Coda to “This So-called Life”
Here are some additional notes that didn’t make it to my article in time as well as some background info. Considering that many of them were in my head through most of the night, I think it makes sense to share them:
I was asked how long it took me write the article. The first 3–4 paragraphs plus the quote from an article in Ars Technica date from November 2014. I wrote, proofed and ‘designed’ the rest in 5 hours. I had been thinking of ‘coming out’ for months so many of the ideas and memories were at hand.
In August of 2014, I had previously published an article detailing my experiences during the Great Recession and some of my struggles were described there, though without touching much on the underlying causes.
The mid-October 2014 article in Ars Technica—normally a technology-focused publication—by an author about to depart and his struggles with depression, was a key moment for me in my desire to discuss my own circumstances. The reader quote that I shared in the article touched me immensely and I shared it with my wife soon after reading it.
This summer 2014 campaign about mental health awareness by the student unions of both the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB, inspired me and continues to inspire me. Indeed, one should not be defined by one’s mental health. #MyDefinition is the hashtag.
I graduated the MBA with honours (cum laude). I managed to do so while working full time (including 6+ months without salary), getting married, being laid off, studying a term full-time (except that I took 6 courses during the term, where 4 is considered reasonable and 5 leaves no room for error), starting a new job, having a house built on spec, and trying to start a family.
Before applying to do the MBA, which I would pay for on my own dime and complete on my personal time, my manager—one of the 5 managers that I would report to in a 12-month period to be exact—saw fit to tell the CEO that she didn’t think it made sense for me do an MBA. I never understood how that was any of her business but it illustrated the negative perception I faced because I didn’t exactly fit. I was a political science grad working in technology marketing. Somehow that was a bad thing.
Exactly 3 months after completing the MBA, I started a second graduate degree (in French), a M.Sc. in international studies, a degree that is a mix of political science, history, law, economics, and culture. I undertook this degree for two reasons:
- to prove to myself that I had the knowledge and the discipline to take an idea and expand it over 100 pages. In this case, it was my own idea and not one imposed on me by an advisor. That was important to me.
- to prove to others that I was not the intellectual lightweight that my undergrad results had led them to believe. I had ultimately graduated with a B.A.—a major in political science and a minor in economics. Half of my coursework (though not results) had been in economics but my grades were so bad, I needed to add more political science classes to get me to an average where I could graduate. There are at least 12 more credits in my degree than are normally required to graduate.
I researched and wrote a good portion of my Master’s thesis from hotel rooms, during business travel and extended periods of remote work. My research took about 3 months. When I finally sat down to write my 100+ pages—also while on the road, so essentially after work in a different time zone—I did it in about 5 weeks. I built up a chain of causality, using a systemic thinking mindset and a Microsoft Visio-like graphing tool, and wrote to that. Here is that chart:
It was eventually accepted with token revisions; one of my advisors, the department head at the time, said they ‘couldn’t let me off that easily’. It took me less than 2–3 hours to make the requested corrections.
I missed graduating again with honours by 0.05 if you count, as the Université of Montréal does, the undergrad pre-requisite courses that most students end up having to do (unless you had a B.A. in international studies coming in, you likely need to do one or more pre-requisites). If you ignore the pre-requisite courses, I finished with honours, a 0.15 above the requirement.
My one black mark was a ‘C’ in an international law course, which occurred during a strike at the university. (When you study in a French-language university in Quebec, you face a recurring risk of strikes by either students, professors, lecturers, teaching assistants or a combination of them.) In this case, I believe it was a strike by professors. Since I ‘knew” the ‘teacher’ was a professor, I had assumed class was cancelled for the duration of the strike. However, in this case, she was teaching in a capacity as a ‘lecturer’ and her class had continued uninterrupted. I thus missed half the semester and showed up for the in-class, written exam with my usual host of challenges.
One of my pre-requisite courses took me to the other French-language university in Montreal, the Université du Québec à Montréal, hence doubling my risk of a strike. There was a strike, a student one I believe. All in all, I think I had to manage around 3 strikes in a 4 years.
My point in bringing up these academic achievements is that I have, with the right environment, the ability to do ‘great’ things. I also have the grit and the determination to overcome adversity. When I have the ability to act upon external forces, particularly objective ones that affect everyone equally and where my brain is not actively working to undermine me, I can do well. No more so than in running or in cycling where I can set a goal and grind through pain for hours at a time to hit my goal.
Reading the above, one might even wonder what the ‘problem’ is. The problem is that I have been unable to translate those ‘off the field’ accomplishments—in education or in endurance sports (18 marathons in 5 years, 30,000km of cycling in 4 years)—into ‘on the field’ accomplishments, ergo my career. My career goals are not even as lofty as my athletic ones. All I want is the opportunity to enjoy a (moderately) stable, purposeful career where I have the opportunity to show what I can do and be judged ‘on the content of my character’ (Note: hat tip to MLK).
Based on my original article, I think you can see that I have a lot of self-knowledge. I know what my story is, I know what my strengths are and when my weaknesses will trip me up. Consequently, I only apply on jobs where I believe I can do the job very well.
However, I tend to severely under-perform in job interviews, going on tangents even more easily than in a written exam. Phone interviews are worse than in-person ones, though these are merely shades of grey. In either event, I don’t usually get called back. In November or December of 2014 I even said as much to an MBA alumnus working at a company where I was to have a phone interview. She told me not to worry. The phone screening was a flop and I never heard back.
In the absence of stability or rewarding opportunity, I still work hard to do what I can to offer a positive impact on my colleagues and the community.
I have had the opportunity to manage a couple of teams of marketing professional in recent years and have enjoyed it immensely. Having worked in start-ups where I was the marketing department and had to look to myself for direction, inspiration, and feedback, or was a member of a dysfunctional team — those 5 managers in 12 months is a record — I have taken the approach of managing people not as I was managed but as I wished I had been.
I work hard to understand what makes the people who report to me tick, to provide regular helpful feedback, and projects that stimulate them and grow their capabilities. I have been told by my reports and my managers that my approach was valued and effective. Managing a team well—giving them what they need to be effective—is tough enough in the best of times but with my brain in constant hyper-drive, I would inevitably be mentally exhausted.
I also have an off-and-on idea about a site to help people discover their personal stories. It is informed by many of the mentoring engagements I have undertaken with new and soon-to-be grads at the undergrad level. I recently started mentoring for 14–30 year-olds with this organization.
My consulting activities are under the name of Digitera, which I founded in 1998 but used only one or twice for the next 15 years. My goal is to provide marketing consulting services to technology companies, a recognition of where my strengths lay.
If you like my writing, I have a blog on the Digitera site.
That’s all I can think of for now. Thank you again for reading this article and the one from yesterday.
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