Marissa Mayer and Employee Morale

Seems just the other day we heard about a pregnant woman becoming the CEO of Yahoo.

Months later Marissa Mayer has rightly earned the title:

Tiger CEO.

You might remember the tiger mom, tag line: Practice that violin; birthday parties are for sissies. Tigers are popular now, thanks to Life of Pi, but nobody wants one for a mother, not for a CEO, either.

Ms Mayer insists that all mamas and papas work at the office, not from home anymore. To run a successful, cohesive company, everyone has to be on board, everyone should be there, within the friendly or not so friendly confines of the corporate address.

Proverbial Little Joey

She's the boss, but this sounds counter-intuitive to tried and true business success strategy. Modern work environmentalists suggest warm and almost intimate relationships between employees that begin at the water cooler, then progress at in-service training sessions (perhaps about sexual harassment and diversity) and culminate at expensive hotels, the company retreat.

Intimacy at work reduces separation anxiety from Little Joey and seeds the idea that checking in on Facebook can wait. Here are our friends, right here at the office.

To really meld the company, corporate pops for a vacation. Oprah would bring her entire staff on a cruise, pay for everything. She includes spouses, maybe not every time, but sometimes.

People work harder knowing there will be Cancun.

I like that Lisa Belkin of the Huffington Post, is taking her on, believes Ms. Mayer should know better than to ask employees to choose between family and career, so anti-feminist. On the contrary, Buzzfeed's Steve Kandell isn't worried at all that the no work from home concept will go viral. Parents don't all want to stay home, he reminds us, and parallel tasking, pounding out work in front of the television, attending a conference call and changing a diaper or making a bottle, isn't going to happen simultaneously. Mayer knows this by now.

Not everyone is off on President's Day. 

But surely there is a happy medium.

School holiday

Last Friday it snowed in Chicago and my daughter worked from home. Fridays at her company tend to be short days because overseas, where much of her company's business is conducted, employees are already deep into weekend-mode.

That doesn't mean she is free to take the kids sledding.

I told FD that I intended to do that, take the kids after school to one of the very few good sledding hills in Chicago, and he asked, "Isn't that their mother or father's job?  I think she's home today."

I had to explain to him that when she is home it is as if she isn't there. She calls in a babysitter and the kids aren't allowed to interrupt her. Women might be able to multi-task with one hand tied behind their backs, but not when tasks require concentration. Her arrangement is only possible because she has proved to her employer that she can and will do the work-- all of it-- when she isn't supervised-- and probably better.

My hunch is that when Ms. Mayer figures out which employees can do that, work from home yet still be there emotionally, cognitively, for most of the day, she will let up on the rules, allow her employees to address those inevitable emergencies--the sick babysitter, the car in the shop, the furnace repairman, a child's asthma, without having to fill out Family Leave papers.

And as her little ones get to school-age, let's see if she'll walk the walk herself.

therapydoc

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I know. I promised to write about what therapists do when they get bored, but therapists are all different and handle boredom differently. The work, if we're busy, is never boring, not if we take it seriously. But when we're tired, perhaps on the verge of burn out, everything can seem ho hum. 

Knowing this, some of us (me) schedule get-aways and don't tell anyone much about them.  It is obvious to people who know me this is no cruise. We are talking an airplane, at least one night in a good hotel, two movies. The movies are yet another way to get away, kick it up, inflate, punctuate. Make it different.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The poster to the right hawks the screenplay/novel now film by Stephen Chbosky, and the acting expertise of Emma (Hermione!) Watson, Logan Lerman, and the unforgettable Ezra Miller. 

I didn’t read the book yet but it is on my list, and the movie, The Perks of being a Wallflower captured me in a good way, but didn't scare me, like Pi. Some of hate being scared.

When you’re a therapist, going to psychological movies is tough-the deep dark secret behind odd behavior in a story is predictable, at least falls within top three considerations-- and we don't want to spend free evenings working out yet another life's sadness. Why work when you don't have to work, when you aren’t technically working?

And in truth, this is a vacay. Visiting children and grandchildren isn’t a vacation in the traditional sense, meaning there’s no beach, no rain forest, not even golf. The big joke in my family is that when someone asks, Oh! Do you golf? (Note, there is always an Oh!) FD will say, No, but we do carry a few clubs in the trunk of the car. This from my obsession with driving ranges, as opposed to golf courses. Why would anyone golf on a golf course knowing full well that it will inconvenience others, slow them down?

http://Ezra-miller.net

Enough about that. I don’t know if any of you ever saw the short-lived television show Freaks and Geeks, but I loved that show, all about rebellious teens, good kids, working out their issues growing up. Being different, unpopular, they had each other, and as you know, when you have a friend or two, life is fairly livable. Without that, add up the inevitable traumas of living and you wonder how anyone gets by.

Not everyone does. We just read today that Mindy McCready, a young country singer, killed herself  not long after the father of her children killed himself. (She had been accused of killing her ex-lover in a jealous rage.)  Mindy had been battling her demons (code for depression and/or addiction), but we hear about her decline and surrender to alcohol and prescription meds, and wonder what happened, how did someone who had so much become so marginalized. 

Oh, but I'm on vacation, if only for a few more hours, so back to the show.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a high school freshman. Charlie has already spent time in a hospital for depression, we assume, and is hoping to make a friend that first day in September. It is a hope against hope, although his English teacher (perfect as always, Paul Rudd) offers himself for the part and is accepted, with reluctance. We know that Charlie is in some sort of recovery, and that it isn’t a true social phobia, his wallflower-ishness, because he tries really hard to fit in, does things with others, and even has a pretty good time.

At some point FD remarks, There are no parents in this movie. He says this about the same time that I say, I think I hate this movie. It is just too slow for me and the story isn't evolving, and FD is right, there are few people over the age of sixteen, not that this is bad, but it can get boring for a family therapist.

SERIOUS SPOILERS ABOUT TO BEGIN

And then! As I am considering walking away, eating, perhaps, things heat up.

There is a breakdown and a psychiatrist, and Joan Cusak makes her appearance in that role, the doctor who is tough, who won't let the patient slither away, return to his head, not without having to explain himself, and you wonder why she is bothering with it, this role, because it is short and not terribly inspiring role, even though she is good at the job and Charlie gets better.

And then you realize that this film is about what you expected it to be about, the trauma of child abuse, and that Joan likely has a vested interest in seeing that JQ Public learns more about childhood sexual abuse, bless her. That is why she takes the role.

And that is why there are no parents in this film, not until the end, not until the secret is out about the aunt and the parents find out about the aunt's role in Charlie's life. Then, only then, do we see these people, the parents, because they are supporting their son, his version of the story, and he becomes well because they believe him, as does everyone else.  Which is the way it has to be, frankly.

Whether or not it is intentional, that Charlie's parents are mere shadows for three-quarters of a film, only the directors know.  The film supposedly deviates quite a bit from the book, and if that is how, then it worked. At least for this therapist, who is back, by the way, ready, once again, to be surprised.

therapydoc

Hard-Wired to Boil Over

For those of you who are here for the The First and Probably Only Therapists Know Stuff Carnival hang on, we'll get to it. The idea: Let's hear from people who don't do psychotherapy who still call themselves therapists. Mostly nannies applied.

More importantly:

We listened as FD boiled over on the telephone with a resident who missed the most important piece of a work up on a patient. His voice got louder, his patience thinner. I turned to my daughter-in-law-to-be and pointed to my son, then back to FD, and said, "This is what you are choosing. Our long-suit, patience, only goes so far. Genetics can rule."

She shrugged.

This in response to the WSJ story yesterday, Are You Hard-Wired to Boil Over From Stress?

Among the suggestions to control anger (it makes you look less refined, so tailor it):

Avoid situations you know stress you out (traffic)
Replace negative thoughts with positive ones (I'll make a suggestion here--Thinking this is not helping me right now, better move it along).
Breathe deeply and exercise regularly.

All good stuff, but unless you catch the rise, none of it will help. I'll throw in that body-awareness, noticing the animal in you and caging him, shooting him with an imagined animal tranquilizer) is the real ticket with anger management. Oh, and learn how to meditate, at least learn hatha yoga.

Many years ago a vet snapped at me with a vicious glare, and told me, I'm trained to kill.
I asked him if he knew he was glaring at me. He didn't, we discussed it.

I promised to host a carnival and almost backed out because the links didn't match what I'd asked for, but some of the writing is good, and some of it is really funny, if not necessarily intentionally funny. And a promise is a promise.

A BlogCarnival is a post where bloggers help other bloggers, especially new ones, by linking over to their blogs/websites. We let them strut their stuff.

The best is from Nanny Jobs, 10 Telltale Signs You Might Be a Bad Nanny.  Sharon also writes  How to Lose Your Nanny Job  a natural follow-up. Lie on your resume, do a lot of kvetching and it is likely you'll be out the door in a week.

I didn't try any of these aps to make the job easier from FullTime Nanny, maybe they'll work no idea, don't click or download on anything that seems remotely suspicious.

If you think you want your nanny to clean up the dog __, think again. Check out the job description.  Now let's hear some nanny jokes or stories in the comments, friends.

Don't get me wrong, I never let anyone advertise on this blog, and it does seem the nannies are advertising, as is the hypnotherapist who sent us this link, How to Do Self Hypnosis.  But it seemed harmless enough, a walk-through on how to trance out. And  truly, I can't find anything for sale.  Maybe there's a CD or a download somewhere there, none of it endorsed, and the nannies aren't, either, just to reinforce that the BlogCarnival is not an endorsement of any particular website. Regarding self-hypnosis, just walk through that door and set a goal . . .Then walk out, of course, watching your back.

We've talked about fear of intimacy. Is it the same as fear of love? Shaun Rosenberg has a rather racy pic on his website (quite the embrace there, unforgettable). His tell all: How to Deal With the Fear of Love (Philophobia). 

And finally, a family constellation therapist Jana Moreno at Wisdom-Ink answers everything you've ever wanted to know about family constellation therapy. It is news to me.

That's it, this is over. Again, the links aren't endorsements, and no, I'll not do it again, unless it has something to do with substances or OCD, carnivals I hosted in the past, or something a lot more in line with this work you count on me to write about. You can't blame a girl for getting a little bored.

Next post:  When Therapy Gets Boring.

therapydoc

Death's Anniversary

Seems to have been a sweep of the malach hamavet (Angel of Death) in my hood the past few weeks. We're hearing eulogies about people we never expected would fail to make it to their next birthday parties, and it is a little scary. There's something about winter, too, that makes death all the more sad, all the more gray and gloomy.

Therapy is always rich, should be at least, and when a young patient walks in and looks you in the eye and says, "They killed my father in the hospital," you know you're in for angry, pathos-driven story. People go to the hospital because they are sick, some are literally at death's door. Then the slightest error, or fate, or something somehow goes awry, and there we have it, the worst of all possible outcomes.

We could have kept him home for this, they say.

Most of the time it isn't that cut and dried, the fault, the blame. The parents of kids who overdose, for example, never let it go, the thought that they could have done something. They rarely blame anyone else. It is clear, in their heads, that they messed up somewhere along the way. There's no convincing them otherwise, not for that first decade. Time helps, hushes the self-badgering to a whisper. Death and Time, clearly in collusion, buddies.

This happens to be the 43rd anniversary of my brother's untimely death, and the third anniversary of my father's. They died on the same day of the Hebrew calendar. There's no blaming anyone for either passing. Every year, not surprisingly, like clockwork, like most others who have lost loved ones, the week or two before Death's anniversary, I begin to sink. I told someone the other day that the word is pensive, thoughtful, mindful of the meaning of the life of someone who can't answer our questions anymore.

That's what anniversaries are about, thoughts and memories.

And thoughts, we know, are intrinsically tied to emotions, so there you go.

So we light a candle on the anniversary, or two in my case, and say a few special prayers, share a few memories with people who remember.

The memory that comes to my mind is how my father reacted when he saw me dressed up for a wedding.

Last week I bought a new dress for the upcoming marriage of my youngest son. Out of nowhere, driving home from Lord and Taylor, I pictured my father looking at me in the dress with approval, with love, the sight of me a reflection of him, for sure, but warm and happy nevertheless.

My father loved nothing more than this, a celebration for something truly worth celebrating. He loved putting on his tuxedo and dancing, gracefully, at somebody's wedding.

And to be honest, I loved that tux.

therapydoc

The Myths of Happiness and Life Hacks

Sonja Lyubomirsky

Does this woman look happy?  She would probably say, "Happy enough."

I mean, who's really happy all of the time?

We'll get back to how to be happy, and the myths about happiness in a second. This is the positive psychology school that passed me by. Six years ago you heard me question it, seriously wonder how far people can fool themselves. After all, we can't just dismiss the throes of depression, can't not grieve death. And you can't ignore your worries.

It turns out that you can grieve, surely, without making a sad event a life-defining event, life absorbing. And worries, well, we all have them, but we can ignore them for a little while. If we want to be happy we have to experience life, travel maybe, not invest it all and wait to live. We have to reframe positively, see the best of our past, we have to keep our relationships new, and yes, we have to be frugal.

But a quick word from 50 Life Hacks to Simplify Your World.
Life hacks are mini ticket to happiness, so why wouldn't we take a detour here? Someone sent me the link, and I had to know, naturally--What are they?

Twisted Sifter's Life Hack

According to Twisted Sifter,
Life hacks are little ways to make our lives easier. These low-budget tips and trick can help you organize and de-clutter space; prolong and preserve your products; or teach you something (e.g., tie a full Windsor) that you simply did not know before.

The thought of that bagel in the CD spindle worked for me, a person who nibbles between patients. Like they don't know. The point is that little things, like new solutions to things, do make us happy.

But about worrying. A patient texts me in the middle of the night, just as I'm about to turn in: Things aren't good! Can you suggest something I can do to control my freaking anxiety?

She wants a psychology life hack!

An Edna Foa groupie, I've got a few dozen of her cognitive behavioral life hacks in my head, and supplemented with a few dozen more over the years. Anything you read by Dr. Foa is worth the few bucks she charges (as long as we're doing book reviews instead of blogging about Perfect Pitch.)

Adapted from STOP Obsessing: How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions). I text back: Whatever you are worrying about, accept the worst, but tell the worry to wait five minutes, you have to do something right now. Then do something else for five minute or longer. If you can postpone for another five, do that, and if you can keep postponing, keep postponing. In the interim do anything, watch TV, call a friend (don't talk about the worry), get on a treadmill, read the funnies-- anything.

The therapy works because the intensity of the obsession diminishes over time, so if you can push it off, even a little, you are golden. Stay home and worry, you are somebody's patient for life.

The Myths of Happiness

Now let's move on to Sonja Lyubomirsky and her new book, The Myths of Happiness.

What if I were to tell you, after reading it::

If you only have enough money to buy one good self-help book this year, The Myths of Happiness is up there with the top reads! 

I have been paraphrasing Dr. Lyubomirsky all week (forgive me, Sonja).

You know, people who stay single are just as happy as people who marry. You have a heck of a lot more time to enjoy your money, nobody steals the remote, you can do what you want with your time. You can get to know your nieces and nephews.

 (I just noticed I had some when my kids became teenagers, they are now in their late twenties.)

You know, you might not like that job, but you didn't like the last one, either, and that one sounded pretty fabulous. It could be that your expectations are too high. The happiness experts tell us that if we keep our expectations fairly low, and we don't aspire to too much material glitter, we'll be happier over all. 

 (Readers know I've spleened about high expectations on this blog for years. High hopes translate to reality blues.)

You know, it isn't at all weird, that now that you've had that Lexus a few weeks, that it doesn't make you happy anymore. This is your hedonic adaptation talking. If you buy an even better car the same thing will happen. Happiness isn't something we get to keep, it is momentary, we get used to that higher standard of living really fast.

(Your therapist will tell you, as does Dr. Lyubomirsky, that it is having meaning in life that makes us happy, and learning new things, new skills, striving, (shteiging, in Yiddish, rhymes with styling). Working towards something, even if we never reach our goals, keeps us content, even happy-- not money. Not that money ever hurts, just that the thrill of whatever it buys  wears off.)

You know, we all prefer the romantic phase of a relationship, but that feeling, predicated on the newness, the thrill of a new life together, only lasts so long (not very long, for most). It's up to you to work to keep it new. It's up to you not to be boring. It is why I keep telling you to speak in code.

Me repeating things in therapy that I find in a book, even if the ideas are constructs I've known all along* (but now hear validated) only tells you that the book made me happy, stretched my skill set. If my telling over Dr. Lyubomirsky advice doesn't sound particularly new, rest assured, she is the real thing, has her own laboratory at the University of California (Riverside) with an army of research assistants and over 400 literature citations in the back of her book to back up her up.

You won't get that here, friends, over 400 citations. I've always told you to keep your expectations low.

therapydoc

*The adage from the Wisdom of the Fathers, or Ethics of the Fathers, the mishneh, Pirkei Avot (rhymes with dear-play ah-vote) Who is happy? He who is satisfied with his portion, is surely somewhere to be found on this blog. It doesn't mean you can't strive for more, only that stewing over not having more won't make you happy.

Snapshots- The One I Forgot

Sorry about that. This one was intended for the last post. I hate to overburden people with email.

My kids had the incredible fortune of suffering through those nine months of pregnancy that lead to having babies, if a couple is really, really lucky. And they were, as we say, poo, poo, poo.

And the other night I dropped by, as one might, to take a peak, because these guys are very little. And one of them is in my son's arms, very quiet, very peaceful, and my son perks up when he sees me and says, "Will you take him? I have to go . . ."

My pleasure.

He hands off the baby who immediately wakes up, looks at me as if I am an alien, and begins to cry. I look left and right, no one there to tell me what to do. This being Chicago, the coldest day of the year, I project and wrap him in a blanket. He continues to cry and search with that little mouth. There are bottles around but they are capped, these little two ounce bottles.

I make the executive decision to wait for instructions on that, don't just feed. After all, maybe he just fed!  We do the walking, the cooing, and it all feels natural, but he's still fussing. Then he turns his face into the blanket, a beautiful homemade blanket that my daughter-in-law's mother made for him, and immediately falls asleep.  Boom. He's out.

This is the inevitability of sleep, I'm told by his grandfather. Inevitable at any age, when that moment comes, there's no resisting.

therapydoc

Snapshots: The First of 2013

The patient knows there's something going on Monday, January 21, 2013, but can't remember what.  "Oh!  The Inauguration!"

We don't schedule for today.

(1) Patriotism

I'm pretty sure I blogged about the last inauguration, too, four years ago. It doesn't matter to me, Republican or Democrat. Where there's poetry, rhetoric, good writing, and music. If it's free, I'm there.

Kelly Clarkson belting out America (My Country Tis of Thee) is worth watching for those of you who love this idea, hope. In psychology it tends to be what keeps us all going, even if it feels irrational sometimes.

Kelly Clarkson at the 2013 Inauguration

The look on the President's face. Why didn't I capture that?  I'm sorry.

Richard Blanco reciting a poem

Then that poem by Richard Blanco, his recitation. Had me in tears.

Rev Dr. Joseph Lowery

Reverand Dr. Joseph Lowery, an old Southern Christian Leadership guy, delivering the benediction, quoting the bible, adding his southern flair,

"Help us to work for that day when . . .nation shall not lift up sword against nation . . .when. . .none shall be afraid. . . . When black will not be asked to give back. When brown can stick around. When yellah, will be mella', when the red man, can get ahead, man. And when white will embrace what is right.  Say Amen."

Amen.

(2) FD and Exercise

I've had more opportunities than ever to take snaps this year. But let's just start with FD, a primary care doctor, my still intimate partner.

FD with ski gloves and bicycle hat

Would you let this man look down your throat?

You say no, but most people he knows do.  This is what it is like being a primary care doc.

With the advent of dozens of new types of flashlights, primary care doctors are at the same risk as dermatologists who go to dinner at fine restaurants, only to be visited at the table by a patient who literally lifts his shirt to ask, "Should I be worried about this?"

Don't think it doesn't happen.

We accidentally became a 2-car couple when my daughter left town and left us her Volvo (just pick me up from the airport, please!)

We both have a car!  In the winter, the only time we drive, except to shop.

 FD! Don't ride your bike to work!  It is supposed to get down to ten degrees today.

He tells me that this is the best way to warm up so that he plays well for his team tonight (basketball). Riding in the cold is a really good warm up, especially if he is dressed for the North Pole.

Doctors are crazy.

(3) More on primary care doctors, perhaps why they seem crazy.

When asked, What's the hardest part of primary care? FD would probably say, "Why, mental illness, of course. Nothing makes me feel more powerless than the patient being a danger unto himself, or unto others."

Pressed, he would say that it doesn't even have to be mental illness, particularly. Anyone under the influence of negative emotion that compromises judgment is likely to make a bad decision, something he, the doctor, would have vetoed, like taking the wrong medication, or the right one, but too much or too little.

Thus it is depression and anxiety, paranoia and mistrust, that the pri-care fears most.

So they often refer out for this. Don't be afraid to ask for that referral.

What makes family practitioners (a type of primary care doctor) special is that they are trained to look at everything that concerns the patient's health, every organ system in the body, every part, not only the specialist domains, the parts with the presenting symptoms, but the family history, the work environment, whether or not anyone else in the family cares enough to help, and who, for it is sometimes the case, wants the patient dead.

I don't blame him, in other words, for seeming eccentric about exercise, and nagging you to get some, too.

(4) The Friends of Our Children

Parents worry that these natural species will corrupt their babies, turn them onto sex and drug.

But kids and friendship  prove the data on social support to be true. They realize intuitively that connecting, being liked, adds up to a feeling of worthiness, not just being okay, but feeling fabulous.

All we can do is raise our children to be discriminating consumers of friendship, to surround themselves with the kindest people around, and learn what to do when they aren't all that kind, all that healthy.

Not easy at every stage.  Watch the movie Mean Girls to see the perversion of friendship. I saw it on MTV. Difficult, those MTV commercials. Mute them.

But being patient as a parent, especially when it comes to the friends of our children, has unexpected pay-offs. It should never happen to you, but here's a fairly common example.

A friend of mine recently lost a friend, a fire fighter, in a fire. His experience reminded me of my own, when my brother passed away, an untimely death, well over forty years ago.

My friend visited the fire fighter's family, but worried that he might be intruding. Nobody knew him except the deceased.  The fire fighter's father and mother. however, didn't let him go, wanted him to tell them everything about their son, their friendship, how long ago did they meet, under what circumstances, what did they used to do together. Tell me more, more, more.

The mourners need to keep it all alive for years and years to come.

So surely, friends of friends, continue the friendship with survivors if you lose one. Don't visit them once, stay in touch. They need you.

therapydoc