Since once in a blue moon I actually discover a decent rule for adulting, and since I know I have followers a few years younger than me who are just entering the workforce, I want to tell you about a very important phrase.
“I won’t be available.”
Imagine you’re at work and your boss asks you to come in on Saturday. Saturday is usually your day off–coming in Saturdays is not an obligation to keep your job. Maybe you were going to watch a movie with a friend, or maybe you were just going to lie in bed and eat ice cream for eight hours, but either way you really, really don’t want to give up your day off.
If you consider yourself a millennial you’ve probably been raised to believe you need to justify not being constantly at work. And if you’re a gen-Z kid you’re likely getting the same toxic messages that we did. So in a situation like that, you might be inclined to do one of three things:
Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Cave when they pressure you to come in anyway, since you’re not doing anything important.
Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Over-apologize and worry that you looked bad/unprofessional.
Lie and say you’ve got a doctor’s appointment or some other activity that feels like an adequate justification for not working.
The fact is, it doesn’t matter to your boss whether you’re having open heart surgery or watching anime in your underwear on Saturday. The only thing that affects them is the fact that you won’t be at work. So telling them why you won’t be at work only gives them reason to try and pressure you to come in anyway.
If you say “I won’t be available,” giving no further information, you’d be surprised how often that’s enough. Be polite and sympathetic in your tone, maybe even say “sorry, but I won’t be available.” But don’t make an excuse. If your boss is a professional individual, they’ll accept that as a ‘no’ and try to find someone else.
But bosses aren’t always professional. Sometimes they’re whiny little tyrants. So, what if they pressure you further? The answer is–politely and sympathetically give them no further information.
“Are you sure you’re not available?” “Sorry, but yes.”
“Why won’t you be available?” “I have a prior commitment.” (Which you do, even if it’s only to yourself.)
“What’s your prior commitment?” “Sorry, but that’s kind of personal.”
“Can you reschedule it?” “I’m afraid not. Maybe someone else can come in?”
If you don’t give them anything to work with, they can’t pressure you into going beyond your obligations as an employee. And when they realize that, they’ll also realize they have to find someone else to come in and move on.
IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ!!
Just like with many other parts of life, learn to say ‘no’ to people. You are important. Don’t kill yourself for another person, esp. if they are your boss.
Please help raise awareness about a serious illness that hides in plain sight
My name is Ang. If you’ve been following my story then I’m sure you’ve heard about this, but I’ve come down with a chronic illness. I have severe-spectrum MECFS. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or cruelly called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which downplays how much of a devastating, horribly disabling and terrifying disease this is.
It is an illness that affects millions, leaving a good portion of us housebound or bedbound, some so sick they are paralyzed and need to be tubefed and others die from the illness or complications.
I’ve been bedbound almost 3 months now since my illness has been progressing (which is nothing compared to how quickly it can become years), so sick some days I cant lift a spoon to feed myself, talk, or tolerate light and sound. I can’t draw anymore which was my passion in life as an artist, let alone take care of myself. I can’t even tolerate watching TV or play games most days to distract myself from the trauma caused by being confined to a bed in this sort of agony.
I got ill like this after getting the flu in January, and it’s been downhill from there as I started having bizarre neurological symptoms and collapsing episodes where I was unable to move, the energy draining from my body as the days went on until I needed a cane to walk, then a walker, then I was housebound with a wheelchair, and now I am bedbound and the severity steadily worsens with no let up so far despite doing everything I can to stop or slow the progression.
It is a level of sickness that is overwhelming me and my life is uncertain, but it’s looking grim from this point. I’m in severe pain constantly, on top of having horrible dysfunction in every other part of my body. I’ve only been steadily declining.
I lost my entire life right as it felt like it was starting. I was an artist working my dream job at Cartoon Network, and now I may never be able to return to the animation industry or live out my dreams of telling the stories I wanted.
The worst part is this illness could have been treatable by now! But it’s not, due to a deliberate choice of abuse and neglect by medical institutions. Most doctors aren’t trained to treat or diagnose M.E. and it gets practically no funding. Most sufferers are told it’s all in our heads (wrongfully diagnosed with conversion disorder or functional neurological disorder) even with evidence coming out that it’s a physical neurological disease and the only treatment we are given is get told to take anti-depressants, see a therapist, and exercise (despite exertion intolerance being the hallmark symptom and dangerous).
So the only way people like me have any hope of getting better is if we get a surge in awareness and understanding, and hope it leads to more funding and research. With decades of neglect and lives lost, this can’t go on.
At first I asked for donations when I was trying to figure out what was happening to my body as I threw money at doctors appointments begging for help only to get turned away and given no help, dwindling away my savings from when I used to work. And while donations were loved and helped significantly in my financial situation, it will not give me access to effective treatments if they don’t exist.
That is why I am asking you to help spread awareness. Please educate yourselves and donate if you can to organizations that research M.E.
People like me are suffering with a monster illness as debilitating as late-stage AIDS or cancer, hopelessly sick and dying with little help and living in severe medical neglect. I can’t even get a caregiver which I need now because my family can’t care for me longterm, all because my illness isn’t taken seriously by health insurance companies!
We need help. People with M.E. need help so bad because a lot of us are even too sick to advocate for ourselves.
If you want to know more there’s a wonderful documentary on Netflix made by M.E. sufferer, Jennifer Brea called Unrest (2017). Please give it a watch.
Please share this. I am one of the #millionsmissing and while I have not been suffering with M.E. for very long compared to others, the trauma and destruction this illness brings is great and no one should have to go through this. I would not wish this suffering upon even my enemies.
We need awareness. We need advocacy. We need understanding. We need funding. We need diagnostic markers. We need research. We need effective treatments and hopefully one day a cure.
I may never have my old life back, and I don’t want anyone else to keep suffering the way I have since I’ve gotten sick. The pain is indescribable. I want one day for someone to get sick like I and others have, only to learn they can be diagnosed and effectively treated or cured.
Please help bring our stories to light. Please help save our lives.
I wrote a post a while back about how some people are very good at getting away with doing intentionally creepy things by passing themselves off as just ~awkward~.
Recently, I noticed a particular pattern that plays out. While creeps can be any gender, there’s a gendered pattern by which creepy men get other men to help them be creepy:
A guy runs over the boundaries of women constantly
He makes them very uncomfortable and creeped out
But he doesn’t do that to guys, and
He doesn’t talk to guys about it in an unambiguous way, and
When he does it in front of guys, he finds a way to make it look deniable
And then some women complain to a man, maybe even a man in charge who is supposed to be responsible for preventing abuse in a space
and he has no idea what they are talking about, since he’s never the target or witness
And he’s had a lot of pleasant interactions with that guy
So he sympathizes with him, and thinks he must mean well but be have trouble with social skills
And then takes no action to get him to stop or to protect women
And so the group stays a place that is safe for predatory men, but not for the women they target
For example:
Mary, Jill, and Susan: Bill, Bob’s been making all of us really uncomfortable. He’s been sitting way too close, making innuendo after everything we say, and making excuses to touch us.
Bill: Wow, I’m surprised to hear that. Bob’s a nice guy, but he’s a little awkward. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it. I’m not comfortable accusing him of something so serious from my position of authority.
What went wrong here?
Bill assumed that, if Bob was actually doing something wrong, he would have noticed.
Bill didn’t think he needed to listen to the women who were telling him about Bob’s creepy actions. He didn’t take seriously the possibility that they were right.
Bill assumed that women who were uncomfortable with Bob must be at fault; that they must be judging him too harshly or not understanding his awkwardness
Bill told women that he didn’t think that several women complaining about a guy was sufficient reason to think something was wrong
Bill assumed that innocently awkward men should not be confronted about inadvertantly creepy things they do, but rather women should shut up and let them be creepy
A rule of thumb for men:
If several women come to you saying that a man is being creepy towards them, assume that they are seeing something you aren’t
Listen to them about what they tell you
If you like the guy and have no idea what they’re talking about, that means that what he is doing is *not* innocent awkwardness.
If it was innocent awkwardness, he wouldn’t know how to hide it from other men
Men who are actually just awkward and bad at understanding boundaries also make *other men* uncomfortable
If a man is only making women uncomfortable but not men, that probably means he’s doing it on purpose
Take that possibility seriously, and listen to what women tell you about men
tl;dr If you are a man, other men in your circle who are nice to you are creepy towards women. Don’t assume that if something was wrong that you would have noticed; creepy men are good at finding the lines of what other men will tolerate. Listen to women. They know better than you do whether a man is being creepy and threatening towards women; if they think something is wrong, listen and find out why. Don’t give predatory dudes who are nice to you cover to keep hurting women.
Men who are actually just awkward and bad at understanding boundaries also make *other men* uncomfortable
If a man is only making women uncomfortable but not men, that probably means he’s doing it on purpose
Marshmellowmilktea 