Throw Momma from the Bus

I tried to write this post from at least six different angles before finally throwing in the towel, which also happens to be the same as throwing my mother under the bus. (Sorry, Mom. Good thing you don’t read my blog—probably.)

When I was in kindergarten, my mother dressed me up as a lawyer for career day—complete with a little briefcase and everything. My skirt suit matched what she wore that day. What I wanted to wear was my red cowgirl boots and a fabulous dress with a tutu and carry around paints because I was going to be a cowgirl, artist, singer when I grew up. Ambitious.

My concept of what I wanted to be slowly morphed into one big question mark by the time I hit sixth grade. My father saw this as an opportunity to influence me toward what he believed was the wave of the future. It began with software developer or computer sciences, but when I showed an almost degenerative ability in that area, he switched to bioethicist or diabetes counselor for old people. Maybe a computer science specialist, bioethicist, diabetic gerontology counselor. I think we know where I got my ambition.

Whenever my mother would overhear one of our conversations, she would smile knowingly and condescendingly. Silly of us to even discuss what my options were. What a monumental waste of time. She knew what I was destined for, but she would bide her time until I came to the inevitable conclusion myself.

English is what I ultimately wanted to major in in college. I love reading books, so I should do what I love. Not so, said both my parents (Father could betray me at the worst moments!). A college education was for studying something you couldn’t do on your own and preparing for a real occupation. What in the world did I think I could do with an English degree they asked, their voices husky with laughter.

Joke’s on them. My first job was book editor. Although I think the argument was a draw since I didn’t major in English and was still able to land an English-centric job. But in my diary I counted it Buttercup 1, Parents 0. Obviously I couldn’t count on them for any sort of occupational advice in the future. (That didn’t stop me, because who wants to be responsible for a decision that big? It’s easier to just blame your parents if it goes horribly wrong!)

However, the company I worked for was not ideal in many ways, and soon after my second year I started looking for a way out. I moved back home due to a confluence of forces and considered everything from working two part-time retail jobs to going back to school. This is when my mother preyed on my weak mental state. Why didn’t I study for the GRE? In fact, she’d even pay for the test if I also agreed to take the LSAT.

Folks, my parents cast long shadows. They’re both lawyers and are wickedly awesome and adult and involved and responsible and intimidating. My mother, for example, worked for the DA’s office straight out of law school prosecuting criminal drug cases and never lost a case. Then she was recruited to do the same thing by the US Attorney General’s office—so on the federal level. She could have been a high profile judge or something by now, but she decided for her family’s sake she’d confine her awesomeness to her and Dad’s law firm and running the women’s ministry at church and starting a band program in our school and serving on city committees about things like LCD signage and ethics in law practice and on and on it goes.

So part of my lifelong reticence to pursue law could be rooted in not wanting to compete with that shadow. But what played an even larger part in my decision was that my parents worked so hard all the time. We were never on a vacation that my parents weren’t also working. My brothers and I were in daycare from the time we were toddlers, and when we were too old for that, we had to be involved in extracurriculars because my parents worked all day and then some. If my mom had to pick us up from school or an extracurricular, she was always late. It was just a question of how late. If it was under half an hour, she was practically on time.

Now—this isn’t some sob story. We had family dinners, my parents were involved in school and homework, we went on vacations together that were awesome, and my parents never missed a single game, debate match, or play. My brothers and I have never felt neglected or abandoned. In almost every way, my parents were exemplary in their roles of mother and father. But that didn’t leave any other time for my parents—no personal time that wasn’t either filled with work or kids or both. And it was a strain to fit it all in.

And, to be concise, law just doesn’t appeal to me.

When I took the LSAT as a way to get my GRE paid for, I studied really hard because I can’t not take tests and studying seriously. This was a mistake. Not only did it get my mother’s hopes up, but it also confused my poor mind into thinking “So we’re into law now? Guess I should plan out a career trajectory.” And that’s what I did. Which is how I ended up thinking I should totally be a jury selector or a mediator. What you’ll no doubt notice is that neither of those involve being an actual lawyer.

I did well on the LSAT. When I finished, my father took me out for a celebratory dinner of fried fat at Chili’s, where I confided to him that I wasn’t sold on being a lawyer. But how would I ever tell my mother?

“Buttercup, honey, I don’t understand what you think your mother will do to you if you don’t pursue law. She’s never been able to restrain herself with you and your brothers. If you decide to pursue psychology, she’ll jump on the bandwagon. Just show her you’ve done some research know what you’re talking about and she’ll start helping you plan the future you choose in no time flat.”

(In case you can’t read his tone from the “honey” he threw in, his voice was filled with paternal patronization. He clearly didn’t think there was any reason at all to believe that disappointing my mother was something to be feared. I find this surprising considering how many years he’s been married to her.)

The night after the LSAT, the nightmares began. Horrible dreams where I was either swallowing my teeth or my teeth fell out or my teeth broke while I was eating something. Every night.  

And then I stopped working on my law school applications and started researching non-law careers instead. The dreams stopped. Obviously, my subconscious did not want to go to law school. Now to tell my mother.

I did as my dad suggested, gathering up loads of information about current job market trends and job stability projections and salary averages and gave her a binder of information.

“What’s this?”

“Just some research I’ve been doing on possible careers.”

She smiled. “What type of law, you mean?” She opened the binder.

“No. I don’t think—” Her smile was gone and she was arching her eyebrows in disappointed disbelief. “I don’t think I’m going to law school probably. Maybe. I don’t know!”

I squawked and ran away.

A couple days later, my parents and I were eating dinner. My mother’s lips had been perpetually pursed since my super mature, confident confrontation with her about my future. Staring at her dinner plate, she asked me, “So which law schools have you applied to so far?”

My father and I paused, exchanging a worried glance. Surely I had made it clear that I didn’t intend on attending law school.

“Mom, I’m not going to law school. I’m going to take the GRE and do something else. Probably something in psychology. Did you read all that information I printed f—”

She threw her napkin down, scooted back her chair, and cut me to pieces with her ice blue glare. “Well don’t expect me to take any part of it. Clearly you can’t make up your mind or stick to decisions you’ve made. I don’t even want to hear about it since it probably won’t happen anyway.” She stood up and stomped away in her ridiculous house slipper/sandals.

I was too stunned to even tell my father “I told you so.” I never pass up an opportunity to tell my genius parents I told you so. Eventually, after a few minutes of silence, I turned to him and said, “Uhm. Did you expect that?”

He laughed. Laughed. Clearly he didn’t understand what had happened. My mother had disowned me. Over not going into the profession she had chosen for me probably when I was first born but definitely by the time I was in kindergarten. Even in my worst imaginings she hadn’t reacted that way.

“Well, we’ll just have to work on her,” he said. As if it would be as simple as that. Cha right.

It has been two years since I took the LSAT and crushed my mother’s dreams (she eventually started talking to me again), and I finally took the GRE this August. I took it blind because I couldn’t be bothered to brush up on math. Which is why I scored somewhere in the 30^th percentile. Taking grad schools by storm and totally proving my mother wrong. Right.

The problem with this is that I won’t be able to get into a program until Fall 2014. I’ve decided to take courses that will count toward my program as an unclassified student which is way more expensive, but I can’t stand the idea of putting my future off for two more semesters. However, the program I was/am going to apply for is changing in 2014 and might take longer to finish, and some of the classes I asked to get into have refused me. Which makes me just want to study professional writing and give altruism the middle finger.

This place feels very familiar. In undergrad I had wanted to study English but ended up majoring in social sciences because that’s what my parents suggested. (I actually ended up majoring in the same thing my mother majored in—surprise, surprise.)

I told my mother I was thinking about just studying professional writing because I scored super high in verbal on the GRE and they’d probably be thrilled to have me instead of apathetic like the psyc program was.

“And what job can you get with that?”

I sighed dramatically as I’m wont to do with this line of adult questioning. It’s so tiringly practical. I much prefer to dream about the types of things I might do one day given enough time to practice my trade and maybe a little help from God. Like be the next J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin. How I feed myself or pay my insurance during that practice time will just work itself out.

“Well, I could maybe just teach adjunct and write and edit freelance…”

Her eyebrows raised as if she was surprised that I was capable of such stupidity, but her eyes were coolly disdainful. She knew full well I was capable of that level of stupidity. So this was going well.

“Buttercup. You need a full-time job with benefits. Without one, you’ll end up poor and homeless.”

I laughed. She didn’t. Okay, so that was a serious argument.

“Mom, I will not end up homeless if I don’t have a job that pays benefits. Plenty of people have jobs that don’t pay benefits and they have a place to sleep—some are even above the poverty line.”

“Name one person.”

I seriously didn’t think I would have to because there are so many careers that are contract based. And yet, every single one of those careers completely flew from my mind. But thank God I listen to NPR.

“All of the support staff in D.C.” She looked doubtful. “It’s true. They all have to go on Obama Care.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to reading her book. I waited a minute or so for a response. Maybe she was just thinking.

“Are…are you mad because I won the argument?”

She snorted. Won the argument. As if! “I’m not going to talk to you when you’re not even making sense.”

What???

“Uhm…”

Still not looking up, she said, “We’re not going to have a conversation about this.”

I got up to leave the room and said over my shoulder (I think I’ve already proven what a scaredy cat I can be), “So that’s a no on you supporting my decision.”

“What decision? You don’t even understand the opportunities or consequences tied to your proposed change in plans.”

Lawyered.

The thing is, she’s right. But how could I possibly know all the consequences and opportunities attached to any decision or course of action? This is what paralyzes our generation, I believe. Our Baby Boomer parents are financially supportive, but they aren’t very supportive of our dreams. Sure, when we were young they were all, “You can be/do anything you want to be/do!” But then we grow up and they’re all, “I didn’t raise you to be a humanties major!”

I am not concerned with fulfilling my parents’ dream(s) for me—obviously, since I’m not a lawyer nor a bioethicist, computer scientist, counselor to diabetic oldsters. But I do want their approval of my career choice I eventually land on. I want them to be proud of me. I want my cake and to eat it too.

Add to this my mother’s argument, which is exactly why I hadn’t chosen another career. I had thought editing books was it. But I was wrong, and the possibility that I can choose wrong again terrifies me. It’s a type of failure. And since I cannot know all the opportunities and consequences attached to my decision, I find it impossible to fully commit to a decision.

Giving rise to the Peter Pan Generation—the other name professional condescenders call the Millennial generation. It’s not that we don’t want to be hardworking professionals. It’s that there are forces in our lives that try to talk us out of making the decision we want. Which delays it for a while. And that is why we’re almost 30 or already in our early 30's and still trying to figure it all out. Perhaps what our generation is missing is the fire in the belly that makes us defy all other opinions and all obstacles and all self-doubts.

Why do you think our generation is finding it so difficult to decide what career to follow? Or, if the career has been chosen, actually pursuing that career?

Due Diligence - July's Refrain

I’m not so great at the whole work nonstop thing. Checklists and to-do lists keep me productive when I don’t have solid deadlines—sometimes. This is problematic, turns out, when working from home. It is also problematic when I should be working on pro-formas for the business. Pro-formas are the basic finances for the business. Costs, expenses, and revenue. Blech. Boring. I’d much rather pin stuff to my Pinterest board for the café (check it out! https://pinterest.com/kalynmc/trade-cafe-in-pictures/). See? Isn’t that cool and fun and exciting?! You can actually visualize the business! Unlike the numbers, which are the business. Or the heart of it anyway.

But I have been doing research. Real research. The kind involving numbers and talking to people who are older and smarter. My brother and I have had a two-hour meeting with a CPA, a four-hour meeting with the OKSBDC (Oklahoma Small Business Development Center), and a two-hour meeting with a host of lawyers. We’re getting their counsel for free in exchange for every intern in the building sitting in on our meeting. There were eight people in on the meeting, only one of whom will be our lawyer. It was similar, I think, to be operated on in a medical school by a doctor with a host of med students watching on in the amphitheatre classroom.

The only new information we got from the meeting was that we needed to slow down and adjust our expectations. My brother and I were thinking we’d have the café up and running by October. That’s so far away. An entire season. Well, not long enough apparently. Our legal counsel suggested we begin changing our business plan to reflect a January start date—at the absolute soonest.

That deflated my balloon. Motivation crashed. The reason why it affected me so negatively, I think, is because I’m unemployed. I really, truly thought I would be employed sooner than that. So now I have to get a part-time job on top of my other pursuits: freelance editing, crafting, gift wrapping, and baking. I’m also doing some handiwork for the ‘rents. How am I supposed to get anything done on my non-paying  (boring) business planning when I’m doing all that?

My father, God bless him, gave my brother and me what I’m sure he would consider a pep talk or paternal advice. It came out more of a browbeating on—you guessed it—diligence.

Grant and I have been hearing it a lot lately. Our CPA mentioned the bankers will check for due diligence on our financial projections. Did we take every possible expense, even the unexpected ones, into consideration? Are our numbers conservative enough? And then again, the SBDC said to look at every piece of the plan and pro-forma in 360 degrees, doing our due diligence to ensure a complete and sound business plan.

Diligence was again brought up by our lawyer. “Be diligent with your numbers.” Hearing that was super annoying because we’d made sure they knew before we came in that our numbers were nowhere near complete. We only had a preliminary business plan that focused on concept. Of course the plan needed more research and numbers. Thanks for repeating that over and over again for two hours. (But I’m not complaining because it’s free advice!) And really, what advice can they give us until the business plan is complete, even if incorrectly complete? They have to have something before they can make corrections.

So all that to say, diligence has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue. And I have gotten an earful about it. Which my father added to this afternoon. His message, in a nutshell, was to be diligent in every single thing…otherwise, why would we think that we would be diligent with the business? If I am going to Tulsa or watching movies rather than being diligent about…other undetermined things…then I’ll obviously just leave work all the time once the café is open to go see movies or go to Tulsa. Because that’s how life is. And then we’ll fail.

My parents are the most supportive people in the world while simultaneously saying everything they can to discourage us from starting up a business. It’s pretty frustrating. I can’t be angry with them, because through their connections and help, we’re getting much further along in the business plan more quickly than we ever could on our own. They do have really good advice. But mixed in is all these backhanded comments that convey to us (whether my parents believe it to convey this message or not) that we’re incompetent idiots destined to fail.

Is it any wonder that I’m feeling unmotivated? Up until now, I’ve been sending my brother action items, with a to-do list for both of us, pretty much every other day. Now he’s the one calling me and making sure I’m doing my end of things. An unhappy reversal. I’m supposed to be the annoying one in this relationship!

The number of things I need to do is overwhelming. I have a set of three edits to complete as soon as possible because I need money in a bad, desperate sort of way. Slides to edit for a relative (Powerpoint presentation). A paper to edit for a friend. Call OG&E for utility information for our pro-forma. Call two suppliers for pricing. Talk to the potential baker about equipment so we can price it—again for the pro-formas. A baby shower I’m hosting at the end of the month. Apply to coffee houses/cafes so I can learn on someone else’s dime and get some industry experience. Decide on a theme for the indie crafters thing in Tulsa in August. Get with the two friends who are renting the booth with me to do the crafts. Populate Etsy page so that it can generate money. Complete pro-formas, meet with cpa and lawyers and SBDC again, pitch to banks until get one that bites, find a private investor(s), find suppliers for more than just coffee beans (furniture, cups, to-go cups, equipment, kitchen supplies, etc.,), find a place to lease/buy, and on and on and on.

There’s a lot to be diligent about. Of that my father is correct. It’s hard to stay motivated, though, when the payoff is so far away. Patience has never been my virtue. And the payoff is uncertain. It feels as if the further away we are from starting the business, the more unlikely it is it will actually start. And that’s what is terrifying me and sapping my motivation. Suck. I’m trying to rally this weekend, and tomorrow is the beginning of a new, productive week!

P.S. If you’re super good friends with an architect or a contractor that would talk to me for free as a kind of favor or for a lark, that would be super duper awesome. Because somehow I graduated OSU without knowing one. Or if you have good friends that graduated from OSU’s HRAD program and know the ins and outs of suppliers, that would also be helpful. 

Entrepreneurial Spirit – It Takes a Charismatic

Blarg. ß This is how I feel. My brain has emitted this noise—albeit internally—ever since my brother and I began writing the business plan for a coffee house that might eventually one day be a reality. I can feel my forehead growing wrinkles. I say that because I haven’t been able, literally physically capable, of unknotting those muscles. My expression is one of perpetual perplexity. It doesn't help that I’ve misplaced my reading glasses.

Writing a business plan, starting a business, is not only scary, it’s humbling. Because you realize how dumb you are. And boy, am I dumb. I haven’t used the dictionary this much since I took geology in college. White boxing. Build out. Financial projections. Demographics. Market analysis. Triple net lease. SBA. Term sheets. It’s terrifying diving into something that is so financially threatening when you don’t know anything.

It’s as if you’re staring out across a lake and see an island you’d like to swim to. But there is no nice, easy, soft, sandy beach to ease into the water. The lake is surrounded by cliffs. Sheer drop offs. The water is full of terrors. And you don’t know how to swim.

Dotting the cliff tops are tents. The labyrinthine tent hands out free lifejackets, but you find they have heavy weights attached. The colorfully striped “professional” tents give expensive verbal and written lessons on how to swim, but no practical swimming lessons in water are to be had anywhere. And in the other tents—some grand and impressive, some less so, and some lean and drab—you find swimmers, folk who have taken the plunge and survived to tell the tale. These experienced swimmers will sometimes share tips they learned from their experiences, but some do not. Some are more helpful than others. And some speak so much jargon you can’t glean a single inkling from the conversation.

Since the dive and swim are so perilous, you feel you need as many lessons and as much equipment and as much information as these tents have to give you. But you only have so much money. The advice can only go so far. And to frustrate you even further, the counsel you receive is contradictory and vague. There isn’t an end to the tents. You’ll never feel fully prepared to dive in, and you’ll never run out of tents to visit.

To conclude, right now I feel overwhelmed, stupid, and utterly out of my depth. And repetitive. I feel rather redundant as well. There’s so much I don’t know, and there’s so much information to be had, learned, assimilated, and forgotten.

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and for some part of it I will be revising the front page of our business plan to focus on concept so that we can move forward in our bid for a sweet location for the coffee house. A not-for-profit association bought the building we hope to lease from them. So board approval is involved. By the time we get an interview with the big britches, we’ll have talked to bankers and have a firmer idea of how we’re going to fund this song and dance. That’s when we’ll have a proposal that focuses on finances. (Oh here’s a laugh. When I asked our accountant when we should get the loan, before or after signing the lease, which order do they go in? He answered, well ideally simultaneously. I had no response except to knit my brow together.)

Priorities: Harry Potter Had Them

I am twenty-six years old and just finished the Harry Potter series. Does the shame I feel come from reading juvenile fiction at my age, or the fact that it took me so long to read the HPs? I'm just kidding. I don't feel shame. I'm talking to all of you pressurers who have tormented and hounded me about reading Rowling's books. I am not ashamed, you hear me?!

But my shame is not what I want to discuss. I want to shame others. I want to shed a light on priorities. It's something that's been consuming my mind in recent years. Yes, even before I quit my job and became an impoverished parasite living at my parents' house with way too much free time on my hands. But again, this isn't about my shame--or my current shame.

The first year I was promoted to management, I worked eighty-hour weeks on average. I was twenty-four. An old friend (as old as you can have them at twenty-four) contacted me out of the blue and wanted to go to lunch. I was absolutely delighted to see him and threw all thoughts of work away for three hours in order to grab a bite and catch up.

We talked of many things, but what he came back to again and again was our friendship. "If anyone had told me we would lose contact, wouldn't talk for years," he said, shaking his head, "I just wouldn't believe it. You were one of my best friends. I still consider you one of my best friends. We can't let this happen."

And it was true. He was the beginning of my priority purgatory. We left filled with plans of getting together and how we would somehow work around my insane work schedule. But reality and responsibility and other reprehensible things constricted me. Weekend after weekend I canceled our plans. Too much work, I couldn't come. It was true...but only if you're looking at it from one angle. I let work, work for an employer I disdained, work for clients who often did not appreciate it, work for a company that did not value me or the value I added to their products ahead of a friendship that could have lasted a lifetime. But it didn't. I didn't prioritize it, and I haven't heard from him in two years.

After that year of hell, my supervisor finally realized that I was near dead and would quit out of sheer exhaustion if not from finding another job (which I had no time to do!). So my work load gradually decreased to the point where I was working an average fifty-hour week. I had time to breathe, look for other jobs, and reevaluate my priorities. The only friends I ever saw were my work friends, whom I loved and still love, but that's not a full life. I had let that blimmin' job fill up every nook and cranny. I used to go home every Sunday and eat lunch with my family, but that all stopped when I got promoted. I had to work on Sundays. I used to go visit my out-of-town friend (the aforementioned Tulsa dweller) at least once a month, but after the promotion, it was more like a couple times a year. Even when I did see her, I would have to bring my work with me.

What good is whining that you have too much work to see people when you detest that work? What good is it to the people you love who want to see you? Who want to be there for you? What will your life look like, years down the road, if you keep choosing work? Is it the life you want to lead?

Harry Potter knew this. He valued friends and family over his life. That's why Voldemort couldn't kill him. (Oh. Spoiler alert.) But we aren't talking life and death here, in our reality. We're talking prioritization of time. But that can be in the HP series as well. I think I'm too much like Hermione. I value learning, but even more than learning, I like applying what I've learned and showing off what I've learned. I like being smart. I'm sure pride is part of it, but it feels like it's more about what you do well. An artist paints and draws and displays it because that's what he loves and what he does well. Like Hermione, I learn well. So I slave over books and apply it through my job or studies. But Hermione had Harry and Ron to pull her out of her studies and out of her head and keep her grounded. She prioritized her friendship with them above her studies. Every time she broke a rule or paused in her school studies to help Harry with some quest, she was choosing her friends over her studies. Sure, she helped them through her knowledge, because that is what she's good at. But she made time for them; she broke out of her "work" to nurture the friendship and simply be physically and mentally and emotionally present when they needed a friend.

Harry was only a mediocre wizard. Perhaps he could have been incredibly powerful, if he had studied. But he valued his friends much more than he did studying. In the end, it served him well.

Of course priorities require balance. You can't only spend time with friends and family. They'd get sick of you. But think, whenever someone asks to meet up, whether or not you can't set aside an hour, just one hour, to see that person. Every time you tell someone "no" because you choose work or an office party or some other obligation that you aren't even particularly happy about, you are prioritizing those things you don't love over those that you do. And the things you don't prioritize, no matter how much you tell yourself you love them, will feel unloved and eventually leave. Because how you spend your time shows your priorities. And what you prioritize above all else is, actually, what you love the most.

Now that I'm an unemployed loser, I plan on spending as much time doing the things I really love as possible.  I'm going to find a church. I'm going to do those little chores my parents want me to because I want to show that I love them. I'm going to help my brother start a business (more to come in subsequent posts, I am sure). I'm going to walk my dogs. I'm going to say YES! every time someone wants to hang out. And I'm going to read and write and edit and enjoy my life. I am determined to shape a present and a future I am happy in. What's the point of suffering through a present for an uncertain happy future? Both are possible as long as you keep your priorities in order.