Literary critics who have focused on the role of The Lunch Report in post-post-modern American literature have focused primarily on Penelope’s sense of job dissatisfaction and related social disassociation.
It’s true, my sense of job satisfaction has been well below 100% and often well below 30%. So much so that I have been considering joining a cult to give myself a clearer sense of purpose.
I used to think people who joined cults were troubled people with problematic relationships with authority. But as I look back, I know that once upon a time I had secretly hoped that corporate law would become my cult and give me a sense of identity and acceptance. Now that I realize that corporate law is more likely to rob me of my identity, joining a cult has resurfaced as a viable option.
I abruptly mentioned the idea to a friend over lunch the other day. No sooner had we sat down for lunch then I blurted out “I’m going to join a cult.” Without a pause, he pointed out that I could never join someone else’s cult. For the same reason that I find the culture of a corporate law firm stifling, he explained, I would feel just as stymied in someone else’s cult. He reasoned that I’m just not a follower. Instead he suggested I found my own cult.
Brilliant! Of course he was right. No wonder I’ve been frustrated. I was too busy looking for the perfect corporate cult to join when I should have been creating my own. I had even been urged by a self-proclaimed corporate law cult-leader when I joined my last job that I needed to create a following and solicit worshippers (yup, he used that word) among associates who worked with me.
So many legends in the corporate world have succeeded as a result of cult images they’d developed and perpetuated: PIMCO, the mutual fund cult founded by Bill Gross;* KKR, the leveraged buyout cult, originally founded by Jerry Kohlberg before he was ousted by his own follower, Henry Kravis; and of course there was the Greenspan cult, which lasted long after Alan's reign at The US Treasury. I would be remiss not to mention the Madoff Cult, which ended tragically in a Jonestown-style financial massacre, but I prefer to focus on the more successful examples.
I was inspired with a new sense of purpose and immediately set to designing my cult.
First, I would need a name—the Cult of Penelope. No, “Penelope’s Cult” (sounds much more possessive). Maybe not that savvy from a marketing perspective but it’s simple and easy to remember.
Next, I knew I’d need some sort of totemic symbol. How about a large stuffed leopard? A stuffed animal may make my cult seem less serious (and may even introduce a “plushie” innuendo* that I’d rather avoid), but I certainly don’t want a live one. I've never understood why cults so often unnecessarily harm animals in their rituals.
My supplicants would be invited to deposit their offerings before The Leopard. In exchange they would be offered pinot grigio, saltines and my acceptance and approval (no cash value, but it’s always nice to know someone’s out there rooting for you, no?).
Next, I would need an official clothing line for my cult. Something more modern and secular than Hare Krishna’s orange togas. Got it: Lily Pulitzer, a lifestyle brand for a lifestyle cult that believes in redemption through golf, swimming and tennis.
At this point, I realized I had a handle on the aesthetics of my cult but still needed to get down to the core substance of my cult. I did some extra research. The hallmarks of a cult are:
• Adulation of a charismatic leader;
• Use of coercive persuasion or brainwashing to recruit members; and
• The “inculcation of deep-seated dependency on the group and its leader.”
According to the Cultic Studies Journal, a cult is
[A] group or movement exhibiting a great excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (eg. isolation from former friends and family . . .) designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families or their community.”*
Goodness. Upon reflection I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with the concepts of dependency, anxiety and coercion. I see far too much of this fostered by “managing directors” and “partners” (huge misnomers, no?) among their corporate employees to believe it can lead to any good.
What a shame. I was so excited by this project, but once I discarded things like thought control and dependency, I realized all I had left was “adulation of a charismatic leader.” Maybe what I wanted wasn’t really a cult. After all, the thought of distributing brochures in airports, launching an internet marketing campaign and tweeting the word of Penelope was seriously unappealing. Maybe what I wanted was just a little bit of attention and respect (okay, occasional adulation would be nice too).
I don’t need to create my own cult just for that, do I?
Notes
*The Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC runs the Total Return Fund, the world’s largest mutual fund.
*A "plushie" is someone affected by “Plushophilia,” a sexual fetish involving stuffed animals. Although plushies once practiced in relative anonymity, a 2001 article in Vanity Fair made their practices more widely known. See “Pleasures of the Fur,” http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2001/03/furries200103; see also “Who Are the Furries?” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8355287.stm
*William Chambers, Michael Langone, Arthur Dole & James Grice, “The Group Psychological Abuse Scale: A Measure of the Variety of Cultic Abuse,” Cultic Studies Journal 11(1), 1194.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Penelope Is Out of the Office
Penelope will be out-of-the office from August 20, 2010 to August 30, 2011.
Maybe it started with an innocent typo that threw everyone off and made us forever paranoid about implementing an automatic out-of-the-office email reply. It’s unclear why but, somewhere along the way, the automatic out-of-the-office reply fell into disfavor in corporate America.
I suspect it derives from a sense of class consciousness—everyone knows that only functionaries use the out-of-office reply message. Those with seriously important jobs cannot afford the luxury of absence and would never be so gauche as to announce their absence in such a forthright manner. But still, why did it become obsolete?
On the one hand, a client should know we are unavailable so that the lack of an immediate response is not misconstrued as a brush off. On the other hand, consider the horrors that an out-of-office message can spawn.
For obvious reasons, an out-of-office message suggests that you’re not there. Not being there can really be a problem in a service profession. It signals an interruption in service.
In the corporate world*, “serving” requires a reversion to serfdom whereby telling your vassal that you are unavailable is an option considered only in contemplation of death. By definition, “service” means that a family member’s birthday or an anniversary takes back seat to your master’s moods and professional aspirations.
And what if you forget to tell each and every client that you won’t be there. There’s never a good time to explain to the client that, at the end of the day, your personal life really is more important than what your client believes, once again, to be the most pivotal moment in their career and in your service provider-client relationship. It’s awkward to work that into a conference call, no? Yet, alerting them in advance is preferable to their being surprised by an abrupt two line message that you’re abandoning them for five consecutive business days.
Perhaps the greatest fear that dissuades a corporate person to shun the out-of-office message is a fear of poaching. In your absence, the client may seek out advice from a colleague, encouraging a colleague to encroach on the territory you’ve been grooming to generate more business that will in turn be attributed to you and not to your predatory colleague. Better to secure your territory than let wild animals roam free in your absence.
Faced with the horrors described above, nowadays many will feign presence rather than publicly concede absence (the corporate term for vacation) with an automatic out-of-office email reply. Rather than confess the need for a personal life (which, to have, already suggests a certain lack of professional dedication), they fake their presence with the help of technology.
Calls are taken remotely, in an effort to suggest to clients that you’re not on vacation but simply calling “from the road” during a business trip* or ripping yourself away from a meeting out of the office. Laptops enable us to log on and deliver excel spreadsheets, powerpoints, and other token symbols of corporate productivity.
Hand in hand with the feigning presence strategy is the failure to announce a vacation in advance to our colleagues. Vacation days are kept on the down low with perhaps a covert email sent only to an assistant indicating that although you will be out of the office, no one is to know this, including colleagues.
This helps perpetuate the fiction that no vacation is occurring. If there was no pre-vacation announcement and you managed to respond to clients reasonably promptly, then in the eyes of the corporate world no vacation has occurred and your Protestant work ethic remains unsullied.
Today, we’re never out of the office. Instead we circumnavigate the office, via cell, Blackberry, fax or text. Unfortunately, if we’re never out of the office that means we’re never really anywhere else either. So when we’re in Bali vacationing with a significant other, chances are we’re not enjoying the sunset but instead scheming of ways to sneak into an unoccupied room and have a torrid threesome with a cell phone and Blackberry (if you must, use protection and close the door).
A word of caution to those who fake their presence from afar though. Naïve is the client who does not notice a change in your communicational pattern—the lengthy and thorough emails suddenly supplanted by truncated messages delivered in a different font at unusual hours. You’re deluding yourself that you can be just as professionally “present” by Blackberry while sitting on a beach.
Despite the success of the “Be Present”* clothing line that has accomplished great notoriety among yoga circles in America, fewer and fewer of us are present anywhere anymore.
Notes
*Clearly the quandary of whether to enable the out-of-office reply is not unique to America. The crisis and the debate have reached international dimensions as well. See “Out-of the-office reply: got the message,” Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/17e32334-69e5-11df-a978-00144feab49a.html
*Although business trips have become anachronistic for many of us, there are still some pockets of civilization that see value in meeting a client face-to-face and having a live discussion. There’s also the amusement of snickering at how your client dresses when you meet them in person.
*Be Present is a clothing line especially designed for Yoga that has achieve great commercial success in recent years.
Maybe it started with an innocent typo that threw everyone off and made us forever paranoid about implementing an automatic out-of-the-office email reply. It’s unclear why but, somewhere along the way, the automatic out-of-the-office reply fell into disfavor in corporate America.
I suspect it derives from a sense of class consciousness—everyone knows that only functionaries use the out-of-office reply message. Those with seriously important jobs cannot afford the luxury of absence and would never be so gauche as to announce their absence in such a forthright manner. But still, why did it become obsolete?
On the one hand, a client should know we are unavailable so that the lack of an immediate response is not misconstrued as a brush off. On the other hand, consider the horrors that an out-of-office message can spawn.
For obvious reasons, an out-of-office message suggests that you’re not there. Not being there can really be a problem in a service profession. It signals an interruption in service.
In the corporate world*, “serving” requires a reversion to serfdom whereby telling your vassal that you are unavailable is an option considered only in contemplation of death. By definition, “service” means that a family member’s birthday or an anniversary takes back seat to your master’s moods and professional aspirations.
And what if you forget to tell each and every client that you won’t be there. There’s never a good time to explain to the client that, at the end of the day, your personal life really is more important than what your client believes, once again, to be the most pivotal moment in their career and in your service provider-client relationship. It’s awkward to work that into a conference call, no? Yet, alerting them in advance is preferable to their being surprised by an abrupt two line message that you’re abandoning them for five consecutive business days.
Perhaps the greatest fear that dissuades a corporate person to shun the out-of-office message is a fear of poaching. In your absence, the client may seek out advice from a colleague, encouraging a colleague to encroach on the territory you’ve been grooming to generate more business that will in turn be attributed to you and not to your predatory colleague. Better to secure your territory than let wild animals roam free in your absence.
Faced with the horrors described above, nowadays many will feign presence rather than publicly concede absence (the corporate term for vacation) with an automatic out-of-office email reply. Rather than confess the need for a personal life (which, to have, already suggests a certain lack of professional dedication), they fake their presence with the help of technology.
Calls are taken remotely, in an effort to suggest to clients that you’re not on vacation but simply calling “from the road” during a business trip* or ripping yourself away from a meeting out of the office. Laptops enable us to log on and deliver excel spreadsheets, powerpoints, and other token symbols of corporate productivity.
Hand in hand with the feigning presence strategy is the failure to announce a vacation in advance to our colleagues. Vacation days are kept on the down low with perhaps a covert email sent only to an assistant indicating that although you will be out of the office, no one is to know this, including colleagues.
This helps perpetuate the fiction that no vacation is occurring. If there was no pre-vacation announcement and you managed to respond to clients reasonably promptly, then in the eyes of the corporate world no vacation has occurred and your Protestant work ethic remains unsullied.
Today, we’re never out of the office. Instead we circumnavigate the office, via cell, Blackberry, fax or text. Unfortunately, if we’re never out of the office that means we’re never really anywhere else either. So when we’re in Bali vacationing with a significant other, chances are we’re not enjoying the sunset but instead scheming of ways to sneak into an unoccupied room and have a torrid threesome with a cell phone and Blackberry (if you must, use protection and close the door).
A word of caution to those who fake their presence from afar though. Naïve is the client who does not notice a change in your communicational pattern—the lengthy and thorough emails suddenly supplanted by truncated messages delivered in a different font at unusual hours. You’re deluding yourself that you can be just as professionally “present” by Blackberry while sitting on a beach.
Despite the success of the “Be Present”* clothing line that has accomplished great notoriety among yoga circles in America, fewer and fewer of us are present anywhere anymore.
Notes
*Clearly the quandary of whether to enable the out-of-office reply is not unique to America. The crisis and the debate have reached international dimensions as well. See “Out-of the-office reply: got the message,” Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/17e32334-69e5-11df-a978-00144feab49a.html
*Although business trips have become anachronistic for many of us, there are still some pockets of civilization that see value in meeting a client face-to-face and having a live discussion. There’s also the amusement of snickering at how your client dresses when you meet them in person.
*Be Present is a clothing line especially designed for Yoga that has achieve great commercial success in recent years.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Changing of the Guard
Witnessing a generational shift can be inspiring. But, if you’re part of the generation that’s being shifted or superseded and new stars are beginning to outshine you, then it can also be stressful.
As I slurped up my soup today at lunch (which, with the saltines and soda, came to $1.90, just within my new lunch budget) I reviewed the events of the last two weeks. I’ve been a bystander to all sorts of epic changes yet realized it only once I found myself in the contemplative company of some chicken noodle soup.
Although most of these cataclysmic shifts occurred right at my own golf club, the ramifications are in no way localized to a Westchester country club.
When I reached the 16th hole at my golf club last Sunday, I surveyed the Hudson River for the usual assortment of sail boats. I saw an unusually shaped barge floating towards NYC that I almost mistook for an aircraft carrier, until I realized that aircraft carriers rarely cruise up the Hudson. Only days later did I learn that the barge was carrying a new bridge, one that would replace the existing Willis Avenue bridge, in what journalists described as an “insta bridge” event. Out with the old and in with the new, all in one day.
Little did I know that at the same time I was trying to make sense of the aircraft carrier on the river, the pillars of my society were foundering. Tiger Woods was at that moment finishing 18 over, a career worst. More importantly, however, a younger couple defeated one of the most senior and celebrated golf couples at our club.
When you live in the present, it’s always too early to tell whether you're living a one-off aberrant incident or you’re witnessing history. I may not remember any of the details in 5 years but I'll remember that it happened. I’ll remember that there was a weekend—a moment—when it all crystallized and we knew were witnessing a changing of the guard—the new Willis Avenue Bridge replacing the old, Tiger’s plummeting status in the world golf arena, and the crowning of new husband-wife champions at my club.
This younger couple will become the new inspiration of the annual husband-wife championship (as well as undoubtedly other golf tournaments) with their names etched in wood in the grill room for generations to admire and emulate.
And maybe 20 years from now, having seen these names engraved often enough to incite envy, their own children and their children’s contemporaries will be gunning for it—first hoping, just once, to be listed alongside their idols* and then once listed, eventually gaining enough confidence and generating enough of a track record to erase those records altogether and replace them with their own.
As I scraped up the remains of my soup and transitioned to dessert (saltines, yum), I realized that my contemporaries and I are already at an age when we’re beginning to develop legacies.
All of this left me curious about how society at large might see my history to date, my nascent legacy. So, like the accomplished narcissist that I am, I Googled myself (don't pretend you haven’t done it).
1st Hit: my position at my law firm. Yawn.
2nd-4th Hits: articles I’ve written about the hedge fund industry. Double yawn.
5th Hit: A testament to my paltry support of The Morgan Library and some random Democrats. Proof that I’m not exactly a financial powerhouse.
6th Hit: A reference to being Ivy League Player of the Year, which would almost be impressive were it not for the fact that the sport was gymnastics and everyone knows that college gymnastics is hardly as competitive as what occurs pre-college. I had a foot in the gymnast’s grave and was competing against other athletes well past their prime. Big deal.
As I looked at the hits, I knew that this was not the stuff of legacies—these were more like accidental appearances in the game called life. I don’t know what my legacy will be yet but even single people have legacies, whether they like it or not. I suspect creating some form of legacy will involve less time drinking and arm wrestling* in the grill room and more time being productive, like chipping and putting.
Notes
*Although I am told there are few moments as joyful in the parenting process as when a child excels beyond a parent, I'm not convinced my fragile golf ego could handle the experience.
*Despite having started doing push-ups in earnest a year ago, I was defeated almost immediately.
As I slurped up my soup today at lunch (which, with the saltines and soda, came to $1.90, just within my new lunch budget) I reviewed the events of the last two weeks. I’ve been a bystander to all sorts of epic changes yet realized it only once I found myself in the contemplative company of some chicken noodle soup.
Although most of these cataclysmic shifts occurred right at my own golf club, the ramifications are in no way localized to a Westchester country club.
When I reached the 16th hole at my golf club last Sunday, I surveyed the Hudson River for the usual assortment of sail boats. I saw an unusually shaped barge floating towards NYC that I almost mistook for an aircraft carrier, until I realized that aircraft carriers rarely cruise up the Hudson. Only days later did I learn that the barge was carrying a new bridge, one that would replace the existing Willis Avenue bridge, in what journalists described as an “insta bridge” event. Out with the old and in with the new, all in one day.
Little did I know that at the same time I was trying to make sense of the aircraft carrier on the river, the pillars of my society were foundering. Tiger Woods was at that moment finishing 18 over, a career worst. More importantly, however, a younger couple defeated one of the most senior and celebrated golf couples at our club.
When you live in the present, it’s always too early to tell whether you're living a one-off aberrant incident or you’re witnessing history. I may not remember any of the details in 5 years but I'll remember that it happened. I’ll remember that there was a weekend—a moment—when it all crystallized and we knew were witnessing a changing of the guard—the new Willis Avenue Bridge replacing the old, Tiger’s plummeting status in the world golf arena, and the crowning of new husband-wife champions at my club.
This younger couple will become the new inspiration of the annual husband-wife championship (as well as undoubtedly other golf tournaments) with their names etched in wood in the grill room for generations to admire and emulate.
And maybe 20 years from now, having seen these names engraved often enough to incite envy, their own children and their children’s contemporaries will be gunning for it—first hoping, just once, to be listed alongside their idols* and then once listed, eventually gaining enough confidence and generating enough of a track record to erase those records altogether and replace them with their own.
As I scraped up the remains of my soup and transitioned to dessert (saltines, yum), I realized that my contemporaries and I are already at an age when we’re beginning to develop legacies.
All of this left me curious about how society at large might see my history to date, my nascent legacy. So, like the accomplished narcissist that I am, I Googled myself (don't pretend you haven’t done it).
1st Hit: my position at my law firm. Yawn.
2nd-4th Hits: articles I’ve written about the hedge fund industry. Double yawn.
5th Hit: A testament to my paltry support of The Morgan Library and some random Democrats. Proof that I’m not exactly a financial powerhouse.
6th Hit: A reference to being Ivy League Player of the Year, which would almost be impressive were it not for the fact that the sport was gymnastics and everyone knows that college gymnastics is hardly as competitive as what occurs pre-college. I had a foot in the gymnast’s grave and was competing against other athletes well past their prime. Big deal.
As I looked at the hits, I knew that this was not the stuff of legacies—these were more like accidental appearances in the game called life. I don’t know what my legacy will be yet but even single people have legacies, whether they like it or not. I suspect creating some form of legacy will involve less time drinking and arm wrestling* in the grill room and more time being productive, like chipping and putting.
Notes
*Although I am told there are few moments as joyful in the parenting process as when a child excels beyond a parent, I'm not convinced my fragile golf ego could handle the experience.
*Despite having started doing push-ups in earnest a year ago, I was defeated almost immediately.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Penelope's Dating Guide for Grown Ups
The advice that follows below emerges from a series of conversations with women who forgot to meet a significant other when they were younger and remain chronically single.
Lest you doubt Penelope’s expertise on, and understanding of, prolonged singlehood, I provide a brief outline of her credentials:
Few people are as good at spending time alone as Penelope. If there were a handicap system for solitude (as there is for golf), Penelope would be a scratch loner. And that’s why it phases me only occasionally that I have spent the last 15 years largely alone. Not lonely, but alone, single, unmarried and whatever other boxes I have to check on tax returns, doctors’ forms, etc.
Being single means my schedule is very easily adjusted. I don't want to get up early on Saturday? Decision-made—I sleep. I can change my mind about what I’m going to eat for dinner seven times and it generates no friction—no one cares how many times I change my mind about these things.
Being single means I’m a better listener than a speaker, because I go to cafes by myself and I eavesdrop.
Being single means I am subjected to less small talk at work. You see, there are fewer safe topics when you are single and work in an environment where you are meant to have grown a spouse at least 10 years ago (if, for no other reason, than to make corporate America easier to run with obvious targets of small talk and networking connections, like kids and schools).
Being single means I haven’t had a proper boyfriend in 15 years, although I will admit to some highly inappropriate situations that I tried stubbornly to fit into the “boyfriend” category, like an obstinate child slamming the circular peg into the square hole insisting the circular peg can be transformed through sheer will.
At this age, boyfriends do not arrive in the neat and tidy packages they used to show up in, with a youthful smile, a promising job and future, and only one ex-girlfriend who was “great” but just came along too soon. Instead, they usually show up bald, with children, ex-spouse(s), maybe even current spouses, addictions, doubts, and even criminal records.
This is why Penelope believes it critical to offer guidance for NYC women who forgot to meet someone when they were young and naïve. Maybe you were too busy climbing a corporate ladder. Maybe it took you 15+ years to heal a wounded heart. Maybe you thought the proper ordering of a life was to try to become president first and THEN find a significant other. Whatever your story, following is some NYC-based advice for women “of a certain age.”
· The Kind Advice of Others. Unless he or she got married in the last 3 years, do NOT listen to the well-intentioned advice of married friends. Chances are they met their spouses/significant others 10+ years ago and any advice they have is just plain stale. Meeting someone at 25 has little to nothing to do with meeting someone when you’re 40+.
Example: A girlfriend told me that if I meet a guy I should pretend he’s the only guy for whom I’ve ever had romantic feelings. Sorry, but if you’re 40 and you tell a guy that, he's going to assume that either you’re a convicted felon who’s just completed a lengthy prison sentence or that you’re an unusually damaged catholic who has been fighting an urge to join a convent the last two decades. He won’t walk away, he will run, very fast (even if his hips have been replaced already).
· Nothing Has Changed. It seems like everything has changed at this point, your waist included. However, nothing has changed. Men are still men and women are still women. Many of the Men Are From Mars principles still apply. He’s probably still a hunter and you, still a gatherer. This may seem inconsistent with the point immediately above—embrace the contradiction.
· Be flexible. After 10+ years of solitude, even an ex-gymnast like Penelope can be inflexible. You’ve probably developed some laudable lifestyles, like daily yoga, no eating after 10pm and no more than two drinks. Be a little flexible, go out and get tipsy one night rather than spending extra time at the gym. He would probably prefer to spend that time with you rather than you spending it fine-tuning your washboard abs. If you’re still hanging out with him in three years, he’ll probably be encouraging you to spend more time hanging on to the remnants of your six pack, so enjoy the time with him now
· Let Him Pay for Dinner. Unless you’re 21 (in which case, why are you reading this?) and he’s a 45+ year old business man, chances are he’s not trying to subjugate you by paying for dinner. He’s trying to be a gentleman, whatever that means in this day and age. Mind you, I said “let him pay,” not “make him pay,” or judge him for not paying. Make a polite gesture to get your wallet from your purse. And if he calls your bluff and let’s you pay, fergodsakes you better have your wallet with you.
· Talking About Money. This is a tough topic and should be approached with great caution. Maybe it was easier 20 years ago when neither of you had any. Or maybe you’re a trust fund brat (TFB) so you knew that until you had 15 years of therapy under your belt, the topic would be off-limits. Money can be deeply symbolic in different ways for different people so tread lightly. Try not to be visibly disappointed when you learn he has no private jet—that just smacks of gold digging. And if you suspect you earn more than he does, don’t insist on paying for everything, unless your real goal is to castrate him.
· Put Snarky Girl Away. It was with pride that I once joined an online chat group called “I speak sarcasm fluently”. Yet, a constant barrage of acerbic wit and well crafted sarcasm, while welcomed in a bar of male colleagues, probably won’t win you many points if you meet a real keeper. It has no doubt behooved you in the workplace to toughen up and show some moxie, but this is not the place to show how tough you are.
· Getting Good At It. At this point you’ve probably been working a while or, if you’re a TFB, you’ve gotten better at working a room or speaking at benefits. In other words, at this point you’ve gotten used to being good at something. Dating is not something one gets “good at” (notable exceptions include Elizabeth Taylor). The goal is not to become an expert but to get good enough to get lucky (no, not that kind of lucky—that’s called “hooking up”)—lucky enough to get to know someone with whom you could spend a meaningful chunk of your life.
This is just the beginning of a multi-part series that Penelope expects to publish over the coming months. Penelope urges you to write in with your comments and questions, either by email (penelope.frost@yahoo.com), on Facebook or on her blog (http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com).
Px
Lest you doubt Penelope’s expertise on, and understanding of, prolonged singlehood, I provide a brief outline of her credentials:
Few people are as good at spending time alone as Penelope. If there were a handicap system for solitude (as there is for golf), Penelope would be a scratch loner. And that’s why it phases me only occasionally that I have spent the last 15 years largely alone. Not lonely, but alone, single, unmarried and whatever other boxes I have to check on tax returns, doctors’ forms, etc.
Being single means my schedule is very easily adjusted. I don't want to get up early on Saturday? Decision-made—I sleep. I can change my mind about what I’m going to eat for dinner seven times and it generates no friction—no one cares how many times I change my mind about these things.
Being single means I’m a better listener than a speaker, because I go to cafes by myself and I eavesdrop.
Being single means I am subjected to less small talk at work. You see, there are fewer safe topics when you are single and work in an environment where you are meant to have grown a spouse at least 10 years ago (if, for no other reason, than to make corporate America easier to run with obvious targets of small talk and networking connections, like kids and schools).
Being single means I haven’t had a proper boyfriend in 15 years, although I will admit to some highly inappropriate situations that I tried stubbornly to fit into the “boyfriend” category, like an obstinate child slamming the circular peg into the square hole insisting the circular peg can be transformed through sheer will.
At this age, boyfriends do not arrive in the neat and tidy packages they used to show up in, with a youthful smile, a promising job and future, and only one ex-girlfriend who was “great” but just came along too soon. Instead, they usually show up bald, with children, ex-spouse(s), maybe even current spouses, addictions, doubts, and even criminal records.
This is why Penelope believes it critical to offer guidance for NYC women who forgot to meet someone when they were young and naïve. Maybe you were too busy climbing a corporate ladder. Maybe it took you 15+ years to heal a wounded heart. Maybe you thought the proper ordering of a life was to try to become president first and THEN find a significant other. Whatever your story, following is some NYC-based advice for women “of a certain age.”
· The Kind Advice of Others. Unless he or she got married in the last 3 years, do NOT listen to the well-intentioned advice of married friends. Chances are they met their spouses/significant others 10+ years ago and any advice they have is just plain stale. Meeting someone at 25 has little to nothing to do with meeting someone when you’re 40+.
Example: A girlfriend told me that if I meet a guy I should pretend he’s the only guy for whom I’ve ever had romantic feelings. Sorry, but if you’re 40 and you tell a guy that, he's going to assume that either you’re a convicted felon who’s just completed a lengthy prison sentence or that you’re an unusually damaged catholic who has been fighting an urge to join a convent the last two decades. He won’t walk away, he will run, very fast (even if his hips have been replaced already).
· Nothing Has Changed. It seems like everything has changed at this point, your waist included. However, nothing has changed. Men are still men and women are still women. Many of the Men Are From Mars principles still apply. He’s probably still a hunter and you, still a gatherer. This may seem inconsistent with the point immediately above—embrace the contradiction.
· Be flexible. After 10+ years of solitude, even an ex-gymnast like Penelope can be inflexible. You’ve probably developed some laudable lifestyles, like daily yoga, no eating after 10pm and no more than two drinks. Be a little flexible, go out and get tipsy one night rather than spending extra time at the gym. He would probably prefer to spend that time with you rather than you spending it fine-tuning your washboard abs. If you’re still hanging out with him in three years, he’ll probably be encouraging you to spend more time hanging on to the remnants of your six pack, so enjoy the time with him now
· Let Him Pay for Dinner. Unless you’re 21 (in which case, why are you reading this?) and he’s a 45+ year old business man, chances are he’s not trying to subjugate you by paying for dinner. He’s trying to be a gentleman, whatever that means in this day and age. Mind you, I said “let him pay,” not “make him pay,” or judge him for not paying. Make a polite gesture to get your wallet from your purse. And if he calls your bluff and let’s you pay, fergodsakes you better have your wallet with you.
· Talking About Money. This is a tough topic and should be approached with great caution. Maybe it was easier 20 years ago when neither of you had any. Or maybe you’re a trust fund brat (TFB) so you knew that until you had 15 years of therapy under your belt, the topic would be off-limits. Money can be deeply symbolic in different ways for different people so tread lightly. Try not to be visibly disappointed when you learn he has no private jet—that just smacks of gold digging. And if you suspect you earn more than he does, don’t insist on paying for everything, unless your real goal is to castrate him.
· Put Snarky Girl Away. It was with pride that I once joined an online chat group called “I speak sarcasm fluently”. Yet, a constant barrage of acerbic wit and well crafted sarcasm, while welcomed in a bar of male colleagues, probably won’t win you many points if you meet a real keeper. It has no doubt behooved you in the workplace to toughen up and show some moxie, but this is not the place to show how tough you are.
· Getting Good At It. At this point you’ve probably been working a while or, if you’re a TFB, you’ve gotten better at working a room or speaking at benefits. In other words, at this point you’ve gotten used to being good at something. Dating is not something one gets “good at” (notable exceptions include Elizabeth Taylor). The goal is not to become an expert but to get good enough to get lucky (no, not that kind of lucky—that’s called “hooking up”)—lucky enough to get to know someone with whom you could spend a meaningful chunk of your life.
This is just the beginning of a multi-part series that Penelope expects to publish over the coming months. Penelope urges you to write in with your comments and questions, either by email (penelope.frost@yahoo.com), on Facebook or on her blog (http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com).
Px
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Confessions of a Financial Bulimic
I was first diagnosed with financial bulimia as a college freshman in 1985.
I had just been given my first checking account. As soon as my parents deposited the initial sum in my account, I knew I would have to change my ways. I needed to protect this modest amount from the financial threats of extravagance and waste. So I abandoned my daily post-study ritual of buying a 3 cent piece of Bazooka bubble gum. Already, I felt more in control of my spending.
I then bought one of my first adult cocktail dresses for $250 (not an inconsiderable sum for a party dress in the mid ‘80s). I had sacrificed my afternoon bubble gum so surely I had earned the cocktail dress—even if this wasn’t a perfect dollar-for-dollar offset.
Some of my loyal readers will recognize these same behavioral patterns in the pages of the Lunch Report. The Lunch Report began as a testament to Penelope’s ability to lunch on no more than $3 a day (measured on a strict per diem basis, and not cumulatively).
Penelope is prone to sitting at her desk savoring saltines while reflecting on the injustices inflicted on single women in corporate America.* But Penelope is also prone to spending a weekend at The Breakers in Palm Beach, as she stoically battles the winter blues on some of Florida’s best golf courses (while, of course, pilfering hotel shampoo).*
But let’s go back again so we can understand the origins of her financial disorder. By 1990, Penelope had learned to live in the south of France on a weekly food budget of 60FF (pre-Euro, about $10). Every scrap of food was maximized for value and usage: stale bread dutifully dipped in oil, sautéed and consumed. Cheese rinds never discarded but also fried and eaten and grocery store samples scarfed down obligatorily as amuse-bouches.
When I moved back to NYC in 1992, I resisted this city's hallmark indulgence: ordering in dinner. Instead, I continued my discipline of making my own dinner. I did loosen the purse strings slightly, however, and let myself add a half glass of wine from a bottle whose cost never exceeded $7.
Shortly thereafter, the parade of excuses marched in, stomping all over my Calvinist budget. I developed increasingly fanciful rationalizations for spending: “you're only young once, go out and live it up” and “hey, if you want to meet someone, you gotta travel, do a Hamptons share, and buy some new clothes.”
And, the ultimate excuse: “you know you get more work done in cafés than at home, so why not take your documents out for dinner, every night.”
And so, I evolved from one of the most financially disciplined creatures in NYC to a full blown financial bulimic. Living in NYC made it easy to hide my disease. After all, NYC is inhabited primarily by financial enablers—those dedicated to encouraging you to spend $ you don't have (friends convincing you “you deserve it” and banks issuing easy credit)—and their co-conspirators, the financial predators—those who actually extract the $, restaurants, shops, etc. NYC would not be what it is were it not for the evolutionary force of these two breeds.
As I struggled to understand my nefarious urges, I found myself flipping through the pages of Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash, which explores the complex emotional relationship between modern women and money--their own and others’.* What did money represent to me anyway? Financial or emotional security?
By 2000, having failed in my quest for a sugar daddy, I learned to become my own sugar mama. In December, with great longing, a girlfriend and I watched doting husbands stand on line at Tiffany’s eager to bejewel their wives for Christmas. It then dawned on us that we could buy our own jewelry. And so we did. We each bought a pair of pearl earrings with a tasteful sprinkling of diamonds.
Recently, I reread Money, A Memoir. As interesting a reread as it was, I realized the book mischaracterized the subject as a gender issue and, in so doing, trivialized centuries of male pride, ambivalence and embarrassment associated with earning and spending money.
Understanding the rapport between money and emotions has universal appeal but may be all the more difficult to fathom in the capital of materiality, NYC. As I sift through nearly two decades of anecdotes, the men stand out as much as the women:
•The senior Morgan Stanley managing director who refused to eat in any restaurant where the cutlery has already been placed on the table because that meant the price of an entree would be too high. Yet he offered to buy me a new winter coat one night rather than wait on a lengthy coat check line.
•The senior partner at a very white shoe firm who saved the miniature gins and vodkas from every business flight he took so he could populate the bars in his 5 homes with these mini-tributes to his frugality.
•The jobless girlfriend who fretted continuously over her financial security, yet found fast solace in a $600 Botox treatment.
Why do we do these things? As I've learned, we all suffer from varying degrees of a financial consumption disorder. So, don't be ashamed. You're part of a well known financially bulimic demographic. The rest of us are here to support and sympathize with you, so write in and share your stories of financial excess and economic ambivalence.
Editorial Staff Note: Shortly before publication, Penelope suffered a relapse and bought a sweater because her office was over air-conditioned. She will be implementing a strict $2 limit on lunch until the excess amount spent on the sweater has been recouped. Please send food donations to The Lunch Report, P.O Box 777, NY, NY, 10021 and they will be redirected accordingly.
Notes
*“Eating Single in America,”
http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2010/03/eating-single-in-america.html
*“Lunch at The Breakers, Recession-Style,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2009/12/lunch-report-lunch-at-breakers.html.
“Correction and Addendum”
http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2009/12/lunch-report-correction-and-addendum-to.html
*Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash, Liz Perle (Picador, December 2006).
I had just been given my first checking account. As soon as my parents deposited the initial sum in my account, I knew I would have to change my ways. I needed to protect this modest amount from the financial threats of extravagance and waste. So I abandoned my daily post-study ritual of buying a 3 cent piece of Bazooka bubble gum. Already, I felt more in control of my spending.
I then bought one of my first adult cocktail dresses for $250 (not an inconsiderable sum for a party dress in the mid ‘80s). I had sacrificed my afternoon bubble gum so surely I had earned the cocktail dress—even if this wasn’t a perfect dollar-for-dollar offset.
Some of my loyal readers will recognize these same behavioral patterns in the pages of the Lunch Report. The Lunch Report began as a testament to Penelope’s ability to lunch on no more than $3 a day (measured on a strict per diem basis, and not cumulatively).
Penelope is prone to sitting at her desk savoring saltines while reflecting on the injustices inflicted on single women in corporate America.* But Penelope is also prone to spending a weekend at The Breakers in Palm Beach, as she stoically battles the winter blues on some of Florida’s best golf courses (while, of course, pilfering hotel shampoo).*
But let’s go back again so we can understand the origins of her financial disorder. By 1990, Penelope had learned to live in the south of France on a weekly food budget of 60FF (pre-Euro, about $10). Every scrap of food was maximized for value and usage: stale bread dutifully dipped in oil, sautéed and consumed. Cheese rinds never discarded but also fried and eaten and grocery store samples scarfed down obligatorily as amuse-bouches.
When I moved back to NYC in 1992, I resisted this city's hallmark indulgence: ordering in dinner. Instead, I continued my discipline of making my own dinner. I did loosen the purse strings slightly, however, and let myself add a half glass of wine from a bottle whose cost never exceeded $7.
Shortly thereafter, the parade of excuses marched in, stomping all over my Calvinist budget. I developed increasingly fanciful rationalizations for spending: “you're only young once, go out and live it up” and “hey, if you want to meet someone, you gotta travel, do a Hamptons share, and buy some new clothes.”
And, the ultimate excuse: “you know you get more work done in cafés than at home, so why not take your documents out for dinner, every night.”
And so, I evolved from one of the most financially disciplined creatures in NYC to a full blown financial bulimic. Living in NYC made it easy to hide my disease. After all, NYC is inhabited primarily by financial enablers—those dedicated to encouraging you to spend $ you don't have (friends convincing you “you deserve it” and banks issuing easy credit)—and their co-conspirators, the financial predators—those who actually extract the $, restaurants, shops, etc. NYC would not be what it is were it not for the evolutionary force of these two breeds.
As I struggled to understand my nefarious urges, I found myself flipping through the pages of Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash, which explores the complex emotional relationship between modern women and money--their own and others’.* What did money represent to me anyway? Financial or emotional security?
By 2000, having failed in my quest for a sugar daddy, I learned to become my own sugar mama. In December, with great longing, a girlfriend and I watched doting husbands stand on line at Tiffany’s eager to bejewel their wives for Christmas. It then dawned on us that we could buy our own jewelry. And so we did. We each bought a pair of pearl earrings with a tasteful sprinkling of diamonds.
Recently, I reread Money, A Memoir. As interesting a reread as it was, I realized the book mischaracterized the subject as a gender issue and, in so doing, trivialized centuries of male pride, ambivalence and embarrassment associated with earning and spending money.
Understanding the rapport between money and emotions has universal appeal but may be all the more difficult to fathom in the capital of materiality, NYC. As I sift through nearly two decades of anecdotes, the men stand out as much as the women:
•The senior Morgan Stanley managing director who refused to eat in any restaurant where the cutlery has already been placed on the table because that meant the price of an entree would be too high. Yet he offered to buy me a new winter coat one night rather than wait on a lengthy coat check line.
•The senior partner at a very white shoe firm who saved the miniature gins and vodkas from every business flight he took so he could populate the bars in his 5 homes with these mini-tributes to his frugality.
•The jobless girlfriend who fretted continuously over her financial security, yet found fast solace in a $600 Botox treatment.
Why do we do these things? As I've learned, we all suffer from varying degrees of a financial consumption disorder. So, don't be ashamed. You're part of a well known financially bulimic demographic. The rest of us are here to support and sympathize with you, so write in and share your stories of financial excess and economic ambivalence.
Editorial Staff Note: Shortly before publication, Penelope suffered a relapse and bought a sweater because her office was over air-conditioned. She will be implementing a strict $2 limit on lunch until the excess amount spent on the sweater has been recouped. Please send food donations to The Lunch Report, P.O Box 777, NY, NY, 10021 and they will be redirected accordingly.
Notes
*“Eating Single in America,”
http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2010/03/eating-single-in-america.html
*“Lunch at The Breakers, Recession-Style,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2009/12/lunch-report-lunch-at-breakers.html.
“Correction and Addendum”
http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2009/12/lunch-report-correction-and-addendum-to.html
*Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash, Liz Perle (Picador, December 2006).
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Babes in Bandon
Penelope has just returned from a golf expedition out West to Bandon Dunes, an obligatory pilgrimage for any self-respecting golfaholic. For the non-golfers amongst you, Bandon Dunes is one of the most revered golf destinations in the world, with five challenging links-style courses. Historically, a male-only golf destination, more recently the resort has built a lodge in order to characterize itself a resort.*
The Bandon challenge begins with reaching the resort, situated 30 minutes away from one of Oregon’s most cosmopolitan hubs, North Bend, Oregon (which boasts numerous strip clubs and strip malls). Perhaps the more noteworthy landmark near Bandon Dunes is America’s largest wild animal petting park, just 8 miles from the resort. In order to distract visitors from the gorilla that zealously repeats the exact same sequence of chest beating, jumping, thumping and howling (a repetitive sequence disturbingly typical of wild animals in captivity), the zoo offers visitors the opportunity to pet and hold baby tiger and lion cubs.
Like other golf junkies, my golf buddies and I have been reading about this resort and its breathtaking views of the Pacific ever since it edged out Pebble Beach as the number one resort golf course in Golfweek’s rankings. But before the Crisis pressured golf resorts to offer more affordable golf packages, Bandon was off limits financially.* Thanks to the Crisis, Bandon's lodging prices are finally within grasp (assuming some form of short term financing is available).
There I was at the best golf resort in the West with my own clubs, my lucky bobcat five-wood headcover, new grips on my irons and my favorite golf buddy. I should have been in my element, but instead I was overwhelmed by other elements . . .
First there was the wind. The 335 mph wind blew right through me, despite the solid defense I mounted with four layers of clothing.
Then there was the rugged terrain. The layout of their newest course, Old MacDonald, left me dazed, confused and exhausted. Too much walking, too many hills. Too open a layout to know where I was going (and my caddy, who confessed he had only walked the course once, wasn't much help).
The noise of the wind precluded any conversation, so I was alone in my struggle against the elements. Just like a character in a Jack London story, soldiering on in the bitter cold tundra with no gloves (except that I had a golf glove on either hand) and worn shoes (except that I wore brand new golf shoes with sparkling white shoe laces). I am confident Jack London would have written a story about Bandon Dunes had he been a golfer.
Then there were the men, whose behavior was every bit as rugged and unmanicured as the links-style golf courses. A unique mixture of West Coast baba cool (think pony tails), red neck hill billy and golf die hard, the culture is a male-centric one. Shaving is either optional or discouraged, it wasn’t clear, and the look golfers aspired to clearly involved a toothpick hanging from the jaw.
My traveling buddy's thwarted quest for a feminine hygiene product confirmed my suspicions--we were squarely within anti-chick territory. No feminine products sold here. No spa either. The existence of a spa would run the risk of drawing women to the resort, a risk apparently not worth running so there are no plans afoot to build one. Yes, we had discovered where men who used to go to Myrtle Beach go once they've packed their wallets with a bit more financial security. We were surrounded by Myrtle Beach alums (circa Class of 1965).
After 36 holes on Old MacDonald one day, we wandered into McKee's pub to refuel before retiring to our bare boned pre-fab A-frame unit for which we paid $600 a night (no bathrobes and, no, the shampoo was not worth stealing).
We passed 8 men slouching over their table, the way they would never slump at their home club or with their wives present. They straightened up as we walked by and the leering campaign began. From the safe distance of our table (which we chose because it was at the opposite end of the room from them), the hungry wolves licking their chops staring down their vulnerable prey seemed safe, and comical.
They voiced compliments on my bright blue and white argyle golf pants (John Daly would be proud). If only I had known that my gender alone would attract far too much attention to begin with, I would never have been so bold as to wander around the Bandon jungle flaunting such audacious patterns on my legs.
Our driver, a transplant from Bucharest, fleshed out for us the stereotypical male golfer who visits Bandon Dunes. The typical male Bandon golfer will place a call to his wife en route to the resort from the airport, letting her know he has arrived safely and that he loves her. Then he will shut off the cell, tuck it away in his pocket and request to be driven to the nearest strip club.
Our driver recounted with lighthearted disgust one adventure in particular (imagine a thick Romanian accent here): “This one guy. I bring him to the strip club and what does he do? He hooks up with the ugliest chick in there. I swear he was desperate. He wanted me to bring the girls back to the resort but I don’t do that stuff. She asked if I wanted anything. No way.”
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is. Maybe you need to spend too much money away from home just to realize how much you love your home course and the golfers who inhabit it. So, was it worth it? Absolutely.
*http:///www.bandondunesgolf.com/pages/history/64.php
*Sea Island and The Breakers, two resorts that once proudly charged in excess of $1000 a night (excluding golf) not send postcards begging people to come stay for $250-$350 a night with golf included.
The Bandon challenge begins with reaching the resort, situated 30 minutes away from one of Oregon’s most cosmopolitan hubs, North Bend, Oregon (which boasts numerous strip clubs and strip malls). Perhaps the more noteworthy landmark near Bandon Dunes is America’s largest wild animal petting park, just 8 miles from the resort. In order to distract visitors from the gorilla that zealously repeats the exact same sequence of chest beating, jumping, thumping and howling (a repetitive sequence disturbingly typical of wild animals in captivity), the zoo offers visitors the opportunity to pet and hold baby tiger and lion cubs.
Like other golf junkies, my golf buddies and I have been reading about this resort and its breathtaking views of the Pacific ever since it edged out Pebble Beach as the number one resort golf course in Golfweek’s rankings. But before the Crisis pressured golf resorts to offer more affordable golf packages, Bandon was off limits financially.* Thanks to the Crisis, Bandon's lodging prices are finally within grasp (assuming some form of short term financing is available).
There I was at the best golf resort in the West with my own clubs, my lucky bobcat five-wood headcover, new grips on my irons and my favorite golf buddy. I should have been in my element, but instead I was overwhelmed by other elements . . .
First there was the wind. The 335 mph wind blew right through me, despite the solid defense I mounted with four layers of clothing.
Then there was the rugged terrain. The layout of their newest course, Old MacDonald, left me dazed, confused and exhausted. Too much walking, too many hills. Too open a layout to know where I was going (and my caddy, who confessed he had only walked the course once, wasn't much help).
The noise of the wind precluded any conversation, so I was alone in my struggle against the elements. Just like a character in a Jack London story, soldiering on in the bitter cold tundra with no gloves (except that I had a golf glove on either hand) and worn shoes (except that I wore brand new golf shoes with sparkling white shoe laces). I am confident Jack London would have written a story about Bandon Dunes had he been a golfer.
Then there were the men, whose behavior was every bit as rugged and unmanicured as the links-style golf courses. A unique mixture of West Coast baba cool (think pony tails), red neck hill billy and golf die hard, the culture is a male-centric one. Shaving is either optional or discouraged, it wasn’t clear, and the look golfers aspired to clearly involved a toothpick hanging from the jaw.
My traveling buddy's thwarted quest for a feminine hygiene product confirmed my suspicions--we were squarely within anti-chick territory. No feminine products sold here. No spa either. The existence of a spa would run the risk of drawing women to the resort, a risk apparently not worth running so there are no plans afoot to build one. Yes, we had discovered where men who used to go to Myrtle Beach go once they've packed their wallets with a bit more financial security. We were surrounded by Myrtle Beach alums (circa Class of 1965).
After 36 holes on Old MacDonald one day, we wandered into McKee's pub to refuel before retiring to our bare boned pre-fab A-frame unit for which we paid $600 a night (no bathrobes and, no, the shampoo was not worth stealing).
We passed 8 men slouching over their table, the way they would never slump at their home club or with their wives present. They straightened up as we walked by and the leering campaign began. From the safe distance of our table (which we chose because it was at the opposite end of the room from them), the hungry wolves licking their chops staring down their vulnerable prey seemed safe, and comical.
They voiced compliments on my bright blue and white argyle golf pants (John Daly would be proud). If only I had known that my gender alone would attract far too much attention to begin with, I would never have been so bold as to wander around the Bandon jungle flaunting such audacious patterns on my legs.
Our driver, a transplant from Bucharest, fleshed out for us the stereotypical male golfer who visits Bandon Dunes. The typical male Bandon golfer will place a call to his wife en route to the resort from the airport, letting her know he has arrived safely and that he loves her. Then he will shut off the cell, tuck it away in his pocket and request to be driven to the nearest strip club.
Our driver recounted with lighthearted disgust one adventure in particular (imagine a thick Romanian accent here): “This one guy. I bring him to the strip club and what does he do? He hooks up with the ugliest chick in there. I swear he was desperate. He wanted me to bring the girls back to the resort but I don’t do that stuff. She asked if I wanted anything. No way.”
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is. Maybe you need to spend too much money away from home just to realize how much you love your home course and the golfers who inhabit it. So, was it worth it? Absolutely.
*http:///www.bandondunesgolf.com/pages/history/64.php
*Sea Island and The Breakers, two resorts that once proudly charged in excess of $1000 a night (excluding golf) not send postcards begging people to come stay for $250-$350 a night with golf included.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Corporate Lawyer/Part Time Nun
After two years of wondering when and if I would ever be blessed enough that my clients would harass me on evenings, weekends and vacation, I suddenly realize I am, once again, the chosen.
At nights my blackberry is no longer just a search engine to help me while away lonely evenings on Google or Facebook. The blinking red light elicits all the promise that the shining green light of East Egg once held for Gatsby.* I see the red light and I know a client needs me. An adrenaline rush ripples throughout me and I am ready to serve. This must be my calling. I am a born again lawyer. Or a nun, with a more secular focus.
I had forgotten how uplifting it can be to analyze and draft for 10 hours straight. The mental stimulation stirs me. I no longer need an alarm clock. I check messages at 4am, nap and am up at 7am. It's an opportunity to become mentally stronger and physically sturdier (because lawyering in NYC is as much, if not more, a physical sport as a mental or professional endeavor).
I am now drawn to my clients and their documents more than food or sleep. I want to perfect the art of responsiveness—the articulate and thoughtful email that arrives on a holiday weekend only minutes after a client's panicked and disheveled query.
It's not just the satisfaction of providing top notch service to a demanding client. There is a sense of strength that comes from denial. While I serve, I strengthen myself. I deny myself social and physical indulgence, whether it be conversation or sleep. I insist this does not make me servile but better at serving. The more I serve the more I benefit and the more my clients must benefit. I am struck by the parallels between my life and that of a nun’s.
A corporate lawyer and a nun?! An incongruous pairing of greed and aggression with purity and denial? Not really. Nuns and corporate lawyers are far more similar than you might suspect. Female corporate lawyers and catholic nuns even more so.
Of course, there are many superficial distinctions to be made between the female corporate lawyer and the catholic nun, most notably:
· Dress Code—There’s no denying that dress codes for nuns are generally stricter than for corporate lawyers. Although I know of no top law firm that officially sanctions Ally McBeal-style way-above-the-knee skirts (although management committees at most of these firms secretly fantasize about them), Sister McBeal is loathe to flaunt even her ankles.
· Wine Consumption—After 5pm Ally McBeal could often be found in a local watering hole downing white wine. Even after vespers are over, Sister McBeal will never be found openly sipping a pinot grigio, although she might tuck a mini Jack Daniels into her habit or the folds of her robes to savor in her room later on.
Otherwise their lifestyles are more aligned than their wardrobes and drinking habits might suggest. Female corporate lawyers deny themselves many creature comforts, including family (either existing families or potential families), because otherwise they would not be taken as seriously. Or they deny themselves their own style as they indoctrinate themselves with the style of those, mostly men, who have preceded and negotiated before them.
It’s true that there are far more female leaders in the legal profession than female leaders in the catholic church. However, that's hardly surprising when you consider that nuns are not allowed to serve as "leaders" in the catholic church.
Fourteenth century nuns convinced themselves they were getting closer to God by denying themselves food.* They got closer to the neurochemical distortion that results from prolonged bouts of anorexia nervosa, but, given their current rank in the church, they may not have gotten closer to God (then again, I could be wrong and the meek (skinny and hungry) may still inherit the earth). On the other hand, all the denial that female corporate lawyers have embraced may not have advanced the ball that far either (but may have advanced other balls).*
Sometimes the process interferes and competes with the purpose. In A Nun’s Story, the 1959 film about a proud nun torn between her devotion to God and her professional aspirations as a nurse, Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) rises at dawn for morning prayer, a model of discipline and devotion. She eventually leaves the convent, resigning herself to the realization that she was driven less by a love of God and more by a love of the nursing process and her superiority in this discipline to all other nuns in the convent.
Not to put Sister Luke to shame, but the female corporate lawyer retrains herself to rise well before dawn—preferably waking every 2-3 hours to check on her wayward corporate souls in need of securities law advice. The process becomes addictive and appeals to the perfectionist instinct. Ultimately though she may become torn between the vows she took as an officer of the court to represent her client zealously and her personal aspiration to advance within the corporate Egg structure, the latter often being at direct odds with the former.
Notes
*Nick Carraway, the narrator or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby, spends a summer in West Egg, a guise for the post-WWI new money community of Great Neck, L.I., while becoming fascinated with his second cousin’s lifestyle and residence in East Egg, a thinly-disguised Manhasset, L.I.
*"The Plight of the Female Partner, By the Numbers,” April 29, 2010; “Women Lawyers Struggle to Attain and Keep Partner Positions,” Forbes Blog, April 30, 2010; “Female Partners: What the Law Firms Are Hiding,” David Yas, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, March 8, 2010.
*Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the most famous of the fasting saints and throughout the medieval period extreme fasting was critical to the concept of female holiness. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia, Joan Jacobs Brumberg (1988).
At nights my blackberry is no longer just a search engine to help me while away lonely evenings on Google or Facebook. The blinking red light elicits all the promise that the shining green light of East Egg once held for Gatsby.* I see the red light and I know a client needs me. An adrenaline rush ripples throughout me and I am ready to serve. This must be my calling. I am a born again lawyer. Or a nun, with a more secular focus.
I had forgotten how uplifting it can be to analyze and draft for 10 hours straight. The mental stimulation stirs me. I no longer need an alarm clock. I check messages at 4am, nap and am up at 7am. It's an opportunity to become mentally stronger and physically sturdier (because lawyering in NYC is as much, if not more, a physical sport as a mental or professional endeavor).
I am now drawn to my clients and their documents more than food or sleep. I want to perfect the art of responsiveness—the articulate and thoughtful email that arrives on a holiday weekend only minutes after a client's panicked and disheveled query.
It's not just the satisfaction of providing top notch service to a demanding client. There is a sense of strength that comes from denial. While I serve, I strengthen myself. I deny myself social and physical indulgence, whether it be conversation or sleep. I insist this does not make me servile but better at serving. The more I serve the more I benefit and the more my clients must benefit. I am struck by the parallels between my life and that of a nun’s.
A corporate lawyer and a nun?! An incongruous pairing of greed and aggression with purity and denial? Not really. Nuns and corporate lawyers are far more similar than you might suspect. Female corporate lawyers and catholic nuns even more so.
Of course, there are many superficial distinctions to be made between the female corporate lawyer and the catholic nun, most notably:
· Dress Code—There’s no denying that dress codes for nuns are generally stricter than for corporate lawyers. Although I know of no top law firm that officially sanctions Ally McBeal-style way-above-the-knee skirts (although management committees at most of these firms secretly fantasize about them), Sister McBeal is loathe to flaunt even her ankles.
· Wine Consumption—After 5pm Ally McBeal could often be found in a local watering hole downing white wine. Even after vespers are over, Sister McBeal will never be found openly sipping a pinot grigio, although she might tuck a mini Jack Daniels into her habit or the folds of her robes to savor in her room later on.
Otherwise their lifestyles are more aligned than their wardrobes and drinking habits might suggest. Female corporate lawyers deny themselves many creature comforts, including family (either existing families or potential families), because otherwise they would not be taken as seriously. Or they deny themselves their own style as they indoctrinate themselves with the style of those, mostly men, who have preceded and negotiated before them.
It’s true that there are far more female leaders in the legal profession than female leaders in the catholic church. However, that's hardly surprising when you consider that nuns are not allowed to serve as "leaders" in the catholic church.
Fourteenth century nuns convinced themselves they were getting closer to God by denying themselves food.* They got closer to the neurochemical distortion that results from prolonged bouts of anorexia nervosa, but, given their current rank in the church, they may not have gotten closer to God (then again, I could be wrong and the meek (skinny and hungry) may still inherit the earth). On the other hand, all the denial that female corporate lawyers have embraced may not have advanced the ball that far either (but may have advanced other balls).*
Sometimes the process interferes and competes with the purpose. In A Nun’s Story, the 1959 film about a proud nun torn between her devotion to God and her professional aspirations as a nurse, Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) rises at dawn for morning prayer, a model of discipline and devotion. She eventually leaves the convent, resigning herself to the realization that she was driven less by a love of God and more by a love of the nursing process and her superiority in this discipline to all other nuns in the convent.
Not to put Sister Luke to shame, but the female corporate lawyer retrains herself to rise well before dawn—preferably waking every 2-3 hours to check on her wayward corporate souls in need of securities law advice. The process becomes addictive and appeals to the perfectionist instinct. Ultimately though she may become torn between the vows she took as an officer of the court to represent her client zealously and her personal aspiration to advance within the corporate Egg structure, the latter often being at direct odds with the former.
Notes
*Nick Carraway, the narrator or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby, spends a summer in West Egg, a guise for the post-WWI new money community of Great Neck, L.I., while becoming fascinated with his second cousin’s lifestyle and residence in East Egg, a thinly-disguised Manhasset, L.I.
*"The Plight of the Female Partner, By the Numbers,” April 29, 2010; “Women Lawyers Struggle to Attain and Keep Partner Positions,” Forbes Blog, April 30, 2010; “Female Partners: What the Law Firms Are Hiding,” David Yas, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, March 8, 2010.
*Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the most famous of the fasting saints and throughout the medieval period extreme fasting was critical to the concept of female holiness. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia, Joan Jacobs Brumberg (1988).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)