Bring Your Whole Self to Work

Related to how to bring your whole self to work.

Are You Ready To Be Fired?

Haig Chahinian

On the surface, it’s a terrible question to ask. Yet upon closer inspection, it’s vital for you to answer.

In our recent “Career Talk Live” interview with Leon, we learned he is a retired structural engineer, although he identified himself as a retired principal engineer. Big deal, what’s the difference? There’s a critical distinction.

“Retired structural engineer” refers to his occupation in the field of structural engineering, and “retired principal engineer” refers to his most recent role at a multinational aerospace and defense firm. This got us thinking about an article we read a while ago called “The Right Way to Be Fired.”

The authors describe the difference between two general mind-sets people have about themselves relative to where they work. One is an assignment mentality, wherein an individual sees her job as a temporary building block to her next work opportunity. The other is a tenure mind-set, which is:

“the comforting sense that an organization willingly parts with valued employees only when they formally retire. It has long been dead in corporate America, although most companies won’t openly admit it. After all, letting employees know that their jobs are finite would make them feel disposable and would hurt recruiting efforts.”

Leon related that he wasn’t quite ready to leave his employer, yet retire he did. We can learn something from him. Read more →

A Workplace Maneuver Only for the Strong of Heart

Haig Chahinian

Today is Thanksgiving, and we’re grateful for the pioneers of bringing your whole self to work who’ve come before us. One such luminary is Joycelyn Elders, the former United States Surgeon General.

Back in 1994 a furor erupted over her response to a question about HIV and AIDS education. She said since masturbation is part of human sexuality, perhaps it should be taught in school. This sentiment led to her forced resignation as Surgeon General. What a high price to pay for being forthright and responsible as a doctor and health educator.

We know how hard it can be to remain true to what you believe. In doing so, Dr. Elders lost her job, yet she kept her self.

The publicity she garnered for being outspoken follows her today. She speaks across the country on public health issues, so she enjoys a national platform from which to share her wisdom and expertise.

Does it pay to be open about a strongly held opinion, when some people may be angered by it? In an interview with CNN in 2005 Elders stated,

“If I had to do it all over again today, I would do it the same way. I felt I did it right the first time.”

So, we’d say yes.

Have you paid a dear price for holding steadfast to your conviction(s)?

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The Secret Motivator to Keep You Employed Past 2020

Haig Chahinian

Remember the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this past summer? It’s hard to forget, and yet it can be hard to remember with so much to distract us from ourselves.  While the well was hemorrhaging into the Gulf, some said President Obama was not angry enough about the situation. Concurrently, Americans were angry that the economic climate was less than robust and the unemployment rate was still relatively high.

Ultimately President Obama demonstrated leadership in making space for Americans to feel their own frustration about the spill.

What can we do with our anger about what’s going on in the world? And more pressingly, how do we

  • help the Gulf of Mexico recover
  • exploit sustainable sources of energy, and
  • increase our rates of employment?

Get this: anger isn’t always bad. It can motivate us to solve the problems that make us angry, such as the British Petroleum oil spill. Which is hard, because our inclination is to suppress this uncomfortable feeling. Instead of fighting it, let’s think about what we could accomplish — professionally — if we could

  • access our anger
  • understand its origins, and
  • address the origins in a way that makes us feel better.

Sounds pretty good, no? In this scenario we would be employed (yay!), and we’d be solving big problems.

Enter the Post Carbon Institute, which produced the video above.  Founded in 2003, it’s striving to determine how we can prevent the depletion of natural resources and still thrive in the world, a puzzle that will take years of strategizing and implementation.  This means potential work for many, many people through 2020 and beyond.

Was it born out of someone’s anger? If the founders examined the emotional experience that prompted the creation of the organization, we would expect to find at least a little anger in there, along with hope. The two can exist together, side by side.

Maybe a little anger motivated the production of “300 Years of Fossil-Fueled Addiction in 5 Minutes,” given the current world-wide policies on petroleum consumption? Why not?

Has anger informed your work? How?

Come Out at Work: With MS

Haig Chahinian

Symptoms of multiple=

Coming out with multiple sclerosis must be a harrowing process, and coming out with it at work has to be even more distressing. Cathy John relates the complexities of coming out with MS, and explores some of the issues specifically related to coming out at work with the condition.

She explains:

…A poll reveals 74 per cent of the public believe MS is fatal… Such misperceptions make a pretty good reason to be tight-lipped – anticipated death is not so hot for your career. Fear of the disease eclipsing their professional reputations and making it difficult to be promoted or recruited, makes people hide their MS for as long as possible. This often then forces people to come out when their condition is rapidly deteriorating, reinforcing negative misconceptions about MS’s aggression. Yet even if employers do have a reasonable understanding of MS they might shy away from a candidate who needs modifications to be made to the workplace, time off sick due to relapses or treatment, and whose fatigue may force them to eventually work part-time.

The Independent article has more insight on this patient’s story about managing the slow onset of MS.

How has multiple sclerosis impacted you in your workplace?

Let’s Talk about Sex(uality)

Haig Chahinian

This story has legs — last week’s Village Voice featured Elizabeth Dwoskin’s cover story “Too Hot for Citibank?” about Debrahlee Lorenzana, a strikingly attractive young woman who claims to have been fired from the financial services firm for being too sexy. Since the story’s initial publication, the New York Post, Gawker and The Early Show (whose video is embedded above) have joined the discussion, and yesterday in The New York Times Maureen Dowd weighed in on how beauty can impact individuals in society.

Within all the chatter, however, a key question has yet to be asked: how can we work with our sexuality–rather than against it–in business?

According to Lorenzana’s story, it seems her physical appeal may have helped her build business. The Voice reports that in April 2003 the Municipal Credit Union named her “sales rep of the month;” in November 2003 the Metropolitan Hospital in Queens recognized her for “providing world-class customer service;” and in August 2006 she earned a Customer Higher Standards Award at the Bank of America.

At Citibank, she “went out every day and looked for business…then clients would come into the branch asking for her.” Yet in the office, ultimately her sexual energy was killed, as she was removed from the organization along with any potential new clients.

As human beings, we hold the spectrum of humanity within ourselves, and this includes sex. As a career counselor, I’m interested in how this aspect of our selves manifests in the workplace.

The complexities of Debrahlee’s story are difficult to acknowledge, since they hit on a number of hot-button identity issues. Dwoskin writes:

Lorenzana [is] five-foot-six and 125 pounds, with soft eyes and flawless bronze skin, she is J.Lo curves meets Jessica Simpson rack… [Her] mother is Puerto Rican and father is Italian [and she] came to New York from Puerto Rico 12 years ago. She was 21 and pregnant, and had a degree as an emergency medical technician from a technical college in Manati, a small city…

While the racial or ethnic identity of her colleagues is not referenced, it seems that we’re talking about working–or in this case, avoiding working–across differences of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status and gender.

It’s imperative for us to talk about how these dimensions of our identity come into play on the job, so that we don’t act on them unwittingly, and more important, so we can leverage all parts of ourselves to help solve the increasingly complex problems we face in 2010.

Lorenzana’s story contrasts with that of Danica Patrick, although there are significant similarities, to be explored in another post. As well, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will influence how human sexuality impacts the world of work — also to be explored in an upcoming post.

What do you think about how we access and leverage our sexuality at work?

Come Out at Work: As a Non-Drinker

Haig Chahinian

This is the first in a series called “Come Out at Work.”

Following is a true story, with names changed — actually, we never caught the names in the first place. So here goes:

Jerome is a banker in a multinational financial services firm. He prefers not to drink alcohol, yet one day his business group goes out to a nearby bar, and he joins them because they’re pleasant to be with. Plus he knows that outside the office is where helpful, informal data surfaces about his projects.

When it comes time to order a drink, he ponders for a moment, then orders the microbrew on tap. His boss Sandy comes around and asks, “What’re you drinking?”

“The microbrew,” he responds. Sandy orders one, too.

Jerome doesn’t finish his beer, while Sandy orders a second and third, grateful that Jerome has introduced her to this delicious libation.

The following weekend, it’s Jerome’s birthday and he’s having a mellow celebration with his family at home. The doorbell rings, and a delivery person hands him a box marked “Microbrew of the Month.” As Jerome leaves the package in the entryway, unsure what to do with it, he reads the attached card “Happy Birthday to our favorite microbrew fan! -Your officemates.”

On Monday his colleagues are eager to see him. “Did you get anything this weekend?” Pat, the office manager, inquires.

“Yes, I did. And it was very kind! Thank you for the thoughtful microbrews!”

“And?” asks Pat.

“And?” says Jerome, bewildered.

“Yeah, and… how did they taste?”

“Oh! Wicked good, of course,” Jerome lies as he looks at the wall.

For each of the next eleven months, he receives a new 12-pack, and stores them in his basement. In time he gets wise and gives them away as gifts to his neighbors and friends, striving to avoid any further conversation about brews at work.

What to Do?

So what’s the problem here? Jerome is a closeted relative teetotaler, so his colleagues misunderstand him, and he chooses to go along with a charade about who he is, largely because his officemates were well-intentioned and generous in offering him a birthday present. To be fair, nobody’s at fault here. Jerome wants to join his workmates in an activity they enjoy, demonstrating how he fits in with the group. And we can’t criticize his team members for honoring his birthday, and working with the little they know about him to come up with a suitable gift.

Still, is there harm in what’s going on? We think so. Lying never feels good, and Jerome and his coworkers miss out on the opportunity to bond around the real gratitude he feels for their benevolent gesture. He feels compelled to present a version of himself that’s untrue, which in the end detracts from his work obligations.

What should he have done differently? When at the bar, aside from ordering a seltzer–which could feel incongruous to his peers’ behavior–he might add that he typically doesn’t drink with an optional short explanation. To refrain from socializing at the bar is not an option, as it may hurt his professional development.

Do you think there’s something Jerome can do at this point to be understood better as a person with preferences that may not align with his peers’? Have you had a similar experience as Jerome? Comment below.