I had a pretty busy, relatively eventful day at work. A small thing, though, reminded me that if I want to claim to being transparent, and claim to be building toward being a better person, I have to own one of my own flaws.
My mother tells me that as a child, I didn’t take criticism well. I honestly don’t remember that; I am sure she’s right, but I was generally the “polite” person all through school, and honestly I still am to this day. Most of the time.
But I noticed something during the latter part of my education; at times, I could sense that people were making criticisms that weren’t based on being constructive– people were treating their opinions as facts. This came mostly as a result of my writing about political and social/race related issues and training at times with people who were a little… conservative. Once I finally decided it was too much, I lashed out at someone about one of these issues (it was a paper about Leonard Peltier where– and I am NOT kidding– a college professor told me that because it was a fact that Peltier was put in prison, my argument that the FBI made a mistake was “ill advised”).
Once I lashed out for a first time, I started to do it a little more often. There are now three situations wherein I can almost guarantee that whether I react to it or not, I will be furious:
- If I ask someone to read something for content and they make grammar edits but don’t speak to the content or the substance of the piece. My reasoning for this is that I’m a PhD in writing studies; I can EDIT myself. I don’t proofread drafts that I share with people when I want to work on the content because, in my process (like with almost everyone) it’s most efficient to copy edit last instead of copy editing as I go.
- If someone tells me I “have” to change something. Maybe that’s true in some cases, but giving imperative commands as comments on something is, in my mind, a no-go. That same sentiment can be expressed with “I would consider changing…”
- When someone takes a moment while commenting on a piece to either look down their nose or to humble brag. This happens with many of my academic pieces because A. not many scholars in English studies respect people who study games and B. there’s been a rash of people reading my work lately that feel as if it’s a critical flaw when an article about race doesn’t talk about gender. Those pieces are often treated in hostile ways, as if the intent is to ignore or subjugate gender (which is odd– I can’t imagine that every article not about race but not about women’s issues is getting the same treatment, so I wonder why people make that weird non-accurate assumption that I’m not a feminist).
These effects are amplified about twenty-fold when the comments come from someone who I feel hasn’t treated me fairly. I will say–and I honestly believe– that I have never, professionally, allowed my displeasure with a coworker or collaborator to influence my behavior toward them in a professional context. I’ve been in some screwed up situations and no one has ever said “man, that Phill is petty,” so I’m guessing I’m right.
But I think it. Sometimes.
And I know it’s wrong. I know that when someone tells me that I need to make a revision to something in what I take as a glib way it’s not meant as an attack, and I know I shouldn’t let my brain go down a rabbit hole of “why are you speaking down to me when I’ve always had YOUR back but when I needed your help you shrugged?” because when something happens that upsets a person and time passes it’s supposed to be over.
I think I blogged about this part of my personalty a few months ago– but things are never really “over” for me unless I feel resolution. I can remember painful things friends did to me 20 years ago that I’d still sarcastically lash out at them over if they re-invoked it by triggering one of my pet peeves.
I wish I wasn’t like that, but the truth is that sometimes I think we have to take the good and the bad and realize they exist on a spectrum. I care so much about things like this because respect and loyalty matter to me. And I am serious about it in my life. If I care about someone and I’m loyal to them, I go down in flames making sure I have their back. I– and this is what gets me in trouble– only expect the same in return.
It’s a weakness, but it’s a weakness I’m willing to accept in myself in return for the benefit of knowing I can give things my all because I’m not keeping score. Until someone throws the game out of balance. Then, sadly, I’m keeping score until we’re back to zero.
I realize that might not make sense, so let me unpack the metaphor. When I deal with friends who need me, I don’t keep track (e.g. “I helped you move, so you better help me move, too!”). But when the time comes that I NEED that person for something, if they stiff me, then my brain course corrects and makes a list of all the times I was there. It’s petty, on some level.
But it’s me.
So long story short– if you’re close to me, and I ask you for advice, be critical, be accurate, but don’t be a jerk. Unless I owe you. Then you can be as big of a jerk as you want. If you owe me, consider me asking you to be polite part of paying me back.
And if I ever popped off on/at you, there was a reason. It might not be a fair reason in your eyes, but I’m certain that if you ask me, I have a well-thought-out reason for it. Maybe everyone has that. I don’t know. I’ve only ever been me.