My Fat Trap
Keep it Simple.
Or in my case, Keep it Simple, Stupid. I should have that tattooed on my hands, so I could see it all day long. My life gets painful whenever I forget to keep it simple. And almost always, when my life starts to convolute, it’s because of my big yap.
I had a mentor a while back whoI admired for his fast-track success and his straight-talking style. I remarked about this once, and his response surprised me. ‘I’ll tell you, I’d have gone much further, and much faster, if I’d learned to keep my mouth shut.’
I share that affliction. To quote the comedienne Ron White, I have the right to remain silent, but not the ability.
All my life I’ve struggled with the troubles my mouth has created. My anger in my youth destroyed many (ex-) friendships, and my anxious chatter ruined most of my adult love affairs. Later on, my drive to rise up the ranks of Corporate America helped me to develop a biting sarcasm that got me fired 4 times. To give you an idea of who I once was, my first boss told me I had all the sensitivity of a chainsaw. I took that as a compliment.
I wonder at times if I’m like incapable of sentiment or empathy. No, that’s not right—I do have empathy. My problem is not a lack of emotion or care. I feel everything. I just disregard it, in favor of speaking my mind.
One of the characters in Atlas Shrugged noted, “Nothing is more important than how well you do your work.” I believe that, and I live that, and I wonder sometimes if it’s this very drive that sabotages my efforts to improve.
I had my review yesterday. It was a relatively short conversation, as it should have been. SuperBoss knows what I’m doing, he inserts his opinion when I ask, and otherwise he leaves me to my job. So the review and his comments held no surprises. He was more effusive than I’d expected, but the comments were things I had heard for months. He gave one caveat: since I’d been here less than a full year, he could not rank me Outstanding. It’s how he felt, but we couldn’t have that. We would have to settle for Exceeds Expectations.
Fine by me, but still, when it came right down to it, I was disappointed in the review. SuperBoss had been talking about working toward promoting me. He’d been repeating himself and encouraging me to think about the impact of this for so long, that I had started to think of myself in the new spot. He’d been very careful not to commit to a date or even that he could do it, but I carefully ignored that—I was getting promoted! I had almost put myself into that space, imagining myself in a real office, and working at the higher level, and on the first rung of upper management at last.
Promotions here occur throughout the year, and I’ve never seen one happen at a review, but still, I’d been anticipating it for a while, and I thought that the review would be a terrific time to do it, especially for an associate who was (almost) rated as outstanding. Instead, he started talking about waiting until this next set of responsibilities goes through, which is at least a year from now. I don’t know what’s happened that I could be doing so well and earning so much praise, and now a promotion that seemed almost imminent is now something for next year’s review—maybe.
What happened? I brooded about it all night, and then this morning it occurred to me. It’s my mouth. Again.
After we finished the review, SB mentioned, in a rather roundabout way, that I would do myself a lot of good if I could be gentler in correspondence and communication. He emphasized that I have a terrific reputation here, and that I’m known for my sense of urgency and my results, but that I could make that even better if I were kinder to people.
I’m paraphrasing here—he really was subtle about it. But I know him well enough to realize that his ‘just think about it’ way means that people have said things about this to him. It’s what is keeping me from my next job.
So here I am again, with my mouth is keeping me from getting ahead. It’s not budget, it’s not opportunity, and it’s not space at the top—it is me.
I’m comforting myself with the knowledge that the ability to fix this and remove the last obstacle lies squarely within my power. Still, we’re talking about a problem I’ve had since I was 10, and one that I thought I’d fixed. And I really thought I had overcome this problem. I am so careful about my language. I don’t use sarcasm at all anymore. I try very hard to insert an ‘unfortunately’ into e-mails that carry bad news. In fact, I thought I had overcompensated to such a place that I was something of a pushover in certain ways.
Clearly I’m not, though it still feels this way, and now I’m going to have to dial it down even more, because if I don’t, I’ll be stuck at this High Man in a Cubicle level forever….or until someone gets sick of my trap and has me fired.
I’m working on it. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks pulling back on my ‘straight speak’ at home. In an effort to reduce the explosive incidents, I’m inserting bubble baths into my evenings, even when I have so much to do that I could stay up all night and not get it done. I think this will help, but really, I won't know until I'm faced with something stressful. Will I stay or will I blow?
My propensity to see things in their extreme form, and my drive to keep things from getting disastrous by refusing to let anything happen at all is keeping me from getting ahead. I am keeping me from getting ahead. Me and only me. Sucks, sucks, sucks.
Work isn’t the only place where my mouth gets me into trouble. I’ve been bouncing around the low 150s since mid-December, and I can’t seem to find the focus I need to get me back to my goal weight. I have a few days of perfection, and I start to get that “thin” feeling of the Below 150 club. Then I go to DS’s gymnastics on Monday night and I snack on something outside of the program, and then I have dinner on top of it, because of course natty snacks don’t satisfy.
Then Wednesday night comes and the boys are out climbing until 7:30 and I’m in the house, starving. I don’t want to have dinner without them, and I don’t want to eat anything that will ruin my week (Monday did that already), so I pick and whittle at the no-point junk foods until I’m sick. Then I’m cranky because I ate wrong and I’m still hungry, and the evening is ruined. Mostly because I’m sick and irritable, and so I start shooting off of my mouth.
I did discover something this week that could really help. I’m PMSing, which always challenges those in striking distance. But I’d been calmer than usual and so I was able to monitor my emotional decline. Things begin for me around Day 18 and continue for 9 stormy days until my cycle ends. On Tuesday, I had too much fat free Reddi-Whip and when it layered itself on top of my degenerating progesterone, I felt jumpy all night. Then on Wednesday, I had some chocolate at work. Dumbo me decided to stay at the office instead of going home and scavenging for Dinner #1. All I managed to do was move my binging from home to office. I had a headache and I felt dizzy, and then I snapped at Howard over nothing.
Yesterday, I was sugar-free. Let me point out at this juncture that ALL days should be sugar-free: this is how far I’ve removed myself from the daily WW regimen. Anyway, I felt better then I had for the previous 2 days UNTIL I got home and downed a sugar-free jello with fat-free Reddi-Whip (which has sugar in it). DS also got drugged by the Valentine’s Day extravaganza, and we had a preview of the Teenager All Out War right after dinner. He slept it off, I cried in guilt, and today we’re all better, but I would give my right arm not to repeat that. Once again, my mouth got me into trouble, this time with my darling boy.
I believe that this is fixable, and not something so deeply ingrained into my psyche that there’s no workaround. I have to believe that, because otherwise I’ll wind up alone and angry. Speaking from years of previous experience, I guarantee that this is not what I want. The problem I have now is that I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to be an effective executive (wannabe) or even an assertive, pleasant person without throwing my weight around. I know that this is so, since I’m doing all this while simultaneously thinking I’m a pushover. I have a perception problem, and it manifests itself right in the middle of my face.
SuperBoss started taking yoga about a month ago. He was pretty even before, but I can tell that he’s far more relaxed now, and he seems more centered and relaxed. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should find my Zen or my ohm or whatever it is that makes the Type B folks around me just as effective (or moreso) than me, while keeping their friends and family intact.
Intact. In tact. There’s a thought. Maybe if I just waited to speak or e-mail, much of this would go away. It wouldn't take long-just a few minutes, or a day at the most for something really incendiary. Or maybe I should think through all the possible conflict scenarios and craft diplomatic responses ahead of time, so I’m not left to determine the right answer when I’m sitting on the spot.
Or maybe I should treat others with the respect and courtesy that I’d like to have. Be nice and stay out of the candy aisle. Those two things could solve everything.
Keep it Simple. I’ll omit the ‘stupid’, in the interest of creating better communications. Let’s see how it goes.
A the T(rending toward tact)
Or in my case, Keep it Simple, Stupid. I should have that tattooed on my hands, so I could see it all day long. My life gets painful whenever I forget to keep it simple. And almost always, when my life starts to convolute, it’s because of my big yap.
I had a mentor a while back whoI admired for his fast-track success and his straight-talking style. I remarked about this once, and his response surprised me. ‘I’ll tell you, I’d have gone much further, and much faster, if I’d learned to keep my mouth shut.’
I share that affliction. To quote the comedienne Ron White, I have the right to remain silent, but not the ability.
All my life I’ve struggled with the troubles my mouth has created. My anger in my youth destroyed many (ex-) friendships, and my anxious chatter ruined most of my adult love affairs. Later on, my drive to rise up the ranks of Corporate America helped me to develop a biting sarcasm that got me fired 4 times. To give you an idea of who I once was, my first boss told me I had all the sensitivity of a chainsaw. I took that as a compliment.
I wonder at times if I’m like incapable of sentiment or empathy. No, that’s not right—I do have empathy. My problem is not a lack of emotion or care. I feel everything. I just disregard it, in favor of speaking my mind.
One of the characters in Atlas Shrugged noted, “Nothing is more important than how well you do your work.” I believe that, and I live that, and I wonder sometimes if it’s this very drive that sabotages my efforts to improve.
I had my review yesterday. It was a relatively short conversation, as it should have been. SuperBoss knows what I’m doing, he inserts his opinion when I ask, and otherwise he leaves me to my job. So the review and his comments held no surprises. He was more effusive than I’d expected, but the comments were things I had heard for months. He gave one caveat: since I’d been here less than a full year, he could not rank me Outstanding. It’s how he felt, but we couldn’t have that. We would have to settle for Exceeds Expectations.
Fine by me, but still, when it came right down to it, I was disappointed in the review. SuperBoss had been talking about working toward promoting me. He’d been repeating himself and encouraging me to think about the impact of this for so long, that I had started to think of myself in the new spot. He’d been very careful not to commit to a date or even that he could do it, but I carefully ignored that—I was getting promoted! I had almost put myself into that space, imagining myself in a real office, and working at the higher level, and on the first rung of upper management at last.
Promotions here occur throughout the year, and I’ve never seen one happen at a review, but still, I’d been anticipating it for a while, and I thought that the review would be a terrific time to do it, especially for an associate who was (almost) rated as outstanding. Instead, he started talking about waiting until this next set of responsibilities goes through, which is at least a year from now. I don’t know what’s happened that I could be doing so well and earning so much praise, and now a promotion that seemed almost imminent is now something for next year’s review—maybe.
What happened? I brooded about it all night, and then this morning it occurred to me. It’s my mouth. Again.
After we finished the review, SB mentioned, in a rather roundabout way, that I would do myself a lot of good if I could be gentler in correspondence and communication. He emphasized that I have a terrific reputation here, and that I’m known for my sense of urgency and my results, but that I could make that even better if I were kinder to people.
I’m paraphrasing here—he really was subtle about it. But I know him well enough to realize that his ‘just think about it’ way means that people have said things about this to him. It’s what is keeping me from my next job.
So here I am again, with my mouth is keeping me from getting ahead. It’s not budget, it’s not opportunity, and it’s not space at the top—it is me.
I’m comforting myself with the knowledge that the ability to fix this and remove the last obstacle lies squarely within my power. Still, we’re talking about a problem I’ve had since I was 10, and one that I thought I’d fixed. And I really thought I had overcome this problem. I am so careful about my language. I don’t use sarcasm at all anymore. I try very hard to insert an ‘unfortunately’ into e-mails that carry bad news. In fact, I thought I had overcompensated to such a place that I was something of a pushover in certain ways.
Clearly I’m not, though it still feels this way, and now I’m going to have to dial it down even more, because if I don’t, I’ll be stuck at this High Man in a Cubicle level forever….or until someone gets sick of my trap and has me fired.
I’m working on it. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks pulling back on my ‘straight speak’ at home. In an effort to reduce the explosive incidents, I’m inserting bubble baths into my evenings, even when I have so much to do that I could stay up all night and not get it done. I think this will help, but really, I won't know until I'm faced with something stressful. Will I stay or will I blow?
My propensity to see things in their extreme form, and my drive to keep things from getting disastrous by refusing to let anything happen at all is keeping me from getting ahead. I am keeping me from getting ahead. Me and only me. Sucks, sucks, sucks.
Work isn’t the only place where my mouth gets me into trouble. I’ve been bouncing around the low 150s since mid-December, and I can’t seem to find the focus I need to get me back to my goal weight. I have a few days of perfection, and I start to get that “thin” feeling of the Below 150 club. Then I go to DS’s gymnastics on Monday night and I snack on something outside of the program, and then I have dinner on top of it, because of course natty snacks don’t satisfy.
Then Wednesday night comes and the boys are out climbing until 7:30 and I’m in the house, starving. I don’t want to have dinner without them, and I don’t want to eat anything that will ruin my week (Monday did that already), so I pick and whittle at the no-point junk foods until I’m sick. Then I’m cranky because I ate wrong and I’m still hungry, and the evening is ruined. Mostly because I’m sick and irritable, and so I start shooting off of my mouth.
I did discover something this week that could really help. I’m PMSing, which always challenges those in striking distance. But I’d been calmer than usual and so I was able to monitor my emotional decline. Things begin for me around Day 18 and continue for 9 stormy days until my cycle ends. On Tuesday, I had too much fat free Reddi-Whip and when it layered itself on top of my degenerating progesterone, I felt jumpy all night. Then on Wednesday, I had some chocolate at work. Dumbo me decided to stay at the office instead of going home and scavenging for Dinner #1. All I managed to do was move my binging from home to office. I had a headache and I felt dizzy, and then I snapped at Howard over nothing.
Yesterday, I was sugar-free. Let me point out at this juncture that ALL days should be sugar-free: this is how far I’ve removed myself from the daily WW regimen. Anyway, I felt better then I had for the previous 2 days UNTIL I got home and downed a sugar-free jello with fat-free Reddi-Whip (which has sugar in it). DS also got drugged by the Valentine’s Day extravaganza, and we had a preview of the Teenager All Out War right after dinner. He slept it off, I cried in guilt, and today we’re all better, but I would give my right arm not to repeat that. Once again, my mouth got me into trouble, this time with my darling boy.
I believe that this is fixable, and not something so deeply ingrained into my psyche that there’s no workaround. I have to believe that, because otherwise I’ll wind up alone and angry. Speaking from years of previous experience, I guarantee that this is not what I want. The problem I have now is that I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to be an effective executive (wannabe) or even an assertive, pleasant person without throwing my weight around. I know that this is so, since I’m doing all this while simultaneously thinking I’m a pushover. I have a perception problem, and it manifests itself right in the middle of my face.
SuperBoss started taking yoga about a month ago. He was pretty even before, but I can tell that he’s far more relaxed now, and he seems more centered and relaxed. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should find my Zen or my ohm or whatever it is that makes the Type B folks around me just as effective (or moreso) than me, while keeping their friends and family intact.
Intact. In tact. There’s a thought. Maybe if I just waited to speak or e-mail, much of this would go away. It wouldn't take long-just a few minutes, or a day at the most for something really incendiary. Or maybe I should think through all the possible conflict scenarios and craft diplomatic responses ahead of time, so I’m not left to determine the right answer when I’m sitting on the spot.
Or maybe I should treat others with the respect and courtesy that I’d like to have. Be nice and stay out of the candy aisle. Those two things could solve everything.
Keep it Simple. I’ll omit the ‘stupid’, in the interest of creating better communications. Let’s see how it goes.
A the T(rending toward tact)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 10:04 AM
4 Comments:
Hugs. Take a deep breath before you speak. As you know, I have the same problem :) Colleen
This blog is/was simply awesome. It details the exact place and point I'm experiencing in my life.
You are the Mozart of the internet!
Touche Amy
THANK YOU, ANDI!
And my apologies for not responding sooner. I am honored by your compliment.
Best,
Amy
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