Oh wow, dat blogspot. This is an old post, but hilarious/infuriating enough to merit my ire:
WMDkitty's self-assessment homework.
Putting the 'lol' in lolcat said:
I am good with written communication – some would say “excellent”, but I feel I could work to refine my skills. I have also elevated procrastination and avoidance to an art-form, and have a corresponding talent for pulling off works of genius at the last minute.
This is not one of them.
Putting the 'lol' in lolcat said:
I need to work on my “people skills”, both in face-to-face and over-the-phone situations. Communicating face to face and over the phone is… extremely uncomfortable and awkward, at best, and at worst has very nearly triggered a panic attack. One solution, at least, is if (when) I have to do a cold-call, I will sit and script out what I want to say. I will still be extremely anxious, but I won’t be tongue-tied, twisted, and terrified, because I have the script in front of me and I can just read it.
Okay, that's not too out there. Anxiety disorders are a bitch and can make even simple social interactions stressful. That sucks, but she's got a method to handle it. Good on her.
Putting the 'lol' in lolcat said:
I really need to get a handle on the procrastination thing, because it causes more trouble than I have energy to deal with, and the extra stress just isn’t good for me. Yes, even though I come up with some brilliant last-minute work, I’d really be happier getting things done and then having time to relax without a deadline dangling precariously over my head. My organizational skills also need some major work.
I'm getting shades of Connor from this bit. Lots of talk about what she
needs to do and
wants to do, but no actual concept for how to
apply those changes in practice, combined with more facetious back-patting. "Oh, I need to stop procrastinating, even though my last-minute work is
brilliant because I'm
such a scatterbrained genius tee hee
validate me pls."
Putting the 'lol' in lolcat said:
Where I’m stuck is, well… how do I work on my social skills? I’m okay in extremely causal social situations, but anything more formal than “oh, hi, I’m greeting you as we pass” just… loses me. I feel like I literally need someone hanging over my shoulder and explaining, “Okay, [action xyz] is socially inappropriate, and this is why.” And the why is the important part – “because it is” just sounds like a cop-out – I need to understand the reasoning behind the taboo. I’m seriously feeling like I missed something in kindy or early grade school, here! For example, it… apparently it’s considered “bitchy” for a woman to be blunt and up-front with opinions and feelings. But at the same time, I’m constantly told that I need to talk more, or told that I should “open up and express myself”. And then when I do open up, I get yelled at, flamed, or otherwise torn down for having opinions and feelings and (gasp!) daring to express them in anything other than flowery feel-good euphemistic language. Am… am I missing something, here? Is there something wrong with what I say? Or is there something wrong with the way I’m saying it? These are, these are important questions, because I want to not “be a bitch”, as a few folks online have so eloquently put it.
Oh, fuck me. How's this for blunt and up-front: YES, you are missing something. It's a thing called
tact. See, that "flowery feel-good euphemistic language" you decry is what people use to
communicate with other people, especially strangers, in order to share ideas and facilitate dialogue. Saying "I get where you're coming from, but I disagree, and here's why," is definitely more
flowery than saying "have fun being wrong, shitlord," but one is going to keep an engaging conversation going, and the other is
being a bitch. If you can't tell the difference, then go back to kindergarten and learn how to use your words.
Putting the 'lol' in lolcat said:
And on the procrastination front? Sweet Ceiling Cat, there are just so many wonderful distractions, from the birds singing outside, to Gracie wanting attention (or a door opened), to “what’s going on in the world”, to “oh, dirty dishes – I have five minutes to kill”, to, well, just about any distraction you can think of! I think part of it is just that I’m so very easily distracted anyway, and part of it is, I don’t know, probably subconscious avoidance of work or subconscious self-sabotage, neither one of which I am equipped to tackle in any meaningful way. I suspect this particular issue may require professional help. I’m also beginning to think that perhaps my disorganization – in addition to being part of the whole ADD package – is another one of those subconscious self-sabotage things. After all, I can’t do the work if I can’t find the work in the first place, ergo, perfect avoidance strategy.
And just like Connor, the locus of control over Kitty's life is shifted as far away from herself as she can get it. She procrastinates too much and is disorganized, but it's not like she can
do anything about it! It's not
her fault, after all, she has ADD! There can't
possibly be any
online resources or
techniques that she could use at home to start improving bad habits,
oh no. She "may require professional help," and until that happens, there's nothing she can do about it, so why even bother trying? Perpetuating bad habits is much more comfortable than actually putting effort into changing them.
So, yeah. This nugget of
last-minute genius was apparently the result of "an hour of typing, deep thinking, more typing, more thinking, self-editing, re-reading, more editing, and finally deciding it was 'good enough.'" wow
