Special Airport Screening - gotta love it

On my way to South Carolina for a friend's wedding. Got pulled out of line for special screening. Instead of walking through the metal detectors, I had to go through line number 2, and stand between two 6-foot grey panels with my hands above my head and not so much as a piece of paper in my pockets... gotta love it. Does this really make people safer?

Her Morning Elegance

Discovered on a friend's blog here

It reminds me of so many things... somehow filling the viewer with nostalgia even while delighting with new ideas.

Most of all, it reminds me that when I was younger and I thought of the kind of woman I wanted to be... I wanted to be "lovely".

The loss of intuition

Today I retire this confession:

"I am a judger. I judge people and I am not ashamed. Dont get me wrong... I understand we all have moments of weakness. I just think that expecting less than the best from someone is the worst kind of condescension; a fine line from the tyranny of lowered expectations."

What does it mean to judge anyway? Am I judging when I hold you to my moral standards and find that you excel? Or is it just judging if the outcome is negative? Isn't it "judging" when I simply think I know anything about you at all? How can I possibly know you?

I will instead confess this:

"I didn't know before, and I wouldn't like to admit it, but I am emotional and naive. My intuition has been my guide to-date. Now that I don't trust it anymore, I am lost."

Square Peg, Round Hole - the break with Consulting

So my manager flipped her shit over the passed two weeks and apparently had a couple meetings which will probably result in me being fired earlier than I had hoped... I find out on Monday. They say, that the case I was on was "below my level", so the good work that I did do for 4 months, doesn't count, and for some reason, the opinion of my supervisor (who thought I did great) doesn't count. What apparently does matter, is the dubious last two weeks of the case where I really didn't have much to do at all. All that is left is this crazy manager of mine, who without actually really ever looking at my work and while ignoring the person who does see my work, has decided that I am not up to scratch. But it's not just her, it can't be... someone staffed me in the position where I couldn't win, people refused to listen when my supervisor had a differing opinion, someone decided to have that meeting where neither I nor my supervisor were involved or spoken to, to decide my fate. And my teammates had to be complicit... one fellow is running around showing my work as his - perhaps he will get that early promotion he is gunning for. My consensus reviewer assured me, "your opinion was heard". How is that possible when noone asked me what my opinion was? There is something, wholly inconsistent and deeply disturbing about this whole process.

It begs the question... if they set me up to fail... what did they expect? It posits the answer... they expected me to fail. You can't win if you are constantly asked to change someone's opinion of you.

My consensus reviewer decided to tell me that I had all the qualities to be great at this job, even more so than some people who are great at this job, but something just didnt click... it was like fitting a sqaure peg into a round hole.

After this news, I go back to my desk from which I can see through the glass doors of the adjacent conference room. Inside was my manager and the rest of the team, and projected on the screen was the model I had built to "help" my teammate. In that moment I learnt the definition of so many words... wrath, outrage, insult, frustration...

So, this is not just to rant. But to preserve for posterity. And hopefully warn any of you against the dangers of corporate america and in particular big consulting firms. These are not meritocracies, you will not be judged on the quality of your work, you will be asked to do shitty things for money and the worse thing you can do is not fit in.

Below is pretty much a day in the life.