Bullies v. Public Servants, and the Deep Freeze

Yesterday on the campaign trail, I was making some fundraising calls.  This whole concept of campaign is new to me, and calling people I don't know to ask them for money is challenging.

"Hi!  You have never met me, but please give me money!  You will get nothing in return, except a thank you note!"

There is more to it than that, but sometimes that is what it feels like.  I am not getting the money myself -- this is to fund our aligned visions of what a well-run district should look like.

I digress.

After lunch and after I took Claire Adele to the orthodontist, one of the people I called left me a message, so I called him back.  I am surprised when people call me back, but when I connect with them, I am often not surprised.  Most of the time, these people have a story they want to tell me about the district and they usually have interesting stories and opinions they want to share.  Most of these people don't harbor any ill will towards me, as I do not yet work for the district.

This guy who called me back was different.  He was difficult.  He tried to pin me down and ask me lots of harassing questions.  Part of me understands I am in the hot seat, and life as an elected official will bring in lots of angry parents.  It wasn't until later that I realized this guy wasn't angry at me.  He had an agenda, which I did not know.  He wanted to know how I would fix the district.  There wasn't a right answer to any of his questions.  To him, it was irrevocably broken, beyond what any human could repair.  Nothing I could have said would satisfied him, as he was predetermined to be unsatisfied.

And I had to sit there and take it, within reason.  I couldn't haul off and call him unreasonable.  I couldn't say he was a bully.  I had to smile, be kind, be respectful, and still be respectfully assertive.  he knew that by virtue of my position, I was stuck.

But that doesn't mean I don't have power.

I now understand the bureaucratic Deep Freeze.  The Deep Freeze is when a bureaucrat works with an outsider or advocate who is an intolerant bully.  They can't tell the bully to fuck off, so they can just not respond to emails, phone calls, or acknowledge them in public.

I asked him what he thought needed to be done to fix the problem, and that clarified for me what he was so upset about. Even still, I felt attacked because we so fundamentally disagreed.  I tried to find common ground, but wasn't looking for that.  He would only accept is position as the right one, never mind my years of experience.  He told me as much.

Sometimes I see advocates working on not getting the Deep Freeze.  I know some women who are borderline bullies.  They can be difficult to work with  They kind of know they are abrasive, but they really don't have the social skills or the desire to stop being abrasive.  So they avoid it by sucking up to the bureaucrat with obvious and over the top flattery.  It can be painful to watch.

And then there are the Super Bullies.  The bullies so grand that they think every word they think is straight from God's lips.  These bullies cannot be frozen, as at times the freezing process causes more damage than not freezing them.  So they are managed, I suppose.

Yet, the Deep Freeze doesn't solve problems--it puts them on the back burner and prevents them from boiling over.  Yet how do we manage the bully to protect ourselves from the blowback of their wrath?  Public servants have been struggling with this for centuries, I am sure, so much so that it is easier to go to war than talk.

State's Rights v. Slavery, and Ms. Cohen

When I was in middle school, we studied the Civil War.  Ms. Cohen was our teacher, and she was strict.  Super strict.  I think we had a nickname for her but I can't remember it.  She called everyone "Hey Buddy."  Not "Buddy" or "Bud," but "Hey Buddy."  And it was most definitely not a term of endearment, as in "Hey Buddy, quit making noise in the hall.  I am trying to teach a class here!"  "Hey Buddy" was code for "asshole."  She would point at students with her middle finger, which to 8th graders is both really funny and highly annoying.  Did she know she was doing that?  I bet so.

We didn't like her, but we respected her.  She was militant at times, yet we sensed she cared about what we learned. This is leaving me now perplexed.

Ms. Cohen was a fervent believer that the Civil War was over state's rights.  I remember her yelling at us, telling us we'd flunk is we every said the Civil War was fought over slavery.

"Never, ever say the Civil War was about slavery," she said many times.  "It was about State's Rights."

If there was one thing I learned that year, it was that.

What strikes me interesting now is that numerous articles are coming now saying, yes, the Civil War was fought over slavery.  See this article from The New Yorker.

Duh.

We were kids just learning about the Civl War and we knew the obvious: it was about slavery, and we had to be taught otherwise.

Why did we let ourselves be fooled?  I don't know.  I just trusted Ms. Cohen, who probably trusted a textbook.  Did Ms. Cohen believe this herself?  I bet she did, but nor did I think of her as one who would be interested in being an oppressor (except to her students.)  She did not strike me as inherently racist or biased.  In fact, my guess is that she was part of two groups that were persecuted.  She often told us about her vacations with "her sister."

Nevertheless, she stuck with this "State's Rights" mantra.  I wonder what she thinks now.  I don't know if she is still alive -- she might be.  I wonder what she thinks after years of teaching students history to come up wrong.  To years of being in the closet perhaps, and then to be free.  And all in the same week.

Office, Treadmills and a Run in the Woods

I am working on my campaign.  As you all know, I have been working as a volunteer for many years.  It is work but I never had an office like I did back in my consulting days.  The other day, I was downtown working with my fundraisers.  I had about 30 minutes between meetings, and they let me use one of their offices.

I plugged in my phone, pulled out my laptop, shut the door, and made a phone call.  It was the first time I had been in an office in years, sitting at desk doing work, and it was surreal.

People have asked why I am running for office.  As with anything this large, it is complicated.  After Ada died and Claire Adele was born, I got off the treadmill of the corporate world.  While Claire Adele napped, I wrote.  When the Boy started kindergarten, I started my advocacy career.  At the time, I didn't think of it starting a career, nor did I directly compare it to working at E&Y.  Instead, I thought I was finding a way to get to know people, solve some problems and use part of my brain that had been on hold for years.

Then it became a way of life, but a way of life that was opposite of running on a treadmill.  Running a treadmill isn't a bad thing.  I have a membership at the University YMCA, and I like to hit the aerobics machines, especially when it is raining or cold.  The temp is usually consistent, it is dry and I know I'll get a good workout.  I can choose the workout ends, and I never get lots or trip and fall.

Corporate life is like a treadmill.  The work is predictable, I knew I would get a workout, and it was reliably there.

Being an advocate is different.  It like running in the woods.  It could be cold one day, dark and rainy the next.  You could get lost or trip on a branch.

You could also find yourself running on a beach, or catching a sunset.

Both are good for cardio, but the woods are better for the heart.

Staring Contest

I was walking Fox the other morning and he saw a squirrel.  He tried to chase the squirrel, so I put him on a tight leash.  The squirrel ran by a tree and stared at Fox.

Fox stared back.

I stood there, slackened the leash, and wondered how long Fox would watch the squirrel.

They were locked in a staring contest for about two minutes.  Neither blinked or moved.  A jogger ran nearby, and Fox looked away.  The squirrel kept staring.  Finally, Fox and I left.

This got me wondering about the staring contests kids have, where they look at each other until someone blinks.  Why do we play such a game?  It is part of an animal instinct?

As I watched the game, I realized it wasn't a game.  It was a case of predator and prey, and who ever blinked first would lose.  If the predator turned a away, the prey could escape.  If the prey loses it, then he's dinner.