Blog – Page 14 – PipBrennan

Dial 1 for frustration…

Sunday Blog 33 – 24th April 2022

You know the deal – you ring, you choose the appropriate number for the service you are seeking, the hold music starts. It stops and for a second you are hopeful, but instead the automated voice advises you of all the many things you can do on their website which means you don’t need to stay on hold. You long to have the kind of problem where just a few clicks on a website would fix it but alas, it is not. You actually do need to speak to a human.

Having tried to tempt you with their online options, the hold music begins again. The next time the hold music stops there is no sense of optimism that there will be a human just yet, and sure enough you are reminded yet again, just in case you are particularly dense, that you can do a range of actions online. This is repeated many times. The phone line is your Zen Master to ensure you practice your deep breathing, disconnection from outcome and possibly even some judicious distraction to keep the frustration levels down.
Finally you are connected! It’s a miracle! Once you have answered the six identification questions and advised them that you are in agreement with the impossible and unread legalese of their Privacy Policy, you can finally talk.

They do their absolute best to help you, even put you on hold a few times and when you think the problem is now resolved, you hang up. Only it turns out it was actually a bit more complex than that, so you start again. Again with the Zen Master music and the regular reminders that you could, if only you weren’t so dense or complex, do what you needed to do online. Again you speak to a human. But it’s not the same human. You do your best to bring them up to speed but it takes quite a bit of coaxing and getting them to click on the system to see what is written about your last call (usually not quite enough for them to be able to discern what happened then and what needs to happen now) and on you go. Repeat six times over a ten day period and Voila! You finally have the result you wanted!

But just imagine if you could ring once, get to speak to a human, and then you could speak to or email the same human all the way through sorting out your issue. Continuity. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Almost everywhere you care to look, this kind of luxury – of being able to work with one person in a company – is not available. The reality is that having access to continuity works well for the customer, but not for the organisation. It’s just too hard to have staff available for people on demand.

But is it? Is it actually more time-consuming for organisations than it first appears? Could I have been managed in two calls with one staff member rather than ten calls with ten?

The frustrations of trying to get this issue sorted reminded me of the frustration I discovered as a victim of crime two decades ago. There is no continuity of legal representation when your case goes before a court. (I mean technically a Department of Prosecutions (DPP) Lawyer is representing the Queen – but they are your only chance of being heard in the incredibly disempowered victim role.) You get a File Manager who in my case never actually went to court. Each time the matter was heard in court, someone else had to grapple with the file, try to get on top of the issue. I would ask the File Manager who was it this time, ask if I could speak to them myself. They were always very kind but it was exhausting.

When I went to court just once during my victim of crime journey, I saw one very overworked, kind DPP lawyer in the court, doing case after case after case. People accused of crimes had one lawyer all the way through and there was a dizzying parade of them in and out, in and out of the court room while the DPP lawyer remained. I suddenly saw just how much easier it was to administrate his time from an organisational perspective – one lawyer, one court, scheduling done. But it was awful from a victim perspective.

And what about health? Personal care? Social care? For most of these type of organisations, continuity of staff is the exception, not the rule. My father’s final two weeks saw a parade of carers in the home – a different one every day. It was far from ideal.

Sigh. I don’t know what the answer is, but every where I look, it always seems that the organisation or system’s needs trump the individual’s needs…

Enneagram

Sunday Blog 32 – 17th April 2022 (Happy Easter!)

I still recall my mother coming home from a workshop (in itself an unusual occurrence) in the early 1980’s all alight with the new-found knowledge of the Enneagram. “Ennea” is the Greek word for nine, and the Enneagram is a model of the human psyche of nine interconnected personality types. Its origins are ancient and hazy, and it emerged in Western World the 1950s and 1970s. I really wanted to add in something about how the number 9 works – but I am not so good with numbers and all the sites I looked at made my head hurt. Suffice it to say that the magic of nine draws together this model and leave it at that.

At the workshop, my mother discovered she was a Nine or a Peacemaker (a good call for the mother of six) and she was pretty sure she was married to a One (Perfectionist). What she’d learned in the workshop gave her a key to the (ahem) frustrations of married life.

This week, while I was watching Brene Brown’s new Atlas of the Heart five part series on her most recent book, tucked away in episode three she asks her audience “Have you ever taken the Enneagram?” Then she goes on to say “For all the researchers watching … I don’t think it’s valid or reliable but I’ve learned more about myself there than I have with any of the five main personality tests.” In other words, researchers are undecided about it, but Brene is not. (Just in case you have never heard of Brene Brown, she is a grounded theory researcher with a gift for translating her research widely to all of us so we can live better lives now. Start with her 2010 TED Talk on shame and vulnerability and keep on going…)

I had to stop the Brene Brown video and write that down. Because, I have a great fondness for the Enneagram. Due to the accident of my mother attending a workshop in the early 1980’s I have always known about the Enneagram. As I grew into adulthood I knew myself to be a Seven (The Hedonistic Visionary in this image. What can I say? I like fun!) Exploring the Enneagram over the years has provided me with some footholds in the slippery complexity of relationships.

So – it has the Brene endorsement – and if you have never explored it, you might want to take the best online test – the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator Test. It costs $12 takes 40 minutes but it is time well spent to discover your Enneagram type and start exploring this rich and transformative model to know yourself and others.

Happy Easter!

P.S. I am not affiliated with Brene or the Riso-Hudson Test – I just rooly rooly think both are top quality!

Labyrinth not a maze…

Sunday Blog 31: 10th April 2022

I have found myself once again obsessed with labyrinths. It must be the extra time I’ve had this week to reflect on unusual topics in the wide expanse of my first week after leaving my job.

People often use the term maze and labyrinth interchangeably – but a maze is a puzzle with dead ends and is designed to trick you. A labyrinth on the other hand has no dead ends – it is a single path you move through in an orderly if circuitous way, in to the centre and back out again. Instead of getting lost, a labyrinth holds the promise of helping you find yourself on your way.

The oldest known labyrinth in the Western World is in Knossos on the island of Crete in Greece. (Very disappointed I didn’t realise this when I was there in 2017…) There are many labyrinths dotted around the world – they’re having a come back and there are quite a few in Perth where I am.

The labyrinth in this post’s image is a finger labyrinth you can trace manually, which apparently has the same therapeutic benefits of walking a labyrinth.

As I once again contemplate working for myself rather than a salary, I feel like I am walking past the same terrain I was in 2014 when I thought very seriously about setting up my own business but took a job instead. Like I have been slowly perambulating a giant cosmic labyrinth in the last seven years and am going past the same spot, but this time I am on a path a little closer to the centre.

I mean, essentially I am using the website I set up then although I have changed it to my name in the years since and have re-thought what I might do. Seven years have opened up other options. So it’s the same terrain but not exactly. Thus the labyrinth is much like life.

While I have had grandiose notions of putting a labyrinth in my front garden, someone on the interwebs shared the bright idea of buying four large plastic-backed drop sheets, sewing them together and voila, you have a movable labyrinth. It certainly sounds a great deal cheaper than committing to building one out of stone.

Or, like I could get on with writing projects…

The eerie quiet of the end…

Sunday Blog 30: 3rd April 2022

I’m not quite sure what kind of reception at home I expected after leaving my workplace for the last time. A marching band? A heroine’s welcome? But as I’m guessing Barack Obama experienced from time to time, home is not always the place to relish and celebrate workplace accomplishments.

Not only was there an absence of a marching band, things the house-husband is stepping down from his role too. It’s time for me to pick up the mop and broom again, now that I am in at least a temporary state of leisure, and get back into the groove of contributing to maintaining the home as well as being out in the world.

What is that Zen saying?

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Zen saying…

Not that I would be able to consider work enlightenment. Often it is the opposite of enlightenment, the drowning of self in doing. So I will listen to Ram Dass, and I will experience this part (and all) of my life as an unfolding curriculum.

And just think now, of all the perfect housework excuses I will have when writing deadlines are looming…

The final countdown…

Sunday Blog 29 – 27th March 2022

Adapted from this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw

Perhaps you are kind enough to over-look the fact that last week there was no Sunday Blog. In truth I drafted it – but it didn’t feel quite like my story, so I didn’t hit send. Because staying out of others stories is usually the right call. Our James Clear (Mr Atomic Habits) always says – never miss twice. So here I am again this Sunday. But I’m not cheating, so it is Blog 29, not 30. We must have standards!

There are now just four days between me and the end of my tenure at the Health Consumers’ Council. My hair is not properly gray as just as I was poised to have the last dyed locks chopped off, my hairdresser has to isolate as one of her children is a close contact. (So selfish!)

It has been a very long three months and also a very short time (e.g. not long enough to actually have 100% gray hair) It also hasn’t been long enough for me to understand what I will leave behind and what I will take with me on the next part of my life. Can’t I just know for sure? I guess I could say I am emerging from the messy middle and the next stage is still, well unfolding, much like the Transitions book said it would. Bloody slow and inconvenient though.

I have been thinking about the Liz Gilbert explanation of the difference between a hobby, a job, a career and a vocation. I have definitely shed the career, but what of the vocation do I want to, or need to bring forward?

And then I read this blog about a mother of a daughter whose misdiagnosis prompted many unnecessary surgeries, lost years and family trauma. She decided she wouldn’t sue – not wanting the non-disclosure agreement that would mean any learning from this experience would be lost. This paragraph leapt out at me:

we never heard a word from those doctors again: not a call to apologize, not even a response to a question about medications during her hospital stay for the surgery. As time went on, I felt shocked that we could endure and be forced to process this experience while the doctors could go on as though nothing happened.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medical-malpractice-doctor-misdiagnosis_n_6220e96ee4b0c3935752e1a2

She discusses the Hobson’s Choice of 1) seeking financial compensation which means the issue is brushed under the carpet, where learnings are potentially also brushed like so much dust and dirt or 2) choosing not to sue but instead to advocate for change.

And the fire in my belly is a bit of a clue that yeah, this health advocate nerd thing is a vocation, not a career. And it’s still unfolding.

Writers Retreats

Sunday Blog 28 – 13th March 2021

This weekend I have been on another Edgewalker Retreat – this time focusing on writing – the last one was a more generic creativity retreat. I love to carve out a designated space where I am focusing on writing. I think it sends a strong message to the Muse. Especially when I turn up with my array of loud pants and matching earrings. One must dress for the occasion.

It is very encouraging when I think back to the previous Edgewalker Retreat in October 2021 where I was still trying to have the courage to go back into the thicket of my manuscript to continue to push it forward into something more publishable. My manuscript for my first novel that is – the one I have been toiling over for 7 years and have had to radically re-think and re-write several times already.

It has progressed so much more in that six months, despite all the work-related, well, work.

This weekend I also took time off the keyboard to finishing reading this month’s Book Club novel 7 1/2 by Christos Tsolkias (everybody seems to remember him best as the author of The Slap). What an extraordinary book it is – part memoir, a book about writing and an actual novel emerging within it. His writing is extraordinary and holds me to the last page. I’m not without my criticisms and frustrations about it, but I have to admire his skill and feel genuinely moved by the novel plot, the memoir and his current life and love.

The memoir winding through the book recalls his Greek family as peasant immigrants, his parents suffering through the rigours of hard physical labour in order for him to have opportunities they never could never dream of . His father would pick up his pay packet, walk past the book shop on the way home, and despite not being able to read the book’s name or blurb, would choose it nonetheless for the young Christos, an avid reader. Like choosing a bottle of wine on the attractiveness on its label (which quite frankly is a perfectly valid way of operating if you ask me.)

This quote from the book so moved me – it can be so very hard to claim the title of author and for him at least it was an exile from his family of origin. But still he doesn’t feel that he belongs in the aristocracy of the pantheon of (real) writers.

I have never forgotten the discussion with Michael Robotham a few Margaret River Writers Festivals ago, where he talked about how difficult it is to learn anything from the classics. They are so perfect, there is nowhere to get a toe-hold on how to create something that is anything like it. You learn more from bad books, he asserted, you can see what’s not there and you are inspired to try.

So I guess, here’s to bad books. But here’s to people claiming their writer, it’s hard. And here’s to the people that protect our tender creative flames by facilitating writers retreats! (Here’s looking at you Erika Jacobson!)

Holidays at home

Sunday Blog 27 – 6th March 2022

This week has seen some interesting changes in my ongoing process of Transition. It hasn’t all been working out according to my goals in my journal. To seek a bit of refuge I decided a staycation in a Fremantle Hotel was just the thing (see writing nook in photo).

As the week unfolded and was not entirely to my liking, I reminded myself, at least I am not in Ukraine. (I have to keep scrubbing out the “the” because like everyone I have been on a steep Ukrainian learning curve.)

I normally don’t watch or listen or read the news except in very small doses, and haven’t really changed that this week but even a tiny glimpse has been enough.

And in a moment that reminds me of all the excitement we once held about the possibilities of the internet, I have booked my next staycation. But I won’t actually be checking in. This time the accommodation is in Kyiv and I will not be going there. But I hope the money helps those who are stranded, unable to earn money. Apparently Air BnB are waiving all fees and ensuring the money is credited to people as soon as the booking is made. So far at least $2 million has directly reached people in need. The internet’s promise of global connectedness and grass-roots action feels almost close enough to touch.

The Resource of You

Sunday Blog 26 – 27th February 2022

It’s the end of a Writers Festival weekend, at the end of a month that has seen me attend a writing workshop every single weekend. I have purchased so many books for my To Be Read pile that I doubt I will ever get to them all unless I take a decade hiatus from buying books. And who wants to do that?

Plus this month I’ve turned in a third of my novella to my mentor and received good feedback of the “just keep going” kind. The writing life is definitely already upon me, meanwhile, the working life is still going with the same four days per week and nearly as much workload. The resource of me is indeed stretched thin.

I will therefore keep this 26th Sunday Blog short and sweet. I can hear thunder rumbling and the light in this room keeps turning on and off as if someone is trying to reach me from beyond, or perhaps it’s just the power cutting in and out.

Here is a quote from the December 13 2021 episode of the Dare to Lead Podcast where Brene Brown interviews America Ferrera for the second time. It seemed an important time to remind myself that allocating the resource of ourselves is a gamechanger.

Maybe in March I can finally master saying no and allocating my resources wisely…

Gray hair don’t care…

Author portrait, outdated before the print arrived

Sunday Blog 25 – 20th Feb 2022

I often thought that when I quit my job, (see this transition blog), I would stop dyeing my hair. I said that, but wasn’t sure I actually meant it. But I have found that the need to have a strong outward sign of the change within is too compelling. It’s official. Me and hair dye are through.

I thought about a range of options for how to achieve this, but as my hair is very short, I am opting for the no-cost solution of waiting for the dyed hair to grow out and be cut off. On Saturday I had my usual hair appointment. In the days leading up to it, I kept looking in the mirror, pulling my hair back, admiring the grey hair and how it looked against my skin and eyes. With my trademark impatience about how long things take, I expected my hair at the back at least to be almost entirely gray after my usual trim. It wasn’t. It’s actually more of a half-in-half sort of a look – almost like a baby bird moulting and getting new feathers.

I feel an impatience for this new gray hair, and am looking all around me to see all those fabulous women rocking their silver hair. Channeling their inner Elder as it were. I long to join their ranks.

Just before New Years I had an updated portrait done of me and my daughter, got a musician portrait for her and an author portrait for me (see image in the blog). I only picked up the hard copy yesterday.

“You’ll have to get a new author portrait done”, darling husband reminds me.

Nobody says transitions are easy or graceful.

Change? Or Profile of the struggle?

Sunday Blog 24 – 13th Feb 2022

If you don’t have a spare eight-plus hours, you might not find this Sunday Blog of interest. I worship podcasts, especially serial podcasts. I stumbled across The Trojan Horse Affair: a mystery in eight parts when listening to This American Life on Monday. They featured the first episode, and I was hooked. I had to listen to all 8.

There are many compelling aspects to this story, one being the two presenters’ relationship. Journalist Brian Reed meets doctor-turned journalism student Hamza Syed who pitches an idea to him the night before he starts journalism school. The story is from Syed’s hometown in Birmingham, England. Brian is hooked, and they team up to untangle the story of the so-called Trojan Horse letter. The two of them disappear down an investigative journalism rabbit hole for more than two years to create the series. The even end up in Perth, Australia.

The Trojan Horse Letter story itself begins in late 2013 when;

A strange letter appears on a city councillor’s desk in Birmingham, England, laying out an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate the city’s schools. The plot has a code name: Operation Trojan Horse. The story soon explodes in the news and kicks off a national panic. By the time it all dies down, the government has launched multiple investigations, beefed up the country’s counterterrorism policy, revamped schools and banned people from education for the rest of their lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/podcasts/trojan-horse-affair.html

Finding out who wrote the letter is not a question that people in power want to be answered, as Brian and Hamza discover. The series starts with conversations with the supposed mastermind of Operation Trojan Horse, a man passionate about ensuring an equal opportunity for Muslim students in Birmingham. He joins a school council and turns the single-digit percentage of graduate students up to 70%. The Trojan Horse letter undoes all of this work and he is one of the several people we hear from who have never been allowed to re-engage in education again. The pain in their voices is palpable.

It’s Hamza’s question in the image of this post that made me stop, hand on heart, gasping at the enormity of this reflection. Rewinding and re-listening, capturing the question in an image, like a bug in amber for this post.

We often think that speaking up, bringing things to light will create change. Sometimes it does. And sometimes, it’s just another profile of the struggle. For me as an advocate, someone absolutely passionate about the power of the lived experience voice to drive change, it is sobering to remember that the lived experience voice is always and ever a David against the Goliath of power structures.

Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins have done so much in Australia to highlight the importance of addressing violence against women. The March4Justice in 2021 showed that the time is ripe for social change. And then in 2022, the ten-year plan to combat violence against women is launched, strategy-less into the nation. Baked in a University with no transparency about who got to have a say, it has no tangible actions or accountability mechanisms. A veiled, smudged-over mention that things are the same or worse in terms of the level of violence against women since the previous ten-year plan. It is such a threadbare and clearly meaningless political gesture – a smoke and mirror exercise to make it look as if something is changing when clearly it’s not. Will Grace and Brittany be able to create change or provide another profile of the struggle? It’s such a key question.

But I’m not nearly done with this podcast. It dug right into the nature of journalism, how it is important to be open-minded about a topic, to explore it without having a pre-conceived idea of answers to the question, the right and wrong of it all. And the core thread of Islamophobia that underpins the Trojan Letter thrums right through this podcast. I am ashamed to say I have not given enough thought to this issue. Neither had journalist Brian Reed because like me, he is white and mainstream. We just don’t have to think about the issue the way Hamza does. I cried as I listened to the recording of Muslim British Labor Politician Zahra Sultana’s speech – her voice breaks when she says “It’s to be treated by some as if I were an enemy of the country that I was born in as if I don’t belong.”

And I recognised myself in Brian. As the years and the episodes build up, Brian realises the impact of the story on Hamza is profoundly different to the impact of the story on him. He reflects on how his objective journalist view is another form of bystanding, and morally repugnant to Hamza. Brian asks himself;

I really do hope this podcast does spark the change that’s required. I know for me I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the week; before I listened. I have been enriched with new insights, challenged by fundamental questions and light has been thrown on blind spots I didn’t know I had. And that’s what good podcasts are all about.