Whenever I leave a vacation I always get a hangover. Usually it starts on the second to last day when you know the end is near and it reaches a peak when you have to go through the security line at the airport. From there it takes anywhere from a couple of days to a week for me to feel normal and ready to get back in the swing of things. My hangover is a combination of feelings: sad that it is over, happy because it happened, sentimental when leaving family and friends, and the dread of going back to the normal life routine of work and life. This past trip I felt a heightened since of hungover because I wasn’t just saying goodbye to a gorgeous beach but I was also thanking my adorable and generous grandparents (Mimi and Papa) for hosting such an incredible trip to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
A beach trip was a treat in itself but being with my mom’s whole family—our aunts and uncles, all the cousins, and of course our sweet Mimi and Papa—made it so, so special. Our grandparents are just the most darling couple… They have so much love and affection for each other and you could just tell how much it meant to them seeing all their family in one place. It was one big old love fest and everyone had such a good time that there might be a repeat next summer.
I’ll be treating my hangover by keeping busy with laundry from the trip (the smell of salt water and sea air really does follow you home), email responses (I promise I will get to all of them!), and spending quality time with my DVR… Lucky for me, I have another week-long trip this summer at the end of July. More on that later. Have any of you been on any incredible trips this summer or have anything in the works? Do y’all get hangovers, too?
I think I’ve mentioned this a time or two, but when I moved to Dallas after graduation college I didn’t know anyone except for my coworkers and the cute “friend of my sister” who lived a floor below me. 99% of my friends from school moved to Chicago and I spent a lot of time hanging out by myself. It actually turned out to be a good thing because I saved a lot of money, but in truth things were pretty lonely. Until that is, Sally and I moved in together two years ago (18 months after I had been living solo). I loved having a roommate to talk to when I got home and it definitely helped us kick our blogging habits up a notch.
Slowly but surely, about a year ago, Sally and I started to meet some of the local Dallas bloggers. We became fast friends with a few of them and I can honestly say that they are the reasons that I love Dallas so much. I also have some phenomenal co-workers. But the women I’ve been lucky to become close friends with through blogging really made me feel like I finally had my “people” in this city (and around the country).
This past weekend I spent time with three friends where our tie to each other is through blogging. When asked, “How do you know so-and-so,” I often had to say ”Oh, we know each other through blogging,” or “Oh, she did the re-branding for my blog.” And I felt like I really had to legitimize our friendship and go above and beyond to explain that we are real friends who have a lot in common and hang out, and talk about things outside of blogging, social media, and fashiony trends.
I think that the tiny bit of shame I feel when I “defend” my blog-realted friendships comes from the sometimes negative stigmas (words like: fake, materialistic, self-absorbed, catty, etc.) that are associated with the blogging industry. But there are also parts of the industry that make me feel proud of me and my friends (qualities like: strong work ethics, communication skills, entrepreneurial business minded, loyalty, confidence, etc.).
I mean, I don’t really care what other people think (so many people don’t get “the whole blogging thing”) – but the last thing I want is for people to think that the relationships I’ve made through blogging are somehow less special or real because they were the happenstance of blogging. Am I obsessed with my friends who also happen to be bloggers? Um, yes, I am. They are my girls and most of us are much closer than you would think. I like to think that we would have been friends regardless if we were bloggers or not and really, blogging was just the vehicle that brought us together. Maybe the next time some one asks me, “So, howwww do you know XYZ??” I should smile and wink, “Through blogging” and hand them a business card.
To all my girls—you know who you are—I love you because even if the Internet broke and we all stopped blogging tomorrow, you will still all be invited to my wedding. Or birthday party. Probably both. xx
Working well with others. It’s not something I used to be good at. I hated (hated, hated) group projects through every year of school (especially in college) and I knew from the earliest phases of my professional work life that working easily and well with co-workers wasn’t always a cake walk. Now that I’ve been out of school for three years and have worked at three large, corporate companies – I can truthfully say that a) I don’t always relate to everyone I work with but I know how to wear a poker face, and b) I can work with pretty much any personality type to get things done. This isn’t scientific, but I think that having a good relationship with co-workers, managers, bosses, etc. comes down to respect and keeping yourself accountable.
There are people I have worked with in the past and a few now that I don’t 100% get a long with… You know – our work ethic is different, we communicate in totally different ways, I can’t relate to them on a personal or professional level – those types of things make it really easy for me to think, “I don’t like you, I can’t work with you.” But a wise superior at my current job told me this, “You are like me, we wear our emotions on our faces, and you need to develop a good poker face so that people can’t read exactly what you’re thinking.” That was a HUGE wake-up call. No one had ever called me out on my intense facial expressions and even if I was aware of doing them, I probably thought I could get away with it because it was a passive aggressive way of voicing how I felt. Very unprofessional. Now I am hyper aware of how my words and actions appear to my co-workers… If I’m talking to someone that I don’t gel with, I do my best to listen openly (and not just think of an automatic deflective response to what ever they are saying) and whether I agree with what they are saying, I respond in a respectful way that communicates my thoughts without coming off aggressive or defensive and I keep my face completely neutral. Has it been easy? Not at all. But I feel so much more professional and know that I’m not being fake, I am being a level-headed and respectful co-worker.
My first job out of college taught me a lot about working with multiple personality types. I was a marketing coordinator and had the honor of working closely for (and with) people in the office that were at the executive level. Because my job dealt with production, meeting deadlines, and exceeding expectations I had to find ways to get my job done while working in a way that suited the personalities of the powers that be. Some people were relaxed, collaborative, and helpful – some were too busy to be involved in all the steps, incredibly hard to please, or completely unavailable. Some I liked more than others, some I feared more than others. It took time to figure out the best ways to work with everyone but being willing to adapt the way I worked typically yielded in a more successful and happier outcome than digging in my heels and refusing to change my habits. After that job I was able to walk into an interview and confidently say that I was flexible, collaborative, and that I worked well under pressure and could manage multiple personalities. It’s still a challenge now to “go with the flow” or pick my battles when I strongly believe in something – but I know that if I want people to be open and accepting of my ideas, I have to do the same for them.
Sooo… what to do when no matter how neutral you try to stay, a co-worker continues to rub you so wrong that you can’t work with them, let alone look at them? What to do when you’re respectful, kind, and hard working but it seems like someone is nothing but nasty, rude, and disrespectful to you? If you’re the one that has an issue with someone else, I recommend giving yourself a pep talk. Mine usually goes something like this: “This person is like me and is trying to do the best they can. Just because they have a different work ethic (or whatever) doesn’t mean they don’t care. I don’t know what this person is dealing with outside of the office and there are many personal factors that could be impacting their behavior. What I need to do to make things better is burry my resentment and bitterness, be respectful, and if an event happens that brings up old feelings – I need to privately tell this person what they did and how it made me feel from a personal and/or professional stand point. They can’t change/fix what they don’t know!” Easier said than done, I know – but it has helped me SO much to put myself in someone else’s shoes and stop poisonous resentment before it’s too late to ever turn back.
If you’re the one constantly having to deal with a rude, negative, nasty co-worker who seems to just genuinely hate you no matter what you do – well, that’s much harder to deal with and it clearly can’t be solved with a personal pep-talk. What I would do is this: send the co-worker an email, asking if they have time to have a short touch base with you – schedule a private 30 minute meeting. Go into it asking what they think of your performance and how they think the two of your work together. Ask what they would suggest in terms of improvement, if there is anything that’s been bothering them about the way you work. Chances are, that person is going to be less-agressive in a one-on-one meeting where you are asking for feedback point blank. If they beat around the bush or just say, “No, you’re doing a great job,” you can say, “Are you sure you feel that way? I was sure I must have been doing something wrong – sometimes the way you speak to me and how you treat me leads me to believe that I’m not living up to your expectations or doing my job well.” I would communicate to them that all you want is a healthy, working relationship so that the two of you can both get things done and neither of you feels negative towards one another. You’ll probably be opening yourself up for criticism (and some of it might be ridiculous criticism) but if you try not to take it personally, you could totally turn one nasty co-worker relationship into a healthy one. So as awkward as it will be – schedule the meeting in a closed room – and try to get the other person to move forward in a positive direction.
This whole post came at the request of a dear friend – and I’m REALLY flattered she asked me to talk about it. I’m really not an expert in acting professional (hello, one of my new year’s resolutions was “be more professional at work”) but in the past months I have been working my hardest to be the type of person anyone can work with and someone who’s regarded as a hustler and hard worker. It’s hard to hear constructive criticism but it has done nothing but help me and I try to be consistent in asking the managers and superiors I admire what I could do to improve. Do tell – what professional lessons have some of you picked up along the way? Have you ever had a co-worker you hated or one that hated you? What did you to do resolve things? Any rules of thumb we could all adopt to be “happy and normal” working people?
