lodge your complaints.

Recently, I've been out of town for a work event which I played a major role in organizing. Just for the sake of an example, let's say that this event was a 12 course dinner for 100 people, and I helped plan the menu, hire the chefs, and serve the food. After the meal, a diner came up to me to express that he was unhappy with a minor detail of the event—let's say, the quality of forks provided at the table.

The complaint was put to me this way: "I come to this dinner every year with the expectation that the meal will be of a certain caliber, and the forks this year ruined (ruined!) the meal for me. It was impossible to focus on the food while using such a terrible fork." And after assuring him that we did our best on the forks but certain compromises had to be made for certain justifiable reasons, he said, "I know, I know, and I'm sure you don't make the decisions about the forks! But please tell those in charge to consider how much the forks impact the experience of the diners here." And then he repeated himself: "I know that it's not your decision, but please just pass my message on the planners of the event."

Now, this is not the only complaint I received, and as far as the complaints went this one did not bother me very much. Despite the fact that forks usually have no bearing on the enjoyment of food—and the real subject of the complaint had zero bearing on the quality of the event—I have made peace with the fact that people have peeves and they enjoy expressing them.

What bothers me is that he didn't think I had any control over the "forks." I totally did. In fact, for this event I selected the "forks" myself. If he wanted to get the forks changed for next year, he was speaking to exactly the person with the power to change them! I was happy he didn't know this in the moment because I would have gotten another earful, but in retrospect it kind of pisses me off that he didn't think it was my fault. Not only did I have authority over the forks, I also made a ton of other, waaaay more important, decisions. And if he isn't going to blame me for the forks, then I won't get any recognition for the delicious escargot, or whatever (I'm probably stretching this analogy too far, sorry).

I just need to keep this in mind for the next time I'm held responsible for something going wrong. I'll try to remember to be happy that I'm in trouble, because it means I have enough power to screw something up.

(And now I realize that this entire post can be paraphrased by that dumb quote from Spider-Man: "With great power comes great responsibility." I am trite.)

you can call me ann

I just got an email with a signature that went something like this: 

Dolly Parton (she/her/hers)
Professional Singer
Tel: 090-0900-8888
Email: dollyland@hotmail.com

The email was not from Dolly Parton, sadly, but you get the idea.

Now, I generally don't give any thought to how people choose to sign their emails. But...I am perplexed. Why do I need to know that she is, you know, a SHE? If I were to write her back, I probably wouldn't use any gendered pronouns. "You" works quite well when writing to someone directly. Is this person assuming that we will be talking about her amongst ourselves, hence the need to specify a singular third person pronoun? Perhaps. But I'm still befuddled as to why it would matter.

I've received a countless number of misaddressed emails over the years. My last name is deceptively hard to spell, and people always get it wrong. (My dissertation advisor, bless him, never got it right once.) I'd wager that I'm called "Julie" as often as "Julia." I had an otherwise nice exchange with someone who addressed me as "Ann" in multiple emails, which was also fine. The best one ever was a student who addressed all emails to me as, "Hey you." I thought that was objectively terrible, but I also didn't bother to correct it. I figured that kid was going to have enough problems in life and didn't need a lecture from me.

But aside from naming issues, what if someone used masculine pronouns for me? Do I feel affronted at the thought? Not really. Men are people too; as long as you don't mistake me for a squirrel, I think we'll be ok.

I guess most people are not as laid-back as me about this? The person who wrote to me would probably be very offended if I presumed she was, you know, a she, but was instead a he. Maybe she prefers to be a "they"? I could manage that, but it would make grammar difficult. Is there a thing where people prefer to be "it"? That just seems too rude; I don't think I could do that. But I guess those who defer to grammar and convention are not sufficiently woke?

Frankly, being woke all the time seems exhausting. Not caring about most things has, I think, served me very well in life. I am a very well-rested person.