Cry Me A Repo

Tears at work. Happens in every job. Always with my manager. Always makes me feel a lot better (not sure about them). Always a river's worth.

Any boss, colleague or random person who wants to judge or think less of me for it is welcome to do so. We all have our theories on whether public tears exhibit weakness or strength. But this is who I am. This is how I operate. And, evidently, I have neither the ability nor the desire to stifle it indefinitely.

No One Can Intimidate You Without Your Consent

Last night I went to a talk by Richard Stengel, editor of TIME Magazine. The talk was pretty interesting and in a lot of ways I just really identified with him as a person. I could see, for example, that he is interested in character and human qualities, and how that has helped him with his work as a journalist, from gaining people's trust to being able to uncover and deliver the elements of their character that are of interest to others (Nelson Mandela in both those cases). He says the kind of things I say e.g. that when people praise others they reveal a lot about how they see themselves. I guess I felt inspired & encouraged by him in a more direct way than I do by other successful journalists whose talks I attend because I could see these qualities that we shared.

So when I bought his book at the end of the talk and went to get it signed, I obviously had a nice moment with him with a brief but very real connection where I said something smart and witty and he laughed, right?

Wrong. I totally choked, said something very stupid, and was generally a dithering idiot.

They say that no one can intimidate you without your consent. I think that's very true. I also think that the times we do consent tend to make amusing anecdotes.

Eating Frogs

Today I ate half a frog. Not literally of course; my squeamishness-induced quasi-vegetarianism would never allow that! I'm using some of that new-age productivity lingo here. They say you should do your worst (& most important) task first thing in the morning. Just do it, get it out of the way, use the momentum to accomplish other things, enjoy the fact that everything else you have to do is better than eating a live frog (hey it's not my analogy).

It's a great idea. I know from personal experience that it can work wonders. I just chose a really foul tasting frog today, and now I feel like I want to throw up.

My frog was writing a requirements document. About halfway through the day I realised that the most interesting thing I'd written was about what legal agreements might exist between my company and its clients. But that's why it's a frog. It's the thing I just have to do. It's not meant to be fun or interesting, and the reason I feel demoralised now is because I didn't finish it.

Tomorrow's frog is sorting out my tax. Deep breath, supress gag reflex,...