Showing posts tagged people
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Tough. They just need to deal with it and wait for the next one. Whatever; I don’t care.
Mary, the driver of my Peter Pan bus to Hartford, about people who purchased a ticket for the overbooked 3pm bus online. Eticketed passengers were (for no clear reason) forced to wait until others with a ‘real’ boarding pass got a seat even though an eticket is, too, for that specific bus and a guaranteed seat. I was fortunate to have gotten on the bus as one of the last customers, but this was some of the worst customer service I have seen in a long time. Very disheartening. But, the people on the bus are some of the loveliest people. Lesson learned: all people who buy bus tickets at Port Authority get a seat and are nice.
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We ended up identifying our niche by that process of engaging the community in the conversation.
Laura McNulty, Executive Director of Health Horizons International, on how the programs were developed in an interview with WFYI public radio’s Barbara Lewis. Sounds smart to me!
Atlantic Avenue Subway Station I know graffiti is “just graffiti” and I shouldn’t read into it, but I did. I generally agree with the sentiment here (access to affordable, healthy food should be human right, especially according to the values on which our country was founded), but don’t think it accomplishes anything. Clearly, the intended audience is the government (unclear if it’s federal or state), and someone doesn’t like the inequity between rich people and poor people as status specifically relates to food. This just doesn’t sound productive though; it sounds spiteful and reminds me of an uninformed bumper sticker. Also, who’s even seeing this statement? Was it written out of sadness? Anger? Boredom? Does the door ironically lead to a hidden vault of unspent government money? (Ha!) My only point with posting this is that even though I’m questioning its original intent and effectiveness, it still made me think, which it might make you do, too. And maybe just maybe, one of my readers, or your readers or friends, will find some use for it to change attitudes or policy, and therefore do what no other single statement catalyst has helped our country to do. You just never know. View high resolution

Atlantic Avenue Subway Station

I know graffiti is “just graffiti” and I shouldn’t read into it, but I did. I generally agree with the sentiment here (access to affordable, healthy food should be human right, especially according to the values on which our country was founded), but don’t think it accomplishes anything. Clearly, the intended audience is the government (unclear if it’s federal or state), and someone doesn’t like the inequity between rich people and poor people as status specifically relates to food. This just doesn’t sound productive though; it sounds spiteful and reminds me of an uninformed bumper sticker. Also, who’s even seeing this statement? Was it written out of sadness? Anger? Boredom? Does the door ironically lead to a hidden vault of unspent government money? (Ha!)

My only point with posting this is that even though I’m questioning its original intent and effectiveness, it still made me think, which it might make you do, too. And maybe just maybe, one of my readers, or your readers or friends, will find some use for it to change attitudes or policy, and therefore do what no other single statement catalyst has helped our country to do.

You just never know.

Thinking about “Networking”

My friend Alisha thinks very similarly to how I do about “networking,” and she just wrote a great post about it. Here’s an excerpt describing what networking should be and what a lot of people try to make it:

What is networking, even? To be honest, I hate the term. Networking to me is a couple of things:

  • connecting people through genuinely exciting ideas
  • being social and attending social gatherings
  • fostering meaningful discussion
  • building a community of friends, peers, and leaders who will shape your goals
  • helping people help you achieve said goals

Networking is not the following, if you ask me:

  • blindly handing out business cards
  • steering conversations to be self-promotional
  • upselling your skills or expertise
  • faking your role in your industry
  • talking buzzwords and schemes to make yourself look good
  • stalking social media users online
  • going to happy hour meetups all the time to score free food & drinks

As with anything else, there are rules to building your network and sharing it with others. The rest of the post gives some good pointers for not ruining the network you are constantly building.

Forget Networking. How to Be a Connector.

This is what I do. I should probably bring it to some sort of scale someday. If you need connecting, I’m your girl.

[That statement alone is the downside of being a connector; we exhaust ourselves with completely sincere offers and then all of the requests and ideas come at once. But I’ve accepted that and love it anyway.]

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One of the advantages of not running for office is that I don’t ever have to pretend to be nice to people I don’t like.
Barney Frank

9 Skills Needed to Be a Super-Connector

Interesting blog post, though I have a few thoughts about / additions to it. Being a connector certainly is all of these things, but when there isn’t sincere interest in what you’re doing or the people you’re connecting, you can’t be an effective connector in the long term because people stop buying into it. How can you make each connection genuine? It’s also important in being a connector to remember that there are times not to connect; counter-intuitive, I know, but having the discretion to know the right timing if ever is key. Connections can be awkward if not done well, and then you’re adding a layer of complexity to someone’s life that perhaps is unnecessary. Finally, I would add that you should be strategic in not burning through or using up contacts. People don’t want to feel like they’re your token (for instance) finance buddy or comedy buddy or fundraising buddy. Make sure that you’re not tapping people unnecessarily or too frequently, because even if you’re great at managing a broad network, this may become overwhelming for them, which may affect your relationship.

I have a friend who’s a ‘real person’ now!

With pride masked in self-deprication, my friend sent me the following email:

I have always thought that this particular friend has a wealth of medical knowledge and fantastic bedside manner, so the achievement didn’t much surprise me. But, wow! It’s all legit suddenly!….because of the title? She agreed that she felt more like a ‘real person’, but added how crazy it is that “artificial certifications can do that to a person, especially a young person.” Two really interesting things here:

Achieving the rank of RN, or any other advanced degree for that matter, is an ‘artificial certification’. Totally agree with this. There’s a level of achievement, sure. The title means that classes were taken and tests were passed, and it also gives a person certain social mobility and often affect how they are perceived by others in that society. But, it doesn’t say much about aptitude and practical capabilities. Case in point, the above email. Second case in point, nurses who make mistakes with consequences. Another case in point, dummies with MBAs running things. To be clear here, I have total respect for nurses and other professionals who care about what they do and can be known as a professional based on their actions and developed thinking rather than letters after their name. This just doesn’t happen overnight when the degree candidate is endowed with a certificate, and for some recipients, it just never happens. So, the certification itself is indeed a bit artificial (even though artificial is often good enough!), even though it serves an identifying purpose in job seeking and societal structure.

The ‘real person’ feeling is strong especially to young people. Agree that it’s strong to young people, but I’d argue that it’s equally strong (if not stronger) for over-20s/30s adults. For folks who have more ‘real world experience’, they realize the advantages (artificial or not) of having an advanced degree - salary, employment opportunities, respect for institutional knowledge, access to different groups of people, etc. - and the achievement of entering a new status in their peer group carries that much more known weight. Further, the while it’s not true for all early 20s-post graduate candidates, many of them were ‘on track’ for their degree; even though getting it definitely changes their label from ‘student’ to ‘Professional’, it’s, as I described earlier, something we knew would happen all along. For the class of more adult adults who go back to school, the expectation of an advanced degree wasn’t always there, so the feeling is intensified by doing the unanticipated.

IN SUMMARY - I am very proud of my friend and other friends like her who have advanced degrees, and I think of them very much as real people, as opposed to the rest of us who are slightly less far along….. but not really, because I know it’s kind of artificial….. and kind of valid….. WHAT IS THIS SYSTEM?! [Can I be ‘real’ too without going back to school?!]

Top 10: People who I’ve learned from in 2010

(in no order whatsoever)

- Laura (dedication, determination, self-worth, being humble)

- Gram (sticking to values no matter what, taking care of yourself)

- Leah (value of routine, self-awareness, not having to say thank you and having it mean everything)

- Pat (loving someone unconditionally, setting boundaries, agreeing to disagree, self-confidence)

- Valerie (going after what you want, indulging personal passion, having incredibly sincere fun)

- Stef (putting things in perspective, choosing your battles, positive affirmations, balancing health and wellness with hard work and being a good friend)

- Liz (how to recognize actual emotions, important values that i often overlook, the power of a phone call)

- Chad (taking time for yourself, spontaneity, the intersections and separations of work from person)

- Dad (hearing other perspectives, what family means, appreciating generational differences and experiences)

- Me

To those I named and didn’t name, THANK YOU.