverts is something that has become part of regular discussion and I think that’s pretty cool (because I am decidedly not cool). I love seeing posts on Instagram* about introverts socializing for an evening and needing days to recover. I get that. I also get being outgoing and I never shut the hell up and those are decidedly extroverted characteristics. Introversion and extroversion are part of the Big 5 dimensions of personality, also known as the five factor model. Researchers way back to the 1930s wanted to understand our differences so they started with lists of thousands of adjectives to describe personality traits. Over time they began to see where traits overlapped and in 1990 a formative study that thoroughly vetted and validated the Big 5 was published. This helped the Big 5 test gain traction with researchers and the business community. If you’re wondering why these five in particular, it’s because they accounted for the most robust representation of our personalities. In other words, these five personality traits pretty much contain everything in terms of how we operate and see the world. Each of the five personality dimensions can be thought of as ends of a spectrum. Most of us fall somewhere in between the extremes of these traits, but we all know people who definitely do not (I’m looking at you extroverted extroverts!). Here is a useful breakdown of the dimensions:

To measure our traits, The Big Five test presents fifty statements that you rate on a scale of very inaccurate to very accurate when describing yourself. Some items include: have a vivid imagination, make friends easily, and complete tasks successfully. The results present the degree to which you exhibit these characteristics.** You can be high in some categories and low in others. For example, you might find that you rate high in openness. This doesn't mean that you are never spontaneous or curious, just that it isn’t your default setting. If you are interested in finding out more about your own Big 5 here is a free version of the test. Like any psychological measurement, it isn’t foolproof and your results depend on how truthfully you answer the questions. 

Some companies use the Big 5 (or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Wonderlic) as a way to understand a candidate's strengths and weaknesses but, like any psychological measurement, it isn’t foolproof and your results depend on how truthfully you answer the questions. Even so, I think there is value in tests like these because they offer us insight into ourselves and an opportunity to to be introspective. Taking time to just sit with yourself (flaws and all) and consider why you do the things you do may feel indulgent at the moment but I think it’s a good use of your time. Understanding how your personality drives your decisions and behavior can help shed light on things you may want to change. Of course you can’t just decide to be a completely different person (certain “celebrities” aside), but you can take steps to change the parts of your personality that no longer serve you. I think it’s all about balance and no matter what, I like you exactly how you are. Innie, outie, or somewhere in between. 

*I know these also exist on TikTok but I am not on TikTok because I fear I will never do anything else ever again if I download the app.  

** In news that is not at all shocking I am exceptionally high in neuroticism and conscientiousness.

A skill is a skill

In college I was a bartender at a place on campus at the University of Pittsburgh called Fuel & Fuddle. I got this job by lying. A friend put in a good word for me and the job application I filled out was me writing my info on a cocktail napkin. I said I was 21 (I was several months short of 21). I said I had previous bartending experience (I didn’t). No one checked and I was hired! Hooray for the 90s! Every Tuesday and Thursday I would go to my 9am philosophy class and then straight to my shift to restock the beer and get ready for the lunch crowd. I also worked every Saturday and Sunday for brunch which made for some particularly trying bus rides and shifts.* But at that age you are resilient! 

I often tell students that, no matter what job you are doing, you can learn skills and pick up ideas applicable to other jobs. These types of transferable skills are things you can highlight in your resume and discuss during interviews. Sure, being a bartender seems like it has absolutely nothing in common with being a professor but I learned many useful skills behind the bar. I had to communicate, work with a team, adapt to new situations and managers, and pay attention to detail. Those are useful things for any job! Of all the things I learned though I think these are the most important:

How to think on my feet

Every once in a while people would order a drink I had never heard of. Rather than actually telling them that, I would engage in some very stealth on the job learning. Some might call it faking it until you make it. I would duck behind the bar, open the bartender book, and make a rough approximation of what they ordered, usually with a heavy pour. Guess what? People don’t usually complain about their drinks when they get extra booze! This allowed me to build up my cocktail repertoire over time and I never had to show my (slightly incompetent) hand.

Pro tip: If you find yourself bartending and someone who really wants to feel terrible the next day orders a Long Island Iced Tea just pour a little bit of about four types of random liquor into a pint glass and add the tiniest splash of Coke. Et voilà! Bonus points if you can hold and pour all four bottles at once. I could. This isn’t really a transferrable skill.

There are pros and cons to this approach but in this situation it worked beautifully. In a corporate setting faking it until you make it can be far dicier and isn’t recommended. Instead of pretending you know what you are doing, ask for help! I know asking for help can feel weird and many of us like to figure things out on our own but sometimes it’s the most straightforward solution. It also turns out that asking for help has a lot of benefits and there are some fairly easy ways to do it without making yourself feel like a failure. I ignored this advice in favor of tips.

Multitasking

As a bartender you have to keep everyone at the bar happy and make all the cocktails for the rest of the restaurant. I can remember being on the phone (it had a cord and was attached to a wall) while inputting a take-out order (there was no internet!), while grabbing food, and filling drinks. If you don’t multitask (#hustle) you won’t get tipped and then you can’t pay your rent. 

This all comes in handy while teaching classes. Faculty have to constantly scan the room checking for facial expressions and body language. We monitor this to see if students are confused or checked out. We need to be ok with being stopped in mid sentence to answer questions and then get back on track. We have to use the classroom technology in a way that is useful and not distracting. Oh, and we have to be engaging. That’s a lot to ask while also delivering actual course content so if you can’t multitask you are going to have a rough time teaching.

Managing unruly individuals 

Drunk people can be a handful. At the bar I mostly had obnoxious people acting a fool and saying stupid (i.e., sexist) things to me. I often handled it with exceptionally dry humor and sarcasm and tried to never show that I was ruffled. There were times when that was hard because I also encountered some inappropriate and handsy jerks who assumed I wouldn’t cut them off and have them thrown out. They were wrong. So sarcasm and threats of not being able to come back to the bar helped. 

You know who else can be a handful? Students! Sadly, I have had similar experiences in class. I have been insulted, had my credentials questioned (how could a lady have a PhD and be teaching an MBA class?!), and encountered exceptionally disruptive students.** You know exactly who I am talking about. They over-contribute and dominate class discussion (often having not actually read the material) and they love to play “devil’s advocate.” They are combative with other students and say inflammatory things because they love to stir the pot. They are annoying and it is our job to manage them without alienating them or the rest of the students. So in comes the dry humor and sarcasm. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it often helps to make the situation more manageable. When that doesn’t work, I bring on the threats. Luckily, I have only had two instances where that was necessary. 

Once a student walked into my class 20 minutes late carrying a red Solo cup and nothing else. No backpack. No pen. Nothing. He was clearly drunk and proceeded to “contribute” for about 40 minutes and then left early. He had been slightly obnoxious before but this was BOLD. This was the last class before Spring Break and I sent a doozy of an email to him. I believe I alluded to the fact that his behavior could be “cause for dismissal.” He freaked out and wrote a lengthy apology email and then apologized to the class. See? Sometimes threats are helpful!

Making cocktails

My Bloody Mary game is STRONG thanks to having to make them by the pitcher at brunch. My exceptionally dirty, shaken, vodka martinis are masterpieces. I own a cold smoke gun and can make you a smoked Old Fashioned. Give me some mezcal and I will whip you up a treat. You have no idea how much this skill transferred during quarantine!

There’s a great quote, “Hire for character. Train for skill.” from the former CEO of Porsche, Peter Schultz. I am a firm believer in this idea and not counting people out. Especially when you are hiring. Take those fundamental transferable skills a promising candidate has (no matter what industry they are from) and teach them the rest of what they need to know. Keep in mind the systemic and physical barriers that many people face when trying to get hired in the corporate world and look for the skills. Shifts like these are what produce more diverse, equitable, and ultimately profitable organizations. Just make sure you check their age and employment history ;) 

*Ever gotten really sick and wickedly hungover from drinking something like Captain Morgan and then had to make drinks with Captain Morgan several hours later? I do not recommend it. Unrelated, even smelling Captain Morgan still makes me feel queasy.

** In case you were wondering, yes they were all men. 

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

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. 

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

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.

Quiet quitting is stupid

I don’t know how some stuff catches on but I think this whole “quiet quitting” thing is truly dumb. First, it’s not actually about quitting. Anyone who is quiet quitting is keeping their jobs and basically shifting their approach to work. The idea is that, rather than spending your time going above and beyond at your job, you simply fulfill your required duties. This is not revolutionary and I would argue it is merely repackaged work-life balance. I would also argue that work like balance is an absolute joke and doesn’t exist but that is a rant for another time. The quiet quitters out there are shutting their computers off at 5pm and heading home for some self-care.* They are focused on work fitting into their lives and not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, none of this is bad but it also isn’t a as exciting as TikTok would lead us to believe. 

We are all trying to reclaim (i.e. desperately CLAW back) some of our personal time. While working at home during Covid, the line between work and home completely disappeared and now that many of us are back in the office the shift is jarring. No more folding laundry during meetings or middle of the day Hot Girl Walks. Instead people have to readjust to being back at their desks for many hours and day and the idea of staying late or working at home in the evening is no longer appealing. But was it ever? I have never encountered anyone who adores working long hours at the expense of personal time. 

Where I really struggle with quiet quitting is that someone has to pick up the slack. Yes, it is an organizational issue when employees are tasked with more than their fair share of responsibility for things beyond their job description but it all needs to get done. If you work as part of a team and opt to quiet quit (but don’t say anything, you know, because it’s “quiet”) that extra work is likely getting foisted on them. Some people may simply not care but, as I have said before, we work with other HUMANS and they would also likely enjoy reclaiming a bit more of their time as well.

Maybe one good thing that will come of this is a realization by leaders in organizations that the boundaries between work and home need to be reestablished. That’s tricky territory considering the many ways Covid completely transformed the way we work but it is possible. Maybe start by looking at our European friends. They are implementing the  four-day work week with great results. Employees are happier and more productive. Their overall mental health is improving and they have extra time for laundry and Hot Girl Walks. Sounds like a win-win to me. 

*Unless they have kids in which case they are heading home to be bossed around and to cook pasta for the thousandth time.

Chunky love

I just opened a jar of peanut butter, realized it was chunky and actually said “Oh, FUCK* yeah!” out loud. Is it ridiculous to be this excited about something so mundane? I don’t think so. If something so small makes you happy why not embrace it? There is a lot of research out there that shows that appreciation or gratitude (even for the small things) leads to greater overall satisfaction with life, improved mental health, and a bunch of other useful stuff. The consensus is that we should write down what we are grateful for. This way, rather than just being forced to talk about what you are thankful for at the Thanksgiving table it becomes part of your daily routine.

I do not want to do that.

The idea of adding anything to a daily routine is a hard pass for me. When people say they wake up, journal, meditate, and do some stretching all before their first coffee I have thoughts. I assume either they live alone and have no kids, or they wake up at 4.30 to fit all this into their day, or they are a zillionaire with no job. I do not fall into any of these categories so I looked for other options and I found some great suggestions. 

These aren’t hard to do. Asking someone what’s awesome in their life is a pretty great way to bring gratitude into normal conversations without being over the top. Genuinely thanking someone for their efforts isn’t hard and it makes people so happy to know that you see them. Speaking of being happy, it turns out that the best way to make yourself happy is to do stuff for other people. From what I can tell, a big component of gratitude is just getting out of your own head and actually paying attention to the people and things around. I can do that. 

 * I was going to change this to “hell” because I was worried that people may not like swearing but then I remembered the ENTIRE POINT OF WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO!! Not going to tightrope my own damn website. 

I ❤ a plan

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a plan. If that plan can come with a list and/or bullet points even better! It only makes sense that I have some sort of plan for my sabbatical and I do: write a book. Unfortunately, that is a terrible plan.

Maybe some people just sit down and write a book. I am not them. The idea of an entire book is overwhelming to me so I’m going to approach it in manageable pieces using what we know from academic studies on goal setting. There is a lot out there about what works and what does not but I like the ideas around SMART goals. This seems useful and breaks “write a book” down into actionable steps. These are my sabbatical SMART goals:

SPECIFIC

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

• 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

• 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

MEASURABLE

Either I wrote things or I didn’t. I can count the number of dogs living with us (currently one).

ATTAINABLE

These do not seem impossible. Though the whole book is more of a stretch goal, I am feeling good about making these things happen. With the caveat that the dog will happen when it happens but over sabbatical seems like a great time for an additional dog friend.

RELEVANT

These are all relevant to my overall desire to get what I have in my brain out to the world.

TIMELY

I only have a semester to make a lot of progress. I am very much hoping to accomplish* all of these things in that timeframe.

So, that’s the plan.

*Normally I would write that I “will accomplish” these things but I am trying to give myself some slack. I read an article the other day saying that people who set really high goals for themselves are often perfectionists so when they fall short of those goals, even by a little, they tend feel bad and are unable to acknowledge all the progress they made. That hit home. Also, I am imposing these goals on myself. If I don’t accomplish every last thing that is ok (I keep telling myself). So this is me trying to be laid back about getting things done. I am not laid back. Ever. This is hard.