Heartcrossings

My friend M told me a strange workplace story last time we met for lunch. They had a bi-weekly call with their skip-level manager - something this guy does to rally the troops and give them a chance to engage with him directly. A very notable exception in her company which is fixated with level and title. M and her peers are appreciative of the gesture and effort. However, this last call went quite strangely - the majority of the time was spent in discussing questions and concerns about attendance in the office, how it is tracked and what happens when some folks are flagged for habitual patterns of non-compliance. Folks were asking this guy scenario questions like if my dog were to become deathly ill and need me to give him medications five times a day, can I stay home for the day. The answer was that should be okay as long as the reason is properly documented and the manager has awareness of the situation. Someone else had a question about taking off a day in the week every week until...

I read The Second Sex as a teenager and it was one of the books that shaped my thinking as an adult woman. Many times since then, I have wanted to return to it but hesitated fearing that a second reading so much later in life may rob it of the brilliance and magic it holds for me, it will somehow come to mean less to me - that felt like too big a loss to risk. Earlier this year, I decided to do it anyway and am so very relieved to find it is there for me - maybe in a different way in the confused adolescent years, but solidly, meaningfully there.  Early on,  Beauvoir   talks about how women have never been able to bargain collectively, agitate for and win rights in the manner of many other groups of marginalized people: The proletarians made the revolution in Russia, the blacks in Haiti, the Indo-Chinese are fighting in Indochina. Women’s actions have never been more than symbolic agitation; they have won only what men have been willing to concede to them; they have taken...

Found this story about retail shrink very informative. The separation between the business ownership and the community it serves is cited as a factor : ..an emptier store — where workers are fewer and farther between, lower paid and less satisfied — may be more vulnerable to theft by both customers and employees, according to Lawlor. Especially if it’s a chain that seems disconnected from the community, he said. In 2022, the average reported dollar loss from employee theft (including merchandise theft, refund fraud, cash theft or passing merchandise to friends) was $2,180, in line with 2021 and 2020 levels, according to the NRF’s report.  “In the good old days, a lot of stores were family-owned, the owner was right there,” he said. “You knew them or the family, you had a personal relationship, or you might just feel more of an obligation and be protective of the inventory and the business. So all this kind of builds upon itself.” One big change I have seen in the time I have been ...

It seems like lot of people discovered the joys of being introverted and solitary during the pandemic . Once they could not have the "air" of social contact they thought they needed to breathe and live, maybe they learned it was not air at all - that in fact they had sufficient inner resources to be solitary and not lonely. For someone who has never experienced it, this discovery of self-sufficiency can be deeply empowering, even lifechanging. Workplaces changed in different ways - unevenly based on their ability to adapt . The workplace chatter has become more devoid of life and meaning than before. People want to have serendipitous connections which is the best thing a workplace can offer but commuting insanely to make that happen by the watercooler is not appealing.  That makes sense given the tradeoffs for most people. Missing of time with kids, being able to be there for family when it counts in hopes of some random connection at work that may in theory lead to great ou...

If you want to read something "controversial" the public library (unless they are zealously banning books) maybe your best bet. It is one of the last remaining escapes from unrelenting digital tracking. It's not surprise that the generation that is most digital native would be the one to most seek escape to the public library . Just because they grew up with always-on tracking does not make it a wanted or desired thing for them. Those of us who grew up pre-internet probably see the library in a very different way. It was our window to the world and depending on where your local library was located, this window could be tiny or ample. Mine was walking distance from my childhood home and I went there a lot - at first accompanied by my mother and then alone. The librarian was a peaceful and friendly soul. We chatted about books and he set aside things he thought I might like. I wrote my recommendations for books in a ledger, where the wishes of readers were dutifully recorde...

Reading this article about your boss's impact on your mental health was triggering for me. I have had a few horrible ones in my life and it was no surprise that anyone who had to deal with them hated it. Being their direct report carried a different level of pain. However, it made sense because they were like cartoon villains and no one had anything positive to say about them. You did not question how they made you feel - it was all unfolding exactly as nature had intended.  Your best bet was to find another role or another job - which all of us did over time. I had a former boss who had the best poker face I have ever seen. There was some good to C but he was entirely inscrutable. People generally held neutral to positive opinions about him. So this guy was not quite the nightmare that some of my past bosses had been. For the one year that I reported to him, I recall having an extremely hard time disconnecting from work in my mind, sleeping well at night and feeling good about an...

I am very far from a car enthusiast and have no desire for novelty when it comes to car. Its always the safe, boring and reliable Japanese auto for me without the technology bells and whistles. We went car shopping recently and its been a long time. At a traditional dealer not much had changed. It was still some rookie sales guy trying to pitch what little he knew about the car we were interested in, running back and forth between us and his boss in the back room to work up the numbers. We did not like any iteration of said numbers and left. It was a weeknight and the place felt dreary - the number of sales people vastly outnumbered the number of car shoppers - the parking lot was full to the brim with cars that they were hoping to sell.  I am not a Tesla fan, have never test driven any of their cars. A friend of ours has a vivid blue Tesla with the gullwings. I recall feeling particularly awkward when they picked me up in that car outside my hotel one time I was in their town for ...

Heard this really interesting story about responsibility avoidance. My former co-worker P shared this bit of office gossip last time we caught up. Her boss had been out on maternity leave for over seven months last year and old showed up in the third quarter. But she came all guns blazing, made sweeping org changes, slayed ever so many demons all while mostly sleepless from having a new baby. Now she is out on yet another long leave and slated to return early summer. She cannot be contacted in any way shape or form while she is out. P is responsible for everything her boss was while she is out.  But the house is on fire by now thanks to all the things she shook up and did not restore during her short stint back in the office. The way P sees it, she came and set things in order so everyone could go forth and be successful. With her gone, everything will fall apart (really there is no other way this story ends based on how she set things up) and she will return blameless ready to tak...

I have shopped on Temu a couple of times - primarily driven by curiosity. My orders were small and the experience was good enough mainly because I had no performance expectations. J had never heard of Temu and now that she knows about it, has no desire to buy from there. In an ideal world, we would be able to buy direct from an artisan who makes things by hand using skills they have learned over many  generations. Each item would be unique and created with time and care. These things would be useful to us and be made in a sustainable way. We would only buy the things we actually need and intend to use for many year and even pass them to the next generation - there would be no wanton, excessive consumption.   These wonderful things would all be sold at a fair price that creates a way for the traditional way of way a viable and a productive one for the artisan. While we may all be ever so well-intentioned but that is bit far away from the realm of reality. The truth is doi...

I was looking for a card to give a friend who has lined up a new job and a bit nervous about starting there. We talked about the dreariness of what she did even if it offered stability and good income. She was not learning and growing at all. She is ten years into her career but one of those people who have the youthful energy of someone who graduated college last week. I was excited for her when I learned about the new opportunity and believe after the initial jitters subside, she will in fact enjoy the work. This card felt so right for the person and the occasion , like it was made expressly for her. I wondered if it spoke to me as well in a sense.  Not quite in the same place or time as her as far as work goes. But is it true that I don't see incentives at work (generally) being aligned with thinking, innovating and be yourself. The people who thrive in the average workplace are masters at deflecting blame and responsibility around most efficiently. The trick is not to saddle on...

Very relatable article about older financially independent women not wanting to get legally married and put everything they have worked hard for at risk. I think the situation is reciprocal for men as well - the ones that do not need a nurse and/or a purse. They too have nothing to gain and much to lose from getting legally tied in marriage.  Life is a lot simpler without the papers specially that they have zero value in terms of level of commitment. People are either in love and want to stay together or they are not and in time for the right stimulus will spilt apart. Having papers and resulting complications will only make that process harder but if the person is motivated enough they will still get out of the situation. Those that stay on in unhappy marriages because pulling apart will be a financial nightmare, only end up making each other deeply miserable if not physically ill. Between the two bad options maintaining status quo is the less bad. The interesting thing is that s...

This essay on how all cells in our body can think and not just brain cells made for an interesting read.  It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells such as neurons—have the ability to store information and act on it. Now Levin has shown that the cells do so by using subtle changes in electric fields as a type of memory. These revelations have put the biologist at the vanguard of a new field called basal cognition. Researchers in this burgeoning area have spotted hallmarks of intelligence—learning, memory, problem-solving—outside brains as well as within them. Recalling sad or painful memories can make the heart ache quite physically - we have experienced that. Maybe the cells in the heart can act on the memory and be triggered in a way that manifests a pain. People do have gut feelings about things and are known to act on it and often to their advantage.  ..a team of scientists at the University of Western Australia and the University of Firenze ...

This sounds like a fun collaboration  - lip balm meets salad dressing . This set of flavors may not be for everyone but the I love the general direction of this idea. On our walk earlier this week, we stopped at the local ice-cream store because I remembered how much I loved their lavender and berry flavor and at just had to have some. Reading this lip-balm story made me think about the marketing and brand building opportunities that could arise from giving away say ice-cream flavored lip-balms to customers to see if smelling the favorite ice-cream each time they applied lip-balm would generate more return business.  Smell is a powerful thing and brands have not even scratched the surface of connecting with customers based on happy smell associations with their product as a way to grow loyalty. While passing by a house, sometimes you can smell their laundry detergent and if you recognize the smell, then you can imagine the scene of laundry being done - clothes being folded awa...

In a recent picture of my mother, I noticed her wearing a sweater she had knitted for me when I was in my teens and that was a second act for this sweater. An aunt had knitted the original sweater for my father as a birthday gift but he felt very weird wearing turquoise blue. It fit him perfectly but the color was not within his small range of comfort and tolerance. I remember him trying it on and thinking how it shakes things up from the black, brown and gray - it made him look quite different and not in a bad way. But that was my opinion and no one really cared. So that sweater was pulled apart and the yarn recovered to make me something out of it.  And so there was this second act - it was a nice enough sweater and I wore it a lot. I am not sure my aunt was happy with how her gift ended up but my parents were never known for worrying about such minor details - they were too preoccupied with their own problems. I for one made it a point not to wear it if she was likely to be arou...

It was over fifteen years ago when R said to me that I don't accomplish most things I want to because I have this great fear of succeeding at something which will then break my inner narrative. I have to admit I found that statement stingy and offensive but the fact that I remember it to this day proves he was right. The words he used to diagnose the situation were not the right ones and to be fair to him - this was not his profession - to help coach people out of their problems. He told me what he did as a friend and a well-wisher (he was both at the time). Life moved in mysterious way and he ended up being neither to me over time and his short and somewhat hurtful statement has been my reliable litmus test ever since. If I am in a situation where I am looking for reasons to no go through with something,  I have to ask myself if that is because I am afraid I might succeed and that puts me in a place where the rules become new and different in sense - which implies lesser control, ...

At New Era Insurance, Ellen, a seasoned project manager, was in a quandary. Jen, a key team member, decided to leave midway through a pivotal project. The departure threatened to derail their timelines and disappoint the stakeholders. However, equipped with the new capabilities of their generative AI-driven HR system, Ellen was optimistic about handling the turnover and facilitating a quick return to normalcy. When Jen submitted her resignation, Ellen logged into the company’s enterprise AI platform, code-named “HR-GPT.” She entered the job role and project specifics. Within minutes, HR-GPT pulled up a list of potential candidates from both internal databases and external job platforms. The AI system screened résumés, matching candidates with the required skills and expertise for the project. Ellen received notifications of top candidates, complete with AI-generated interview schedules based on Ellen’s availability, that of the candidates, and available conference rooms. HR-GPT even pr...

Early last year, I thought about M one of my former colleagues and wondered what he was up to lately. His work email which he preferred for communication bounced but his LinkedIn profile still showed him employed there. Layoffs were happening there at the time and I wondered if he had been impacted. Since I did not know of anyone who was looking to hire for M's skills, was not sure what I could contribute immediately. That did not feel like the right time for idle chatter and a mostly pointless check-in. A few days ago, I learned completely by chance that M had infact passed away by the time I received that bounced email (and thought more time should pass before I checked in on him). He had infact taken his own life a few months prior.  The news hit me hard and having worked very closely once. It made me wonder about how little we know (or care) about people we work with and claim to respect and admire - all of this was true in my case. M did not hesitate to call bullshit on things...

I am definitely the person that does all the outreach to my friends and acquaintances with a very small minority who also do their part. There would be any number of reasons for one-sided friendship and they are unique to the person and their circle of friends. In my case, I would attribute it to the fact that most of the folks I am talking about are acquaintances who I picked up at certain life stages.  That context is very important because it brought these people into my life and led to us becoming "friends" at the time. Most if not all of them had settled into what would be their life going forward. If they were married at the time, they still are. The house they lived in then is still where they live. Their lives were steady state and mine was in flux.  Most continue to work for the same company - a few have moved around for work but all other parameters have remained exactly the same.  In contrast everything about me has changed several times - they had to reset th...

A one-time manager who I have remained friends with, put a lot into his career. It meant that his family had to sacrifice the amount of time and attention they got from him for decades. S made great strides thanks to such collective effort applied on his behalf - and at a great cost to those he loves most. When we met, he was a rising star at the company - already high up at a relatively young age. Since then a lot has changed.  The money went from being nice to have to essential due to major changes in his family circumstances, his health took a severe beating and he is no longer as invincible at work as he had once been. Multiple re-orgs have left him in a strange twilight zone - his fans, sponsors and boosters (which he had plenty of) have moved on to other companies. S has been left behind with his golden hand-cuffs trying to make the most of what remains of his once glorious career.  Reading this article about proximity bias and ability to get promoted brought S to mind....

My oldest, most over-worn jacket is the most trending color of the year it sounds like. I usually wear it when I am working in the yard on a chilly day and after I am done the jacket is often left among the tools and wheel barrow. Maybe its time to give it a whole new lease of life since its still in one piece. My mother used to have a leopard print coat when I was a child which was accompanied by a bag of the same print.  I remember the smell of mothballs combined with remnants of her favorite perfume, the olive green faux-silk lining of the bag whose zipper was a bit capricious. In winter she would wear her zari-bordered monochrome silk saris with this coat - usually to some special occasion. I liked to see her in the silk and leopard print and thought she looked very fancy. The leopard print fell out of favor a long time ago and I don't recall seeing her coat and bag even in my tweens. If she has preserved them knowing fashion is cyclical , I could have been completely on-trend...

Every few months, M gives me an obligatory call to check on me and mine. She is a friend of my parents and I did not know her until rather recently. All our phone conversations follow the exact same pattern - she starts by complaining about her life - how she is severely overworked and can't wait to retire, followed by her upcoming travel plans and then checking on the health of every single person on my side - one at a time.  Once she is done with her wellness checks she is ready to hang up. I have to assume this pattern of engagement is not unique to me - she must do this with the anyone who is somewhat remotely connected to her, where there is not much to say and yet some time needs to be invested to keep the contact warm. The fact that we are in touch at all is to M's credit. The mechanics of the contact may be unsatisfactory but it gets the job done and does not take any effort at all. My own record of staying in touch with people I know from various phases of life is quit...

Loved the quote about not being able to draw or write in this post about good writing . I have not read the book Ogilvy recommends reading thrice - that may be the primary source of my troubles with writing given its his first piece of advice.  For work, I do follow the rest of his advisory - specially the last point. If I need action, I will not email. Compared to folks I am surrounded by, I email quite rarely, I try to hold myself to the standard of not shooting off an email unless the occasion truly calls for it. Unless addressed directly for a response, I do not provide one. If a response is likely to muddy waters further, I refrain.  All that said, there are some who do not like side-bar chat, texts, messages and the like as the foundation of their work and decision-making. They want to hang their hat on an email thread that has several dozen people in copy for reasons known only to those who looped those folks in along the way - for visibility. The person of whom action ...

 An ad for Coldwater Creek popped up on my browser earlier and immediately triggered thoughts of my former boss R. She was in her early 60s back when I worked for her and I recall how startled I was when we first met because of her strong resemblance to Shirley Temple (as a child). It's been over twenty years since R and I parted ways. She was one of the most loving people I have come across in the workplace - there was no one R did not get along with and conversely, there was no one that did not love R. I was one of the fortunate recipients of her warmth and affection. On a cold or rainy day she would give me a ride to the bus stop. Knowing that I was going to be alone for the holidays, she gave me a small care package - containing little gifts all handmade by R.  There was not a single redeeming quality about the job but having R as my manager, friend and mentor made it worthwhile to stay. And R always wore Coldwater Creek clothes - it was her favorite brand. Then there were...

I was cleaning up my bathroom cabinets recently and thought of this Jane Hirshfield poem:  MY MEMORY  Like the small soaps and shampoos  a traveler brings home  then won’t use,  you, memory,  almost weightless  this morning inside me. There are several dozen of those small soaps and shampoos from my trips over the years. The ones I went on alone and wished I could have taken J with me because the place was kind of special even if I was only going there for work. There are those from trips we made together and memorable just because of that - almost does not matter where our travels took us, though some places have been spectacular.  More recently, when I arrive somewhere I have never been, I find myself thinking its likely I will never return here another time. That thought creates a different weight and value for the things that remind me of that place. It could well be a piece of unused soap that I bring home in hopes that using it one day will ...

Interesting disclaimer of Bard "Your conversations are processed by human reviewers to improve the technologies powering Bard. Don’t enter anything you wouldn’t want reviewed or used.". Makes you wonder what in fact you could use the thing for and also conjures up a vision of a million human being working backstage coming up with answers to your questions. The disclaimer broadly extends to our use of any online service that is free and/or ad-supported. So no particular reason to take pause because it was clearly highlighted in the case of Bard.  Following instructions, I turned activity off so the human intervention would stop going forward. Keeping the disclaimer in mind all the same, I decided to get a ciabatta recipe since that was on my to-do anyway. Comparing an actual recipe with what the AI had produced was interesting. Bard had produced the right list of ingredients but the process steps (though the right ones) were all out of order and the details were completely de...

My efforts to establish a salad everyday routine led me a few different places including this book Salad Freak . I read through the getting started, staples, kitchen and pantry essentials sort of stuff and then the first five or so recipes. At that point I decided to seek guidance elsewhere. That is not because the book had fallen short in some way - on the contrary, it had elevated salad to an artform. It had debuted mainstage and was not something satisfied to peek at the entree from the sidelines. Just about any recipe in this book could hold its own and become a meal - sometimes it might ask for a simple side of protein. That is not the kind of spectacular salad I am seeking. The salad I want to turn out reliably once a day every per my plan, needs to be simple but not terribly boring.  There has to be small element of surprise but it cannot be entirely composed of surprise and delight. Furthermore, salad-making is not the sole avocation of my life - I do have to work and pay t...

Dropped into a Pilates class recently for the very first time in my life and had the experience of walking into a room where conversations had been happening for a long time before I showed up and will continue well after I leave. There were a lot of elderly people in the class and only a minority of the attendees were younger than me. I found that both unexpected and surprising.  I had imagined Pilates to be something reserved for the young, fit and flexible. When I was all of those things, my life was pretty complicated and over-scheduled, leaving no room for such "improvement" focused activities. I had a simple but effective fitness regimen that I followed - and that was all the capacity I had. The women I knew back then who did go to Pilates class were all blessed with "simpler" lives - they had a spouse, partner or family member who could reliably take care of their children while they were at said class.  Unlike me they did not have to worry about the next job...

Several times in my career. I declined to interview because the hiring manager was fixated on some or the other certification that I did not have and had absolutely no desire to acquire at any time. I told the recruiter that it is a red flag and the person likely has no idea what job they are meant to do so they would not be able to manage anyone who is being hired to help perform at that unknown and unknowable job. The recruiters seemed to get the point but they had their marching orders so even if they thought I had an interesting argument there was not much they could do with it. It is highly unlikely my immediate size-up of the abilities of the hiring manager was communicated to anyone. I wish more people heard feedback from the field but that is a whole another problem about how we work hard at protecting feelings, managing expectations and try not to tell people managers that they are really bad at that job and need to go find something else to do.  Reading this  Medium ...

Sometimes a book is just not for you, does not matter what. In this instance, I will attribute it to my lack of open-mindedness though even that cannot be entirely to blame. I very much enjoyed Sita Sings the Blues - a very unorthodox but clever take on Sita. Peter Brook did a nice job with Mahabharat though not everyone is a fan. Maybe I had very different expectations of a book about Kaikeyi which collided harshly with something like this very early on: He must have shoved Shantanu out of their mutual hiding spot to distract me. I spun, chasing Yudhajit around the stable, knowing as I did that I could never beat him in an outright footrace. He rounded the corner out of sight, and from just beyond the wall came a strangled shout. A second later, my shin collided with bony flesh, and I fell onto a tangled heap of bodies, Yudhajit right below me. “I got you!” I shouted breathlessly. Someone, probably Shantanu, groaned. I rolled off the pile and onto the hard ground, laughing, asking if ...