Of Cultural Norms and Ridiculous Gender Standards

  Today, I wanted to focus on a particularly ridiculous piece of news I came across recently. A court in Iowa ruled that it was legal for a dentist to fire his dental assistant for being "irresistible." Apparently her clothing and behavior was deemed inappropriate, by the dentist or possibly his wife, and he anticipated that he might experience an infidelity in his marriage if they continued to work together. I find this ruling so typically midwest, and so incredibly offensive to women everywhere.
    First of all, the woman worked there for ten years. If she had been acting or dressing inappropriately, it seems such an issue would have had precedent. A jealous spouse or a wandering spouse are no reason to fire someone who has performed their duties correctly and loyally for such a long time. Granted, I don't know the full details of the case or have photographs or anything to judge whether the woman was actually in the wrong, but I'm going to speak to the principle of the matter.
    It is not the fault of one person for another's insecurities or inability to remain loyal to their partner. If this woman were coming to work in low cut tops or really short skirts, see-through blouses or bending over more obviously than is necessary to pick up a file or a pencil, that would be one thing, but it's a dentist's office. I was under the impression that most dental assistants, as well as hygienists and dentists themselves, wear scrubs. At least they do at my dentist's office. It's the administrative people, the file clerks and receptionists, who are supposed to wear the business professional or business casual attire which might offer more freedom and opportunity to dress inappropriately.
    The frustrating thing is, once again, it's the word of one person in a position of power versus the word of another person who is in a position to be fired. Sexual harassment is supposed be under a strict "no tolerance" policy at pretty much every job in the country. It should make no different whether the harasser is a supervisor or not, and yet, office politics and issues like gender bias seem to always place the blame on the person lowest on the totem pole.
    "Oh, s/he dressed too provocatively, I couldn't help it," the higher up person says. You know what? No. If you have no self-control, that's your problem. You don't get to get away with this just because you can't keep it in your pants. And you know what, spouse/partner of no-self-control person? This won't be the last time this happens. You can demand they fire every good-looking employee in the office and they will always find a way back into the gutter. Firing others doesn't address whatever the real problem is in the relationship, and there usually is a relationship problem if the spouse is requesting the firing.
    Speaking up about harassment in the workplace is important, whether you're a man or woman, though unfortunately, it is often women who experience it. Whether your coworker or boss comments in an offensive or inappropriate way how nicely those jeans fit you, whether they make sexually or otherwise inappropriate jokes, whether they look at porn on their computer when you happen to show up for a meeting--whatever the case may be, it's important to let the right people (HR or whoever is in charge of enforcing the policy) know about it.
    If you put up with it when you're uncomfortable with the words, attention, or actions, even if they're not particularly offensive to you, you're just letting the negative environment propagate. If it makes you a narc, so be it. You have to do what you feel is right, regardless of politics or the ridiculous possibility that you may lose your job in the process. I say "ridiculous" because coming forward with something like this should never cause you concern for your job security. It's ridiculous that things still work that way in the 21st century.
    You are entitled to a safe, harassment-free, and healthy work environment. Your job may still suck, your coworkers still may not pull their weight, and you may never get that ergonomic chair or mouse you requested, but at least you don't have to put up with demeaning or offensive attitudes when you're just trying to earn a living.

Fight for your right
to a healthy work environment.

Quiet: Part 3, The Book

  In Part 1 and Part 2 of my discussion on this topic, I covered how the book (pictured at left) made me think about my experiences as an introvert, now I'm going to cover some of the details of the book itself and why it's worth reading.

What it has going for it:

    The book goes over the science of introverted and extroverted personality types. The author is not a scientist herself, but has done quite a bit of research into the science and spoken to scientists, psychologists, and other experts on the subject. Having these examples, studies, and case studies included is really helpful for people who have never really understood why they are more introverted or extroverted.
    It goes a long way to making a case for a new approach for rearranging education and workplace environments, as well as how we interact and communicate with our peers, partners, family members, coworkers, and others around us.
    It includes backgrounds and case studies on specific individuals in places like Harvard Business School and Silicon Valley, and explains how some introverts overcome some aspects of their personality in order to lead a cause, do a job, or participate in their relationships.
    Unsurprisingly, the book is sympathetic to introverts, but it is not entirely condemning of extroverts. Rather, it condemns the "extrovert ideal" and supports a more balanced or mixed standard. This standard will focus more on allowing each type of individual to demonstrate their strengths rather than expecting or even requiring individuals to show a particular set of skills or personality traits, and condemning them when they don't. It applies to teaching, parenting, hiring, working together, living together, and any aspect of our daily lives and interactions.

Author Susan Cain

Where it is lacking:

    Not enough case studies. The book is nothing but psychological experiments and case studies, but I still felt like it didn't go as deep as it could have or offer as many examples as it could have for some of the topics, especially during the second half of the book.
    I think the book would have benefited from talking about more successful, well-known introverts. It discussed a few, like Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Steve Wozniak, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Warren Buffett, but it could have included more examples, specifically more modern examples that include discussion with the person directly rather than taking details from biographies.

Why it's worth the read:

    If you're an introvert, you can learn more about why your brain works the way it does, why you prefer certain activities and habits over others, and a little bit about how, why, and when you should go out of your introverted comfort zone.

John Lennon
Peace Monument,
Liverpool, UK

    If you're an extrovert, you can learn more about some of the quiet people around you, and how not to take it personally when they don't agree with you or don't want to participate in an activity you suggest. You can learn more about how introverts "shine" and why you should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to social norms. 
    Overall, this is a great book for everyone to gain a better understanding of both personality types and how to get the most out of your interactions with each no matter what you're working on--a class project, a client report, a marriage or anything else.

Give peace [and quiet] a chance.
-John Lennon

The Times They Are A Changin

  Truer words were never spoken. However, despite my desire to blog and share everything that's been going on, I've been a little afraid to do it because of who might be reading... Remember last year when I was like, oh, I think I'll leave grad school to go to work full time because I like my job? Yeah. The tides have turned a bit. I don't regret leaving grad school, and I don't regret starting work full-time, but it is taking a toll.
    My physical health is not terrible, but it's definitely affected by working at a computer all day. Sitting at a desk with a gigantic monitor (that always seems too bright no matter how low I turn the brightness control down--I think it's at 35 right now out of 100) for 8 hours a day is bad for your health. Period. I get up, walk around, grab a snack, chat to my coworkers, but then I have to go back to my desk and work after a few minutes of break time.
    I know I have eyestrain. I know my posture's not great anyway, and looking at a computer all day doesn't help. I have started to get a little twinge in my lower back sometimes from my desk chair, even though it's probably more comfortable than some of the office chairs we have. I get tingles in my hand sometimes from using my mouse if I have to do the exact same task for too long in one day (there's a name for this I read the other day, but I can't remember what it is right now). I even have a trackball mouse, which is supposed to be more ergonomic and easier on your hand and wrist, and most of the time, it is, but you do anything for too long and you're bound to get some carpal tunnel symptoms. Not only are these things I could tell my doctor, but I'm also stressed. Eight hours is just a long day. And I always feel out of the loop or behind on my work which stresses me out.
    We currently have an influx of interns at our office which is causing me more stress. Our new three year plan is to have a company "fueled by interns." Now, they're all nice people and I don't begrudge them coming in to get job experience, and I certainly didn't go to business school to say whether or not this is a sound business plan. But I have to admit, it makes me a little nervous. I'm not afraid that one of them will come in and take my job. I'm more afraid that interns won't be enough to keep up with the workload we have because they aren't trained well enough or aren't there enough hours in the week.
    I was hoping they would arrive to relieve some of my workload so that I didn't have to worry as much as I do about how much stuff needs to get done. I find that lately, I've been a little more forgetful than usual about some things, which makes me think I might spread a little too thin between doing my administrative and assistant work (aka my job title) and my more time-consuming and more job title fitting duties of managing and editing the content for our websites.
    It's really hard to switch back and forth between playing the admin role and the editor role, and I have to do it several times during the day. I have brought it up to the boss about being shifted into a job title that fits my duties more accurately, but that would mean they would need to find another assistant, and with the intern plan they are running on now, they seem reluctant (if not downright adverse) to the idea of actually hiring someone for pay.
    On the one hand, the intern plan makes a little sense to me. They sell it as, we want to make sure the person likes to be here and likes the work here before we hire them, and we want to make sure we like the person and they fit in and do good work before we decide to hire them. But on the other hand, these are all kids. They are college students who don't see our little college town as the end of the road in terms of career options. I don't blame them. So it's hard to find an intern that is not only good at what they do but wants to stay here for longer than their 3 month internship requires. There are plenty of talented, smart, hard-working kids that are coming in, but that also means that they are talented enough to find a job somewhere else where they can make more money and live where they want to live.
    I'm not going to complain too much about the money, because it's not my main complaint to make, but technically, I should be making three times as much as my rent, and right now, I'm only making about two times as much, not including all the damn utilities. And, technically, a competitive wage for the type of job I do is quite a bit higher than what I'm currently making. I currently fit into about 10 different job descriptions--no, I'm not exaggerating--and some of those jobs are supposed to pay three times as much as I do, based on current industry trends. Even though I don't have ten years of experience, I am still doing a job that someone with ten years of experience would be doing, and I think I'm not doing too bad at it either.
    But my main focus, as I said, is this intern thing. What I think is not being said, or unfortunately, perhaps not realized, is that more interns will go than stay. It is not only somewhat inefficient to have to interview so many new people because you're always looking for replacements and people to fill new, previously unfilled positions, but it is also inefficient because a lot of these interns need to be trained and acclimated to how our company works. That takes time that an intern who's there for maybe 8 to 10 hours a week doesn't really have.
    Again, I have liked all the interns we've had so far. They're all nice people and most of them are doing a good job at what they've been assigned. But I know most of them are not going to stay past their internships. They're going to graduate and move somewhere else. The incentive to stay here is just not high enough. While they may enjoy the work, they don't enjoy it enough to stay in town. Or, they may enjoy the work, but they don't enjoy it enough to get paid what we pay.
    I have stayed because it was enough. I like the work. I like living here. But they're raising my rent when my lease ends in April, which is going to spread me even thinner than I already am. I budget like a champ, but this is going to be a little rough without another raise. And with all these changes that are happening, I'm not entirely confident the company will still be here in three years if the intern plan fails.
    Although this new plan is the major cause of my concern for my job security, there is also the fact that they fired one my coworkers a week before Christmas. I haven't quite gotten over that. Not because it was right before Christmas, and not because we were friends. It's the principle of the thing. He worked harder than all of us did, stressed out more than the rest of us did, and was pushed and judged harder than the rest of us are. He didn't deserve it, even though he is probably better off not being here anymore because I know he is way less stressed now than he was.
    What it comes down to is that without him, we are down to two full-time employees, including myself, and with all the new work and new clients and stuff that we are planning on adding, we are extremely, perhaps dangerously, understaffed, no matter how many interns we bring on.
    All in all, I'm worried. I'm stressed out from working forty hours a week, I'm too tired at the end of the day to take care of myself as well as I'd like, I'm worried that I might be on a sinking ship, and I'm worried that I might have to move in with my parents again if things do go south. (Yes, I'm mixing my metaphors. Deal with it.)
    As much as I complain here, I have started a "positivity journal", thanks to a handy-dandy free app that I got for my Kindle (my over-budget Christmas present to myself). I have been told I'm too negative and complain too much, so I started trying to track some of the good things that happen to me during the day so that I have some of the good to balance out the bad. I think it's helping. But it's not going to stop me from sharing my thoughts here because they always come out so much more cohesively when I write them than when I tell them to someone else.

Late night, come home, work sucks. I know. 

What do you think of this 3 year plan? Or my poor health? Or life in general?

Tell me about it in the comments!

Oh, The Weather Outside Is Delightful

  Hello Dear Readers! I had to take a bit of a break for a while, and if you are wondering why you couldn't get in to read Insistent and Persistent the past couple weeks, I temporarily changed my privacy settings due to a breach. (Post coming soon: 10 Reasons Not To Friend Your Mother On Facebook--just kidding. But seriously, don't do that. Even if you get along well with your mother.)
    Without further ado, this is why I opened the blog back up and wanted to write today: I've been dreaming of a white Christmas since about July, and in Colorado, we rarely get a real white Christmas. "Real" being defined as snowing on the day or the day before, preferably overnight. This year, once again, it looks like I will be robbed of that dream once again, but on the plus side, IT'S SNOWING!! I wasn't sure if it was actually going to happen--but almost the minute the winter storm watch went into effect up here, it started snowing on my drive home from work.
    Funnily enough, it smelled like rain rather than snow, but there was also a smell of static electricity in the air. I never listen to the weather people when it comes to precipitation in Colorado--they have a nasty tendency to disappoint in terms of accumulation. But sometimes, they underestimate the storm and it dumps a few inches more than expected. As much as I hate scraping car windows and driving near so many crazy people (most of whom are from out of state and have never driven in snow before or just suck at it), I still love the snow.
    My cat (affectionately known as "the furball" received his Christmas present in the mail today--a catnip toy squirrel--another furball. He doesn't love it as much as I'd hoped, but he does like it, so that's good. (I'm hoping this might give him something to do during the day so he will consider leaving the furniture alone.)
    I got most of my shopping done online this year, for the first time. It is quite convenient. And I expect to still have money left over from what I budgeted, which means I may buy myself a rather sizable Christmas present... Or early birthday present. Or early anniversary present. Whatever. It seems like everyone is being a little lean this Christmas, compared with last year, but I think I've spent more than ever.
    I also get to go up skiing this weekend--hopefully this time I will not fall on my face again. Hoping to make great strides in my ski skills so that I won't have to stay on the Bunny Hill for the rest of the season.
    Aside from my blog, I have been getting the opportunity to write for real at work (real this time means I am actually credited!). I cannot tell you how positively tickled I am to be able to do that. I am probably spending way more time on it than i should be, but it's important to me. I want the stuff I'm writing to be good, worthy, sort of. All the other writers on the site are professional writers or journalists and have been for several years, so I feel like I need to write well enough so that I seem like I belong among that group. If you know me, you can find that stuff on Facebook. If you don't, you'll just have to wait until I decide to use my real name around here.
    Remember how I once said bad things happen in threes? I had one of those this past week. My brother got some bad news which meant I got some bad news; I got my FIRST EVER speeding ticket which I am still super-pissed about; and one of my co-workers was let go earlier this week. That one hit hardest. We're a small company, and whenever something like that happens, it affects everyone because we're all pretty close. I think what bothered me most about it was that it happened one week before Christmas.
    Not to put a damper on the holiday spirit, I discovered a new cocktail: gin and ginger ale. I received an excellent bottle of gin from a local craft distillery a couple weeks ago, and I was amazed at how clearly I could still taste the flavors through the ginger ale.
    I am also currently editing my novel that I abandoned the blog for during November. I made all the edits by hand, so now I am transferring all those changes to the document on my computer. Next step will be to revise it. What's the difference, you say? Editing: typos, spelling, grammar, syntax, vocabulary--the nuts and bolts of the writing. Revision: rewriting scenes, adding scenes, deleting scenes, removing or adding characters, etc--the heart of the story. I'm hoping not to do too much revision, because I think after going through it once now, it actually turned out quite well. But, we'll what happens when I really look at it with that in mind.
    Sorry for being out of the loop. I just had to recover a bit from my privacy scare before I was ready to come back here and start sharing again. I welcome you back, and I hope I didn't scare everyone away by changing the security settings for a couple weeks.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Being A Little OCD Sucks Sometimes

  I spent the last couple days sorting through 410 articles for our new site at work, trying to sort them into categories and find relevant tags for all of them. It covers a lot of ground, so the lists got pretty long. I think I put together a pretty decent one though, one that was comprehensive but not exhaustive. I took it upon myself to put it together because it was starting to look like the alternative was another brainstorming session that probably wouldn't yield too many finalized results. And I guess it went over well, for the most part.
    The problem with this one is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, I think, and everyone has their own idea of how to sort the content out. But, being that I'm the one who's going to be managing the content and probably the one who will have to go through and categorize and tag a lot of the content we currently have, My idea makes the most sense. I don't think that's immodest or stubborn, I think it's just realistic. I have a good overall understanding of how the content stands currently, and I think the way I've planned the organization of it makes the most sense for what we have on hand, as well as being a good place for us to move forward when we get new content in.
    I'm not saying my way or the highway, but kind of. When you have a website of this magnitude, there needs to be a process in place for handling certain areas, like content, as we move forward. If I create a process, I know I can stick to it. All that's left is making sure whoever comes in at any point to help with the content knows how I do it and does it the same way so that everything on the site is uniform and nothing gets confused or messed up because somebody didn't follow procedure.
    I am aware of how neurotic and OCD this sounds, but I am a little neurotic and OCD. When I have a job, I find a way to do it the best, most efficient and most organized way possible. It's one thing for the articles themselves to have different content--of course they would--they're written by a bunch of different people with different writing styles. It's quite another for them to be SEO'd and formatted differently because the people we have in-house are not all doing it the same way. I think that looks sloppy. And if I'm in charge of the content, you better believe it won't look sloppy for long.
    So, I may be compulsive and excessively organized, but it pays off from time to time. My high school psych teacher always used to tell us there was a method to her madness, which I always found terribly amusing because a psych teacher talking about madness is pretty funny/ironic, and I completely agree. I may do things the hard way and I may dot every single I and cross every last T, but there is always a reason for everything I do when it comes to this stuff. I don't do things without thinking, and while maybe my solutions or processes aren't perfect every time, I always have a very reasonable explanation for having done things that way. I don't think this makes me inflexible, it just keeps me organized.

One more person says "a whole nother" and I think I'll scream.

What are your little pet peeves, idiosyncrasies and neuroses? 

Or are you so easy-going that nothing bothers you?

Explain in the comments. ;)

Overwhelmed But Flattered

  I was taken to an almost impromptu lunch yesterday (meaning I didn't know about it until that morning) and offered what might be considered a promotion. Good news, right? I was scared shitless the entire time they were talking about it. It felt kind of like an ambush, as I had no idea that that's what the lunch would be about. My coworker and I were both taken out and offered a similar position, added responsiblity, added stress, and a pay increase, though no mention was made as to how much that would be.
    My one year review was today, it was positive, and I did get a raise (yay!). But my concern was not even really how much the raise would have been for. It was more the added stress and added responsiblity that I was not sure I was ready for. It would be additional content management for our new site, which I was expecting, and the possibility of training an intern and supervising them directly, both of which I know I can handle. The thing I was wavering on had to do with the "project management" thing, which was the title that came with the promotion. Part of this position would have included me having to manage my coworkers' tasks and check on their progress on those tasks and projects, on top of doing my own task and time management. I don't mind checking in with people when my bosses are out of town, but I wouldn't want to do it as part of my regular job. I can't bug people about their jobs. I can't be the nag. I can't write on the whiteboard what they're supposed to do. And I can't sit there and tell them it has to be done by Friday because, honestly, who am I? Unless I can fire them if it's not done, who am I? Their coworker, who is younger than most of them, that is trying to keep them on track? I'm fairly certain that at least two of them would feel extremely pissed off about me in that position, not jealous, necessarily, but angry that a person of my age and experience--which is still pretty limited if you measure it by time--was put into a position of this caliber.
    We're a small company, and I've known for a long time that they've wanted to put somebody else in a semi-supervisory position to free up my bosses' time. I've had a job for one year. All the experince I have, the majority has come during this one year. I just don't feel ready to do all the work that that new position would have required. I don't feel like I have the personality to manage that many people's tasks. I can manage myself, and maybe one other person who would be doing the same kind of work as me, but five additional people? Plus my own workload managing content? It was just too overwhelming.
    Don't get me wrong, I was flattered as hell, but intimidated more. I know how much confidence my bosses have in me, and while it's appreciated, I know that a job like that would not just put me close to a mental breakdown, it might actually CAUSE one. So, without mental health benefits, or general wellness benefits (anti-stress benefits, to be precise, massages and the like), I cannot sign on for a job where I have no idea what the workload or stress load is going to be, only that it will be more. I am already stressed and I already work hard. More seems like I might be setting myself up to fail at this point. And maybe in a few months, once I get my bearing with this new site, I might feel up to taking on a little more, but until then, I'd like to have some idea of what I'm getting into. And in the meantime, I'm very happy with what I'm doing now, and I look forward to taking on the new challenges within that particular aspect of my job.
    I did get a positive review, which I was very pleased about. In light of the fact that it was my one year review, I went out of my way to put together a list of all the major projects, tasks, and writing assignments I've completed over the past year. There were a lot. Even I was surprised. I have written so much, and completed a fair number of major projects as well, and it was kind of cool to see them all in one place, rather than spread out over so many weekly activity reports. It was sort of as a defense against any poor performance things that might have come up, though thankfully, none did.
    It's strange to think I've been at the same company, and to think about how far I've come from what I was doing this time last year to now, but it's cool. I've never had a job this long, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can accomplish in the next year.

Happy work birthday to me... Happy work birthday to me... :)

What are some of your accomplishments in the past year? Either work-related or in your personal life.

Do you have any goals for the next 12 months?

Tell me about it in the comments below.

Working for the Weekend

  For the first time, I was asked to work this weekend. I didn't have to go in to the office or get anything done by a weekend deadline, but it's more the why I had to work this weekend than the fact that I had to at all that bothers me.
    I work hard, and I put a large part of myself into the company. I get stress headaches, my eyes get dry and bloodshot, I get back pain sitting in a chair all day, and I strain my brain staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying: I put a lot of time, effort, and both mental and physical strain on myself at my job. I do this willingly. I work hard, and I take pride in the work that I do. I don't half-ass it, and I don't cut corners because that's just not how I was raised to do things.
    So when I am asked to work over the weekend to redo an assignment that was originally assigned to someone else, I get a little perturbed. The assignment was completed by this person, who shall remain nameless, but it was not up to snuff. I will leave the reason for why it was not up to snuff out of this, because it is a really poor excuse for poor work, but I will say that, not only should someone not turn in work like this in the first place, but they shouldn't be in such a state as to turn in work like this.
    If you are not able to do what is assigned to you, you probably should take the day off until you are ready to come back and adequately do your job. I do my job. I don't like doing other people's jobs for them. I will do it when asked, because I figure, if I'm asked to do it, that makes it part of my job. But I also figure that if I have to do someone else's job for them, that makes them a liability rather than an asset.
    It's one thing if someone has pneumonia or has a relative in the hospital--those are reasonable, good excuses. And in those cases, I'm fine stepping up and taking on a little extra work while they're out. But poor work quality while you should be in fine working capacity, leading to someone else having to fix your mistakes, is not ok.
    This is a job, not a class. You don't get to take it over if you fail a paper or test. Separate your personal life from your work life. Don't air your dirty laundry in public. And if you can't do your job, don't do it badly and leave it to someone else to fix it. I'm telling this to you, dear readers, because unfortunately, my aversion to confrontation will prevent me from telling it to the person whose job I had to do this weekend.

Welcome to Adulthood. Failures Will Be Shot. Or maybe just fired.

Have you ever cleaned up somebody else's mess at work? Did you confront them about it? 

Leave a comment, and feel free to use phony names to retain anonymity.

The Worst Kinds of People

  I read an article today about the worst kinds of coworkers to have, the loud mouth, the bad influence, the rival, the downer, etc., and it got me thinking about people I know who are like this. Not necessarily coworkers, as I have pretty awesome coworkers, but just people I've known or that I know now who are people I probably shouldn't know.
    As far as someone who talks too much, I'm probably guilty of that one. I don't blab other people's secrets. Not secrets. I do have a tendency to overshare my own thoughts, and sometimes, when it's really good news or really juicy gossip, I have a really hard time not sharing it. Sometimes it's just with my boyfriend, and he doesn't really count because he doesn't talk about anything I tell him to other people, but sometimes it's sharing with my coworkers, and I probably shouldn't share all the stuff I do with them. There are some things that, because we work together, probably should be kept to myself.
    Bad influences, I know a few of those people. The ones that tell you to skip class to go to the brewery, the ones that talk you into coming to that party you didn't want to go to because it was going to be nothing but a bunch of people you don't know drinking stuff you don't want to drink, the ones that convince you to hang out or go do things that you don't have the money to do just because it sounds like so much fun. I think we all have this bone in our bodies--we all do a little peer pressuring from time to time, whether it's something little or something big. The difference is that we aren't the pusher all the time. Some people are always going to dare you to do the thing you know you shouldn't be doing because they have a little danger streak that they want to share.
    Overly competitive people--I was in IB in high school. I didn't finish, but I knew my fair share of overly competitive people. The ones that will always ask what you got on your test and caw happily when they find out they got one point better. (I did enjoy doing better than other people, I just didn't say it out loud that I got the better grade or that I was proud of myself for having gotten it.) The people who will always turn in the paper a week early and stick their hand up first to get their answer in. The only person I think I've ever really competed with is myself. I'll admit, I am a little competitive at work. I want to get my good idea in first, and I want my creativity to shine over everyone else's when I get the chance to. But I'm not the most creative person there, and I don't have the experience with certain aspects of the job that other people do, which limits me in some respects, and it means that that chance to shine doesn't come around as often as it used to when I was in school, getting grades.
    The downer is that person that can always find something negative to say about whatever happens or whatever else is said. I have DEFINITELY known people like this. It's really unfortunate because they're usually decent people, they just have an overly pessimistic outlook on life and people and the world. I have days where everything sucks--I think you'd have to be an automaton if you didn't have days like that at least sometimes, however infrequent. But some people are just distrustful, angry, regretful, and unhappy people that live by the adage misery loves company. These are probably the worst ones on this list because they bring everyone else down too, whether they mean to or not.
    I guess the point here is that while we all may be a little bit like these personalities from time to time, the point is not to be any one of them ALL the time. And maybe to be more like a few other personalities some of the time too--the encourager, the shoulder to lean on, the back-up, the giver--to balance everything out. (Sidenote: Using the new Blogger Interface right now. It's clean, and I like the posting part, LOVE the posting part, but the dashboard is weird. Too clean, too few buttons. Hard to find what you want.)

Be ambitious but not a shark. 

Be realistic not pessimistic. 

Be honest but not tactless. 

What kind of person do YOU think is the worst? 

Or... are you secretly one of them?

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