Across the Board Loss

Dude, I am coming out of a sh*teous week.

I asked Jifo today if it was normal to have such a bad life. Then I read a post from my oldest blog friend who is also feeling down. And another from one of my favorite authors who was in a funk.

All of our foul moods and feelings of loss seemed to have started right before or during the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

I'm convinced now that the potential energy of the plates shifting in our earth agitated us on a deeply felt but barely conscious level. It contributed to strife from our enemies (my b*tch of an ex boss sent a harassing letter to me from a lawyer because she's a paranoid narcissist), it fed the unrest in our hearts, and it squirreled us away from any support system. And like that, I'm back on muscle relaxants/sleeping pills.

Now that the initial chaos has subsided, I'm hoping the dissipating kinetic energy will release whatever pressure has gotten us all into our stormy season.

I learned difficult things during this time. One, that honesty is a bad trait. Two, people don't really want to hear about your problems.

It's not like I shut myself away. I tentatively reached out during this horrible week and I was met with a polite glossing over. Everyone only wants to talk about lighthearted things, tell funny stories, share a laugh. I admit that helps. But what helps more is knowing people want to hear it. The hard and difficult 'it's.

I want to hear it. It helps me, selfishly, because it lets me know that yes, it is normal to have problem after problem. There is no such thing as stability. The Buddhists always knew.

Weather on, fellow sufferers.

Done At Last: Reflections On The Workplace From Hell

An acupuncturist reminded me that writing out one's stress or trauma is healthy for processing, so here's one last (maybe) vent.

I finally left my day job last month and it was hell to the very end. My former boss(es) was as critical, paranoid, distrusting and two-faced as ever. There was drama galore and though I had wanted to leave with closure, all I felt by my last day was an unabashed disgust for that company.

And weariness. I felt hypersensitive the entire weekend before my last day; everything Jifo said made me want to cry. I realized that I was finally releasing all the pent-up stress from my sh*teous two years at that place. Jifo said, "It's like PTSD." In a way it was.

I recently read a magnificent blog post about women needing to negotiate better. The part that stood out to me was when the blogger talked about a company who wouldn't match her desired salary and how she still tried to negotiate rather than walk away:

In retrospect, as low as the offer was for the field in which I work, I should have turned it down. I was a few months into my job hunt at that point, though, and not feeling very self-confident, so I accepted.

That was the job that didn't work out, at which I was employed for two days. The salary offer I received, I now realize, was an excellent clue to how I should have expected to be treated at that company.

That's EXACTLY what happened to me. I was unemployed during the recession and after six months of panic, I snatched the first offer I got. It was only supposed to be a summer job to tide me over until graduate school, but when I decided not to do grad school, I ended up taking a higher position at this company...for no raise. And I didn't chicken out either; I asked for a raise. TWICE.

Unlike this blogger, I wasn't strong enough in myself to walk away, for a variety of reasons that I've already worked through. But a big part of why I didn't quit the million times I woke up crying in the morning and wanting to, was because I felt committed to my students. I didn't want to abandon them and two of my college-bound ones have become like young friends and mentees now.

But like the blogger said, it wasn't the low-balling alone that made the workplace suck. It was how they treated their employees. There was a blame run-off that operated the way I think trickle-down economics was supposed to. My boss had a particular fondness for threatening emails that encouraged one to "seek employment elsewhere" and this terror-based structure turned groups of employees against each other. She also picked favorites, allowing some employees to skip weekly meetings, while others were told they couldn't work there if they didn't show up.

I should have quit when

• one of the administrative staff lied to the boss about me to save her own ass and the boss wrote me an accusatory email without considering my side
  
• the boss promised to do something for my student and when it wasn't done, put the blame on me
• she wrote threatening emails any time she thought we were going "over hours", despite the hours of unpaid work I and many other employees did at home but were not allowed to bill
• halfway through, she promised me a different position and pay structure with benefits, but when I accepted it, she tacked on a stipulation that she hadn't put in my written offer and immediately rescinded the offer when I couldn't comply with that caveat
• a myriad of other times when I nodded, took the blame, and ate my feelings
  

Because

1. What I ended up earning the entire last year is is SO PATHETIC, especially in light of the hours I lost to sleepless nights, tears, headaches, stress, fights with Jifo, resentment and knocks on my self-esteem.
   
2. At the very end, when yet another lie was told about me and this time I spoke up about it, guess what appears in the printed handout at our next meeting? Yup, a passive-aggressive rejoinder.

There were many cherished, meaningful moments to my work, all of them having to do with the teenagers that charmed me and touched me. But this is a vent about the work environment. And I'm still exhausted and angry from it.

There were times in the past when I did walk away from situations much more quickly. If you think this place sounds hostile...

I once worked for three days (unpaid) for the manager of a well-known former child star. This woman couldn't finish the work day without screaming at someone; luckily she rotated who it was. It was no surprise that she had a revolving door of assistants. She ALSO had a very personal, unprofessional way of communicating. After my FIRST DAY I was already crying when my bf at the time met me for dinner. He immediately said, "You don't have to do this." By the third night, I was calling friends going, "How much are you supposed to hate your job?"

Consider this time a lesson on never selling myself short again. And my last 30 After 30 complete.

It's Here...The NEW Blog!

::wiping dirt and sweat out of her eyes::

Whew!
Creating a new web presence takes FOREVER. New Twitter, new blog, update the Goodreads and comment profiles.

For the last 48 hours I've been an excited maniac so I could bring you this:

DID YOU MISS THE LINK? COMMENT OR EMAIL 52FACES (A) GMAIL FOR IT!

I'm going to keep this link hot for about a week or two, then I have to take it down so I can close the loop forever between private and public. I am completely starting fresh as if I've never met this schizophrenic 52 Faces. (Who has that many faces geezus?)

I do hope you'll follow me over there and I'm so grateful to the support you've given me with my blogging!!!

I'm Coming Out...Soon

Authors are awesome. I'm touched by the thoughtful responses I received to my inquiry yesterday: should I blog with my real name?

After considering their advice and talking with Jifo, I've made a decision:

I will start a new blog with my real, live, birth-certificate name.

I'm not going to use a pen name because

1) Chinese pride. I want to "win" this for my family name. I'm damned proud because I am the only son's only son. (Anyone know which cartoon I'm alluding to?)

Seriously: my father has 5 sisters so I'm the name bearer. This is such a big deal for Asians that Jifo is down with us naming our future sons different last names so we can each have a name bearer. (He's a REALLY COOL ASIAN DUDE to support that.) It's such a big deal for Asians that even my maternal grandmother was saying to me, "I was thinking that you're going to have to have a few sons so that your paternal grandfather can have an heir." For him to see me - a girl - as his true heir is such an awesome feeling.

2) Leverage. I used to be a film and TV actor (my silhouette is more famous than I) and I'm planning on tiptoeing back into the industry. I have to use my real name again so I don't waste my hard-earned IMDB credits.

3) My real name is the one that went to Harvard. Graduating from Ol' Crimson is one of my proudest achievements in my entire life so why not be the same gal that got in?

I'm not coming out on this blog because it's just too incriminating. I already bought my real name domain (I had to wait like 10 years for it to free up and I put a 2-year hold on it), so I'll try to map a blog to that. I have no idea what I'm saying but hopefully a techie will pop into my life suddenly when I need him/her.

So expect to see some unveiling in the next few weeks.

Lastly, my boyfriend deserves some praise here. I'm usually pretty harshd on him but he's been a great sounding board to discuss the business of being an author with, surprisingly. He's in interactive entertainment and a native southern Californian, so he's a lot better at being politically correct in public. After speaking with him, I realized that the "loss of privacy" with blogging publicly is exactly what I'm asking for in pursuing publication in the first place.

Blogging With Your Real Name

Author Jody Hedlund asked recently Is the Query System Dying? in a post that majorly bummed me out. (It was inspired by her agent Rachelle Gardner's 2010 statistics - ZERO clients signed through cold querying.)

One method that Jody recommended was getting to know agents through social media.

Many blogs discuss building a web presence prior to publication and the lovely Mary Campbell and I have exchanged emails about it before. Certainly I've noticed that bloggers who use their real name and talk about their process get a ton more followers than those of us who have to go psuedonymously.

Until recently I've had to stay private because of the personal nature of my blog, and I didn't want my students or employers finding me. But now that I'm about to quit my job and start querying, I've been considering using my real name.

I'm not sure that I'll use 52 Faces though, because the archives contain so many personal posts about my relationships, spirituality/religion, politics, and previous workplaces. I might have to start a whole new blog and do it all over again - hopefully some of you will follow me there if so.

Here are my options:

1) Use this blog but come out of the closet

PROS: Already have a presence and following
CONS: Too much private/embarrassing information in the archives ::watching former employers gear up to sue her::

2) Start a brand new blog using my full, real, birth name.

PROS: Build a network with the publishing community and possibly have agents remember me
CONS: I'm also planning on returning to the entertainment industry and I fiercely protect my privacy; I'm a little uncomfortable with the Hollywood people being able to find my blog since I'll still post some "life" stuff and pictures. Also, my former workplaces/students and current tutoring students will be able to find me and hear about my writing neuroses.

3) Start a new blog using a penname (that I'll make sure to include when querying).

PROS: All the cache of a real full name, but I can keep my work sphere separate still
CONS: When I query with my real name, agents will go, "who the heck are you?"

4) Stick with the original plan - start the public blog after I get an agent/my book sells

PROS: By that time I'll be rich and famous! Just kidding.
I can worry less about having to keep my spheres separate.
CONS: Possibly missing out on supposed (mythical?) magic connections through the blogosphere that will get me published.

What do you think, readers, especially fellow writers/publishing-folk? Do I need to get my real name or pen name out there right now?
Am I doomed if I try to cold query?
Do I need to become twitter buddies with all the agents I lust after just to get them to read my first page?

Natalie Whipple Is My BFF

YA Author Natalie Whipple wrote a whole post just to me! SQUEE squared!

Alright it wasn't just to me. It was to her legion of devoted fans, including 1,147 blog followers, but she actually mentioned me by (pseudo)name. 3 times.

In a previous post she had addressed a common writerly fear about sucking and I asked her about my personal biggest fear:

Even when I manage to eke out some good writing, I STILL won't get published.

She wrote a heartening response and the part that hit my Asian heart the hardest was this:

It's NOT my fault. I did my best.

This will be the most important lesson for me to keep in mind throughout 2011 (and my life) as I begin the query process.

Natalie also opened her post to other fears, so pop on over to get your dose of comfort.

Hit by Hurricane Mother

Mother is in town = 52 Faces is a big ball of stress

Some of you know that I had a pretty traumatic childhood (I'll probably be forced to write one of those difficult-to-read memoirs one day) with a narcissist/borderline mother.

(What part of, "I have a job, don't call me 5 times during 2 hours of work. And if you leave one message I'll get it, you don't have to leave 5" is incomprehensible? I'm not ignoring your calls, I have to do something called TEACH CLASS.)

She whipped in to town this week from China, disrupting me and Jifo's schedule like only this 4-foot-10 tornado can. We're running on half nights of sleep and we haven't done a single errand we badly need to do - Jifo was going to visit some prospective apartments during his lunch breaks/get some legal counsel about those #($!heads called State Farm about my car accident; I've been giving myself headaches wearing broken glasses all week and I would have gone to lenscrafters today except I got into a huge argument with Mommy Dearest and spent my precious extra hour crying and watching the Sing Off.

Even Terry suffers. The dog's only been partially fed (I finally took him to Petco today to get some more food.)

And although I have to get up for a counselor meeting at work tomorrow, I'm browsing pointless websites so I can ward off the screaming, critical voice that's reinstalled in my head.

Tomorrow (well, now to)night we'll be taking her to the airport. Hopefully my blood pressure will go back down and I can have my eyesight back. I can also finally find time to wash my hair. And not to be gross, but even my bathroom schedule is backed up, if you know what I mean. ::watches her blog follower count go down::

Pray for me people. Let us hope that you'll see me on Friday alive and not rocking back and forth too vigorously.

(The only silver lining is that my mother introduced me to Ambien so if I have to, I can at least knock myself out and pretend she's already on the plane.)