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Memoir: Work

Here are some things I think about work. They are also things I think about while I am *at* work.

(1) Salvy. A psychology magazine says: "When you are dealing with an irritated person, have compassion for yourself. Irritation is contagious--so you have to take care of yourself."

This is more complicated than it seems. If you mirror back irritation, then the problem just grows and grows. If you try, in a self-flagellating way, to conquer the other person's irritation, without having first checked your own "oxygen mask," then you're headed for disaster.

So, when someone speaks to me rudely at work, I immediately picture my dog, Salvy. He is like my glowing heart. My spirit animal. My daemon, as in "The Amber Spyglass." I sit and see Salvy's face, in my mind. This seems to help.

(2) Raise your rates. My shrink emigrated from Italy, and he has a special fondness for immigrants. There was a particular Afghani coffee vendor on the UWS whom he loved.

This Afghani guy eliminated the "small" cup option. You could get either "medium" or "large." This was genius. Because, if you were rushing to work, you weren't going to say, "No SMALL? No way! I'm leaving!" You would just fork over the extra quarter and have a medium.

This guy was smart--and he valued himself. When you charge a ton of money for your services, people are very happy to pay that money.

(3) "To Be Continued." I will always remember the powerhouse editor I worked for--who recognized that I was twenty and incapable of intelligent conversation.

To get out of talking to me at a holiday party, she did not brush me off. She did not say, "Get away from me." She clutched my wrist and pretended to believe whatever inane thing I was saying was entrancing. She looked at me. Her eyes shimmered. Smiling, she said, "To be continued..." Then, like a stately ocean liner, she glided away.

A lesson in politics. A brief audience with Thomas Cromwell--and I'll never forget it.

(4) Ranting makes you look crazy. Even when you are justified, even when you have been wronged: Ranting makes you look crazy.

(5) Let people buy you coffee. People enjoy being helpful. When someone offers to get you coffee, don't brush it off as *pro forma* .... Let the person buy you a coffee. You are giving the person a gift. And you are helping to build a relationship.

Anyway, my psychiatric diagnosis has been "adjustment disorder, chronic, with mixed anxiety." It has been that way for years. I imagine that adjustment disorder is some mild form of PTSD. (Though, weirdly, I'm too lazy and incurious to look that up.) I really enjoy the "mixed anxiety," because the "mixed" makes me think of weather forecasts, and of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."

The upshot is I'm a nervous wreck--and I don't at all present that way. I seem weirdly, sometimes inappropriately, calm. A duck above water--with nervous webbed feet treading, treading.

A favorite line of mine is from an Amy Bloom story: "My friend helped teach me to walk through the world like a normal person."

That's what I aspire to. Walking like a normal person. Functioning in the world, even if it involves wearing a mask. This is--at least sometimes--an interesting and even enjoyable challenge.

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