Raw Drip

Are you special?  Are you a toothless, guy in your late 70’s?  Do you speak with a unidentifiable thick foreign accent and say things to passing women such as, “Lemme muk loove to you een my ‘ammock, pretty leedy!”  Are you a guy with stomach-churning B.O. and open sores on your arms?  Well, then - I am the woman for you!

It could be my 6ft tall Amazon-woman build or my laid-back nature that makes me bait for the strange, but all my life, the odd-ball guys (oh, and one girl) in school, on the job and everywhere in between have found me utterly irresistible.  I’d be flattered if I weren’t so repulsed by my fan base.  An old acquaintance of mine and Dick’s - a 5ft tall Chinese-Polynesian man with a fondness for computers, ballroom dancing and butch women - once described my impressive abilities to appeal to weirdos as a mathematical term - he said I was a strange attractor.  Dick loved this description and has used it to describe me ever since. 

How does one know if they’re strange attractor?  Look around you.  In my case, there are so many strange people around me that I’m forced to assume that I’m just strange, myself.  And, as one of the strange, maybe I give off a freak-vibe, undetectable to normal people, like those high-pitched sounds only a dog can hear?  Maybe my silent signal says, “Hey, I’m weird like you. Let’s get together”? 

I’m strange - we all are to a certain extent - but not so strange that I can’t spot other people’s weirdness and recognize that it’s way out of normal tolerances.  So rather than it being a case of sending out silent signals to my freaky peeps, it’s probably my friendliness that gets me into trouble; my willingness to talk to people accounts for most of my strange encounters. 

Like the time I was out shopping in NYC for my wedding with a visiting girlfriend.  Standing at the corner of 34th & 6th Avenue, a glassy-eyed man walked up and asked me if I knew where there was a Burger King.  Before I go on with this story, I have to acknowledge that most people know better - they know when you’re in New York City that you don’t chat with strangers on the street.  Heck, you don’t even look people in the eye.  But no, these facts never phased me and certainly didn’t curtail my desire to help the poor guy find a Burger King.  Back to my story… 

As I was giving him directions, he began to scream obscenities at me, “F’ing bitch, whore of a woman - all I want is a god-damned Diet Coke? Jesus Christ, why won’t you get me a Diet Coke? 

I replied back (Yes. I know, I know - I’m stupid…), “I’m trying to help you find a Burger King, sir. You never mentioned wanting a Diet Coke until…” 

“Are you nuts?  Stop talking to him!”, my girlfriend said as she wisely grabbed my arm and drug me across 6th Avenue traffic to get away from the raving lunatic still standing on the corner (still standing there DESPITE my very clear directions to the closest Burger King, I might add…). 

Thankfully for me, I have good friends around to save me from myself. 

My strange attractor gift may also have something to do with me being a good listener.  Often, the strange will offer up their bizarre opinions about random crap without any prompting from me, converting an otherwise ordinary situation, into a strange encounter of the worst kind.  

For instance, there was the time I was taking a cab to my OB/GYN and the overly friendly cabbie complimented me on my appearance saying that I was a “nice woman” and “very beautiful”.  Then, as we were stopped in traffic, he turned around to face me.  I instinctively sunk back into my seat and reached for the door handle.  With a frighteningly lecherous gaze he launched into a rant against Hillary Clinton, defending Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky as necessary to keep him from going insane from too much baby-batter on the brain. 

“Hillary, she don’t keep her husband satisfied, so poor Bill has to turn to a nice woman to take care of him.  If he don’t do that, then the entire country will be risky, cuz’ we men we can go crazy, you know?  Monica, now that’s a good American girl - round, pretty face and wanting to please the man.  She doing her patriot duty!  Hillary, you know, she like ice cube.  No man wants ice cube sitting on his lap, you know?”

Just as quickly as the diatribe began, it ended up with a bizarre pick-up line, “Hey baby, you a nice girl.  Would you like to meet me for dinner in Queens sometime?  I love the pretty American girl like you - nice girl like Monica.” 

Gee, let me think - uh, no thanks!  At least I didn’t need a friend to save me from this situation.

I could go on, but what’s the point - you get the idea.   The frizzy-haired guy who molested me on the downtown 6 train on a Friday evening, the homeless guy who chased me through Madison Square Park (with what I thought was a brick…), the toothless geezer in Vegas who watched me throw up in the trash can and then asked me out for dinner - they’re all strange and they’re all attracted to me.  I suppose there’s not much I can do about it.  I can’t stop being me and I think my family probably wouldn’t have me any other way - after all, I’m very entertaining.

I ruffled the feathers of my new boss last week by not going into the office during a blizzard.  With our daycare closed, every local school and municipality shut down and state & local authorities broadcasting urgent pleas for people to stay home, I (wisely) decided not to brave the unplowed roads and instead, opted to use my company-issued laptop to work from home. 

On my first day, my boss told me to look to my team to guide me on departmental policies. She assured me that she doesn’t have a lot of rules for her team and wants us all to work together to do what’s best for the company.  But being new to my job, I didn’t just assume that it would okay to work from home without asking.  I know from experience that managers can be oddly inconsistent in their application of work from home privileges.  Keeping this in mind, I followed her directions and pow-wowed with my colleagues and team lead who all reassured me that it would be appropriate to work remotely in this situation.  After all, the weather situation was forcing them to work from home, as well. 

That snowy day, despite having two small children with cabin fever in the house with me all day, I managed to be productive.  I even made major progress on a high-profile project by blowing off my lunch and working until 7 that night. 

Apparently, my focus, drive and dedication to my work are not qualities my manager is looking for. 

This week during a regular one-on-one, she gave me a stern warning about being too assumptive.  When I asked what she meant, she said that as a new employee she expected me to be more “humble”.  She expected me to reach out to her and ask permission to work from home, rather than assume I could do what everyone else in my department was doing.  Of course, this was completely at odds with her previous statements that my team is my guide and that the team doesn’t operate under a lot of rules.

So, rather than defend the circumstances of my case, I pointed out the contradictory nature of her messages.  On the one hand, she hired me to be a bold, independent worker who “takes risks”, “breaks paradigms” and other quasi-empowerment catchphrases she used during my interview.  That being the case, wouldn’t it be fair to say that consulting with my team lead and then following the directions of my colleagues is actually not all that risky or assumptive and certainly isn’t a step in the direction of paradigm-breaking?  Why I am I being called out for being too assumptive, when I should be being called out for not being the bold, independent thinker she hired me to be? 

As long as we’re talking about assumptive here, why did she assume that I’d know I’m only supposed to be selectively bold and independent in my thinking?  Isn’t it her responsibility as my manager to make all the rules and paradigms clear, so I can make more educated decisions about which ones to break?  And, assuming my only direction from her was to follow the lead of my team, how can I now be blamed for following HER instructions?  If she wants me to be someone who follows instructions, which instructions should I follow - the ones that say that I’m supposed to be bold, or the ones that say I’m supposed to be humble? 

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this wasn’t the response she was looking for.  I think she was looking for a simple apology, or perhaps a more extensive session of grovelling at her feet.  My response just annoyed and confused her.  On the upside, maybe I scored a few points as a bold, independent thinker.  I doubt it.

Something tells me I should just chalk up this whole melon-twisting experience to a boring, everyday case of micro-managing.   I guess if it makes my boss feel like she’s in control to have her independent thinkers (and did I mention that I’m also a mostly-responsible ADULT, as well?) asking her if they can work from home during a deadly blizzard, I will endeavor to oblige her in the future.  

I’d like think this is an isolated situation, but experience tells me that’s not the case.  So in an arrangement ready-made for a Dilbert strip, I understand that in my new role I not only need to figure out how to be selectively bold and independent while appearing humble, but I also need to learn how to follow all the rules my boss will never tell me she has until after I’ve broken them.  Great.  And people wonder why women in their 30’s are dropping their careers en masse to stay home and raise children.   Who knew that the world’s most intimidating job - child-rearing - could ever look easier than deciphering the conflicting directives of a typical job in corporate America…

I stumbled across these excellent parenting tips and knew immediately that I had to share them with others. 

(Note to self: bonding with baby over a cuppa’ = bad)

http://www.makememinimal.com/2008/instrucciones-para-cuidar-un-bebe/