mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
After a healthy break, I’m happy to say The Analogist is in – with a backlog of reader-submitted situations to be Analogized.
Does this remind you of anything or anybody? Earlier this year I convinced my law firm to let me start a law blog on our website. While it sounded like a great idea and has been fairly successful, they haven’t let me scale back any of my lawyer duties. I’m working harder and longer than ever and totally drained. Now I’m almost certainly going to have to quit.
Dylan
New York, New York
It sounds like you were (metaphorically) killed by your own invention. Surprisingly, this is not uncommon. Otto Lilienthal was killed while testing a hang glider he’d invented. Franz Reichelt was killed after jumping off the Eiffel Tower to test his overcoat/parachute. William Bullock’s foot was crushed by his rotary printing press and died from the subsequent infection. Wikipedia has a whole entry on this: List of inventors killed by their inventions. At least you’ve lived to tell your story.
After losing some key accounts, my company has laid off thirty people so far this year. Lots of good friends have been let go. There are only twenty of us left. As you’d expect, morale is low. Any analogies to make us feel better?
Name withheld
San Diego, California
This is a tough one. Watching your friends get shown the door is obviously painful. And you’re all probably wondering who’s next. I doubt this will help, but here’s an explanation of forest rebirth posted in Muir Woods, outside San Francisco:
In case you’re having trouble reading, the last line says, “Rather than an area of death and destruction this is a wonderful place for us to watch the rebirth of the forest. The debris [from the felled tree] created new habitat for animals, while the new gap in the canopy allows sunlight in, encouraging plant growth. This is not an end, but a beginning.”
Sure, comparing your fired friends to old, dead trees is a little callous. But there’s a possibility your company can turn things around. Maybe a more helpful place to look is the slogan of New York Lotto: “Hey, you never know.”
* * * * *
On occasion, I will survey the audience on a situation that has me stumped. Got anything for Michael from Kansas?
An ex-girlfriend and I used to get on famously. Then, one day, she wrote to me explaining that we had to break all contact. She gave no reason, but most people close to her could only surmise that her husband felt threatened by our continued friendship. Though angry, I agreed to her request and since then have only written her trying to work out how to make this ridiculous request possible, as we frequent some of the same social circles. Since then, she’s gone behind my back and very deliberately interefered with my career for fear of the two of us working in the same office. I absolutely have no interest in maintaining contact with her, but in my field options are few and it only makes sense to apply. I don’t like to rinse out my sour grapes in public, is there a way to explain to our mutual friends what’s happened without it sounding like I’m trying to win them over to my side?
* * * * *
Here are installments one and two of this semi-regular feature.
Comments (9)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
@ Michael: Maybe something like Patton, Ike, Montgomery and Truman? I don’t know WWII history well enough, but it sounds like you’re dealing with two prima donnas.
Unless there’s sex involved then this is waaaaay off.
posted by Going Like Sixty on 9-6-2007 at 12:19 pm
I, too, immediately thought of international affairs. U.S. history has numerous examples of people getting along famously until….Whatever. It’s like the U.S. and Noriega. Maybe you’ll just have to wait until you’re girl friend get extradited.
posted by Adam on 9-6-2007 at 1:55 pm
I would employ the Tale of the Ineluctible Twit in this instance. It’s a parable about an addlepated busybody more concerned at what others thought of him than about the domestic tranquility of the one he had once cared about.
posted by Tom on 9-6-2007 at 1:56 pm
Michael -
Admit it or not, you are carrying a torch for her. Relationships of all sorts are like investments… when they stop paying off you have to dump them.
posted by Sid Morrison on 9-6-2007 at 2:47 pm
Michael,
In the Savanna, both predators and prey are sometimes forced to share the same watering hole for sustenance. Tread carefully, it sounds like you’re the prey. There must be other watering holes at your disposal.
posted by DW on 9-6-2007 at 3:15 pm
Headlined in an Australian paper: “The inventor of the boomerang grenade died this morning!”
posted by Lito on 9-7-2007 at 12:06 am
Michael,
I would not go into details about the situation. I would advise anyone you both work with or socialize with that, at her request, without fault on either side, she has asked that you not be in contact with her, and you are honoring that request. If there’s a supervisor or hr person that you could discuss the sitution with confidentally, that might be a good idea to protect yourself professionally. Take the high road, and if you do run into her, treat her as a colleague, not an ex.
I’d also drop her another note, explaining that you have no interest in social contact, but that you would like her to stop interfering in your professional life. The fact that you’re both in the same field shouldn’t ruin your career. If she’s interfering with your current career, consult with your hr department on harassment policies – she may be violating them.
posted by Mel on 9-7-2007 at 7:03 am
Michael,
You’re being kind of a twit here.
Your first mistake was when you wrote her. You do not write someone who has just told you they do not want contact.
Your second mistake was when you tried to get a job at her place of employment.
I don’t care how bad you need a job or what kind of excuse you use to justify, THERE ARE OTHER JOBS OUT THERE. Find them. Yes, it’s not fair. Yes, you shouldn’t have to do that. But guess what? Life’s not fair. You should know that by now.
Drama only comes to those who create it. You’re creating it.
Talking to your friends will prolong it even further.
The best and classiest way to handle it is not to say shit. Jack. Zero. Nothing at all.
She’ll hang herself with her own words eventually and you’ll look like the bigger person.
Good luck.
posted by Erin on 9-7-2007 at 9:06 am
This all happened quite some time ago. To be sure, I have no torch where she’s concerned. I do think its interesting that this turned into relationship/career advice and I am in need of neither.
I contacted her because I needed to be in places where she was because I had priorities there nothing to do with her and part of my not having contact with her meant avoiding that. Ridiculous.
The reason I end up *having* to talk about it is that I have been unemployed and our mutual friends ALWAYS ask why I don’t apply to the office leaving me in the awkward position of having to explain myself. If I tell them, they tell me its her problem and I shouldn’t worry about what her or her husband’s issues are. I don’t want them to have to take a position on this. I don’t want to have to tell them about it. I don’t want to put our friends in the middle of a silly war that even I cannot take seriously. Hence my writing in. Thought it might be defusable with humor.
If anyone’s at all interested in what eventually transpired by my own efforts, I just withdrew and stopped talking to everybody altogether. I was so sick of the topic that I literally didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore. And I haven’t. Pariah-hood is more painful than you might imagine.
But special thanks to those of you who used the opportunity to insult someone you’ve never met. I actually needed help with this one – I wasn’t being cute. Nice to know that, left to your own devices, some of you assume the worst about people.
Cheers.
posted by Michael on 9-8-2007 at 3:15 am