Working on a '64 VW in an Un-insulated Garage on the Coldest Night of the Year

And now for something completely different. Though 'work' is in the title.

Avocation: an activity that a person does as a hobby outside their principal occupation.

I wouldn't exactly call it a hobby, I'd call it my druthers. Details to follow on this topic. For now, a piece of the memoir-in-progress, a piece that mainly foreshadows 'stuff' (if I told you I'd have to...) and introduces the amazing Maureen Margaret Keefer.

Nineteen eighty-three. Four months pregnant in Northern New York in February. My husband of a year and a half doesn’t protest when I set off on foot alone down the icy Route 11 to get us something warm to eat from closest restaurant, the meat and potatoes eatery, Eben’s Hearth. Perhaps more importantly, I think nothing of it either, despite having miscarried very early on during my first and unplanned pregnancy shortly after our wedding. I am healthy and hearty, and I know how to dress for this. Thermal underwear and down, always the hat, gloves and scarf, and high-cut, insulated, waterproof boots. I have skiied the icy trails of Whiteface and Gore mountains, black diamond trails to go with the white crystals on my eyebrows, the ends of my hair and up my nose.

Potsdam is in the middle of a deep freeze, three weeks of 30 degrees below zero. The highway is treacherous, and I make my way through two and a half feet of snow banks along the side. There is not a car in sight, but I’m careful to watch for trucks, as it is a major truck route. The first step up supports my weight. Every other I plunge through the bank. I hobble on like Peg Leg with a missing peg. When I arrive at the restaurant, I am pleased that it is open. I am, not surprisingly, the only one there aside from our friend Red Beard, the bouncer-cum-artist-cum-cook.

“What the hell are you doing out tonight?” he asks with his usual gruffness. I was always a little afraid of him. I have known him since I was a freshman in college and he was the bouncer at the Whiskey One. Six feet tall with a generous belly, red hair and a long red beard, Red Beard cuts an imposing figure. He had no trouble handling the drunken college students on dollar pitcher night, back when the drinking age was 18.

“We’re fixing the car up at Ingles garage.”

“When are you going to get rid of that piece of crap?” he asks. I smile. He has an extremely good point about our little love bug, white with a blue stripe just like Herbie, but I don’t take it. I pull out seven dollars, every penny we have, and search the menu for the most for the least. Soup. It’s always soup, isn’t it?

“How much for two containers of soup?”

“How much you got?” I can never tell if he’s serious or joking.

He ladles out the soup into containers, and starts packing a bag for me. A few extra rolls please. Plastic ware, yes. Napkins please. And three more pats of butter.

John and our friend Mike are working on our ‘64 VW in an un-insulated garage on the coldest night of the year. Mike is replacing a thrown rod, one of the many major malfunctions in the vehicle at which John and I have already thrown the entire sum of our wedding gifts, given by family mainly, to help get us started in our life together. In the back of the shop there is a homemade barrel-shaped woodstove crammed to the brim and burning as hot as it can possibly go. There is no seal to speak of on the stove door, and you can see the flames shooting up through the cracks.

When I return, we stand around the fire eating the now tepid split-peas. Deep inside, Maureen Margaret stirs. I haven’t begun to really feel her movements, but I know she is there. When I am alone, I sing her the ABC song—“next time won’t you sing with me?”

I want to literally get on top of the stove, this is how cold I am. This is how little the fire is affecting the sub zero air around us, or more urgently, the deep down of my increasingly cold and tired bones. It doesn’t matter how many ski moguls I’ve jumped or how close I stand, I cannot for the life of me get warm. I want my bed. I want home. But it will be a long time before I get any relief.

Alltop.Com's Semantic Computational Algorithm

Alltop is an aggregator that organizes news and feeds from major publications and individual blogs so readers can check by category and have a whole host of top stories at their fingertips. And they just added moi to their site, under the category of "Life," a subcategory of "Living," which I find quite touching and affirming and perhaps proof even that I do not have to worry anymore about dying.

How do they manage this amazing feat?

Q. How do you decide which sites and blogs are in a topic?

A. We use a patent-pending, semantic computational algorithm derived from the post-doctoral work of Guy at Stanford. Just kidding. We rely on several sources: results of Google searches, review of the sites’ and blogs’ content, researchers, and our “gut” plus the recommendations of the Twitter community, owners of the sites and blogs, and people who care enough to write to us. Let us declare something: The Twitter community has been the single biggest factor in the quality of Alltop. Without this group of mavens and connectors, Alltop would not be what it is today.

More on Fiction and Workplace Wisdom

Execupundit blogger Michael Wade published a delightful column in the June 20th US News and World Report Careers: Outside Voices, Workplace Wisdom Found In Fiction: You can read the Management-Flavor-of-the-Month bestselling biz books and not pick up the insight found in many works of fiction.

Great list of qualities. Great list of books. Great idea. Regrets? Not a chick among them.

And so my stab, with some new categories, chicks and others.


Small Business Dos and Donts: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. Dos: Protagonist Amelia opens café that serves as a meeting place and helps town develop a sense of community. Donts: Involve love triangle.

Ethics: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Pulitzer-prize winning post-apocalyptic father-son journey which explores the father's dilemma around whether he would kill his son if need be rather than have him be captured by roving cannibalistic bands, and questions (everything paraphrased here because I'm too lazy to go find the book) asked repeatedly by the son: We're the good guys, right? What makes them the bad guys? We're the good guys because we don't eat people, right? Also includes dark, dark nod to planning (and perhaps the ONLY bit of comic relief in the novel) when, trudging through the desolate wasteland the US has become for a seemingly purposeless (well, other than sheer survival) trip to the Pacific coast, the son asks father out of the blue, What are our long term plans?

Global Partner Management: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. British-American translations are easy. Flat=apartment. Lift=elevator (have you prepared your "lift speech?") British child tirelessly repeating "Are we nearly there?" in adorable Yorkshire accent on train from Liverpool to London=American child in family car on long trip tirelessly repeating the somehow less charming "Are we there yet?"

Expansive Kikonga from the Congo where bangala=poisonwood tree=most precious=most insufferable is not so simple. Brings Chaos=disorder AND opportunity to new level.

Take nzolo, an expansively defined word on which the saga's themes turn:

"We worried over 'nzolo'--it means 'dearly beloved'; or a white grub used for fish bait; or a special fetish against dysentery; or little potatoes. 'Nzole' is the double-sized pagne that wraps around two people at once. Finally I see how these things are related. In a marriage ceremony, husband and wife stand tightly bound by their 'nzole' and hold one another to be the most precious:'nzolani'. As precious as the first potatoes of the season, small and sweet like Georgia peanuts. Precious as the fattest grubs turned up from the soil, which catch the largest fish. And the fetish most treasured by mothers, against dysentery, contains a particles of all the things invoked by the word 'nzolo': you must dig and dry the grub and potatoes, bind them with a thread from your wedding cloth, and have them blessed in a fire by the nganga doctor."

Eccentricity: The Man In My Basement by Walter Mosley. Exploration of good and evil that I still can't shake. Wow, eccentric characters much? "Anniston Bennett, a wealthy, 57-year-old WASP, appears at Charles' doorstep and offers $50,000 to rent his basement for the summer. But there are a few conditions: As a kind of self-punishment, Bennett transforms the basement into a locked cage. And an experimental relationship unfolds with Bennett playing the role of a white prisoner, with Blakey as his black jailer." -- Cheryl Corley, NPR website

Power plays: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. Protagonist musician/warrior Bird (a guy), turns prevailing post-apocalyptic power structure on its head when, after a long period of torture by competitors which is viscerally and vicariously well-established through the narrative, he is taken outside only to see that his grandmother, Maya, has been captured and tied to a post by his captors. When given the options of A) shooting his grandmother or B) being killed, Bird chooses C) throwing down the gun, raising his arms high and bursting into song. No Stockholm syndrome here.

Leadership: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. NYTimes bestseller about brave little girl Lily Melissa Owens who frees her babysitter/servant who has been brutalized by local men by following her instincts and leading them both to safety. See also Effective Advertising.

Organizational Change: Babette's Feast by Isak Dineson. Okay, I haven't actually read the story, but loved the film. Protagonist Babette, a servant (servant leader), works away quietly for 14 years. When she wins the lottery, she secretly invests her capital in a creative (and magically-realistic) and generous-to-stakeholders venture: she creates a sumptous and intoxicating meal that propels an entire community out of their staid values, roles and relationships. You go Babette!

Effective Advertising: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. NYTimes bestseller about mother-orphaned Lily who finds an intriguingly-designed honey label in her dead mother's box of treasures that ultimately leads her to her true kin. See also Leadership.

Subordinates Mobilizing Leaders: Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry by Rosalie Fry. Okay, so I didn't read this one either, but saw the film based on the novel, The Secret of Roan Inish. It's out of print, and the only two copies I see available through abebooks cost over $200. Reprint anyone? Fiona, the protagonist and motherless child who has just been bounced to her grandparents' care after a stint with her father in town and in the pubs, researches the question no one else wants to hear, "What happened to the baby Jamie?" She exhibits fearlessness, doggedness, thorough research (myth, anecdote, history from all quarters), partnering and high level of pro-activity until she is finally able to convince the real CEO, grandma, that her vision is real (Jamie IS on Roan Inish running around barenaked and being raised by seals). Results: mobilizes CEO who mobilizes team leading to reclamation of said child Jamie, in line with Fiona's mission and meeting and exceeding goals and objectives.

Tales from A Hospital: Creative Leadership In Action; Call for Radical Organizational Change

My sister Jeanne is a D.O. who teaches and works in a hospital and clinic. She is a paragon of left-brain right-brain creative leadership and problem-solving in action, working at the nexus of life and death on a daily basis. She is brilliant and intuitive, technically capable and full of heart.

Yesterday's tale from the hospital:

Jeanne arrived at the hospital only to hear some muttering about a psychotic patient roaming the halls on one of the floors. "God, it must be my patient," she thinks, and sure enough, it was a patient who had been transferred to her service.

The woman was on a medication that can induce this kind of irrational behavior. She had ripped out her IV and was wandering up and down the halls yelling. The nursing staff were largely ignoring her, as she hadn't been assigned to one nurse for one on one service and therefore wasn't anyone in particular's patient, and security had gathered, waiting to move in if need be, for possible restraining and medication. There was a general atmosphere of turned heads, employed so that the patient would perhaps simply go away -- a very inefficient response, due in part to the larger issues endemic to the current US health system--i.e. profit-orientation that hasn't caught on to the profitability of sustainable organizational practices or the triple bottom line-- leading to insufficient staffing, stress and burnout, poor training and morale and an ineffectual organizational structure.

Jeanne arrived on the floor and assessed the situation. Patient wandering floors like a madwoman, possible reaction to meds, not acceptable, must mobilize staff. She called the nursing supervisor and ordered one-on-one nursing, which the supervisor balked at (not enough staff). My sister clearly repeated the medical order, clear directive, not negotiable, has to be figured out somehow. Invites the nursing supervisor to assist in solving the problem. Jeanne checks to see if anyone has called the family, which no one has. The family can't be reached, so Jeanne invites other staff into the process. New question: Is there anyone else we might call? Another nurse suggests contacting the patient's home health aide, with whom the patient has a strong relationship. Brilliant idea. They get in touch with the aide who, when she is told the situation says, "That is not like Mary!" The aide comes to the hospital, and when she approaches the patient, saying, "Hey Mary, what's going on?" Mary calms right down. They get her back into her room, back on her IV, and the restraint/medication/psych ward scenario is averted.

This takes 3 hours. And a circle of people. On not-enough sleep.

What techniques did my sister employ? Reasoned, rational assessment of the situation, and a high degree of situational awareness. She identified the questions: what resources are available, who might I engage in solving this, what is protocol, what human elements can be introduced? She employed professionalism, clarity in direction, leadership, extensive thinking (as opposed to intensive), patience, perseverance, resourcefulness, and, importantly, empathy. Would it have been easier for Jeanne to just turn her head too, order security to restrain the patient, give her a sedative and get back home for some sorely needed rest? Probably. Would this jive with protocol? Not sure, I have to ask her, but I think it may be within acceptable bounds. Would anyone want this for their own mother, aunt, sister? I think not.

Jeanne can, and does, provide this kind of leadership and creative problem-solving every day, as many health professionals do. My fear for her and for health care workers in general is that until there is a radical change in the organizational structures of the profit-based US health care system, this type of leadership (-on-a-sinking-ship) will remain a stopgap that chews up true, dedicated talent. It is simply unsustainable.

Mind Tools: Essential Skills For An Excellent Career

Excellent set of tools and skill exploration assessments from Mindtools.com, including:


Creativity Tools
Leadership Skills
Tools for Understanding Complex Situations
Decision Making Techniques
Project Planning Skills
Information and Study Skills
Memory Techniques
Time Management Skills
Techniques for Controlling Stress, and
Communication Skills

Problem Solving and Creativity Techniques

Just found this site on Creativity Techniques from Mycoted: "dedicated to improving Creativity and Innovation for solving problems worldwide, with that in mind, we provide a central repository for Creativity and Innovation on the Internet as a summary of tools, techniques, mind exercises, puzzles, book reviews etc, that is open to all - and can be written by all."

Includes multiple idea generation, selection and implementation techniques, problem identification methods, puzzles and books.

And Gibran

Work is love made visible. - Khalil Gibran

Robert Frost Does Work

The final stanza of Robert Frost's Two Tramps in Mud Time, and a sort of prayer for a holistic life.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

More on the Right Brain-Left Brain Reunion

...evolutionary biology is a discipline that, to be done right, demands a crossover approach, the capacity to think in narrative and abstract terms simultaneously, so why not use it as a template for emulsifying the two cultures generally? --NATALIE ANGIER, Curriculum Designed to Unite Art and Science, NYTimes, May 28, 2008

In reviewing the curriculum for a new program at Binghamton University, The New Humanities Initiative, George Levine, emeritus professor of English at Rutgers University and author of Darwin Loves You says, "There is a kind of basic illiteracy on both sides, and I find it a thrilling idea that people might be made to take pleasure in crossing the border." (from Angier's article)

Cross the border. Let the reunion of narrative and abstraction begin.

Leading job coach, attorney and author of The Creative Lawyer, Michael Melcher, talks about his experiences with his clients and his recommendation to create a right-brain file: "When people come to me to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives, they typically arrive with one of two mindsets. Either they have lots of ideas, and don’t know how to figure out which one they should pursue; or they don’t have any ideas at all, and want to get some. One method that can help you, regardless of what category you are in, is to create a 'Right-Brain File.'”

The idea is to collect things that interest you -- articles, photos, overheard conversations -- that you are not ready to immediately process, and then to later go look at them to see if there are threads or patterns there. In terms of career or life planning, true interests might emerge, clues to formulating a new strategy for your path.

I don't think this process involves abandoning one's career/study path to date in favor of a subconscious, right-brain dream one has been sublimating all along. An example in terms of career changing/evolving--a friend, who is an extremely left-brained computer chip designer and animal lover, has recently been thinking of going back to school to develop veterinarian technology. What a beautiful marriage of left and right, or left and passion.

Melcher's 'right-brain file' is not unlike the creative writing process--reading, journalling and collecting ideas for what will become a novel, poem or play. Jill McCorkle, novelist and former faculty member at Bennington Writing Seminars, collects her thoughts on scraps of paper that she throws into an old suitcase to simmer while writing a novel. Meredith Hall, author of the memoir Without A Map, also uses the scraps of paper method with a dresser drawer, taking out a random handful when she's ready to sit down and compose. This is when the left brain kicks in--for synthesis, making order, applying structure and the work of crafting words.

I use a journal, a blog, cascading piles, some other part of my brain that has a collection of airline baggage tags on it.

Einstein, I suppose, used the top of his notoriously messy desk.

Women Networking at Henri Bendel's, Not So Much

Clip from WSJ about a women's networking event that included shopping at Henri Bendel's and champagne. Can't put my finger on what's wrong about it. Rampant consumerism? Reinforcing stereotypes?

Women and A New Kind of Shop Talk

Leadership, Inspiration, Networking and Knowing One's Strengths and Limitations

Under One Minute Workplace Wisdom Via YouTube

Leadership: Scrubs-J.D.'s Leadership Skills, From Scrubs

Inspiration: The Most Inspiring Thing Ever Said...From The Office, American version

Networking: How Not To Network, From Kintish

Knowing One's Strengths and Limitations: I'm a doctor, not an escalator, From Star Trek

Organic Organizational Design and A New Skill for the Toolkit: Persuasion

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance. -- Thomas Jefferson

The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity. -- Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker

In the growing numbers of non-hierarchical institutions, the ability to persuade colleagues and direct reports is becoming an increasingly valuable skill. In a recent WSJ column Erin White writes: "Managers say they increasingly must influence -- rather than command -- others in order to get their own jobs done." White quotes the list of tips IBM gives employees:

• Build a shared vision
• Negotiate collaboratively
• Make tradeoffs
• Know who can help achieve your goal
• Build and maintain your network

See White's article, Art of Persuasion Becomes Key: Managers Sharpen Their Skills as Line Of Authority Blurs.

How has this come about? When did organizations become non-hierarchical? Is the professional workplace the new "republican nation?" ( i.e. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.) Is this not fantastic news?

Architect William McDonough, founder of the Cradle to Cradle initiative, uses the example of a cherry tree in his staff brainstorming sessions. While working on designs and solutions, they ask, "How would a cherry tree do it?" Not only are they using an organic metaphor for solving problems, they assign nature metaphors to product and architectural design, considering the life cycle of the product (as opposed to say, unleashing toxin-ridden products into the economy and letting buyers and municipalities deal with their disposal) and further, looking at industrial materials as "nutrients."

A significant shift in thinking in the knowledge age is the use of biological metaphors rather than machine metaphors. -- Hinrichs Consulting LLC: Strength Based Continuous Improvement

The organic organizational model reflects the changes in the information age, and is more closely related to models of consensus and cooperation. Communities are held together and progress by the power of purpose, shared beliefs, and identity - not by force. -- Hinrichs Consulting LLC. The growing numbers of non-hierarchical, organically structured workplaces call for more highly developed basic human skills and values--integrity, reasoning, lots of verbal, lateral communication, and the ability to work well with others.

More on Organic Organizational Design from Hinrichs Consulting LLC can be found here.

Speed Mentoring

A great idea, speed mentoring for women in corporations run like a speed dating event. Check out this event at Intel.

Daniel Pink and The Changing World of Work

Now the master of fine arts, or M.F.A. is the new M.B.A. -- Daniel Pink

Keynote speaker at the National Association of Colleges and Employers 2008 annual conference Daniel Pink asserts that right brain skills, in combination with the standardly valued skills of the left, will "rule the future." As someone with not one but two MFAs, this is really exciting news.

Pink talked about the discrepancy in the sharp rise of prosperity in the US with a concordant flat-lined level of personal satisfaction as one of the factors in the evolution of a professional work force much more interested in personal satisfaction and meaning in employment than the more traditional focus on security and strict financial gain. Spirituality in the workplace, yoga at lunchtime, work/life balance and other similar movements now almost commonplace in the mainstream U.S. work cultures were once the bastion of the margins. This change comes in part, Pink suggests, from a more financially secure culture, and a radical shift in the nature of the employer-employee relationship.

Pink joked about how his grandfather might have reacted incredulously to his decision to leave a good steady job and strike out on his own as a writer. "Was the salary low?" his grandfather might ask. "No, it was pretty good." "Did you have health insurance?" "Yes, a comprehensive plan." "Was the company doing poorly?" "No, they were doing great, I just wasn't fulfilled." (I'm paraphrasing!)

He went on to describe the traditional top down patronage model of employment, where the company served as a parental figure. Countless workers dedicated their lives and livelihoods to "Ma" Bell, for instance, staying with the company their whole working lives, and being rewarded for their loyalty. Today's employer-employee relationship, Pink asserts, is more of a lateral give and take, with the employer providing an opportunity and the employee providing talent. In A Whole New Mind, Pink outlines six essential aptitudes for success in the 21st century professional workplace. A new mind and skill set for a whole new world.


See Let Computers Compute. It’s the Age of the Right Brain., Janet Rae-Dupree, NYTimes, April 6, 2008

Weighing in on Hosiery

If there is a male equivalent of panty hose -- forcing wearers to balance comfort and formality -- it is probably the tie. Ties aren't required at Mid American. "The revolution has already taken place in the tie area," says Mr. Holt. He wears ties only on Mondays for his weekly Rotary Club luncheons.

As for fairness, it's hard to say whether ties or panty hose are more uncomfortable. One male reader of this newspaper, after making a bet with a female co-worker, attempted to discover the answer by secretly wearing panty hose under his business suit for several weeks. He claims ties are worse.-- Christina Binkley, Bare-Legged Ladies: Hosiery Reveals Office Divide, The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2008

Just when you thought you had enough to worry about, Christina Binkley brings us this story on the state of dress code policy at Mid American Credit Union, a small financial institution in Wichita--more specifically, on the company's rules regarding the wearing of panty hose. Who wears hose these days?

When my mother was in grammar school, nylons were de rigueur. This was during WWII, when stockings were scarce, families had to use vouchers to secure their food staples, and my grandmother used special recipes like "War Cake," made with reduced amounts of eggs, milk and wheat flour (little did they know they were going vegan). One day at school, a friend of my mother's showed up bare-legged. How did the nuns react? They made Theresa wrap her legs in newspapers for the remainder of the day.

After pressure from staff and a consultation with experts on dress codes for the workplace, Mr. Holt has decided to relax the hose code, although the option female staff choose may still be a factor in performance reviews.

I suppose we've come a long way.