Compromise

Some six years ago, I was on a team interviewing a candidate for a position at the high tech company where I work. Our "team" interviewing really consists of a series of 1:1 interviews, after which the exhausted candidate is sent on their way, and the team gets together to determine whether s/he passed muster.

The candidate was exquisitely skilled, with both the academic background and experience to make her attractive to the group. Oh - and she was a she - which in our male-dominated environment looks good for those diversity stats. I threw all sorts of questions at her, and she did marvelously. So then, ten minutes or so left in my hour, I threw the time open for her questions. Did she have any?

"Is it true that you have to take a class about arguments here?" Um... well, yes. I discussed the course with the interviewee, who looked rather perplexed, paranoid, and ... well, panicked.

Turns out that she'd asked all of us that question, and in our team session at the end of the day, we decided against making an offer. Didn't matter, because when we emerged from the room, she'd already called and left a message - not interested.

There's something about the corporate culture, about our ways of dealing with disputes, that just works for me. The first part of this week was just a bloody unpleasant mess. By yesterday, I'd managed to unpack enough of what was going on in my cranium to figure out what was up - the rest of the world hasn't taken that class. There's a concept called constructive confrontation - not quite what our corporate culture has engendered, but a variant thereof - which, when used with skill, can get to good resolutions of previously-intractable conflicts. It's a good practice, and although I'd be the first to say the company's not practicing it all that well these days, compared to unstructured conflict, it's not bad at all.

So - why 'compromise'? Well - what do you do when there's a conflict, and not everyone agrees on how it should be resolved? Well - you escalate - or you walk away. This week, I opted for the latter, but I'm still vaguely unsettled. I'm not sure it was the right thing to do. I don't know what the alternative would've been, though.

No real conclusion. I'm tired. It's been a long week. I'm feeling tremendously grateful for my job right now, and curiously, not primarily because of the bits they drop in my credit union account twice a month.

What Teachers Make

I admit it. Today has been a hell of a day. Today began 38 hours ago, in fact - and some random issues at Kid Pax's school kept me awake all night, and it's generally been a thoroughly sucky day. The quote attributed to Kissinger (but undoubtedly not his own) has been echoing in my exhausted mind since 2am - "Academic politics are so vicious, precisely because the stakes are so very small".

On again & off again, I've been pondering whether to just bail - to spend my time and energy at my little parish, where the politics can fit in a thimble, and at work, where we have well-defined rules of engagement for arguments, including a mandatory class on how to confront with a vengeance. (Think "geek Fight Club, with words and powerpoint instead of fists. 'Tis a beautiful thing.)

And then, damn it, comes a little snippet of mail from a friend from the Street [Prophets], with the poetry slam of teacher Taylor Mali. So for three minutes I sat here bawling my eyes out, remembering why in the hell I care so much about this $#!+. Now - how will that affect how I deal with the current maelstrom? I don't know. I do know that walking away from it altogether is not an option. Not because anything I do there is really of note at all, no, but because there's 20 or so Taylor Malis there - and what they make matters more to me than just about anything on this funny little rock on which we live.

Kissinger was wrong, at least about the young'uns. The stakes are high - and so very precious.

(Warning - Probably not for most kids to see, although Kid Pax has seen it - nor those with delicate constitutions.)

My parish

 

Those of you who know me well know that if there's anyplace out there that's 'home' to my soul, my spirit - it's the Downtown Chapel - known as "my little parish" sometimes, or even affectionately as "Our Lady of the Bunker". It's a small, windowless building on a corner steeped in poverty, smelling of urine and cheap wine, and even splashed with blood on occasion.

The website's been up and running for a few years now, and really does a great job of talking about our little community, what we stand for, what matters, and the work done in Christ's name by the hospitality and pastoral staff there and dozens and dozens of volunteers. Now some of us from the community will be speaking through Faith from the Streets - the Downtown Chapel blog.

Check it out. Tell 'em I sent you. :)

Smart squirrels say...

 

"Leave the freaking Microsoft software alone, and just go with Firefox already!"

OK, OK... mea culpa. I rant on and on about open source, and yet I've been too lazy to do anything with my work laptop besides deal with the standard build 'til now. Just installed Firefox - and wow. Just wow. It rocks.

A reboot fixed the nasty little IE script error. Biggest problem now will be dealing with the fact that most of the stuff I need to do for work requires IE - all our systems are part of the Microsoft conglomerate, and if I want to be able to get to various repositories and such, I'll need to use that inferior bit of software.

Oh - and about the squirrel. No relevance at all. Just a photo the kid took outside the bookstore at Notre Dame on Sunday morning. Happy squirrel.

Oy^2

Debugging's a lot of fun - until it isn't fun anymore. For some reason, Picasa is being a pain in the butt tonight, kicking up IE script errors whenever I try to use the "Blog This!" option. No problem - I've been meaning to download and install Firefox on the work Stinkpad for some time now, and now's a good of a time as any.

Except even running Firefox, I'm still getting the blasted IE Script Errors.

I know, I know - get off the freakin' Stinkpad and use the iBook. I know. And besides, don't I have anything better to do tonight besides mess around with the blog software?

Evidently not.

Oy... busyness strikes

I only mentioned this site to a few people; turns out more are reading than I thought.

Yes - the day of the last post was sucky. Things improved - and were a whirlwind of activity. Haven't had time to post and update. Working on the photo album now, and I'm also digging through ~1500 messages in my inbox at the borg.

We're back in Portland, yes. Life's good. More later.

The view from here

   

The view from our hotel room - yes, that's "Touchdown Jesus" in the background on the Notre Dame library.

The view... partly cloudy. In a mood from hell. Kid is holding up reasonably well for nine; I think we both overestimated what he'd be able to take in here. After 2.5 days of running around with him, I was looking forward to having a grownup conversation, right about the time that he decided he was going to regress a few years. So - I'm trying to keep him from losing it entirely...

... and trying to keep from losing it entirely myself. Not doing too well with that one right now.

Tired, lonely, exhausted as hell and just wanting to be home, or at least to have another pair of(or dozen) hands to help with him. Missed a call from someone half an hour ago, which is probably for the best, since I'd likely be sobbing over the phone at this point if I talked to her, especially if I heard her little girls in the background. There's a lot of stuff ahead of us in these next few days, and I'm trying to find some semblance of balance so we manage to return home, sanity intact.

And yet...

And yet...

All of this is as it should be. It's what I signed up for - so many ways, so many times - and it's often through going through these times that I get to new insights. Right now I'm not seeing them, but that's OK. Maybe there's something to be learned from the juxtaposition of my tired loneliness with the decision that these four guys are making this weekend, what they are signing up for now.

Watch and pray.

And so it happens...

... that the Kid and I find ourselves in O'Hare, Terminal 3, Baggage Claim area 6ish or so. The rest of the folks from his school & their parish will be flying in, landing in roughly an hour, and we're to meet them here to catch the bus for the two hour and change trip to South Bend.

And here we are. He with his Nintendo, me with the laptop & digital camera, Boingo wi-fi wafting through the airways, a signal my laptop snapped onto instantly, recognizing it from last month's trip through Minneapolis. No muss, no fuss - a two-minute point, click, upload, connect, post endeavor.

I have fond memories of O'Hare. In 1987 or so, a group of us from L&C went to a radical campus activists' gathering hosted by Rutgers in scenic Piscataway, NJ. I don't remember who made the reservations (Eli? Linda? Robert? Moi?) - but for whatever reason, we had an overnight layover here in the United terminal, the one with the music & light installation created by Philip Glass. We spent the night cruising up and down the moving pedestrian walkways, staring up at the lights, basking in the music.

This is not that trip. Nintendo bugs the crap out of me generally, and it's all I can do to not will the batteries to die. He'd be upset and bored, and ... well, we're not going on a flight today, so riding up and down the Philip Glass corridor isn't an option.

Instead, we've got the floor on which we sit, a Starbucks fifty or so feet away, and the Kid is singing along to the Nintendo game. I'm online, rambling incoherent about the ubiquitious nature of communication these days.

Chicago was good, but I've gotta admit - I'm really eager for the kid to be a few years older, so he can explore more of the things that I fell in love with in the city years ago. That is, if I can pry his fingers away from the glowing tinny box. Oy.

Mixed Blessings

Traveling with the kid is always a bittersweet experience, and this trip is not any different. This is his second trip to Chicago as a sentient being, although he made no fewer than four incursionary visits to these windy streets before he was able to even say "Chicago". His first visit to the Art Institute was when he was a mere six months old, and at nine, he's a pro at finding his way around the Loop, getting a little more adept at remembering which transit system is the Metra train, the El, CTA buses, etc... he's getting it.

He has favorite exhibits in the Field Museum, can self-navigate around the Shedd Aquarium, and could do a credible job as a docent at either place at this point. He can discuss the "Evolving Planet" exhibit at the Field, including the sociocultural and scientific implications of evolution, human culpability for the Sixth Mass Extinction, and principles of natural selection.

But here's the thing. This stuff's all because he's floating in a veritable sea of privilege, a topic I've been considering a lot the past couple of days as a result of a discussion about homeschooling on Street Prophets. No, no - we're not homeschooling per se, the kid is still in his blessed little parochial school, zero plans to change that - but in some sense, he is "homeschooled". He learns a huge amount from the extracurricular experiences that he enjoys simply because of who he is, and who his grownups are. That includes the weekly shift at the soup kitchen, yes (four years and counting), but also the organic produce delivered weekly to our door, and the fairly regular trips to Chicago and Atlanta, plus random other trips to other cities (NYC, Toronto, Seattle) that he's made.

Catholic education talks about the parents as "primary educators" of our children; as schoolmarm for this kidlet, he gets to see my values with his laser-sharp vision. He can see what I say, but he can also see how he lives. I'm finding it challenging to reconcile the two right now.

Natural Habitat

 
If this works, I'll be beyond impressed.

New camera - a Canon PowerShot A710IS. Took about five minutes to set up (three of which were opening the separately-purchased 2GB SD flash card), six seconds to take the photo, less than a minute to connect & upload via Picasa, and then I clicked the "Blog This" button - logged into Blogger with my gmail account - and if when I click "PUBLISH" at the bottom of this window, the photo and this text appear as laid out, I'll be beyond impressed.

(Of course, then the next question is how to add more than one photo from Picasa to the blog. Hm. First things first.)

In Chicago

4:45 came way too early this morning. Our ride to the airport (no, no - it was not a limo!) arrived at 5:30 on the dot. Breakfast at the airport, and since then I've just had some Easter candy that our morning airport shuttle driver (a friend) gave us. Urgh.

It was amazing to realize as we rode into town that the Kid really does recognize parts of Chicago. He saw his favorite Tom Kah Gai (thai lemongrass/coconut soup) restaurant, and is debating whether he wants that or spaghetti tonight.

He's reading & relaxing. I'm going to shower, and then we'll venture out to get a digital camera to replace my deceased one (RIP), and to forage for food.

Oh, and because...

This will also double as a training journal of sorts, a la Lanarkshire of years past, here's today's stats.

Rode 30.35 miles - Casa Tres to DTC, circled around through the Waterfront & over the Steel Bridge, then out the Esplanade to Springwater. Did hit the new segment off Umatilla connecting Sellwood to the Corridor - lovely new bridge and a very workable path - much better than the old kludgey pass through the back of the tennis center.

I'd intended to ride about 20 miles; then figured I'd shoot for 30, but didn't expect to make it. Had I prepped better, I could've hit 50 today, I think. The Broadway Bridge kicked my butt on the way back, but that was my fault - didn't plan well.

I'm doing a "Pinot Pedal" or something on 4/23 - will ride to church, then after mass will head up to the departure point. It's only 18 miles or so, but with the added trip to/from Casa Tres, I should work that into a ~30 mile day as well.

Trying to figure out if this will be a century year. It's starting to feel like it, regardless of what I think. Hmm...

The Itinerary

The limo picks us up at 5:30am, and then will swing by the school to retrieve another traveler. We'll be plunked at the airport for a late 7ish flight to Chicago. Get in around 1ish, and will head to the hotel. No real plans for the rest of the day, other than to go to the kid's favorite spaghetti place, conveniently located 1.5 blocks from our hotel.

Tues, Wed - museums and such, TBD. May go see Wicked. (And I'll add links later, yes.)

Thursday morning we meet the flood of other travelers from out here at O'Hare, and will take a bus down to South Bend. Random events Thursday evening & Friday.

Saturday - Stephen's ordination. Sunday - Stephen's first mass. Back on the bus, then, and back to O'Hare for the trip home.

Tomorrow evening I'll edit this post; just checking out how multiple posts work, and also tagging.

Welcome to Casa Pax!

Nice to see you here! This may well be a temporary landing site; playing around with Blogger a bit to see if it's the best choice for another blog I've been asked to generate. I have a stale (as in years) MT-based blog that suffered death by comment spam, but we'll see if this works.

Kid & I are headed off to Chicago in a mere... eek! - 8.5 hours! I'll play around with this site on this trip, prob'ly put some photos in and see how it all holds together. I'll also point the folks who've suggested that they need a blog over to play, and who knows? Perhaps there'll be a blogspawn within a few short days as well.

Peace to all - more from Chicago.