Category: Just Blogging

La file d’attente [en]

C’est l’histoire d’une file d’attente. Il y a du monde dedans. Certains attendent patiemment, d’autres essaient par tous les moyens de passer devant. Il y a des silencieux et des bruyants. La file est longue, longue, elle s’étire à l’infini. Je n’en vois jamais le bout. Les gens passent à mon guichet, mais rien n’y fait, la file d’attente ne raccourcit pas.

La file d’attente, c’est une métaphore pour mes désirs et obligations, mes projets, mes tâches et mes rêves, mes envies et mes devoirs. Aussi longtemps que je m’en souvienne, aussi loin que remontent mes souvenirs d’en avoir la conscience, cette file d’attente a toujours été interminablement longue. Longue et décourageante. A quoi bon s’activer, puisque je n’en verrai jamais le bout?

Je n’arrête pas de penser à cette histoire de file d’attente depuis qu’un collègue m’a parlé de “Queuing Theory”, et que j’ai lu cet article (en allemand svp!): Warteschlangen Theorie – Der Fluch der Auslastung und Überoptimierung.

Ce qu’il faut retenir: quand on est “occupé/booké” à 80%, il y a déjà une file d’attente. Et ensuite, plus on charge l’agenda ou le programme, plus la file d’attente augmente – de manière exponentielle.

J’ai bien compris ça au travail, où je préserve des moments “sans meetings”. Quand j’étais jeune adulte et chef scoute très (trop) investie, je me souviens aussi que j’avais bloqué dans mon agenda des soirées “je suis prise”, pour m’éviter de me retrouver avec des séances ou des engagements tous les jours de la semaine. Voyez, ça remonte à loin mon histoire avec la surcharge d’activités.

Mais c’est dur, bon sang, de prendre une pause quand la file d’attente s’étire jusqu’à l’horizon. De dire “non, pas là”. De regarder l’agenda pour tenter d’y glisser (au chausse-pied souvent) quelque chose que j’ai envie de faire, et de garder des pages blanches.

Premièrement parce que j’ai besoin de pages blanches, de temps morts. Deuxièmement parce que pour pouvoir gérer un peu la file d’attente, gérer la vie qui arrive, le temps qui ne s’écoule pas à la vitesse prévue, avoir un peu de spontanéité et suivre l’impulsion du moment, il faut de l’espace. Du temps blanc.

Je comprends bien le cercle vicieux de l’agenda surbooké: plus il est booké, plus les choses prennent du temps. Les gens sont énervés d’avoir passé tant de temps dans la file d’attente, et ils sont plus difficiles au guichet. Comme ils savent que la prochaine occasion ne se présentera pas avant un moment (refaire la queue? vous imaginez?) ils en profitent pour tout déballer.

L’article que j’ai lu dit d’ailleurs que dans le monde professionnel, les personnes et ressources importantes (pompiers, médecins des urgences, dirigeants) ne devraient avoir un taux d’occupation de leur temps que de 50 à 60%. En tant que patronne de ma vie, ce serait donc ça que je devrais viser, plutôt que 80% – ou les quasi 100% actuels.

Quarante pour-cent, c’est deux cinquièmes. C’est deux soirs de libre par semaine. C’est presque un jour de week-end sur deux sans projets. J’ai le coeur qui tremblote rien que d’y penser.

On va y aller pas à pas, d’accord?

Quand tu marches [en]

Quand tu marches dans la montagne, tout ce que tu as part dans tes jambes, tes jambes qui te portent un pas après l’autre, sur le chemin, un pas, un pas, un pas, plein de pas.

Il n’y a plus rien pour ton cerveau, dont le mouvement devient inversément proportionnel à celui de ton corps. Tu marches.

Autour de toi des millénaires de roche t’observent. L’espace immense te fait rétrécir. Réfléchir aussi parfois, en tâche de fond, sans même que tu ne t’en rendes compte. Toujours ces pieds qui marchent, le souffle court, allez, un pas, un pas, un autre pas encore, l’odeur du sol sous tes pas.

Ce n’est pas toujours confortable, ce corps qui grimpe et avance tant bien que mal. 

Des fois il n’y a plus que lui, même le paysage disparaît – que dire donc des pensées. Mettre un pied devant l’autre, inspirer, expirer, poser le pied ici, le suivant là, ne pas glisser, assurer le pas sur le sol, la tête remplie du bruit des muscles fatigués et de la peau qui chauffe.

Être étrange parmi les arbres quand il y en a encore, parmi les sommets quand ils sont en vue, tu as laissé en bas tracas et peines, fardeaux inutiles pour aller disparaître sur les chemins. 

Peut-être, si tu as de la chance, tu ne feras qu’un avec le chemin. Tu sentiras ton âme se dissoudre dans le monde qui t’entoure – ce monde sauvage qui n’a aucun besoin de toi.

Coming Back After A Break [en]

It’s never easy to come back after a break. To “start again”, once more. Especially when the break wasn’t intentional.

I never think “oh, I’m going to go a few months without writing or blogging”. Or “I’m going to stop judo for 6 months”. Life happens, and time goes by, and there we are.

As always, the easiest way back is to take the path of least resistance: in my case, when it comes to blogging, writing about coming back.

You know the meme: “My brain is like an internet browser. I have 17 tabs open, 3 of them are frozen and I have no idea where the music is coming from.” That’s it, and it’s not just my brain: my life is like that.

Hyperactivity tends to fill up calendars and keep one running around. Medication for ADHD is (literally, for some people) life-saving but it doesn’t change who we are: it makes the challenges that come with the condition more manageable.

In my case, I have discovered, with medication, that I have better control on being able to make myself do things. I can plan things for my day and follow the plan. I can make long(ish) term projects without feeling deep despair. I am “able to do” much more easily, and therefore spending much less of my time bogged down by my executive disfunction, less of my time worrying about what is wrong with me or feeling distressed because I don’t understand why certain parts of my operating system seem broken or buggy. As I’ve written a few times, I now feel like I have admin rights to the operating system of my life, and it’s great.

But the flip side is that I still want to do as many things as before. And I’m actually doing more than before. But even with my new-found power to “do”, I cannot do all the things. My wants are too numerous for the time and energy life puts at my disposal.

So I’ve been running a lot, doing cool things, resting too (not quite enough, but decently enough), and not managing to squeeze writing into there.

I have come to understand, over my many years of writing, that I generally write on impulse. An idea goes through my head, I write. Something pisses me off, I write. I think of something helpful for somebody else, I write. I want to share something with others, I write. I’m upset, I write. Now that my impulse control is better, this need to write is not as strong – which is great, because it means that when something annoys me or catches my attention, instead of having to sit down and write about it for an hour or three, I can “stick to the plan” more or less and get my work done or pay my bills. But it’s also not great, because I haven’t yet figured out where and how to firewall writing time and energy in my life. Because I very much still want to write. I still have ideas, there are things I want to say, to share, to rant (diplomatically) about.

To be able to write, I need to feel that I have enough time to do it. So, clearly, one of the keys is having a less busy schedule. Surprise. Nothing new to see here. I’m working on it.

Also: when I sit down because I have some space where I “could” write, the stuff to write is gone from my brain. I remember, many years ago, keeping a list of “to blog” ideas. It completely backfired because they became “tasks” that I never felt like doing. This is also something I’m looking for the keys to, with my new understanding of how my brain works: how to “generate motivation” for a task I want to do, when the motivation is not there. I watched this video on “jumpstarting” a few weeks back and I think there is something in it. Exploring what I can do with these admin rights, you see.

One thing I know I wanted to write about was my “going to sleep” advice, because it’s a question that comes up here and there, and I have a long list of advice, which would be perfect to collect in a blog post.

I want to write about my holidays walking the Dales Way (without getting stuck processing 1500 photos and without waiting so long that it all fades away). I’ve been thinking a lot about how to manage time and tasks (at work and off work), including how queuing theory can maybe help. (Yes, the article is in German, and I actually read it in German: another thing to write about, my experience with working in a majority-German-speaking environment. Lots of thoughts about that.) Perimenopause and HRT is also a topic that is on my radar, as is, of course, a lot of stuff about ADHD. Turning 50. And more, but my brain is drawing blanks right now (I had a very long day on Wednesday and I’m still recovering).

Are you a reformed “impulse writer”? How did you manage the transition? How do you “generate motivation” when faced with a task you want to do – but you’ve let the fire for it die?

Viral Christmas [en]

Today I’m finally feeling “well enough” to try and blog, after five days of fever. This is the third time I’m ill since mid-November. As I’m sick (!) of lying around, doing puzzles and watching TV series, and I don’t really feel up to much, I figured I could try and chronicle this – for science. So don’t expect anything really exciting from this post. My neurones are still reconfiguring.

It’s not impossible my first illness mid-November was covid, come to think of it. It could explain the two next back-to-back bouts. It might also be that my poor immune system is feeling down in the dumps after Monique’s death and the difficult times that have been following for me.

Illness 1

Late in the evening of November 14th I was suddenly hit with an awful sore throat. The last time that happened was in early July 2022 when I got covid. Why didn’t I think it was covid this time? The next morning, aside from the sore throat, I felt “fine”. Went to work the two next days with a mask and painkillers, but I didn’t seem to have any fever.

I remember being surprised at how functional I was, because usually, as soon as I come down with any kind of cold I feel like utter crap. Here, my throat was hurting, but I felt “generally OK”.

On the 16th however, I had a very strange episode of motion sickness. On the train back home to work I felt so nauseous I thought my midday sandwich was to blame. I got home, ate something felt better, took the car to drive to my dad’s where I was expected for dinner. After 10 or 15 minutes driving, I found myself wondering where on earth I was going to stop the car on the packed motorway with no emergency lane if I was sick. I couldn’t go any further and had to turn the car around at Morges. I arrived home feeling so horrible I expected to barely have time to rush to the bathroom, but no: between the time I got out of the car and into my flat, it had started to subside, and was back to normal within a short hour. Clearly the virus I was dealing with did something really weird to my inner ear.

On the 17th I rested. My nose was runny and I was coughing, but I’d seen worse. On the 18th I felt well enough to go and help out with the garden at the chalet. Maybe not the best idea (no hint of motion sickness though). I gave in mid-afternoon, and the next day I was out of it and my cough was worse (no surprise). I put myself on codeine and worked from home on the 20th. The next day I felt on the mend enough for my normal work regime, though the cough lingered on, as it usually does.

Illness 2

By December 2nd I was feeling ready to pick up judo again the next week. Woke up on the 3rd with a sniffly nose, and by end afternoon I was knocked out and slept a good 2.5 hours until 7.30pm. Had a dreadful night, not feeling well and upset that I was falling ill again. Stayed at home in bed on the 4th (nose and couch and slight fever, “my usual”), and bravely (stupidly) decided that after this day of total rest I would be well enough to go to work the next day.

Bad idea. After 10 minutes on the train I knew I had made a mistake. The friend I sometimes travel with was there and told me (kindly) that I looked like crap. I headed back home early afternoon, as soon as “the meeting” I’d been going for was dealt with. I took the 6th off (couch and rest), and saw my doctor on the 7th as I was still not feeling fit for work (I still had some fever). She put me on leave until the 11th, included. It was needed, though I felt terribly guilty about missing work and being ill. Symptoms this time around were mainly cough, cough, cough, some fever, a stuffy nose and feeling generally weak and miserable. The usual cold for me.

On the 12th I was back to being “normally” functional again, but taking the lift instead of stairs, though. At least my brain was back.

Illness 3

The cough lingered on as it always does but within a week I felt in good enough shape that I was running up stairs again and looking forward to finally going back to judo and skiing during the winter break (though I skipped singing practice on the 13th).

On the 21st morning I woke up with a painful trachea and a nastier cough than the day before. That didn’t bode well. Thankfully I was working from home. In the afternoon I noted that the two flights of stairs between my office and my flat felt like an exhausting trek and that I was pretty out of breath. As I suspected, my temperature was rising. I saw my doctor the next day, who checked that nothing scary was afoot, and I went back to rest, hoping I’d be fit for our first family Christmas party on the 25th.

As I’m trying to determine objective indicators I can use to decide if I’m “fit for work” or not (after the fiasco of illness 2), I though I’d keep track of my temperature and associated symptoms.

I can therefore confirm that when I’m running 37.1 or even 37.0 I feel like crap: my body is painful, moving anywhere is a huge effort, to say nothing of walking up a flight of stairs. My brain is mush. I am, however, able to watch TV series and listen to podcasts. When it climbs up to 37.5 or a bit more, it gets worse. Concentrating on a TV show or a podcast feels like an effort, and I’ll find myself not wanting to or giving up. I can cook a simple meal, however. You know, fry some fish fingers in the pan, make some pasta and heat some frozen vegetables. At 38.5 or more, we enter the world of “just let me close my eyes and wait until it’s over”. No podcasts, no TV. I can still crawl out of bed and put a frozen pizza in the oven. But no more than that. Mainly, I will be lying down, awake or asleep, mind blank, waiting.

So, on the 21st, 37.1; 22nd, 37.5; I don’t know what happened during the night between the 22nd and 23rd, but I know I hit 38.7, woke up at one point so drenched in sweat that I had to change, woke up another time shivering, woke up another time feeling my symptoms were much diminished (pain, inflammation), and in the morning of the 23rd I was still above 38.5. At some point in the afternoon I got so fed up that I took something to bring the fever down. 38 already felt much better, and 37.5 was positively wonderful – in comparison. I hovered around 37 and 37.5 on the 24th, and yesterday (the 25th) I was “almost normal”: down to 36.3 at times, my “base temperature”, but then back up to 37 in the evening.

Back to now

Today, on the 26th, is the first day I really feel “ok” and my temperature is normal (so far). Of course, I’m still coughing my lungs out, exhausted, and my whole body is painful. Codeine is going to continue being my best friend for the next days. I won’t be going to family Christmas tomorrow, but with a bit of luck I’ll be able to attend the one we postponed until the 29th.

I hope you enjoy all these calendar and numerical details. As you can see, it’s what’s coming out of my brain right now.

For those of you who may be concerned: of course I’m taking medicine for all this. As we all know, with viruses all you can do is rest and treat the symptoms. And I have the nasty, efficient, deadly drugs you need for that. Codeine, cortisone inhalers, decongestants that you shouldn’t take for too long, painkillers when needed, antihistamines for the night, steam thingy with an essential oil mix, stuff you pour down your nose, you name it, I have it. Yes, the sad reality of life is that you can “do everything right” and still fall ill.

Well, I’m not exactly doing everything right. One thing I have trouble doing is resting enough and taking it easy when I need to. A topic for another blog post.

I’ll leave you with a selection of TV series I’ve been watching, as I’ve gone through the existing offering of Star Trek. Definitely watch Slow Horses and The Night Manager if you like spy stuff. Catch up with Good Omens for something funny (and wicked). As Doctor Who season 14 is starting, have you caught up with the three 2023 Christmas specials? If you’ve missed them so far, I also recommend making your way through The Mandalorian, Picard, Ms. Marvel (love the South-East Asian cultural context) and, last but not least, Loki (even if you’re not into the Marvel stuff). Currently watching: The Wheel of Time (medieval fantasy, friendship, adventure, a quest, magic, powerful women…). Away from fiction, if, like me, you’re wondering if you maybe missed something by not knowing much about Taylor Swift, watch Miss Americana. I might be a fan now.

It’s Already September [en]

Started writing 05.09.2023

Reading Mark’s recent post prompted me to open up WordPress and type something.

My stepmom Monique died two weeks ago. She had been my dad’s wife for the last 20+ years and a person I really cherished. It was sudden, although she had been ill for years, but stable. In the space of a week we went from “coming home from this hospital stay tomorrow” to “it’s the end”. Although I know there is no right or wrong way in grief, I do not feel like I’m dealing well. I do not want this new world without her.

I had recently found increased confidence and stability at work, after my holidays, constructive discussions with my boss that eased some of the pressure I was putting on myself, and some tweaks and adjustments to my self-organisation. I struggle all the more with accepting that I need to cut myself some slack. I’m taking the measure of how much I pressure myself to perform well – even though intellectually I do not feel like I’m giving in to it, emotionally it is still there.

Over the years, I’ve often dealt with grief by writing through it. But this grief is not just mine. I mean, I am not alone in having to deal with Monique’s death. And this makes things more complicated. I plan to post a written version of what I said at her ceremony at some point, however. But I feel stuck, in many ways,

So stuck I abandoned this post for a week. Picking it up again after stumbling on this post by Annette.

It’s Monday afternoon. Doctor’s orders, these last three weeks I’ve been partly off work. Though I struggle with accepting that, as mentioned above, I can feel it was (is) needed. I’m slowly starting to feel somewhat “normal” when it comes to dealing with daily life, and a bit of (easy) work.

But I don’t have any bumpers, extra bandwidth, suspension, or whatever other image might work to express that minor complications of life see me on the verge of “OMG I can’t deal with this”. I’ve not only lifted my foot of the gas regarding work, but regarding pretty much everything that requires an effort on my part, to give myself space to recover. I’m “OK”, but not my usual OK. My bike fell down this morning (clumsiness) and the onboard computer wasn’t working anymore when I put it in place. I didn’t melt down, but the idea of having to deal with bike repairs (maybe a day or so without my primary means of transport) filled me with dread and despair. Luckily it was “nothing” and a quick stop at the repair shop solved it. It’s just an example. Life is full of such “little-big problems”, and usually one groans and deals with it. In my case, today, I was happy I didn’t end up crying in front of my bike when it wouldn’t start up.

Back to grief. I’m past the “burst into tears at bad moments” days. But I’m still in this weird space where I’m living as if Monique’s death is a bad situation that is going to resolve itself. Like, it’s temporary. Of course I know death is very, very much not temporary, but I seem to have trouble truly convincing myself. I feel like I’m on hold, in some no-man’s-land between shock and a deluge of emotions I really don’t want to have to face. All this is bringing back a whole lot more than “just” my mother’s death, which is the obvious parallel to draw. Details maybe some other time, or not. We’ll see how I process all this.

So, here are a few things I could be writing about but don’t really have the energy for right now. If you’re curious, ask me, and it might give me the impulse to continue, who knows. I could write about the two-week hypnotherapy introduction course I took this summer, and what a life-changing experience it was. I could write about how much time I’m spending at the chalet, and all the hikes I’ve been on, including a recent via ferrata. I could write about being back on track with judo, losing 10kg last year (on purpose) and how happy my (otherwise unhappy) knees are about it. I could write about singing, about making difficult but much-needed decisions, about using Asana, about balancing the need to follow impulses and stick with the programme, about the new boat and taking it out alone for the first time today, about Oscar and managing a support community for diabetic cats, about navigating a multilingual work environment which sends me back to topics I spent a lot of time thinking about back in 2007-8, when I did what I call (in my personal biography) my “Babel Fish Conference Tour”, I could share some poetry and write some more, or write about trying to get a coworking space back off the ground in 2023 while working in another city, even tell you more about how I’m making sense of the story of my life right now (thanks As’trame).

I feel bad about not writing about all this. Frustrated, because I like writing, and sharing, but also guilty-bad because in a complicated way it also has to do with all these things I feel I have to “do for others”. Because I’m good at them. And, again in a complicated way I might try to explain someday, but that maybe some of you will understand immediately, it has to do with the meaning of life. The meaning of my life. And of life in general. Especially when the biological “meaning” of life (to perpetuate itself) is absent from yours.

So here we are, early September coloured by death and multilayered sadness and pain and fear, from the simple grief of having lost somebody I loved to the meaning of life, sitting on my balcony with my cat, trying to keep pressure and others out of the equation of my life for a little moment more.

I’m off to judo.

Looking at 2022 [en]

[fr] Un récapitulatif de mon année 2022

I haven’t written in ages (a familiar refrain) and figured I would use the pretext of 2022 coming to a close to jot a few things down. No particular order, just follow my brain.

I’m still listening to a lot of podcasts. Here are some: Meta de choc, On The Media, This American Life, Vethologie, Radiolab, Conspirituality, Atlas Obscura, The Moth, Hidden Brain, The Ezra Klein Show, NPR Politics, Short Wave, Science Vs, The Pulse, TWiV, Planet Money, Vacarme, Fresh Air, 99 Percent Invisible, The Daily (NYT), Brian Lehrer, Consider This, Hacking Humans, Trade Offs, Throughline, My Cat’s Tale, Gates Investigates… and Sleep With Me when I can’t sleep. Just realised writing this list that I’ve dropped a lot of Gimlet shows now they’ve gone Spotify-only (I use overcast to listen to my podcasts). In the “serialised investigations” department, The Trojan Horse Affair (Serial), Will Be Wild (Trump, Inc) and The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan (Conviction season 3).

After finishing Star Trek The Next Generation, I’m deep in Deep Space Nine, which is absolutely wonderful. I’ve also picked up (intermittently) the last books of the Foreigner series, that I’ve been reading for years now and highly recommend.

This has been a year of managing to do judo reasonably regularly (of course, still also regularly absent because of injuries), singing, hiking. Not much sailing and just a little skiing, but I hope to do more next year. I tried stand-up paddling and to my surprise, really enjoyed it and am planning on taking it up this spring. Along with snow-shoeing this winter. I figure that with 50 on the horizon, I should make sure I also have physical activities available that are a little less “rough” than judo and skiing.

The big event of the year has been starting a new job. It’s with the national train company, in the field of energy maintenance, near Bern. Quite a change from what has been my professional life until now, in a way (and I’m glad about it), but also a perfect continuation for my interest in management, strategy, and basically, how a business runs. I’m learning a lot and improving my German – at the same time, discovering what it is to function in an environment where I’m linguistically challenged, not something I’m used to. I’m really enjoying the environment I’m in and super happy about my new position.

2022 is the first complete year I’ve been through since my ADHD diagnosis and treatment (end 2021). And I can really say that it has changed my life. I finally feel alive and not surviving. I started being able to accomplish things I wanted to again. I stopped feeling overwhelmed all the time. My life felt like it was like it was supposed to be, instead of feeling like there was something horribly wrong with me all the time. Despite the stress of not having a job during the first part of the year, I was able to enjoy my life and learn more and more about how I function and how to manage myself. I already had quite a lot figured out (or I wouldn’t have made it this far), but the tweaks I started putting in place really made a difference. Long-term personal projects didn’t seem like something out of reach anymore. I even felt up to inviting my family over for Christmas.

Starting my new job has of course been a big change in the way I organise my life, and I do feel I have temporarily backtracked in some of my progress (personal admin and projects, social life). But it’s pretty normal and I’m not too worried that I’ll catch up again with myself over the coming year.

During 2022 I also lost 10kg – on purpose, of course. I’d been slowly putting on weight over the years, and it sped up these last couple of years. Coming close to 90kg on the scale got me serious about doing something. My ADHD treatment also helped, certainly (better impulse control). I was followed by a nutritionist who really helped me tweak my food habits for better balance and more reasonable portions. I have never been on a diet in my entire life and didn’t intend to – I just knew I was eating “too much” and probably not making the best decisions regarding what to eat, and when (I never looked at the calorie count on food, so for example had no idea cheese was so… energy-dense). Overall the effort required was minimal, I feel better in my body (mobility) and fit in my large collection of 14L trousers again.

I’m still active managing the Feline Diabetes community I founded nearly 5 years ago on Facebook. 2022 is clearly the year the community for veterinarians took off (1.2k members and counting). I was even invited to give a talk on the occasion of the annual veterinary congress in France. An accomplishment I’m pretty proud of!

I still have my coworking space eclau, but have really had trouble getting it going again after the pandemic. I’ve also kept a small independent side-business in consulting, but I’m keeping it very minimal right now as I want to focus my energy on my new job and my personal activities and projects first and foremost. I continued my training in the Palo Alto brief therapy approach, and that is also on the back burner until next summer, when I’ll be going to Paris for a course in hypnosis and brief therapy. I should have gone this year but I got covid just before I was supposed to leave.

Overall, 2022 was a really good year for me, and I can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store!

The Job Market: Finding Where To Fit In [en]

I’ve been looking for a new job for a while now. And with time – and a few interviews – and rejections – I’ve come to an understanding of one thing that is making things tricky for me. Any good problem has multiple causes, so this is of course just one of them, but it’s the one that has to do with me, how my life played out, decisions I made, my experience, my skillset.

It’ll be a surprise to no reader of this blog that I have a rather atypical career path. Just having been self-employed for over ten years does that to you (and there is more). I don’t know about other job markets, but here, although everybody will tell you that having an atypical profile is an asset, recruiters are not readily going to pounce on you to hire you. And honestly, I don’t blame them: if you have interested and motivated candidates that ideally fit your “persona” for the job, why take a risk with somebody who doesn’t, however promising? We don’t like risks that much.

It quickly became clear to me that there was a big difference between jobs I would be capable of doing and jobs I had a chance of being hired for. There are many jobs I could do. But not that many where, in comparison with all the other candidates applying for that position, I would seem like the best person to hire.

Most of the time, it boils down to experience. Especially at my age and seniority level, they’ll often be looking for somebody who has “occupied a similar position for 5 years or more”. I haven’t, obviously. I have the skillset, but I don’t have the indicator in my career path that one would expect to confirm it. One of the reasons is that I have been self-employed most of my career, and the other one is that I learn fast. My experience goes a long way. But that’s not a very convincing argument on a job application.

The corollary is, of course, that when I apply for more junior positions, where less experience is expected, I don’t get in either, because I’m overqualified.

Now, where do I stand the best chance of “fitting the profile” when it comes to work experience? The answer is, as far as I can see, in digital communications/communication strategy, as this is the core of the work I did while I was self-employed, and the first two years after that. Digital transformation also fits the bill, but most positions in that area require more enterprise/organisational change management than I can demonstrate. So, I’ve been focusing my efforts on Communications Manager/Digital Communications Manager positions.

The problem seems to remain, however. Other candidates for the same positions often have more formal management experience, which is reassuring for a recruiter. I have to say this is starting to seem more and more like a catch-22. And knowing the value that I can bring an employer, not being able to get a foot in the door is quite frustrating.

Whether you’re in recruitment or not, I’m interested in your thoughts about this. Am I onto something, or am I “finding excuses” and I just need to try harder – or try differently? Have you found yourself in a similar or parallel position? What am I missing?

I’d like to add (because people who see me as The Freelancer, which I was indeed for most of my career, sometimes have trouble coming around to this) that I really want to find an employed position. I don’t particularly want to become self-employed again. I guess this is something I might detail in an other article!

I’m also aware that networking is the key. And I’m starting to think that in my case, it really is the only key.

How Your Struggles Can Shape Your Strengths [en]

How come I am so good at setting priorities in a work context, or helping others sort through their priorities, when I can spend a whole Sunday faffing around because I can’t decide what I want to do the most?

When it comes to my personal interests, I struggle with setting priorities. There are so many things I would like to do! The world is so interesting! Which book do I want to start with? Will I write or work on my photography? Shall I spend time on refining the documentation for my existing support group, or dive into a new communications project on the margins of that community? I’m sure some of you can relate.

So, I tend to view myself, internally, as somebody who has trouble setting priorities. But that is not how others see me. They often see me as decisive, clear-headed, rapidly capable of teasing out what needs to be done first or what is most important.

How come?

As with many things in life, it is my personal struggles that have honed these skills. I have spent an immense amount of energy trying to figure out how to help myself decide if I would rather go for a walk on my free day or sort through my holiday photos (two activities I enjoy). I have come up with countless strategies to break down projects into manageable tasks, and determine what must be done before what. I have spent hours thinking through the consequences of doing or not doing, so that where to start would become clearer. Because if I do not take the trouble to do this, when I’m alone with myself and with few constraints, I tend to slip and slide.

So, I have had a lot of practice doing this, because it didn’t come naturally to me. I’ve had to think it through. I’ve had to devise methods. I’ve done it again and again and again.

Put me in an easier setting, like work or facing somebody else’s priorities: I have a huge toolbox, and I probably don’t even need to use all of it.

The very fact that I have a personal struggle with – in this example – setting priorities in my personal life means that I have developed strong skills in that area. Skills that are an asset in my professional life.

Think of a young man who has to carry a heavy load of rocks on his back everywhere he goes. He might struggle compared to his peers when they go hiking. He may actually stumble and risk falling more, he will be tired, he will be slow. But if he can put down the load of rocks to go and run an errand, he will be the quickest and the strongest of them all.

What superpowers do you have that were born from your personal struggles?

Il y a mouvement et mouvement [fr]

J’ai toujours vu dans mon rapport au corps et au mouvement un paradoxe: autant je suis parfaitement à l’aise dans le sport, autant quand il s’agit de danser ou de marcher en rythme, c’est une toute autre histoire.

Ça ne se résume pas juste à la question de “sentir”, comme on pourrait croire. Quand on dévale une piste de ski à toute allure, ou qu’on est dans un combat de judo, on n’a pas d’autre choix que de sentir le mouvement. Le sien, celui de l’autre.

J’adore la musique, j’adore chanter, mais il y a quelque chose du registre de “sentir le rythme” et le manifester à travers mon corps qui m’est très difficile.

Ce soir, lors d’une discussion de fin de cours avec ma prof de chant (on avait justement fait un exercice très difficile pour moi, bouger et chanter en même temps), j’ai mis le doigt sur une caractéristique qui distingue ces deux sortes de mouvements, ceux qui me sont faciles et ceux qui me rendent toute pataude. Dans le mouvement sportif, ou le mouvement de tous les jours, on est dans du mouvement “intentionnel”. On cherche à faire quelque chose. Une action. A amener notre corps ailleurs ou autrement dans l’espace. C’est, d’une certaine façon utilitaire.

Quand on danse ou qu’on marque un rythme avec ses pieds et ses mains (une forme de danse, en fait?), on est dans un mouvement qui est plutôt expressif, je dirais. On ne cherche pas à accomplir quelque chose, on cherche à accompagner, soutenir ou marquer quelque chose d’intérieur.
Tiens, je me dis que ça doit sûrement exister, des typologies du mouvement.

Je me demande aussi s’il y a un élément “neuropsy” dans mon rapport très différent à ces deux familles de mouvements. Je sais, par exemple, qu’un exercice particulièrement difficile pour moi est de maintenir ma vigilance durant des temps morts de longueur variable, et d’agir ou non ensuite en fonction d’un stimulus (une lettre apparaît à l’écran: appuie sur la barre d’espace; si c’est un X, n’appuie pas). Je me suis demandé si ça pouvait avoir un lien avec ma difficulté de sens du rythme.

Par exemple, quand je chante une chanson, à moins d’être très entrainée, je rate tous les départs. Une fois dans la phrase, le rythme ça va. Mais savoir quand commencer, c’est toujours un problème. Si je tape des mains et que je chante en même temps je perds très vite le rythme des mains – ou alors je me concentre sur les mains et j’oublie de chanter.

Voilà. quelques réflexions que je voulais capturer. Si c’est un sujet que vous connaissez, je serais ravie d’en apprendre plus, j’avoue.

De l’auto-censure du chercheur d’emploi [fr]

[en] When you're on the job market, what do you write about, what do you not write about? I realised that for sometime now I've been self-censoring quite a bit. Maybe it's time to try and do things a little differently.

Quand on cherche du travail, il faut faire attention à ce qu’on écrit en ligne. C’est bien connu. Une évidence, même. Il ne faudrait pas risquer d’effaroucher des employeurs potentiels, dans un marché du travail tendu comme un arc.

Alors je fais attention. Je me retiens. Je ne parle pas de ci, de ça, ou encore de ceci. Mais ça me chicane. Si vous me suivez sur Facebook, vous avez peut-être vu une vidéo live (privée) que j’ai faite à ce sujet il y a plusieurs mois.

Il y a plusieurs raisons pour lesquelles ça me chicane, et qui se rejoignent au final. En fin de compte, il s’agit d’une pesée des risques et bénéfices. En étant “prudente” dans ce que j’écris, qu’est-ce que je perds? Qu’est-ce que je gagne? Qu’est-ce que je gagnerais et perdrais à l’être moins? Où mettre la barre? De quoi est-il OK de parler, de quoi ne faudrait-il surtout pas parler? Et comment?

Cette situation m’est d’autant plus pénible, j’avoue, parce que m’exprimer par écrit, en public, est une grande part de qui je suis. C’est entre autres comme ça que je réfléchis, que je fais sens du monde et de la vie, que je crée et maintiens des liens avec autrui, et que – à mon petit niveau – j’essaie d’apporter quelque chose au monde. C’est ainsi que je me suis construite.

Aussi, durant toute ma carrière de pionnière du numérique, ce qui m’a porté c’est la vision d’une communication plus transparente, plus authentique, plus humaine. Cela ne signifie pas se passer de stratégie, de renoncer à influencer autrui, ou de sombrer dans une transparence radicale et sans filtre, mais tout de même: maintenir autant que possible qui on est dans ce qu’on dit ou écrit. On crée des liens avec des personnes, pas des constructions ou des artifices. (Enfin, on pourrait discuter de ça concernant les marques ou les célébrités: mais qu’est-ce qu’un lien?)

C’est même quelque chose que j’ai enseigné, comme approche du réseautage, et aussi pour se rendre visible dans le monde du travail.

Et là, j’avoue, maintenant que je ne suis plus (depuis plusieurs années) dans la position de l’indépendante mais de l’employée, je me retrouve, de façon presque un peu humiliante, saisie par la peur de “faire mal”, de “me griller”, de lâcher dans l’espace public quelque chose qu’on me reprochera par la suite. Quelle ironie. Moi qui ai passé des années à encourager les autres à prendre quelques risques, voilà que je n’ose pas non plus.

Qu’on soit clair: il ne s’agit pas de dire tout et n’importe quoi. Mais peut-être de mettre le curseur un peu plus loin que ce que la prudence “officielle” (et toute helvétique) dicterait. Par exemple: est-ce que je parle de ma difficulté à me positionner sur le marché de l’emploi, vu mon parcours? du diagnostic qui est en train de changer ma vie? du genre de travail que je cherche? est-ce que j’ose dire “je cherche”, plutôt que d’autres périphrases qui cherchent à renverser le rapport de forces, présentant ma disponibilité sur le marché du travail comme une opportunité à saisir pour l’employeur qui aura l’intelligence de s’emparer de moi avant les autres? est-ce que j’ose montrer un peu de vulnérabilité? est-ce que je parle du fait que par moments, l’avenir me fait peur? est-ce que j’écris sur des thématiques qui m’intéressent, comme le diabète félin, mais ne font pas partie de mon coeur de métier? est-ce que je publie des choses que j’écris en mode créatif? en gros, est-ce que je reviens à “être moi”, ou est-ce que je continue à être, ici aussi, en mode “entretien d’embauche permanent”, sans montrer la moindre faiblesse, la moindre faille, costume et cravate, ongles faits la veille?

Ecrire a toujours été pour moi un puissant moyen de me connecter aux autres. Une de mes forces, c’est mon réseau. Et j’ai fini par réaliser, il y a quelques mois, qu’en m’auto-censurant ainsi j’étais aussi en train de me couper de mon réseau – à plus forte raison durant ces années de pandémie.

Alors, qu’en est-il pour moi de cette balance des risques? Est-ce que les opportunités qui vont s’ouvrir si j’écris un peu plus, et peut-être sur des choses dont “il n’est pas considéré bon de parler trop publiquement”, vont compenser le risque que je cours de désécuriser certains? Est-ce que je saurai gérer le délicat exercice d’équilibrisme entre une plus grande transparence, et ne pas se tirer une balle dans le pied? Y a-t-il d’ailleurs une mesure objective du moment où on se tire la balle dans le pied? Je suis personnellement convaincue que la balle dans le pied pour une personne peut être le courage admirable pour une autre.

On m’a dit à plusieurs reprises qu’un de mes grands atouts était ma personnalité. Une personnalité, c’est difficile à mettre sur un CV. Que ma force était mon réseau. Un réseau, ça ne se manifeste pas tellement dans les listings de LinkedIn ou JobUp. C’est utile justement pour accéder au marché caché – mais ça ne va pas fonctionner si on le laisse dormir.

Une dernière chose qui me motive à changer ma façon de faire et d’écrire ici, c’est le principe suivant: si ce qu’on fait n’est pas en train de fonctionner, il faut essayer autre chose. Cela fait maintenant un bon moment que je réponds sagement à des offres d’emploi et que je surveille la façon dont je me présente en public. Je cherche toujours.

Des postes pour moi, il y en a. J’ai eu des entretiens. J’ai même cru, il y a un moment, avoir décroché un poste qui aurait été vraiment un bon match – mais juste pas. Je sais donc que je suis une candidate viable sur le marché du travail, et je ne doute pas de ce que j’ai à apporter à un futur employeur, mais je pense que le processus (annonce, envoyer CV+dossier, tri, entretien…) me dessert. Il est donc temps pour moi d’essayer de faire les choses un peu plus “à ma manière”, et de voir si ça change la donne.

Comme toujours, si ce que j’écris vous interpelle ou vous fait réagir, n’hésitez pas à utiliser les commentaires ou à m’écrire!