I can breathe. I can breathe even if I can't believe. I can take the time to feel my breath. I can stop squinting. I don't have to tense up my temple or forehead. I don't have to wait in eager anticipation for the next dumb thing someone I've tried to hire says. I've wasted more money in the past and made it back. I've had more frustrating conversations. I have more room for the actual work, doing it for free or otherwise. I have several months of leeway to get in front of people.
You can't accuse me of not trying. If you can say nothing else about me, I'm working incredibly hard to, not just manage my own sometimes rollercoastering experience of stress and communication difficulties, but I put my money where my mouth is. I, in a bid to consistently demonstrate my values, risk and try and fight. I'm in pain right now in service to it. I wish that writing was doing what it's supposed to do and bringing the temperature down in my face and letting my ache subside in my head. But there's just so much left unsaid and so many things that are implicated with each new horrifying discovery.
Part of my pain comes from a desire to move "too fast." I feel a small sense of momentum. If I was the only one implicated in that momentum, I wouldn't have a problem. Because I have to wait to hear from people, or reach out after they haven't done so themselves in what feels like a timely and accountable way, my momentum has to turn around and drag or chase people. That hurts. Why can't you keep up? I'm not asking you to do what I do. I'm asking you, I'm paying you, to do what you say you do. Here, we get acquainted with the next painful reality.
You lie. You aren't a professional. You aren't good or quick or intuitive or practiced in what you do. You aren't even using the words associated with what someone who does do what you claim to do would use. I'm not even sure if you know you're lying. Regardless, I experience pain and stress each time you say or do something that costs me time, money, and effort trying to decode or untangle what you've lied about.
We're at 2 points of pain. Positive momentum gets turned into punishing break checks. Invested money and energy to specify timely goals gets functionally mocked and burned.
Then I have my own self-evaluation that constantly speculates about whether or not I'm going about things "good enough." I have a decent history of doing a lot of really cool, demonstrated proficiency, or unique and "new skill required" things. The same sensibility and reasoning I try to apply to new domains and things I wish to accomplish. Each betrayal of my sensibility makes me feel like the universe I've otherwise occupied up until that point is completely backwards. I'm stuck feeling perpetually gaslit. Surely my tools can't be irreparably broken? My life makes sense outside of these specific interactions.
I have to qualify that further. It makes sense in my extremely small context. If I apply my words, effort, money, or reasoning to something that's just involving me, I can get it to work. If I involve one other person I've got a history with who I can trust makes sense, we can make that work. I can say something, they understand it, we can both execute our individual moves, and it feels like magic. Those are the ones who I can travel to see. Those are the ones where we can shuffle larger sums of money or effort back and forth in service to each other.
My head takes the pain a step beyond. I have this incredibly disquieting and terrible interaction, and then I jump into wondering and feeling the pain of deep skepticism about anything working, working as it "should," or the prospects of breaking through without adopting a litany of amoral behaviors. I say amoral and not immoral because, under the dictates of capitalism or the fluffy self-servicing image-management and politics language of the nonprofit space, the rules don't consider practical human reality. You can lie there because lies aren't defined. You can call yourself a genius disruptor manager, and no one's following you recording the consequences of your behavior.
I'm terrified of ever being persuaded to be that kind of person. I don't have a lot of legitimate fears, but being the equivalent of a walking dead Alzheimer's patient who forgets or forgoes the distinctions between a morally culpable and rational actor and "following orders" is one of them. The temptation is there because, who wants to look, feel, or sound as stressed as I do when I talk about this stuff? What am I getting from fighting about this or explaining it again?
If me and 5-ish people are the only ones I can trust in this life, I'm going to die defending this reality I know exists and know is better than my experience of the alternatives. The irony of not doing so and also claiming to be a good addiction counselor should be allowed to kill me. I listen to self-serving delusional narratives and excuse-providing cliches for a living. Your god help me if I'm not a firehose of distinctions.
I ask people to define their goals and purpose all the time. Why are you letting (x) stress you out? What is your goal or relationship to that detail? For me? I'm worried about debt. I'm worried that I can't even pay people to do the things they profess to be able to do. That's a crazy-making circumstance. That suggests it's 100% luck and who you know that gets anyone any sizeable amount of money, and the work you do is completely irrelevant to the story you concoct about it. I can't live like that. That makes me want to give entirely up and just focus on indulgence and isolation.
I have clients who feel like that all the time. They don't explain why they feel that way. They don't know how. They don't practice. They don't have anyone in their life that can show them how or encourage them to keep trying. If I've personally experienced hundreds of people experiencing that analogously hellish place, and I know I have a demonstrated ability to pull out of it, work through it, and accomplish things in spite of it…what's my job? It's not to pretend like I can't, shouldn't, or don't want to help in spite of the clear and present pain it's taking me to do so.
In that goal and mission discussion, I want my time. I want the freedom to think and focus on the things I enjoy. Every moment my brain isn't hijacked by the next dumbest thing I can't believe or understand, I'm reaching one of my most foundational goals. My goal is to reach a place in life that I can comfortably and confidently field every insane, ridiculous, arbitrary, hate-inducing, "fucking what the fuck dude" comment I receive without breaking a sweat. I want to have such a robust and powerful floor or working operation that I can take it all in stride. I want the power to shake off the nonsense because I don't have to worry it's going to unduly reshape the entire game I'm trying to play.
I had that at DCS. Neither of us had any choice but to do things my way. I want that again, but without the threat. Every crazy-making idea someone tried to interject into their situation had to conform to our safety plan, series of questions, pictures, and accountable look at an investigation of the allegations. Each time I wish to create something, or hire for a position, you're an alleged grant writer or fundraiser. What's the evidence? Your title and hourly rate mean nothing to me. Your confidence means nothing to me. Your empty way-too-many words describing your beliefs and character mean nothing to me. I've heard motormouth pedophiles and child or wife beaters. WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE THEM!?
Let's add another point of pain. I want and need standards. My instinct about that standard is likely to cut off my nose to spite my face. But, when I don't maintain that standard, I drag myself through the hell depicted above. I'm skeptical that my standard is correct because I know how fiercely and quickly I wish to judge people. So, just as a matter of deliberate refutation of my instinct, I allow for things that, had I any power, I never would. Saying it like that sounds like I'm dictating the beating heart of my failure. Let's take a look at some of the standard's I'd like to hold.
1. In your explanation of your history or competence, you never use the words "help" or "passion."
My reasoning? You're not helping me, I'm paying you. When you say "help" you're too comfortable with the fake "professional speak" that obscures what your responsibility is. When you say "passionate," you're a fucking crazy person.
2. You communicate via email or text at least every 2 days with updates about what you've done, are planning to do, or barriers that have arisen.
It takes 10 seconds. You're either doing something, or not. You're either accounting for your time and situating things appropriately, or you're not. I don't want to be up your ass every minute of every day. I don't want to be ignored for a fucking week because you had some life thing come up and I was your last priority. I informed my boss hour to hour sometimes what I was doing if I had multiple families in various levels of evolving crisis happening at once.
3. Read and answer questions or explanations I give you.
I'm not asking because I don't want to know. I'm not explaining because no one's asked in the past or because it's not more complicated than could fit on a popsicle stick. How dare you not even read or answer questions.
These things feel deceptively simple. They involve having trained your attention to properly prioritize. They implicate honesty. They require you to be accountable to information or answers you may not have yet or have an answer that makes you feel good about yourself, because I don't give a fuck if you feel good about yourself when you're wasting my time and money but are convinced otherwise.
But what can I do right now if these are my standards? Every stranger I contact is going to speak in polite pleasantries. Every time. That's the rule. I do it when I try to work for normal environments. I've never interviewed as even 10% of how I talk or think. I wouldn't get the job, because the job isn't the job.
Saying things like "help" and "passion" are as reflexive as saying "like" or "just" or "ya know" or "um" for a certain kind of person who feels drawn to the nonprofit space. What kind of tyrant is going to write off plucky "motivated' people just for speaking like a golden retriever?
As far as time management is concerned, isn't one of the perks of being "professional" that you can functionally fuck off and settle into the pace of "business as usual?" I took extended lunch breaks at DCS. I maybe spent a little extra time with the nice families in the nice homes to eat up the day's clock. I never turned my shit in late. I never did less than was required for any family. What I expected out of myself met a standard before I took anything you're tempted to call a liberty. I earned leeway. If I was just starting out working for you? You're gonna hear from me, in detail, until we establish our rhythm.
My expectations are the ones I hold for myself. The CEO can't expect the stock boy to act like he does. I'm looking for people who, and perhaps I'm just now seeing this blindspot, profess to be their own CEO but carry themselves like stock boys. I've met an exceptional stock boy and been an exceptional usher. I communicated regularly, talked bluntly about the work that needed to be done, and followed instructions or asked questions if something was unclear. So did he. The people around us didn't carry on that way, not even me when I was his subordinate stock boy.
It's possible that I've, again, carried too high expectations into a situation that requires dog treats, speech at half speed, and testing to prove you can handle it. Unfortunately, the people who could pass the test? They're the CEO of their domain, not applying for the jobs I'm posting. Maybe that's the most important insight I can take away from this investment. The people on Upwork aren't in the networks I want to be in. The people desperately looking for an escape on Linkedin aren't under-utilizing their skills. They're all looking to bolster that self-conception story and make "easy" money doing the bare minimum.
It really is my hope and desire to believe in people that I punish myself with. I can't stress that enough. I want to trust more people. I can't. I want to believe you deserve more money or will respect my time and effort. I don't and I can't. I want to believe you're not lying through your teeth, driven by insecurity and naivety that you can "help" something you don't understand, but every time I do I allow myself to get an incredible headache and fall into a disoriented panic. I can't stomach or believe or empathize with you, let alone dozens and dozens of you, who carry on that way and think they want to work like/with me.
So how do you not isolate, and punish yourself, and continually rediscover the will to keep trying? You're looking at it. I ate a Reese's. I complained to my friend, my coherent accountable practically helpful and consistent friend who responded with 7 names of people who might be relevant to grant-writing or community engagement enabling efforts. Of course she did. That's what people who work like we do, do. What the fuck was I thinking reaching out in the soup of random internet fucks?
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