more elephant adventures

If the upstairs neighbors make noise on weeknights I'll often wait to see if they stop, since they do have day jobs and tend to go to sleep by 11. At 10:45 I heard a robust bass line through the ceiling and decided that was enough.

I pounded on the door. No one answered, so I went around to make sure someone was awake, and the light was on in the room above ours. Pounded on the door some more. Knocked. Pounded.

Finally the skinny one answers, in shorts and a tank top.

"You the guy in back with the stereo?"
"No!" An annoyed denial, with an unspoken "What the fuck is your problem?", but he is clearly not in charge here.
"I heard the subwoofer again."
"That was the washing machine."
"The washing machine?"
"We're all asleep." Points at his clothes. "Do I look like I'm listening to music?"
I looked at him and snorted.
"How the fuck should I know?"
And went back downstairs.

I really dislike doing this. The intimidation is necessary because they weren't responding to clear communication, and without profanity (or physical violence, I guess, though I haven't needed that in decades) I'm not very good at being intimidating. I'm also so unfamiliar at playing the role of Angry Male that I wasn't able to master the situation completely, and I got pulled into a staring match instead of using my words to manipulate the conversation.

• Someone in the back room was awake.
• Unless their washing machine has a variable melodic bass line, it was the stereo.
• Anna says the music stopped as soon as I pounded on the door the first time.
  

So I feel pretty good about my grounds for action.

I suppose I've successfully done some sort of alpha male thing, since I clearly make them a bit nervous, but I'm not really happy with having a relationship with the Subwoofer Douchebags that's based entirely on me banging on their door and spitting profanities to intimidate them. I was avoiding calling the police on a weeknight because they tend to eventually turn the music off, but probably I'll just do that next time.

a visit from angry Chris

I don't get full-on angry very much. You probably haven't seen it, at least not recently. I'll get annoyed, which is a form of anger, but the full monty doesn't happen much. You'll know it if you see it. I've speculated for some time that J was eventually going to do something that would evoke that response from me, and it finally happened.

A few weeks ago, I watched J for a few hours while Anna went and did something. The usual sequence goes like this:

1. He starts to be kind of an ass about whatever.
2. You say, "I'm getting frustrated, I need you to do this thing and I'm not sure how to get your cooperation."
3. He makes his well-practiced but unconvincing moaning noises, says "Don't talk about that, it makes me sad," and collapses on the floor in a melodramatic floppy pile.
4. You stuff him in his room, while he simultaneously giggles and gets angry at you.

He likes to push boundaries, and he opened the door a couple times, once to say, very rapidly, "ChrisI'mjustopeningthisdoorverybrieflytotellyouIhateyou" *SLAM*.

He opened the door again, and I went over to tell him to shut it, to discover he was pointing a pair of Nerf pistols at me.

I can be comfortable with toy guns aimed at me when we're having fun. Pointing weapon-shaped things at me in anger is not okay, and out came a voice I've been preparing for years but I don't think I've ever needed.

I used his full name and, for lack of a better word, bellowed. "YOU PUT THOSE THINGS DOWN RIGHT THIS MOMENT."

Stunned, he dropped the pistols and started bawling. I gathered him up and he curled into a very sad ball in my lap, as we explored why I reacted that way and how my getting angry was similar or different from his experience of other adults getting angry (his dad, uh, gets angry fairly often). (Biggest difference: most adults don't let the anger go immediately and give him a hug.) We got it settled, I think, though he needed reassurance that Anna wasn't going to leave me when she suddenly found out I can get angry.

Strange as it was to feel and use that anger, I think it turned out okay. I think if I had exerted myself, I could have avoided yelling at him; it felt like half a decision, as though I recognized I was getting angry and it was a lot easier to let it come out as yelling.

Last week, he was fiddling with my motorcycle helmet and dropped it, both of which we'd already gone through the process of communicating how it was off-limits, receiving explicit acknowledgement, etc. I growled, he did that fast and nervous "Sorry" thing that people do when they're used to being around (and afraid of) angry people. But I didn't yell at him. He yells a lot when he gets angry, and I hope he remembers that other responses to anger are possible.

It seems simple, to recognize that I'm angry, and to pause and choose a response instead of the first thing that comes to mind. You know how hard it is, though: we've all looked back on times when anger seemed to take us over, and we're left saying things we regret. This is why we practice, whether it's Zen or aikido or something else. It's not about becoming some unreachable ideal of perfect calm. It's about caring for relationships. We're in relationship with others, with ourselves, with people starving in Somalia, with stars on the other side of the visible universe. Everything that is, exists in complete interdependence on everything else: everything comes into being together, everything passes away together.

Taking care of our relationships is taking care of other people, taking care of ourselves, taking care of the whole world. That's why we practice.

grr rip snarl

I have an ambivalent relationship with my job. On the one hand:

• it's a lot of stuff I'm not interested in.
• I don't get to code very much.

On the other:

• I do get to code sometimes.
• I'm learning some stuff I do want to learn.
• it's a really, really nice place to be, full of smart people and comfy office.

Today wasn't very ambivalent at all, since I spent the day trying to get a handful of Mac Minis configured in response to a crisis. That process turned out to be both undocumented and manual, so it took about 5 hours. Then a couple hours after that, the QA guy said he needed them back.

That's pretty much everything I hate about systems administration, right there: an unending stream of detail-oriented tedium, under pressure.

I'm not really sure what to do about it. In theory, if I just start directing my energies towards coding some project or other, then I'll get more time coding. In reality, the days are broken up with meetings and sysadmin tasks, so blocks of time for coding are rare; and the things I'd be coding are not simple things. (My team lead often says, "It's not that it's really hard, we just haven't done it," which actually means it is, at the very least, not particularly easy. We call this a Simple Matter of Programming.) I also spend time doing research and experimentation to inform the advice I give to my client team, which can involve code, but not in a "Look, I produced something" kind of way.

Besides shifting the focus of my position as it is, there's also asking to be moved into a Software Engineer role at the company, which might or might not fly; we're suffering heavily from our emphasis on Rock-Star Programmers rather than Mature Programmers, but that doesn't mean we're changing the emphasis. And if that doesn't work, I suppose I'd bail out. That's unlikely before my 1-year anniversary, partly because that's when my options vest, and partly because my 2009-2010 resume is a little weird-looking and I want to have a full year down on my resume again.

It was interesting to watch myself today, with waves of anger and frustration, tied to all sorts of wanting to feel competent or useful or even craving the simple pleasure of having my efforts make a discernible change in the world. That's all a sort of addiction to my own self-existence: "See, I'm real! I can do these things, I perform an action and I control something in the environment!". I, I, I, me, me, me.

Tomorrow's another day. At least I didn't have to go back to the office to give the machines back.

another day, another interview

I didn't get the Palo Alto job for literally the most petty of reasons: one of the founders didn't like me. Even though the other founder did, and the people I'd have been working for and with wanted to hire me, that disapproval torpedoed the whole thing.

Maybe I could grow out my beard, wear different clothes, and try again in a month. He'll probably have forgotten me.

I still have a lot of anger and disappointment about it, and I'm just going to have to give those feelings some space. They'll take some time to dissipate, which sucks.

I went back to the Mountain View company today, for one interview with a guy who asked for some easy-for-me coding, and to talk to the director about what I'd actually be working on. Fortunately, he has a vision for the role, even if his minions have no idea what I'd be doing. So I'm a bit wary, but it might work out.

anger

When Field Director Allyson observed my class last month, she recommended that I crack down on the discipline a bit, pointing out that I'm nice and patient and all, but that the class as a whole would be better served, and I would have an easier time, if the disruptive kids got a smackdown. I started the next day, and it's been a good change, but there's been an element missing in the conversation, where I haven't been able to clearly communicate how seriously I'm taking the situation. Part of this is my habit of treating people with kindness and patience, but in challenging situations, I'm also really good about communicating clearly, using...words. My normal methods of conflict resolution are a bit too subtle when dealing with young teenagers across language and cultural barriers.

Also, it's not really conflict resolution, because I'm in charge and they're disrupting the class in ways they know cause problems: they're smart kids, and every week I write their names on the board to warn them that they're on their way to getting sent to the Inspectors.

Two weekends ago I was looking ahead at the students I was most likely to kick out of class (having exhausted my considerable patience), and just imagining what that looked like. What's the expression on my face? What do I do with my voice? How do I deliver the message that will cut off the inevitable whining and trying to negotiate?

Well, I could get angry, just for a moment, and let it come through my face and voice and body, and then let it go. Right?

I don't feel like I've made a deep study of anger like my teacher has, because I spent my time on the weak end of the spectrum, with occasional irritation, annoyance, and frustration, so normally I just notice how I feel, look at why I feel that way, let it go, and move. The flashes of powerful emotion most of us associate with anger are rare for me; and to express it with a raised voice rarer still, and physical aggression from me, nearly unknown.

(I came close early this year with an aikido friend who was way out of bounds during training, and then last year at Chillits. I don't want to sound like a saint: though my actions are pretty well-considered, I have of plenty of stuff I deal with internally. But anger isn't usually my big problem.)

Using anger on purpose, to teach or communicate, is like starting your barbecue with a lot of gasoline: yes, it can work, but you need to know exactly what you're doing and why, and even then, your food might taste kinda funny.

You have to pay close attention to what's happening in your audience, which I knew...but you have to pay close attention to what's happening in you, which came as a surprise.

Anger, it turns out, is a little sticky, and leaves a residue, like peeling off duct tape. Our minds, our sense of self, the buffers between ourselves and direct perception of the world, are made up of patterns of thought. Generally we develop those patterns unconsciously, but with practice, we can start...messing with who we are. With awareness and attention, we can change our patterns of thought. I can remind myself that other people have a lot of stuff going on, and I should be gentle and open with them, instead of making up some story about their motivations and reacting to my own story. Every time I make that choice, my habit of being gentle gets a little stronger.

Every time I make a choice to display anger, my habit of feeling angry gets a little stronger. This is especially noticeable, and unpleasant, because I don't have a big habit of feeling angry.

Hmmmmmm.