Breaking walls

Last night I was in the Philharmonie seeing Mariza, the famous fado singer on stage. Her expressive, sentimental style and remarkable talent are quite well-known. Nevetheless, an unexpected and very heart-warming act was that towards the end of the show she decided to go into the audience, continue singing there, shaking hands with many of the spectators.

This incident made me think of those people who dare to break societal barriers. Society imposes certain distance between a singer and the audience, a doctor and the patient, a boss and an employee, a hollywood star and the rest of the world, a politician and his voters etc. These are all relationships when one party is inherently in a “more superior” position than the other, in the centre of the attention of the other in some kind of dependence. Consequently, a certain distance is created between them, where they are not expected to mix with each other.

I really admire it when in such cases the the distance is blurred. Just think about the movie Patch Adams, where Robin Williams, playing a doctor creates a special relationship with his patients. Or our Pope who wants to be among his followers, talking to them, connecting with them. It has to be initiated by the party in the more powerful position, he should be the one inviting the other to approach him.

What is the intention behind blurring these limits? Simply that we are all humans, and among the many roles we all play in life (within the family, in professional life, in private life) being human, and hence wanting to connect with the other human is the baseline, which can override any other roles we play.

Boundaries

Nowadays some personal experiences made me think about boundaries. How much is too much? How far is too far? For example, how much would you pay for a new car? How personal can you get with a business partner? How much of your life do you share with your parents? How much independence do you need when you live in a relationship? Limits are everywhere in all areas of life as a subtle network, at material and ethical levels, visible and invisible to us. Sometimes it’s very difficult to define them objectively. We very often bump into them, sometimes crossing them, intentionally or unintentionally.

My experience is that when we want to draw objective boundaries, we tend to use 2 sources. One of them is our own judgement: So what would I do in this sitatution? Where are my limits here? The other one is the general societal expectations, what we see in our environment, in our family as we grow up. What do people generally do in such a situation? Clashes may happen when it comes to ethical issues and someone else’s limits are far away from our limits and those of the society.

My conclusion is that there are bigger individual differences than we may think. We had better accept that limits cannot really be objective, and focus on our own boundaries, trying to set them specifically. These boundaries of ours define us, they become an integral part of our indentity, and we should make them our own guidelines in our interactions with others. Regarding others’ boundaries, we should respect them, accept that they may correspond neither to ours, nor to those of the society, and then we have the freedom to decide what level of relationship we feel comfortable with, when we interact with someone whose boundaries are far away from ours.

When everything goes wrong

Probably you have also experienced periods in your life when all at once different disasters happen to you, all concentrated at one specific point of time. Who knows why this dynamism behind, but they just happen one after the other, challenging your personal integrity, patience, tolerance, pushing you lightyears away from your comfort zone.

What happened to me this time is exactly such a chain reaction: one day my car broke down in the middle of the city, which later turned out to be a very costly mishap (having to change the automatic gear itself). Due to this incident, the day after I had to take the train to Brussels, the European “Chicago”, where my wallet was stolen, with all my identity papers, bank cards in it. So in 2 days time I found myself with no car, no ID cards, no bank cards, no cash, no driving licence (well, the only document not needed apparently…). My first reaction was “Ok, Format C:. Shoot me, I’m a persona non grata”. Then you have to find a way, with the tools you still have, to rebuild your life step by step. It is a lengthy process with unexpected logistical challenges every day: how to reach work in the other end of the city on public transport like a Christmas tree, with a lot of things to carry with you, how to have enough cash with you for a weekend with no bank cards (no banks open on Saturdays to withdraw money), how to pay a hotel stay for 5 days with your guarantee bank card blocked, when the hotel staff is absolutely not helpful, how to pay a fortune for your repaired car with no bank card… like fish out of water.

The whole story had a symbolic meaning for me, some kind of rebuilding a new personality, reconstructing yourself with brick after brick, putting the fallen pieces back together. And the new pieces will not be the same as before (the car has a new gear, the bank cards have new codes, the wallet itself is brand new etc). After the initial shock, I managed to see the bright side. What if my whole purse had been stolen with even my apartment keys, phone in it? What if the car had broken down somewhere far away or on the way to the airport? So everything can always be worse.

Another idea that struck me is that how crazy is it that our everyday life here in Luxembourg is totally based on a credit card and a car. Without these 2, your whole existence is overshadowed. In the Middle Ages somewhere in the country people were able to be happy with no technology around, and now it’s indispensible. Moreover, such an incident makes you appreciate small trivial things in life, like having a car to carry your shopping, reach the other edge of the city in 20 minutes.

Finally, it made me calm down, and happy to see the new bricks of myself falling into their place, rebooting a new me.

Can being nice be a disadvantage?

When you say about someone that “he/she is such a nice person”, you only think about positive things. A nice person is always a pleasant company, and by being nice I mean: attentive, listening, smiling, interested, always trying to help, respectful. I have always tried to be “nice” to everyone, since as long as I have no reason for not to be nice with someone, why not having an initial positive attitude?

However, now in the first time in my life I have got into a situation that I could never have imagined before: when being nice is actually dangerous, a point of attack. When you work with money and your job is to monitor whether the money is spent economically and efficiently, somehow the whole ambience becomes very formal, official, rigid, emotionless. It is a paradox for me: finally I work WITH people, FOR people, which I was looking forward to so much, and being nice to them is actually a disadvantage. I’m not supposed to be.

Probably one of the biggest lessons to learn now for me is how to be strict, correct, professional and friendly at the same time. Perhaps I am naive to think that it’s possible, but this is the objective now I’m trying to achieve. And at the same time I’m asking myself the question: which one is more dominant? Your personality or the situation? One of the most wonderful characteristics of mankind is his adaptability to any situation that occurs. You can move to a different country, give birth to a child, lose some close relatives, although it hurts and stirs your life, finally you adapt. So can we adapt to something so distant from our character, or finally the personality will give it up? Probably the truth is somewhere in between: you inevitably give your personality to the work you do, and become a professional with a unique personality, making you different from your colleagues, and time will tell if you can do your job efficiently this way, by being the person you are, or not.

What makes a good boss?

All through my active working years, already for some 15 years now, I have already been employed by a wide variety of characters in my hierarchy. No matter what kind of boss I had, two conclusion I managed to draw: 1. it must be extremely difficult to be a good boss, 2. myself, I would never feel good in the position of being the boss of others.

Let’s try to collect all the “ingredients” of a good boss. First of all, they should be competent in their duty. This is just as essential as a good goalkeeper for a football team. An absolute basis. Secondly, they should be able to create a friendly working environment where the employee enjoys working, paying attention to their well-being, but on the other hand being strict enough to get the work done. This must be extremely difficult, taking all different personal characteristics into account. Also, they have to be skilled enough to handle personal conflicts and they have to be able to take the responsibility for everything that is happening under their control. A lot of requirements to meet. I believe that not everyone is suitable for being a good boss (like myself), and certain personalities are true-born managers. The most important is that we know which category we belong to.

In my view, the biggest friend and potentially the biggest foe of a good boss is power. With power they can have the necessary means to defend the interests of their employees, but on the other hand, power can easily have a distorting effect on a leader, when being a manager equals with “control over others”  and “priority in benefiting from the privileges, such as going on holiday any time or delegating tasks” in their mind. I have seen already both examples, and somehow the source was always power.

All in all, no matter what position we occupy in our workplace, our personality will certainly have an effect on our working style. Ideally, we have a job that suits our personality and we have a boss who has most of the qualities of being a good leader.

Stress – are we creators or victims?

As some of you know, I have recently undergone a career change, one of the consequences of which is that I am surrounded with a much more dynamic work environment. Dividing your attention to 3-4 directions at the same time, following up several activities, constantly being available, having 2-3 event invitations for one specific day (of which you have to choose, prioritising the tasks), travelling out of Luxembourg to represent the Unit in different events (in the meantime losing track of the everyday routine), keeping up-to-date with the most recent developments… and all this at the time of a significant reorganisation when tasks are reshuffled across different units. Definitely not like translation. On the other hand, in such an environment, one is prone to get stressed easily: something I witness on a daily basis.

Seeing some colleagues always so tense made me think about stress and its source: are we the victims here? Or could we ever have some kind of control on it? Could we ever intentionally decide not to get stressed? Or is it a personal characteristic: some will resist better than others? Is it contagious? Should I let the stress of others attack me as well?

What I think is that stress is the worst possible enemy in such a case: not only do we lose our concentration skills but also our common sense to prioritize tasks and move ahead smoothly. Whenever I look at my stressed out colleagues, I ask myself the question. Is it worth it? For what? Will anyone die if you’re unable to cover a task within a certain deadline or be at the same time at 2 different places? Will the world come to an end? Evidently not… taking this as a starting point, I decided to resist stress, not to let it enter my office door, simply because I don’t think that it could add anything constructive to the workflow. What I rather think is that the most we can do is doing our job to the best of our knowledge and to a certain extent we do have the conscious ability to control the presence of stress in our lives.

What could we ever do instead of stressing out? This is what works for me:

• Keep cool and calm and keep in mind that with a worked-up mind nothing will ever become easier.
• Don’t forget: no one will die if you happen to miss something (unless you are a cardiac surgeon…)
• Prioritize tasks and think over in the morning what tasks should ideally be covered during the day. Plan ahead.
• Give yourself some pause every now and then.
• Pay attention to regular sports and relaxation activities out of the working hours.
• Draw a well-defined timeframe for work, and out of the working hours forget about work, just deal with something else, ideally yourself.

Feel free to share here what works the best for you when you get overwhelmed with work.

E-Inclusion: digital technologies for all

E-Inclusion, e-Accessibility, digital inclusion. These are 3 very modern, quasi-synonymous concepts I have had marginal knowledge about until now… but time has come to familiarise myself with them, since as of today digital inclusion is becoming my new professional domain.

So what exactly is e-Inclusion? As the prefix “e-” suggests, it has to do with digital technologies, in other words, information and communication technologies (commonly abbreviated in EU context as ICTs). We all experience the facilitating effect of such digital technologies in our everyday lives: in our work, contacting friends and family, dealing with public services and also in leisure activities like booking tickets for cultural events or travelling arrangements. For most of us nothing is more trivial than using the internet and other technologies on a daily basis, for some others, however, the benefits of the digital world are just out of reach. They are e.g. the elderly, low-income persons, people with disabilities (mainly the visually or motor impaired) or illiterates, to name just a few of the disadvantaged groups on the verge of exclusion. E-Inclusion strives to ensure that “no one is left behind” in digitalisation, everyone is able to reap the benefits of our digital world, this way improving quality of life, social involvement and in a wider perspective, enhancing employment opportunities and economic performance.

Some of the best practices and individual success stories are granted the so-called “e-Inclusion Awards“. Among the numerous initiatives in 2012 what I find the most impressive is Storybook Dads, which uses digital technology for prisoners to record bedtime stories and messages for their children, hence helping prisoners’ family bonding. Equally fascinating is Joy Matthews’ story who learnt to make a short film on ageism, with which she reached the world of politics and media and has become the advocate of ageing society.

How uplifting. In this huge administrative machinery of the EU, this is perhaps one of the most visible activities, where you can really see what the EU can do for its citizens. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) supports numerous projects in the area of digital inclusion, as part of the Digital Agenda for Europe. My job will be to manage some of these projects all over Europe, starting from the public procurement procedures to their overall supervision, and taking part in the related far-reaching communication activities. I’m looking forward to it.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

New year, new job

The new year will bring a new job for me: a brand new start I have already longed for so much. It was not an easy step to take: 2 years of trying, some 15 interviews, a lot of ups and downs, but finally here it is, a post different from translation in every possible means. So in this new situation the time has come to reflect upon how to approach this challenge and collect some of the must-dos that anyone in a new job should probably pay attention to.

One thing is for sure: changing a job after more than 9 years is certainly a challenge, whether we want it or not. The work environment, including the physical space, the tasks and the colleagues, soon turns into history, something external, and there you are, having to rediscover every little detail of your new professional life day by day, trying to put the new pieces of information together as soon as possible. From one day to another, from the most senior member of a working community you turn into a newcomer. Just like an initiation.

The most important probably is accept and face with the delicacy of the situation and giving yourself the time, patience and the peccability of making mistakes. If you get down to the new job, being conscious about your vulnerability, not having too high expectations from yourself too fast, not being afraid of asking, you can avoid some frustrating experiences for sure. Probably it’s better to get ready for being exhausted during the first few months, and organise your free time accordingly, letting enough time for rest.

Secondly, first impressions in human relationships have already proved to be way too important. Smile, openness towards the new colleagues, eagerness are obvious musts and I would add intuition as well. In an ideal world, we would be in good terms with everyone, but let’s face it: it is sometimes not possible, and it is ok like that as well. Intuition can help finding the people you really click with at a personal level.

However challenging the first period of my new job will be, I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of new chapter life is offering to me.

Facebook, the almighty

In today’s society if you had to choose one word that you hear the most often around you, at least once a day, it’s probably Facebook. Along came this American guy with this brilliant but let’s admit, quite trivial idea to connect the whole world on the Internet on a platform, and he came up with just the right tools to make it happen. And his name is now a phenomenon, at the same level as Bill Gates.

Facebook is already present in so many areas of life. What’s the secret? Let’s start with professional life. Companies are now fighting for the “likes”, they have become a proper measurement of business success. Certain users make Facebook as a purely professional networking tool, not even mixing it with their private life. The secret of its professional success is probably its outreaching potential: the world of business quickly recognised the opportunity of contacting crowds of people due to its popularity, and quite understandably, it tries to reap the benefits.

And how about private life? Well, this is where its power is the most conspicuous. Whenever I check the daily news, I always find an article analysing the Facebook using behaviour of people: how much time we spend there, how much is too much, etc. In my opinion, we can easily say: “show me your Facebook profile, and I’ll tell you who you are”. It’s evident that when you meet a new person, first thing you do is to check his/her account. Just by looking at someone’s profile you can learn so many things about a person: what data they make public of themselves, what material they publish to what audience, what their interest is, what songs they like, what events they participate in, etc. True, by today we have zillion options to make our own set-up as for the audience of our profile, but at the end of the day, Facebook will always remain public. Something people tend to forget, and can create a lot of personal complications. Sometimes it scares me that social networks have this massive power to damage human relationships, simply when someone sees something about someone they shouldn’t have… or to impersonalize your life by making you spend much more time online chatting with a friend instead of just having a nice talk with some drinks. So I can easily understand that group of people who categorically deny using Facebook because of the serious privacy issues it raises or the alienating effect it can cause. No wonder higher managers and politicians/celebrities refrain from using social networks. In a certain social position it’s just too dangerous.

But let’s not be so negative. Its popularity is not unfounded. If used reasonably, Facebook is an amazing tool to stay in contact with both the closest and more marginal people in your life. My favourite thing is when just by a simple post certain so far unknown common interests are revealed between you and a contact of yours, which can add a new quality to your relationship. Sharing photos, sharing events are easier than ever like this, you can catch up with your schoolmates, etc. Or to make this blogpost reach my friends, Facebook is the best tool. Countless other advantages could be enumerated here, which all led to this unprecedented Facebook revolution. However, reasonable is probably the key word here: to find the adequate level of privacy of information you share, to find the right amount of time devoted to it in your life. Good luck for making the most out of this special tool for yourself.