If You Belonged Here

I Hate Being New

I always hate new job locations. I'd say it was just the job, but it's not. It's mostly the location. Because I haven't learned my literal way around yet, I can't access the community printer, and I don't know where to go if I need to use the bathroom. Because things I usually don't have to think about require thought and planning and, gasp, the occasional request for help.

I hate to be at the mercy of the copy machine. Or the help desk. Both are far too smug.

I like to be efficient, and efficiency assumes practice, skill, and dexterity. Being new means that I have yet to acquire those things. Being new means that I am a novice.

We interrupt this post for a public service announcement:

Novices are not experts.

I like to be an expert, or at least, for the love of Hank, an intermediate. I cannot abide all of the flailing that comes with being new. I cannot stand to look incompetent or even unknowledgeable. I prefer to strut my prowess across the break room and sleepwalk through telephone call transfers. I prefer to multitask like an extra in a Cirque-du-Soleil performance.

I want to do it well and I want to be pretty while I do it. I do not want to do it pretty well for the n00b.

So, when I hear tell of someone having a first day on the job, my heart goes out to them. And closely behind my heart, as always, follows my tongue serving up that unsolicited advice you've come to know and love so well. Because I have a system for getting through the uncomfortable hazing that is loosely disguised as employee orientation.

Let's break it down:

1. Plan to absolutely hate it for at least two weeks. Really. And by hate, I mean hate, not dislike, people. Expect the first two weeks to rank up there with that mean girl from the seventh grade. You're just not going to look back on them fondly.

2. Nurture yourself: hot baths, yummy takeout, and a glass of wine at the end of each weekday (not necessarily in that order), and if you can afford it, a pedicure or a massage on that first weekend.

3. Get lots of sleep. Skip the late-night zoning out in front of the television. Go to bed early and let your DVR save some of your favorite shows for another time. And for Hank's sake, if you don't have DVR, you should really fix that now.

4. Show up ten to fifteen minutes early every day so you can just sit in your chair and stare at the wall for a few minutes before there are witnesses.

5. Every working day, during the normal lunch break, and even for five minutes in the morning and the afternoon, take a walk, preferably outside. The walk doesn't have to be long. Just stretch your legs, roll your neck, and work the kinks out. Go exploring. And if you are afraid of looking like a slacker, carry a notebook and a few file folders with you and walk fast. You'll look busy. I learned that from Seinfeld.

6. Eat a nice lunch. And bring a healthy snack.

7. Never, ever put off going to the bathroom when you need to go. Sure you can wait five minutes if need be, but if it's going to be longer than that, excuse yourself for a minute. Nothing makes me more irritable than an empty stomach or a full bladder.

8. Smile at everybody and say hello as if you really are happy to see them.

9. Be nice. See, hear, speak no evil. Listen carefully to all gossip, but never commit to a side.

And that's what I've got. A veritable blueprint to survival for the first two weeks. After that, you'll hate it less. By the end of two months, you might even really start to like it. But if you don't, keep this final piece of advice at the front of your mind:

The best time to update your résumé is on the first day of your new job.

How Do You Know?

Notice: please suspend sarcastic tone in favor of kindhearted, sympathetic voice for the duration of this post.

Once upon a time in a psychological state far, far away from the one I maintain today, I managed to get my falling-apart, tear-stained self out to run an errand; I don't remember what. The teller/clerk/server who looked up to find me standing like a puffy zombie in front of them, waiting to complete some manner of transaction, must have sensed that something was amiss because when said transaction was completed that teller/clerk/server said, "It's going to be okay."

Really?

"How do you know?" I asked, in all sincerity and without sarcasm.

Looking back, I feel a little sorry for the teller/clerk/server. Afterall, being nice to strangers shouldn't leave one searching for the keys to the universe. But the truth is, when someone is having a hard time, facing down trouble, or generally in the depths of despair, it's easy to say that it's going to be all right, but you can't really know that for sure.

Now sometimes, people say "this, too, shall pass" or "everything happens for a reason" but these aren't really the same thing as promising a happy ending. And "everything happens for a reason" isn't even true. I can hold with "this, too, shall pass" although, honestly, I don't find much comfort in the idea that whatever my problems, ultimately death will be a sure-fire cure.

Nice.

And, while some of you may beg to differ, "everything happens for a reason" just strikes me wrong. I prefer something more bootstrap, like "you can choose what you take away from this." I like the idea that I can choose to create as much positive as possible from a negative situation, even one that seems senseless. Because sometimes, there are no reasons, just stuff happening next to other stuff happening and the occasional collision.

I can remember times when all I wanted was an answer, any answer, even a catastrophic one, so I could plan my day. Not knowing often takes the mickey out of me. I just hate suspense. Seriously.

But sometimes, all I really wanted was to know that everything would be okay, peachy, and just fine. Mr. Poppins was good at delivering that line, "everything will be just fine," like it was the concrete, irrefutatable truth. I could believe him when he said it. I'd still believe him now, only lately he's had no occasion to dust that particular chestnut off.

But there are days, and most of us have had them, when we are crushed. There are times when we need something more than we have, when we need an answer, any answer. And on those days, the last thing we want is an empty promise. On those days, the only thing that will do is a miracle.

Lately, it seems I've been reading a lot of posts on various blogs about such intangibles as deep longing, certain doubt, and overlying obsession. I want to say something, solve the puzzle that for these people is their life, but there is nothing to say.

There is, however, plenty to remember. And I remember that everytime I was down and broken, everytime I couldn't see anyway to make sense of it all, that eventually, it got better.

Eventually.

I think that is why the English "make tea." Because if you can go through the motions, if you can chip away at the hours one minute at a time until a day has passed, and string together enough days to make a month, or better yet a year, most problems go away. Most problems come to a resolution.

I get that.

What I'd really like to get, though, is a promise that no matter what, everything, every little thing, is going to be okay. For me, for you, for the whole world: it's just got to work out somehow, right?

The Color Purple

Are there any INTJ females who don't love The Color Purple?

What I find the most interesting about The Color Purple is that while it is a favorite for a lot of people, it is one of the few movies that I consistently hear INTJ women refer to with reverence. Indeed, it is one of the few movies that I can watch over and over again.

Why?

I don't know, exactly, perhaps it is because there are so many strong women. Or that the women are all strong in so many different ways. But I think it is because of Celie, that she stays resolutely herself in the face of oppression. That she keeps a place inside of her that Mister can never touch. She remains able to love and dream in the face of all the indignity and pain.

Perhaps Celie is an INTJ. Certainly she is introverted and intuitive. And at the end, when Mister insults her as she leaves, she laughs because while everything he says may or may not be true, it doesn't matter.

She is still here.

I don't know a lot of personality types besides INTJs who can have that many insults hurled at them and refuse to take it personally; who can remember that the insults are so far beside the point as to be irrelevent.

Maybe Celie isn't an INTJ. But when she is shaving Mister's throat and the drums are beating and Shug is running through the field because she can sense the murder in the air, Celie is close enough.

I was surprised when I heard that this movie was controversial because of its portrayal of men, or more specifically, black men. As if any movie were the be all and end all of human relationships, to be mapped across an entire population as a blueprint of everybody, everywhere. Pul-eeze.

The Color Purple was about survival, oppression, love, triumph, and women. If the men didn't come off all that well, oh well. White women came off just hideous and who cares? I sure as heck don't. I wasn't so self-involved that I couldn't, for just a few hours, forget who I was and focus on the story, focus on Celie and Shug and Nettie and Sophia.

Are we still in that place as a culture where we can't forget our own identity for long enough to empathize with another? Are we still in that place where age, gender, ethnicity, culture, or whatever can't be overcome by suspension of disbelief? Are we really all so self-absorbed that we can't see that sometimes, some things aren't all about us?

As a former literature major, I've heard plenty of students whine and sniff because there aren't any books that speak specifically to their life. Really. Because if you want a blueprint you should have been a building not a person. And if that's not answer enough for you, then write your own book.

I always wondered what those people were complaining about anyway, because so often they weren't doing the reading and wouldn't do the reading, any reading, if there was anyway at all to get around it. Screw those guys, right?

But the Color Purple was beautiful. How can one fail to relate to Celie as a human being? If not as similar, then as sympathetic? How can one not root for her to overcome, come through, to triumph?

Sometimes, I find the problem goes the other way. I find that people over-indentify. As in, how could I possibly compare myself to Celie? What do I find in my own life that remotely compares to the hardship in hers? How am I a young black woman, raped by her stepfather, robbed of her children, bartered off to a cruel and angry man?

I'm not, people. That's where the suspension of disbelief comes in.

But I can still learn from Celie. I can still find nuggets of wisdom that I can apply to my own life, self, and situation.

I can still appreciate the color purple.