elmerthegreat

Have you ever made excuses? Have you ever made excuses for someone else? Did you ever have a friend whose behavior you had to explain away to someone else? Did you ever have to consider that friend as “just the way they are”? You or your friend may be involved in the process of rationalization.

When a person engages in this process they usually justify their actions to themselves. “I had a good reason.” “You just don’t understand.” I’m sure you can fill in the appropriate qualifiers.

What process does the person who continually excuses this behavior go through? Are they rationalizing rationalization? Sounds like a slippery slope.

You can’t choose family. If you choose to deal with them, you will likely have to cope with this process in some form or another. It may be for your own piece of mind, or it may be for their well being. What happens when you cannot cope any longer?

Example: You have a relative who continually misses appointments. They constantly claim that their “mind was elsewhere”, or “things are just crazy for me now”. You know, for a fact, that they simply put it lower on their list of importance and simply ignored the appointment. You’ve made excuses in the past, both to others and to yourself, but now you’ve reached a point where you can no longer stomach this form of behavior. Confrontation is useless. For lack of a better term, they are they way they are, they are not going to change. Making an argument will only serve to elevate your heart rate and perhaps cause you a headache. What can you do?

Anger – Sadly, this is a dead end street. It will only lead to depression as you are unable to change someone else’s thought process.

Tit for tat – Show them what it feels like. Also a dead end street. You have never acted in such a manner before, in fact, you used to make excuses for this form of behavior. Your actions will be an obvious ploy. Useless.

Acceptance – This brings you right back to where you started.

It appears that it is impossible to convince someone else to stop rationalizing, especially if the condition is chronic. The only way to stop this behavior is for the person that rationalizes to recognize that is a problem. However, when you are knee deep in your own justification, why should you change? You’re not the problem.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a decent amount of AM radio. These are the reasons:

1. I’m disgusted with FM radio. The personalities, the music, the lack of any form of quality whatsoever… I can’t stand it. Sure, maybe I just don’t like much of the new music that is going over the airwaves these days, but I’m not sure that is a bad thing. I hear enough bad music at the gym. There is nothing that is enticing me to turn on FM radio, much less travel to the record store.

2. I’m getting older. Perhaps something happens when you pass the age of 30, but I noticed that radio listening is part of an older generation. Before there was a television in every home (much less a television in every room), people listened to the radio. Boxing used to be broadcast over the radio. If you didn’t go to the ballpark in the olden days of baseball, you didn’t see the team in action.

3. I’m a musician and writer. The last reason will take up the bulk of this article.

Television rules the roost. There is no question about that. We have changed from an aural society to a visual society. The nature of education and teaching has changed to incorporate more visual imagery than every. Books are even making their way to screens. The history of tomorrow will be stored in newsreels and dramatizations, not passed down from a speaker around a fire.

Television, by its nature, requires less active participation from the audience. There is no need to visualize descriptions, nor is there much need to stretch your imagination. The image is there, you don’t have to make one up. For example, if you read a book, no matter how well a character is described, there is a process that must create that character in our mind’s eye. If you read the same description to a group of 10 and then had a police sketch artist draw each person’s description, there would likely be 10 different pictures (with similarities, of course).

The radio causes us to utilize our mind’s eye. If we are listening to the description of a game, we have to make the field in our mind. If we are listening to a commercial of two guys drinking beer, we are likely to picture our favorite watering hole.

Personally, I listen to National Public Radio (NPR) a good deal of the time. I started listening to it because they broadcast the BBC news. A British take on foreign affairs can be a nice alternative to US broadcasts. While this attracted me initially, I came to enjoy the various stories and radioplays. These usually consist of human interest stories, but can range from the humorous to the painful. Here’s a fantastic example from This American Life. Around the 8 minute mark is the beginning of a different take on the dysfunctional relationship that exists between Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. I’ve also become a huge fan of A Prairie Home Companion.

It’s very unlikely that shows like this would ever make their way onto television. First of all, the cost to hire actors, cameramen, cameras, etc… would probably be too high. Second, and joined with the first, is the fact that there probably isn’t a huge audience for this type of programming, so there might not be an outlet. Granted, This American Life has a program on Showtime, but as you can tell, certain stories would probably be cost-prohibitive to place on the air.

Back to my original point three. Because I write and because I enjoy using my ears (as a musician), there is something about the spoken word on radio that is entrancing. That and the fact that I really don’t enjoy too many programs on television.

This Thanksgiving, in spite of my better judgement, I will be spending the holiday with my family.  Numerous touching comedies have been made about the subject, where varying levels of disfunction are portrayed on the big screen. By the end of the film, everyone is laughing and smiling, and though wearied, they have somehow grown closer than ever before. Perhaps a secret is let out to the family at large. Perhaps someone is afflicted with a terminal illness, and a long-standing fued is finally called to truce. Perhaps some is pregnant, and the hope of a joyous new life in the world makes everyone forget their petty squabbles.

That’s the nice thing about movies. They portray the way you want life to be, but not necessarily the way that it is. Here’s is how each of those scenarios play out in the real world.

Long held secret revealed: Entire family admonishes person for keeping a secret for so long. One of two scenes will play out. 1. Sniping and griping about keeping the secret will go on throughout dinner giving the former secret-holder and ulcer. 2. Former secret-holder will be ostracized from dinner table and forced to sit at the kiddie table or leave the house.

Terminal illness: Usually at least one family member will say, “I told you so.” Some of the following statements might be uttered. “You knew smoking was bad for you, and if you had quit years ago when I tried to tell you, you might not be in this position now.” -or- “See… I told you that cell phones cause brain cancer, but you just want to talk all day long.” -or- “This is why we should have ham at the holidays. It just causes clogged arteries all around, and it’s filled with bad cholesterol. This is why Uncle Frank will be dead by Christmas.”

Pregnancy revealed: “You’re a whore.”

I probably sound jaded. That’s because I am. I’m extraordinarily jaded. I’m jaded to the point of sharpening diamonds. Why? Becuase I’ve had to spend too many Thanksgivings watching my relatives argue, bitch, moan, whine, complain, fight, fuss, cuss, yell, shout, scream, curse, and gossip. Sadly, that’s what they usually do all the time, so Thanksgiving isn’t singled out. They are the same at any gathering including holidays, weddings, and funerals.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re not bad people. It’s just what they do.

Ironically, when it’s all said and done, no one carries a grudge for too long. I, on the other hand, am left with an ulcer.

So… in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that this damned holiday only comes once a year.

I’ve never been fired, but I think when I left a job or two, some people were glad to see me go. As with much of life, I don’t expect everyone to like or agree with me. However, at a job, I do expect a degree of professional respect. “I know that you don’t like me, but don’t let your personal opinion cloud your judgment of the work I do.” In time, I would come to learn how naive that last statement was, is, and will probably continue to be.

Anyone will tell you that you should always dress for the job that you want, not the job you have. When you go for an interview, you should dress formally, make sure your teeth are clean and that you don’t smell. All true. All correct. All functionally worthless.

The most important part of a job interview is getting across the right vibe. If the interviewer likes you, if they feel some form of bond or kinship with you, you will be hired. I’m sure if you think about it, you can come up with at least one story (maybe not a personal account) of someone being hired because they were a fan of a certain team, or because they smoked a joint with the interviewer (friend of mine).

These rules apply once you receive your job. Being seen as a valuable employee is 2% work and 98% vibes. You only have to stay conscious while at your job if people like you.

In my previous job, I got to put these rules to the test. Generally, I’m pretty quiet and sometimes too forthright. If you ask, “Is there a problem with something?” I’ll tell you the problem and potential solutions. I’m not rude, not curt, but I don’t pander or soft-shoe around the issue. Apparently, some of my coworkers did not take kindly to what I perceived to be an attribute. I was told by my immediate superior that my job was in jeopardy. So I made an immediate about-face. I kept a smile plastered onto my face for the eight working hours of the day, and whenever anyone asked me a question, the answer was always, “Yes.” Yes. YES. Yes and yes. Nothing but yes. Even when I knew something would not work, I said, “Yes.” When aforementioned “thing” did not work, I would say, “Gosh, that’s weird. I don’t understand how that could have happened. It couldn’t be something you did. Let me look into it and I’ll get back to you right away.” My supervisor said, and this is a pretty accurate quote, “I’ve never seen such a turnaround in the opinion of a person. Everyone is really happy with you. I’m glad to see you’re doing better.”

…pause while I try to resist vomiting.

I found that a healthy dose of sarcasm, in the right company, can be very therapeutic. You have to be careful when exposing your true emotions with coworkers. Some will understand your persona and intentions, others will use it against you. Some people can understand that even if you do not like someone, you can work with them, be polite, and even excel at your job. Most people cannot understand the separation between how you feel and what you do.

Below is a sample of some sarcasm, recently re-found by a former coworker and sent my way. I had to come up with a tagline for an online account management program. Keep in mind that our clients preferred to pick up the phone and call us, rather than making any effort, any effort what soever to figure something out on their own. I was told to come up with “something that will make them interested in trying out this online service”. Here are some choice outtakes:

• Self-Service – This one requires two hands
• If you can read, this should be of interest to you.
• Service yourself, you bitches!
• Good stuff to see if you get your head out of your ass.
• Participate in something other than a gang rape.
• Make an investment without someone dragging you kicking and screaming all the way.
• Take control and take interest. Caution: Requires a clue.

It may seem a little hostile, but consider this: The computer is one of the few, if not the only, invention of the 20th century without a set purpose. For some people, it is a means of communication (email, video conference, bulletin boards), for others, it’s a business machine (word processing, spreadsheets), for some a graphic tool (layout, picture editing, drawing), and for others a sound recorder/sculptor (multi-track recording, sound creation and editing). Yet for all the possibilities that exist with this computer, very few jobs offer comprehensive, if an training whatsoever. The rationale is, “The computer is a pretty intuitive device, so you should be able to pick it up quickly.” While this may be true to a certain degree, it may not hold true for every person or instance. A person can be a trained CPA, a fine accountant of the highest caliber, and have no idea how to create an initial chart of accounts in a multi-layered, modular accounting package. Sure, he knows the theory, but not necessarily the programmatic practice. The response is usually, “This program doesn’t work right,” or “This thing is broken.”

Perhaps this would explain why the people who work in IT, the people that have to field your support calls are usually smokers, coffee drinkers, and eschewers of the light. They don’t hate you, but at times, you can be a threat to tolerance.

For a long time, I was a technical writer. My first gig was with an accounting software company. Whenever you purchase a piece of software, you expect a user manual of some kind, whether on the web, on CD, or a printed version. They had no documentation to speak of, so that’s were I came in.

To write documentation for a product like a mid-range accounting solution, you need to understand how the product works. So I dove in, played with the program for months. Furthermore, I also worked the help-desk, so I got to know the commonly asked questions first-hand. I think I was pretty good at what I did, because once I created some printed manuals, the calls came fewer and further between. If new questions came up with increasing frequency, I addressed them in my next revision of the documentation.

My next job involved writing documentation for a college. It ranged from rearranging Microsoft documentation (since people found it too “cumbersome”) to documenting how to get usernames and passwords.

If you are a writer, you will run into an editor at some point. Whether you write for a newspaper, are a novelist, or a corporate website, you will run into an editor. If you are lucky, you and said editor will see eye to eye. If you are not, you will run into a very common occurrence, an editor with an agenda. Now, the word “agenda” sound ominous, but should not be taken as such. It just is what it is, a preconceived notion of how things should be and an unwillingness to listen to another point of view.

Example: Your editor may be married to a certain word, phrase, or style that may not make sense to your audience. The editor may like a certain phrase because he is comfortable with it. The phrase “focus-free button” does not mean anything to anyone but a programmer. Though a common user may encounter focus-free buttons everyday, the use of the term may confuse the user, in which case, they may find the documentation “cumbersome”.

Sadly, because said editor has the higher position, his word goes. Sometimes, there is no real explanation for the desire to make changes. Personally, I think that some editors just make changes to feel like they have their own personal stamp on the documentation. Maybe it’s just a way to exercise power. Hell, I had one editor make me re-write all my documentation in second person, “just cause”.

Maybe this is why blogs are so popular, a writer’s undiluted thoughts, well at least any filtering is usually their own.

I’m not trying to downplay the importance of editors. A good editor will point out mistakes that you miss (not just incorrect spelling, but style problems), and will also try to enhance your good tendencies. However, some editors forget that they are not only reading the draft in the role of editor, but also in the role of target audience (or purchaser).

Technical writing and its associated editing takes on a pretty weird little role. In my experience, the editor is someone on the technical side, someone used to the jargon common to creators of software or architects of network systems. The intended audience, on the other hand, usually the exact opposite. They are uncomfortable and intimidated by the terminology. In many cases, it can further heighten their insecurity about not being able to function without the documentation (after all, we’re always told how easy everything is on a computer).

So, if on one hand there is an editor with a personal agenda and on the other a nervous reader… Well, you get the picture. Add to this the fact that documentation gets the same amount of attention that junk mail gets, a glance, and disaster ensues.