Tag / observe

by Eileen 配仪

Sound of Working

I am sure we have all seen situations when people on a team don’t get along. Maybe they compete with each other, vying for the boss’s favor, and in …

When the management team is not a real team

From Norman who writes an audit and risk blog. To be heard and to be seen is encouraged as part of “getting ahead”. A team that is actually working well will just be working without fanfare. Sort of like an experienced artisan just being extremely excellent in their jobs.

Just like end customers, as employees we tend to see management as a single body, working in an orderly manner towards goals they have promised to deliver. That is not the norm really – not even in family business where one might imagine the whole family is working towards more revenue and wealth.

The norm is some volume of “being unsettled” – it could be louder in some places. A management team that is not a real team is the norm because within a team there will be competition to be heard, to be seen. That said, I won’t go so far as to label healthy competition – it’s just the sound energy from working.

Does it ever become dysfunctional? It could when executives try hard at sabotaging each other to the extent that they undermine the firms results as a whole. Yet most firms with a proper scorecard structure can withstand this. A small firm (eg family business) who has less or no support will dragged to a standstill by dysfunction but most founder leaders at this point will sort it out before it goes further by calling it out.

by Eileen 配仪

Remember

That your husband, children, father, aunts, cousins maybe have commonalities but this is only a small part of them. Just like you they live their own varied lives rich with experiences.

by Eileen 配仪

ADHD, Art, Me

I asked for a referral for my son to be assessed and was turned down. I took out ADHD 2.0 (Edward M Hallowel and John Ratey) not knowing what else to do. I put it on the headset and continued on my excel. 

I began to cry right in the middle of chapter 1. (OMG what if someone telephoned me? Luckily that I was WFH from a sprain!) I felt understood. Like someone knows what is like to be me. Someone explained why I feel that my life seems more difficult, why I feel different from everyone else and why every pursuit of mine turned out to be hideously difficult, why I failed to continue writing novels, why I want to study after I retire, why I want to do art. It even explained why I always try and fail to see what others see me as. It’s like going to a tarot card reader or a psychic to ask about your difficult son and suddenly the psychic tells you everything you have experienced in your life so far.   

Yet I can’t link ADHD to me. I did suspect I have ADHD when I was younger.  I can’t see myself as  a stereotypical ADHD person yet it all makes sense (all those years of paying penalties and late fees, multiple planners and terrifying my husband with the fire left on and mostly picking up difficult things out of boredom). I think it is mainly because I haven’t had serious complaints that it interferes with others expectations of me at work or at school. I don’t feel I annoy anyone with this problem at school or at work. It doesn’t affect me as a normal contributing member of society. It annoys my friends a lot and my husband really a lot. I feel my other nicer parts of my personality make up for this particularly annoying part so it evens out.

So what does it mean to me now that I know I might have ADHD. At this age, I don’t feel it means something. If I was told sometime during the first 35 years of my life it would mean a lot. Most of all it will explain why I feel different during those years where I feel it is important to be the same.

by Eileen 配仪

Frustration – struggling with failure

I remember thinking about this in my 20s when I was trying to be a writer, then later trying to work on my Masters thesis in my late twenties. Do I really want to wake up every morning and acknowledge I am a failure?

How very interesting that in learning to paint I encounter this question again. 

Now that I am an older and have gained wiles and cunning, l would described as a daily struggle towards greatness, the discipline of a Master. (Gag! Barf! Retch! Yet, its true – why paint the difficulty of struggle worse?)

I cannot understand why   I have this strong sense of doom, inability & “I can’t do this” for art only..

I wonder if it stems from my inability to really get it. I cannot understand it because I lack a feeling for art. My feeling is either,  “Man, this is awesome!” or “Oh, ok.”

by Eileen 配仪

More on being an Adult

I have been having difficulties being a parent to one of my kids. He is 12 and so beyond me I am at a lost – we are at a lost. It is a totally alien space.

I am wondering if I parented him wrongly because of some childhood trauma.

I googled and empowering parents said that I should not feel guilty or accept responsibilities for the difficulties he is facing. After all we all learn to get around our difficulties. If he is working on it and trying I can appreciate and support – but if he is not?

by Eileen 配仪

Being An Adult

My boss today said something like, if you have parents, remember to spend time with them. He had just returned today from a 2 week urgent leave to take care of things at home (overseas). He also said that when he and his siblings were younger, he had idealistic notions of parental care with parents traveling from one sibling to another through the year.

I started to feel guilty about not ringing my father. Yet on the other hand, I don’t like having any conversations with my father.

He has lost the ability to have a conversation. He is perhaps afraid and anxious all the time. His normal state is always imagining he has the world’s attention on him and someone is always out to get him. Most of all, he is always competing with me – about being right, about being more virtuous (scrimping and saving) and more filial. Every conversation is peppered with a scam that he figured – ie nobody can trick him; or, that I should be as virtuous as him.

I am unable to link what he says of himself to the father I know.

I mostly ignore the self praise and competitive virtue signaling. It bothers me when most conversation is something negative about me even when I am helping him.

I am adult enough to understand parents are also human and imperfect. Parents deal with their own private emotions and they don’t intentional hurt. I also see my responsibilities in this dance. I listen and buy into whatever that was said, intentional or not.

The more I listen, the more I dislike the speaker. The more I assist them with their day to day, the more I resent my assistance because I am hearing the habitual criticisms. Simply because I believe those words. The way I see it is this – I don’t defend myself, I feel angry and upset because I should stand up for myself.

But if he is actually scolding something that doesn’t exist – why should I need to defend and dance to his imagination?

If it is a poor fantasy that he has conjured up for himself – he is deserving at least of compassion and kindness since he is suffering all the time.

So logically, I should visit more – create more possibilities for good interactions. Yet with the problems I am handling now at home and work stress, it’s hard to have the energy to be positive and remain open.

by Eileen 配仪

Rambling about art practice

Looking through my art practices, I am surprised that my first posting was only 2 years ago in May 2022. I felt it was much longer – I feel some impatience in the learning process. I didn’t feel impatience when I was drawing. I was mainly prodding along. When my drawing skills improved, I was excited because I gain confidence enough to try watercolour. However there is a strong sense of I want to learn more, learn faster. There is a lot of frustration. I just began and haven’t done much practices yet I have this strong ambition to want to hit the tutorials close to the artist who post them. I hit some marks and don’t hit others. This is normal yet I feel frustrated.

Last week, I was copying an Oliver Pyle’s painting and I actually felt relaxed and the final output was not horrible. (I was very unrelaxed following Egle Kolev botanical paintings. I just couldn’t get it but strangely that really improved my skills.) I also tried Prema Watercolour which many others love but I don’t. I found Yong Chen Enjoying Art really hard but I love the art school look but the session was too hard to follow.

by Eileen 配仪

I was at a do yesterday. (I can’t think of how to call it other than a do. It’s a casual work related event that requires me to look not too far away from my work self. )

The Very Important Person At the Pinnacle of Our Food Chain came out from some hidden place. He stood and waved at the proletariats hoping perhaps for a roar of approval. Just before he had to go and deliver his speech, he walked over and grabbed a child for a photoshoot. The child did a sad emoticon and reached out for the mom at once.

He returned this child and took another nearby for his shoot. That kid did not cry. I will not be able to just grab and do it. I will have a long conversation of nonsense words with the baby to arrive at some understanding that he or she was amenable to being picked up. I will then cautiously pick the child up while continuing that goobly gook conversation.

It must be the aura of being Very Important.