I am not a nice person.

I've been reaching out to all the resources my institution offers, and there have been surprisingly many that have been quite useful.  Like, I wasn't expecting the ombuds office to have enough understanding of my situation to offer helpful advice, but they have been really great.  (Sorry for doubting, ombuds people.)

One of the things I got from the ombuds office was a book on having tough conversations.  The book rings pretty true to me, but the method they suggest requires you to, among other things, not be reactive and also to not want pain for the other person.

At some point, months ago, all I wanted was to resolve things.  Maybe not even fully!  Just enough so that I could work in the lab without too much hassle.  Just enough so that I felt like I had a chance to earn my way back into the group.

Now, I want to yell and shout and scream.  I want to make sarcastic remarks.  I want to ridicule my supervisor's perspective.

I'm not exactly sure what's up with the sea change, here.  One contributing factor could be all the kinda-humiliating experiences of assumed incompetence.  

I've also been frustrated with all the different directions I sometimes get pulled in.  I decided, a while ago, to try really hard to Do What Boss-Man Wants.  But everyone feels comfortable telling me what to do.  So for any given task, I'll get told to do it one way by my boss.  And then someone will come in and start chastising me for doing it That Way rather than his favorite Other Way.  And then while I'm looking up some materials properties to help me determine if there's any difference between That Way and Other Way, someone else will come in and tell me that I'm overthinking things and that I'll never get anything done (a true point, to be sure) and that I should just do it, Some Way.  

Just doing something, any old way, is my preference.  So I'm in total agreement with Third Dude Offering Advice.  But I don't know how to explain that Boss will be irritated if I don't do things his way.  And that if I go off script, I'd better have good, numerical justification at the ready, else I'll get an earful.  Or worse, the silent treatment.  It's a special kind of pain, to have your Boss light up and start talking physics when someone else enters the room.  And for that talk to go out like a light when you walk over, wanting to join in.

So I want to yell, and even I can tell that losing my cool is not the way to go.  But I'm so angry, and it's so hard for me to imagine being an effective member of this group.  It seems like it would feel so good to lash out.

Uck.  It seems like another trip to the ombuds office might be in order.

I feel like it would've been helpful if every physics class included a component on how to keep your cool when people start yelling at you for not knowing something that you do, in fact, know.  I mean, actually knowing stuff is important.  But when permission to do work is on the line, it's also important that other people know that you know something.

She takes up space, I take up space. You can't have this space because I'm using it. Go find your own.

I question whether or not I'm cut out for science.

I also wonder if I'm really good enough to be taking up spots at national labs and detector schools and grad programs.  I totally suggested to my E&M instructor that he bring up my admission to the graduate program at the next faculty meeting.  I mean, if I'm really dumber than his two-year old grandchild, shouldn't he?

I didn't really believe him; even then I knew I could out-physicist his darling toddler.  But I was serious when I told him that maybe he should kick me out of the program.

Lately, though, I've been feeling just a tiny, tiny bit more like I have something to offer the physics community.  I feel like I'm a really good fit, actually, for the job I currently have.  And that it's wonderful for me to have so much diverse science I can interact with.

I have this job, and there's people who don't.  I feel like there are probably people who could do better work here or make more out of this opportunity, but I also feel like there are plenty who wouldn't.

So it's a subtle shift, but it's interesting.  My reaction to ridiculous assumptions of incompetence is still, "dude!  just fire me already!"  But I also feel like they'd be losing an asset.  Like, an asset that has real value.

So, world, there it is.  I take up some space, and I'm a tiny bit okay with that.  I have some skills, and that's pretty awesome.  My team isn't currently interested in anything I have to offer, which is kind of dumb.  Do they think I'm going to stick around without any interesting work or community?  Because I am not.  They way they're acting is not okay, and me, my space, and my skills are going to go elsewhere unless things change.

Awesome.

I felt uncertain about going to roller derby practice tonight, but I managed to get myself there anyway.

True: I got lost.  True: the house numbers were near-invisible in the dark.  True: random neighbor-people waved at me, which was a friendly enough signal that I found myself able to ask them if they knew which house I was looking for.

And so I arrived!  Late, but that was okay.  I had a lovely time jumping around in my socks.

I talked with my friend later, briefly, and we made plans for working on our paper tomorrow.  And not in a, "oh gods we suck why don't we have more done" kind of way.  In a, "and so we'll hang out on the google and just work together for a while" kind of way.  This is a pleasant way for me to interact with this paper.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.  It'd be pretty sweet if it's also a reasonably productive method.

I talked with my mom while I ate dinner, and we talked about stuff I'm doing to make work better.  We talked about her cold.  We talked about books.  She mentioned several times that my co-workers are behaving badly.  Ha!  Take that, co-workers!

It feels nice to know my mom is in my corner.  I feel like a lot of people are in my corner.  I feel like maybe I can climb out of this hole I find myself in.  And today I feel like, despite work-based irritation, I had a lovely evening.

And now, to bed.

Wow, okay. Me: not so much with the writing.

So I signed up for BlogHer's November Daily Post Thingy challenge, and so far I've already missed two days?  One day?

Anyway.

Writing once a day is, apparently, more difficult than I imagined.

It is odd that I underestimated the difficulty, because I started a blog partly because I find academic writing (the only kind of writing I ever attempt, mind) excruciatingly difficult.  I thought that there was a chance I wouldn't find writing some manner of vignette as big a hurdle.  And that I could therefore practice my hurdling with less stress and more frequently, thus making the academic writing a bit more approachable.

I have no idea if this is going to work or not, but a few things are on track with this attempt: I do find it difficult to write a post, although not nearly as difficult as writing parts of a paper.  I am writing more frequently than I would if I were not posting.  Writing is not my thing.  My language tends toward pictures, and all that.  Linear speech typically requires something akin to translation for me.

But linear speech is the world I live in, so it seems like a good idea to do some practicing.  Also, people get pissed when I drag my feet on academic writing.  I don't like any part of that - not their pissiness and not my foot-dragging.  So again, I'm excited about practicing.

Well.  "Excited" might be a little strong.

It would be accurate to say that I would be excited about having delicious chocolate cake for tomorrow's breakfast.  Practicing writing, on the other hand?  I am fairly certain that practicing writing constitutes "worthwhile effort."

And I have made a bit of progress on academic writing fronts.

Today I wrote a draft that describes a procedure for a simple experiment I've been doing in the lab.  This, at the request of my supervisor.  I want to be irritated by this, but it was a really good suggestion.  That I took.  And completed.  (See the proud post-doc write?)

Yesterday, I sat down to work on a paper that's been dragging on for a long, long time.  I sat down to work on it like it was no big deal!  And promptly found the password to the group's data had changed.  So, you know, I didn't get anything done.  Beyond sending a few emails and uncovering the new password.  But still.

Progress?  Maybe?

Certainly enough to merit cake, I think.