Humiliation Gives Way to Strength

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Working on a novel when a memory from my days in tech surfaced.  A peon I was in a coveted internal training class.

I desperately wanted to be taken seriously, wanted to have the tech company I was working for while taking college classes at night invest in me.

By Your Command

Battlestar Galactica reference.

For days our instructor wrote command codes on a white board after which we typed them in and watched the WizyWig results.

What You See Is What You Get.

My Friend Friday

As it happens on the last day of class – before lunch break – our instructor wrote out a rather lengthy command code.  Exhausted and on autopilot I typed it in, hit Enter.

Oh My

Everything went down.  My initial reaction was confusion.  Then – as if the hounds of hell were in the room laughing – the instructor said, “But don’t hit this command unless you need to do an emergency hard shutdown because it will take the whole system down.”

Cheeks aflame – I’m not exaggerating – I stared out the window thinking I just ended my career.

My boss would hear about it and I’d never be sent to training again and without training I couldn’t advance let alone get any credibility leading to a promotion.

Humiliation Personified

I will never forget 

  • The look of confusion on the instructor’s face when the system didn’t respond
  • The sound of my tablemate’s voice when he leaned close and said “I know what you did.”
  • The instructor from another classroom who came running in to ask “Did you lose -?”

Sink or Swim

I had a decision to make.  Own up to what I did or slink away with the rest of the group as we were told the class was abruptly and irreparably ended.

I could feel the eyes of the my tablemate boring a hole in the left side of my head.

Did I mention I was the only woman in the class and younger than everyone by about 15 years?  Oh, and my boss had to get a special waiver to get me into the class.

My heart thumping hard enough to leap out of my petrified chest I tentatively raised my hand after which I said, “I thought it was another one of your commands so I typed it then hit enter.”

I will never forget the look on her face – like Seriously?

As humiliating as that career moment was it added a bit of rebar in the building of being comfortable – when it comes to career and life mistakes – in my own skin.

I can be proud of the person I see in the mirror in the morning because I know that person tries their best.

And – regardless of mistakes – always has.

Be well

Note: When I told my tech mentor? He roared with laughter then shared moments of career humiliation so I wouldn’t feel quite so awful.

In the Age of Wegovy

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In recent months I’ve had a number of conversations about the use of Wegovy.  Specifically, what is my take given I’m a holistic doctor.

I am in full support of its use in helping people with Type 2 diabetes and while I recognize its promise treating a number of health challenges my concern is this:

Happily Ever After

Once the weight is off, the blood glucose levels at a healthy level, how will individuals avoid reverting to habits or lifestyle choices that had them needing it?

For Context

Having spent decades in tech – typically 10 to 15 years younger than my peers – I came to a point where I noted two peculiarities

  • Majority of my coworkers were male
  • My male coworkers tended to carry 30 to 50 extra pounds

Stress Stress Stress

I handled stress by walking on my lunch hour and after work.  When that wasn’t enough?  I joined a health club so I could add weight lifting and rowing.

This was a double-edged sword.  The issue was stress, not a need for physical fitness.  The more stress?  The more hours I spent working out.  

I ended up with an autoimmune condition and while this is a topic for another time – an upcoming podcast – I want to circle back to the topic at hand.

The Age of Wegovy

I got to a point in my career I was doing a lot of traveling. I would fly out Sunday or Monday, return Friday or Saturday and head out again Sunday or Monday.  I did this pretty much every week between the fall of 1993 and spring of 1996.

I cancelled my cable because I was never home to watch anything anyway.

SSDL

DL = Different Location

My travel routine wasn’t much different than my home routine.

  • Eat out
  • Wait for food to settle
  • Workout

Other than ESPN I wasn’t into spending the evening in a hotel room watching TV.

Unless I had a laptop and wanted ambient noise while working on a customer deal.

SSDA

Same Stress Different Approach

Listening to music while lifting weights, running on a treadmill, and taking advantage of whatever exercise options were available.

I generally brought mixed tapes created from vinyls on a Sony Walkman.

Bonus Bad Health Habit

Due to flight schedules I often ended up eating past 10pm from a room service menu lacking in healthy options.

Observations

Over those years I observed

  • I was the only female working out **
  • There were usually only 3 males working out alongside me even as I knew many more were – like me – traveling.  

I knew this because I worked with them. They were in the same hotel because we were collaborating on the same customer opportunity.

The Irony of Wegovy

I dealt with work stress by working out to excess and not eating healthy and though I didn’t gain weight or develop Type 2 diabetes I ended up with an autoimmune disease.

Many of the males I know currently on Wegovy dealt with the same type of stress by not eating healthy.

And not getting as much exercise as they could have while my situation shows exercise is no guarantee of good health.

Stress? What Stress?

Everyone has life stress but work stress fills a particular place in our lives and it gets my dander up every time I see another article blaming techies for the woes of the world.

The lifestyle that goes with that stress is why many techies have health challenges.

Next!

My understanding of holistic healing enables me to spot signs of old patterns that risk my health.  

God knows I don’t want to end up back in the land of autoimmune disease.

My concern is that majority of people on this medication won’t recognize the causality and may find themselves falling back into patterns that got them in trouble in the first place.

Life in the Age of Wegovy.

Be well.

** I was the only female – the highlight being the lone woman among 41 men in a post-graduate network technology program at Carnegie Mellon.