Naomi Dathan's Blog, page 7

Pause On Error

PauseOnError is self-organized gathering of software developers and consultants who use Filemaker.  Time was, participants would host seminars in their hotel rooms — whatever they thought others might be interested in.  Their attendees would sit on the floor, the bed, the bathtub . . .      Whatever they needed to do to take in the latest gem of cleverness from their Comrade in Filemaker.

The conference has evolved in past years to a more traditional format  (someone recently hinted that older, wider bottoms don’t sit as comfortably on the edge of a bathtub).  These days, “Pause” is hosted at a hotel with traditional conference rooms.  With chairs.

Of course the upgrade means that tickets cost money, but the conference is still self-organized.  Anyone who has something to share can put themselves on the schedule.  If the schedule is full, they can still host a session in whatever space they can find.

It’s an amazing coming-together of some of the best and brightest in Filemaker — some of the people who are most excited about its effectiveness and incredible potential.  And this year, thanks to some kind lever or magic or persistence on the part of local developing company Adatasol, this year Pause on Error is Cleveland.

If you can be there, you should be there!

 

 

Hotel Room at an Early American Pause On Error Conference (circa 1780)

Prepare to be Frustrated

I intended to start one users group, targeted on people exploring the idea of going into Filemaker Developing as a career.  Due to geographic realities, we ended up with two groups — one in Cleveland and one in Akron.

The members are at wildly different levels of developing experience.  Luckily, due to some kind of benevolent intervention from the Filemaker Fairies, the geographical split happens to match the experience split.  In Akron, I teach . . . something Filemaker . . .  then sit down, shut up and take notes, because these guys all have experience I don’t have in programming, IT and other tech areas.

In Cleveland . . . well, most importantly, we take turns paying for pizza.   And then we go all hands-on up in Filemaker, because these members haven’t developed at all.  Yet.   They are smart and experienced in business, so here it’s a matter of getting their feet wet.  Then their ankles.  Then their knees.  You get the idea.

It’s all about the scaffolding.  What am I on — my third metaphor?  Stay fluid, people — it’s probably not my last.

During my brief stint working on a Masters in Education, I learned the educational theory that we don’t learn in some linear, obvious process.  It’s more like the structure of a building — you’ve got beams going all directions, and those beams provide places for other things (bits of knowledge) to attach to.

Truthfully, although I use the term “scaffolding,” my mind always goes to those hideous, colorful cornstarch noodles that my kids used to lick and stick together in tall Suessian-type structures.

(Sidenote:  Teach your children not to leave those sitting around near the shower.  Particularly if you have a blind husband, as I did at the time.  They stick to all damp flesh.)

It takes a little while to build a base, whether of steel girders or sticky noodles, before you can add enough pieces to have a comprehensible structure.

In Cleveland, we basically spent our last meeting eating pizza, catching up stories of unruly children (mine) and taking turns mangling several Starter Solutions (Filemaker templates, for the as-yet unconverted).

One of the users is daughter-aged, so I saw the dissatisfaction on her face before she said it — “I usually pick things up really quickly, but . . . ”

“Be frustrated,” I told her.  “If you can just let yourself be frustrated for a while, you’ll get this, and you’ll be good at it.”

She looked skeptical, but this is something I’m sure of.

When I started out in Filemaker, I had no tech experience.  I had been a novelist/caregiver/ghostwriter/mom.  I tried to read through the manuals, but a lot of that knowledge had nothing to stick to.  I was frustrated and sometimes overwhelmed.  I literally had nightmares about cascading value lists.

Eventually I accumulated a few sticky noodles.  I could build pretty layouts.  And, okay, I could import these data from Excel.  And, there we go, a basic script to handle that data.  It felt like nothing, but, if you know databases, you know those are the bottom layers of fundamental concepts — the logic, the data, the interface.

And as I floundered, other stray bits of knowledge floated by and adhered to the nearly-dry-from-age surface of my knowledge.  I was frustrated.  As I’ve said before, I considered quitting at least once a month.  I’m not sure when I got past that.  Maybe like a month ago.   But the structure of my knowledge grew into the structure it is today — colorful, some gaps, and every bit as Seussian as the kids’ noodle towers.

Be frustrated.  If what you’re learning is worth it, accept that while fighting through isn’t as easy or hypnotic as playing Candy Crush, you will get there.

Memorize terms you don’t understand.  Play with baffling technology.  Look up knowledge related to what you need to know.  Delve into the history, even though no one will ever ask you about it.  Talk shop obsessively.  That homeless guy may have once worked in Excel — you don’t know until you ask.  Every piece of knowledge you accumulate, however small, provides a little more sticky surface for more pieces of knowledge.

One day you’ll realize that you’re hardly ever frustrated.  That’s how you’ll know it’s time to start learning something new.

 

 

 

 

Joy

The story of a fierce woman who went after her ambitions in spite of the fact that she had a family trying to help her out.  See it!  Then be it!

Just look at the Flowers, Carol

NOTE:  Not related even peripherally to women in business or Filemaker.  Sorry.

Fall 2015 was a traumatic season for Dead fans. You don’t realize how much you love Glenn — how much you NEED his cool reliability and authentic goodness — until he’s gone. And then, he’s not gone. But the hoard came. And the wolves. And now Negan. Alexandria is overrun! They’re all going to die!!!
 
They’re not all going to die, because that would end the show, but  somebody important will be decomposing, animatedly or not, before summer.

I know you want to know who, so let’s look at it from a writing perspective.
 
First, let’s eliminate the obvious:  Glenn.

Dude.  

I know what you’re thinking.  Negan, right?  I didn’t read the comics either, but if you’ve ever seen the internet, you already know that Negan is a BFD. That “F” stands for “freaking,” kids.
 
But it’s not Glenn’s time quite yet.  It’s close — remember how he replayed his “asshole” comment to Rick? That’s a full circle, there, folks, so I hope Seven Yeun has a month-to-month lease. But I predict he’ll meet his maker, and Chris Hardwick, in the  2016/2017 season.

We’re not going to kill a guy immediately after he seemed to die.  Also, Negan is too important of a story line to run out in half a season (Leave Terminus out of this.  There’s no way they can exhaust most storylines that fast).  And then there’s Glenn’s baby.  The birth of the baby is the obvious place to end Glenn’s arc.  He’s either going to see the baby for like five seconds, or just miss seeing it by five seconds.  Because the WD writers are sort of sadistic.

For ratings reasons, we can assume that Rick, Coral and Daryl all have Get Out of Death free cards.  Beyond the ratings and all the meme threats, Daryl has become a moral antagonist to Rick, so we need him.

Maggie and Michonne have no compelling story reason to continue living, but they don’t have a compelling reason to die, either — we haven’t done enough with them lately to justify a heart-rending death.

Okay . . . Maggie is preggers and has been sort of a player in Alexandria.  I guess Negan could kill her in front of Glenn.

Hmm.

Let’s keep Maggie in pocket as a plan B.

Then there’s the second tier guys:  Sasha, Tara, Rosita, Eugene, Father Gabriel, Tobin, Morgan, and Abraham.

I’m pretty sure Abraham’s time is short — his story ended with Eugene’s exposed secret.

I’d love to see Morgan and Gabriel bite it, but their potential to make bad situations worse will probably buy them a lot more time.  We’re looking at this from the writing perspective, remember?

I’m convinced Denise will survive her Wolf Trek, alive but probably way worse for the wear.  That means Tara has some longevity, as her love interest in that storyline.

We’re likely to lose one or a few second tier guys, but I don’t think any of them are critical enough to appease the story gods.

It needs to be someone who fans love, admire, compare themselves to, talk about . . .

It has to be someone whose story is already told, whose arc is complete.

Let’s say, someone who was timid and oppressed at the beginning of her arc, faced unbearable tragedy and hardship, and emerged on the other so completely badass that she can unflinchingly coat herself in smelly, decomposing innards and wipe out an entire town.  Then to complete her story arc, seemingly return to her old self, fumbling nervously with a weapon, donning a cardigan and baking casseroles.

NO!  How can we lose Carol?  We need her!  We need exactly her!

Or, you know, a really close facsimile . . . Let’s say another formerly abused woman who is emerging as fierce and badass.

Of course, she won’t be as fierce and badass as Carol — she hasn’t gone through the mind-breaking tragedy of losing a child.

“Mom?   Mom!   Mom!”

Can someone please shut that kid up??????

Just this Once, Can We Target the Men Instead?

http://www.huffingtonpos

We know you fear our power.

t.com/2015/06/09/jeb-bush-1995-book_n_7542964.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Stop being So Crashable

Say “I Don’t Know”

One of my daughters likes to explain things.   It inevitably begins with a story:  Person A did this to Person B.  (It’s always much longer than that — like, by an hour.)  The story always ends with “because . . . ”

“So and so doesn’t want to work with those kids because they remind her of her cousins.”

“She adopted a baby because she wants to show she’s a better person than her mother was.”

“They made that rule at school because in that part of the state everyone farms, so they don’t get what it’s like in the city.”

I’m working with her on this — “But you don’t really know what exactly they know.”

“No, but they all farm!”

She’s young.  She doesn’t know.  The problem is, she doesn’t know that she doesn’t know.  As soon as she thinks of an explanation for something, it makes sense to her and she believes it.

Like I said, she’s young, and before she’s much older, I’m going to instill in her the habit of questioning herself.  Or dye trying.  That’s not a typo.  I’m just far more likely to color my hair than sacrifice my life over an annoying quirk.

The point is, though, that we should know what we don’t know.  Really, that body of lack of knowledge encompasses everything we don’t actually know for sure based on a reasonable assessment.  Wait . . . a drew you a chart, so you’ll understand what I mean.

What you actually know. (Dot and pink area not to scale — they are exponentially multiplied in size for visibility).

There are vast universes of knowledge out there, and in the bottom of the ocean, and even in our own cells.  If you are in a room with one other person, no matter how well you know that person, there is a vast amount of inner workings, perspective, experience and wisdom that you have no access to, right across the table.  This is a good thing — an amazing thing, actually.  Never lose your sense of wonder!  And I hope you dance!

But in the business context, which is what I’m focused on here, I hope you also say “I Don’t Know.”  If a client asks you and you don’t know, say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”  If your boss asks you and you don’t know, say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”  If your employee asks you and you don’t know, say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”  And then find out.

And if you hear something, believe something or suspect something, find out.  If it has potential long-reaching impact, alert the appropriate people, but do it judiciously, including the phrase,

“I don’t know.”

10 Quotes on Leadership

http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/247102

The Game is Rigged Against You.

If you weren’t born wealthy.  If you weren’t born white.  If you weren’t born with a penis.  Your sister or brother (as poor as you) can rant that they aren’t wealthy because they made mistakes.  They should have worked harder, saved more, not bought that stereo system on credit in 1996.  And, to some degree, they are right.  If you can stay healthy, be both clever and smart, not make unplanned babies, not buy on credit, not get divorced . . . you will fare better than others. If you can do all those things, many of which you don’t have control over, you may float to financial security.  But many, many people who are smart and work hard, do not.

It’s easy enough to blame the individual, because you can usually identify the mistake or mistakes that has them living on the edge now.  But when you look at the big picture, the trends, you see the truth.  If you were born poor, odds are, you’ll stay poor.  You might wobble between lower middle and poor, but you’ll probably never sit on a pile of actual financial security — assets, capital gains, a solid retirement.

The over-simplified explanation is this:  We are all playing a game of Monopoly, trying to accumulate some assets without getting kicked back to Go, or worse, into bankruptcy.  Unlike the Monopoly game you play at home, though, not everyone starts out with the same amount of money.  Some people start with that $1500.  A few start with $15,000.  And a millions of us start out with a pale pink $5 bill.  A disproportionate number of single mothers, LGBT people, and people of color are in the $5 category.

Even if we land on unpurchased Boardwalk, we would never be able to buy it.  One wrong move, like landing on a high rent property or the tax square, and we’re done — penniless, no way to dig out, trying to live on that $5 bill you get every time you manage to pass Go.  That’s called “Living on the public dole,” or “being a Welfare Queen.”

Imagine where you’d be if you’d started out with $15,000.  You could buy Park Place and Boardwalk and accumulate even more.  Mistakes — and you would make mistakes because we all do — would be no big deal.  You could pay a fine or the $50 to get out of jail with barely a shrug.

Of course, in the board game, everyone starts out with the same $1500 and everyone gets the same $200 when they pass go.  Those are the rules.  But in real life, the people who start the game with $15,000 get to make the rules, and changes them as often as necessary to make sure they continue to win and get farther and farther ahead.

This is the truth.  Lawmakers are elected officials.  They are elected because wealthy people donate money to their campaign funds and causes.  In other words, lawmakers work for the wealthy people.  The wealthy people make the rules that you are playing by every day.

This is why poor people end up in jail for not paying a $35 parking ticket.  This is why poor students pay 9 times the interest rate than banks do.  This is why the gap between wealthy people and poor people is widening every day.

CAN THE GAME BE CHANGED?

When I paint it that way, it looks pretty hopeless.  It’s not hopeless.  We do have some advocates in powerful places.

We also have a HUGE untapped collective power.  In 2014, only 36.4 of US citizens voted.  The wealthy few own congress because their money buys votes, but it doesn’t have to.   You don’t have to believe or even watch the ads.  Push past the slogans and lies and do your research.  Push past the scare tactics and check the facts.  Check multiple sources.  When a fact makes you uncomfortable, check it, and, if it’s true, change your thinking instead of changing the fact (“Oh, they can manipulate anything . . .” )  Think critically.

Stop hating your own kind.   People keep telling you that this is the Land of the Free and that we have Equal Rights.  It’s not true.  We’re not the Land of the Free — the opposite, in fact:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Incarceration_rates_worldwide.gif

Once you’ve been committed of a felony, your odds of attaining any kind of financial security go down even more, since finding a job is almost impossible.  You have become one of the Untouchables.

We love to sing and talk about Equal Rights, but it has always been an ideal, not a fact.  Even when it was possible for some of us to work hard at the same job and retire with security, it wasn’t true for all of us.

It’s easy to identify mistakes that poor people make that keep them poor, but there are reasons for those mistakes.  Even if they aren’t your particular mistakes, show compassion.  Be an advocate for both better choices and better opportunities.  It’s staggering how many poor people hate and blame poor people.

CAN YOU BEAT THE ODDS AND WIN THE GAME?

That, of course, depends on how you define “win.”

Do you need to own a private jet and a home in the Hamptons?  If so, I have no words of wisdom.  We all dream, but unless you win the mega-millions lottery (you are more likely to be killed by a vending machine), there’s not a clear path that I know of.

Let’s define win as “having financial security.”  Having money in the bank for emergencies.  The ability to pay monthly bills.  A realistic plan for retirement.  And some extra for quality of life — the occasional vacation, etc.

I still don’t know the answer for you.  There was a time when the answer for me was NO.  I was caring for my dying husband, doing piece work writing at his bedside.  Had I found a way to make more money, I couldn’t have done it — we would have lost his Medicaid.  I tried, with everything left in me, to follow Dave Ramsey’s plan, but we just kept going deeper.  How do you follow a budget when literally every month a new crisis consumes more than you have left?

So if you’re in dire circumstances like those, my advice to you is accept every bit of help you can.  Be sweet, be openly brave, and if you have a crisis of faith, don’t share it on Facebook.  I’m sorry if this sounds cynical, but it is literally the only thing you can do right now to take care of your family and protect what’s left of your future.  People who have resources should share, and if you’re in dire circumstances, they should share with you.

If you have any flexibility, there’s a lot you can do to help yourself, in spite of the rigged game.

Get out of debt.  Dave Ramsey doesn’t understand true poverty, but he is right about one thing — get out of debt as fast and as hard as you can.  If you’re in too deep through no fault of your own, you might need to hit reset — declare bankruptcy.

Learn the mistakes that poor people make (“Might as well buy it now because I’ll never be able to afford it”) and avoid as many as you can — checks for cash, rental furniture, lack of car insurance, driving suspended…   These are called Poverty Traps — businesses and systems targeting poor people, making them poorer for a profit.

Find allies.  Other people are fighting the same battle.  Help each other out with rides, emergency babysitting, tutoring each others’ kids, and $20 till payday.

Know your enemies.  No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.  Divorce, alcoholism, health crises — these can derail all of your good efforts.  You can’t control them, but take whatever action you can to avoid them if possible.  Be gentle with your spouse, try not to comfort yourself with drugs or food, eat as healthy as you can (beans are cheap and healthy).  If something starts to get ahead of you, try to get help while it can still be fixed — marriage counseling (income based at some agencies), rehab, check ups, bariatric surgery — whatever you need to do.  Again, I’m not suggesting you can prevent all of this.  But if you try, you may be able to prevent some of it, which is good for the budget, but more importantly, It’s your life.  And, in the case of marriage, sometime you should just get the heck out of there.

Protect your interests.  If you start to gain ground, others may tug you back.  If you manage to sock away $563 for your emergency fund, that number is going to burn in your brain while your addict brother talks about his eviction.  It’s good to help others, but decide how much of your budget you can afford to give every month and stick to it.  If you want to help others in your boat, take them groceries and model good choices.

Everything is on the table.  In all the time I took care of my husband, I never once considered selling the house and moving our family to an apartment.  The rent would have been the same, but the maintenance would have been dramatically less (and more accessible for him).  The idea of living in an apartment just wasn’t in my repertoire of solutions.  This is where the internet is your friend.  Your own circle of friends may have the same ideas as you, but an online forum will draw ideas you never even considered (and, inevitably, a few people blaming you for ur stupidty smdh, but ignore them).  Many ideas will not be viable, but chew them around a little before discarding them.

Do cost benefit analysis.  Following the advice of a book on frugality, I listed every grocery I bought with the prices per unit.  Anytime I considered a purchase, I consulted my notebook, measuring whether this was the best possible price I could get on this 6 ounce container of generic yogurt.   I could have spend that same time calling around and getting a better price on my car insurance and saved myself hundreds of dollars a year.  I’m not saying don’t be frugal.  I’m saying, if you can spend an hour saving a hundred dollars or 14 cents, pay the extra 14 cents and focus on the big bucks.

Take smart chances.  Lottery tickets aren’t smart chances.  Multi-level marketing jobs are rarely smart chances (and they are targeted toward people in your exact situation).  Going back to school may be a smart chance (do your research!).  For profit online colleges are never a good chance.  Fighting for your kids’ education is always a good chance (and I know it’s not easy, when you work this many hours).

The game is rigged.  I can’t give you a pathway to wealth.  But, for now, there are still pathways to financial security for many of us, and to at least less financial insecurity for all of us.  Keep fighting for equality, and keep fighting for your future.

If you’re driving ten miles to save 4 cents on gas, you’re losing.

Great Advice for Surviving at Work!

Stay Zen.

“Landing under the wheels of the proverbial work bus is bone and heart crushing and most definitely leaves tread marks. It requires courage to face an oncoming bus traveling at full speed and discover the know-how to rise above it instead of landing under it.”

Have you had one of those weeks?

This article on Small Biz Ahead might help give you some perspective.