Culture Shock

One thing I did not expect to experience after moving to Seattle was culture shock. Somehow I assumed that the Northwest is all sort of the same, and that coming to Seattle would be like coming home. In some respects that has been true, but in some respects, Eugene and San Diego are a lot more similar to each other than they are to Seattle.

Maybe it isn't all of Seattle, maybe it's just where I work, but there are some things that I am finding it difficult to adjust to. The first is that I get a sense that conformity is valued much more here than I'm used to. If I give an opinion that is less than perfectly in line with the opinion of the person I'm talking to, I feel like the response is to try to convince me that I'm missing something, with a sort of frantic attempt to get everyone to agree. And I'm not talking matters of life and death, I'm talking about matters of intellectual inquiry, personal preferences, and lunch. I see a lot less open disagreement and discussion here than I'm used to, and a lot more discomfort when disagreements occur. I have yet to encounter an agree-to-disagree situation-- instead, it seems like every disagreement is treated as a problem that needs solving.

A second issue is greater reliance on hierarchy. Of course there is hierarchy in any environment, and it is a matter of respect to defer to more experienced individuals. But here I find that I am frequently explicitly reminded of my rank in ways that I am not used to.

A third issue is that straightforwardness does not seem to be valued as much as I am used to. I was actually told, by one supervisor, that although a job description exists for my position, he does not really want to "publicize" it (e.g., provide it to me). Thus, while there are specific expectations for my job, I need to try to do the job without knowing what they are. The idea is to "promote flexibility." There have been times where I feel like I am a character in a Kafka novel.

A fourth, highly related issue is that from my perspective, the way people talk about/perceive themselves here, and what they actually do, are not always well correlated. People talk about being relaxed, laid back, flexible, etc., but from my perspective people are a lot more intense here. As an example, one of my supervisors said that I really should let them know if I'm unable to fit all my responsibilities into the M-F, 8-6 (lunch break is rare, only if there's time) 40-hour week. Where I come from, 8:30-5 (with a 30-minute lunch break each day if possible), is a 40-hour week. I know that it's not uncommon for people in our field to work longer hours, but I'm used to people who work long hours being fully aware of it. Here, I get the sense that people really do think that 8-6 is an 8-hour day.

I'm working on adjusting, but in many ways I don't want to adjust. I keep hoping I'm misperceiving something, and I'll find out it was all just a miscommunication. Seattle-ites and former Seattle-ites, am I missing something? Is it just me???

Biking

As I mentioned in a prior post, I am not used to city commuting, and I'm not sure I'm really built for it. My bus commute to work is usually smooth, but going home on the bus has been rough. It takes me almost an hour to get home taking the bus, and by the time I get home I have generally been gone for 10 hours (8.5 hour work day, plus commute time), and by that point I do not feel like exercising. Lack of exercise makes me feel sluggish and cranky, and makes me resent my job and hate my bus ride (even though lately I have been careful to always catch the bus driven by a specific particularly good driver). And so I have been coming home all grumpy every day, which is not so nice for anyone, particularly Jeff.

Something had to change, so after some careful thought, planning, and safety equipment acquisition (lights, orange reflective vest, reflective tape/stickers), for the last week I've been taking my bike on the bus with me in the morning, then riding home from work. So far, it's been great. I get home about 15 minutes faster, and the exercise feels good. The timing of the exercise is perfect, because after a sometimes frustrating work day, I have the chance to shift focus, be outside, and use up any pent-up frustrations getting up my hill, before coming home to Jeff. So far I've had two fairly wet/rainy commutes, and it's been fine. We'll see how I do once the days get shorter, wetter, and colder, but I think with a few more lights I will be able to pull it off.


Here are a few additions to the list of lessons learned from work:

Addendum to #1: Even if the gun is decorative, and/or you never had any intention of ever firing the gun, the no guns in the house rule still applies. No matter how safety-conscious you are, accidents happen, for example while cleaning the gun.

18. Daily intake of 4.5 gallons of beer can lead to occasional loss of footing and subsequent falls.
19. Relatedly, ground-level falls (like from a standing position, or off of the toilet) can have serious consequences.
20. Activity involving gasoline near your face + lighting a cigarette = surefire disaster.
21. Also, as a general rule, gas cans don't belong on the coffee table.
22. Aprons are, in fact, safety equipment. Best to wear one when cooking with hot oil.
23. If your clothes catch fire, do not try to put them out with your bare hands. Stop, drop, and roll really is a better option.
24. Don't do IV drugs-- you probably know about some of the risks, but did you know about the increased risk for osteomyelitis, or necrotising soft-tissue infection? Because those are nasty.
25. Just don't do drugs in general. Especially meth. Especially in combination with other drugs. And alcohol. And guns/weapons/sharp objects. And fire. Because three or four of those together add up to one big mess.

My new list

One of the great/awful things about working at a hospital is that you get to see the consequences of others' mistakes. I was told when I started at this job that I would quickly start noting to myself things I will never do, and it's true, I've got quite a list already, with five major categories:

First, some of the more serious/grim ones:
1. No guns in the house. Ever. Even if they're locked up.
2. Never ever ever attempt suicide, even if it is just a "gesture" and you didn't really mean it. Because it's bad no matter what the outcome, but if you "fail" and survive, life is not going to be any easier with those new injuries/disabilities.

Second, practical advice you might not have thought of:
3. If you have any chronic medical conditions, like diabetes or obesity, do what you can to get those under control. Because a simple broken leg can turn into something seriously nasty if you don't.

Third is the "Lots of people do it but that doesn't make it a good idea," category:
4. Never forgo your seatbelt, even if you are going 5mph on gravel with no other cars around.
5. Never ride a motorcycle. But if you insist, do it only at reasonable speeds, wearing a helmet, completely alert and sober.
6. Never ride a dirt bike. Or a motorized street bike.
7. Never ever ride a 4-wheeler.
8. Never, ever, ever, ride an ATV.

Fourth is the "Seriously, what were you thinking?" category:
9. Don't weld while drunk.
10. Basically any kind of fire + drunk = really bad idea.
11. Also don't climb trees drunk.
12. Ditto for telephone/electrical poles.
13. Don't dive drunk. (Or drive drunk, but we all already knew that).
14. If you work a night job, which means you're really tired during the day, don't take a second job (during the day, when you're really tired) that involves working machinery, like oh, say, a meat grinder.
15. Never ever ever disable any of the safety features on anything, like for example, power saws.

And finally, the "Wait... what?" category:
16. Never get yourself into a situation where your pants catch fire and you are too drunk to notice.
17. Never try to launch a large object with a large home-made cannon. Even if you've done it before and it was really cool the first time.

And that was just from my first month :) I'm sure the list will grow...

Back to SD

Last weekend I was back in San Diego, briefly, to present a talk at the APA conference. I had the opportunity to see my advisor, and many former lab-mates, some of whom I hadn't seen in about 4 years. It was great to see everyone and catch up! I think there were a total of 10 of us in attendance at the conference at some point, and here are 8 (plus a pint-sized little off-shoot) having a picnic lunch:

I also visited with friends from internship, which was awesome. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to take out my camera, so no pictures of fun times on the beach, out to lunch, at the zoo, and out to dinner. If there were pictures, they would include me very happily enjoying the company of Marina, Dana, Erik, and others, not to mention a speaker-phone call to Denise :)

When I got home, I was greeted by not one, but two Jeffs, as the second was in town to defend his dissertation and stayed with us for one night. Two Dr. Jeffs, one noticeably more tired than the other, the day after the defense:


Since my last post, I've been going kind of non-stop until this weekend (if you count conferencing/vacationing in SD as part of "going non-stop", which I do because traveling is exhausting). This weekend was a marked slow-down, which included lots of laundry-doing, quiet time at home, and a nice long sleep last night. I missed weekends like this all last year, with all the traveling back and forth between Seattle and SD. Jeff is getting ready to leave for a trip to visit family in a few days, but I won't be traveling for a while, and I'm looking forward to being home every weekend for the near future :)

Knitting on the bus

I started my new job last week, and so far so good. I haven't taken on a lot of responsibilities yet, but I think that will be changing quickly. For me, last week was primarily about getting administrative stuff taken care of, learning how to get around the building, and getting a general sense of what my schedule will be like. I have been told that once I really get started, the workload will hit quickly-- I'll basically be managing the psychology consult service for the entire hospital, so once I start carrying the pager there's no going back and not a lot of downtime (or so I hear). We'll see how it goes.

One other thing I've been adjusting to is my bus commute. It's about a 35 minute bus ride every morning, and about a 45-50 minute bus ride home from work, due to heavier traffic in the evening. On top of that, I have a 5 minute walk to and from the bus stop. So it's a bit different from my 12 minute drive to work last year, and worlds different from my 12 minute walk to work for the several years before that. I am so totally not used to being a commuter, and so far, that has been the most stressful part my new job.

On the other hand, I think it has the potential to be very relaxing. It's a single bus ride, no transfers, so I have long stretches of uninterrupted time for knitting and listening to podcasts/music/whatever I want, every single day. I am so far not taking full advantage of this; I've just been listening to the news each day, but I could certainly be getting some good books on tape to listen to. I have been doing some good knitting though. In my first week of work, my bus knitting has amounted to about half a sock (a relatively large sock, for Jeff). At this rate, I could probably do about a pair of socks or the equivalent every month, which is more knitting than I've ever really had time for. I'm going to try to really make this happen.

In other knitting-related news, I will also be re-joining my intern fantasy football league this year. Last fall I learned that knitting and football go really well together. This afternoon I worked on a team name (the Knit Kickers) and logo:

Note that the little footballs are photos of a knitted football. Game on!