Month: January 2020

As children, we’re taught that with the right degrees and skills, we can advance in the workplace. It was acknowledged that people with connections and charm can rise somewhat faster, but in theory, American jobs are meritocratic—with enough discipline and training, any person can succeed.

As much as we admire this sentiment, we all soon discovered that the reality of employment is messier. People rise in the ranks for a complex web of reasons—many of them out of an individual’s control. Accomplishments play an important role, but depending on who is in power, other variables can shape an employee’s career path. 

Perhaps a leader is sympathetic to the number of years a subordinate has been around the office and believes it’s their time to move up. Maybe they’re childhood buddies or sorority sisters. Other managers are susceptible to flattery or hold biases against specific groups. 

In all cases, promotions aren’t blind. So how much of professional success can we actually attribute to talent and hard work? 

After five years of working from where I please, I’d argue that fully remote companies are closer to pure meritocracies.

Working from home cuts out a lot of the spontaneous connections and relationships developed over cubicle walls and around the water cooler. Rather than having a perception of the entire employee—what they bring for lunch, whose pod they frequent, the family pictures they have on their screensaver, the energy they exude in the office—they are reduced to what they present in email, video conferences, and projects. Without the confounding influence of appearances, it’s easier to be known for one’s accomplishments.

Of course, this model doesn’t work for all types of businesses or industries; workplaces in agriculture, construction, retail, and R&D require in-person collaboration. But for many types of computer-bound work, telecommuting is an attractive option. It not only saves companies money on overhead costs, but it also cuts out most of the gossip and politics. 

I remotely manage a team of writers and we communicate through email and texting. Written communication can be addressed when it’s convenient for me, as opposed to the immediacy of having someone come to my desk. I have better control over how I spend my day. Most importantly, since writers are turning in full articles that I edit, I’m able to evaluate their progress (and offer raises) based on the merits of their work. 

My writers are a motley crew; they’re mostly women, but they have varied backgrounds and ages (25 to 60+). One woman lives in Pakistan and reached out on LinkedIn in response to my post seeking new talent. Her samples and performance on my editing test were flawless. My top-paid contractor is an older graduate-trained expert in business education who sends me lengthy, eloquent proposals for each of his topics.

The point is that I’ve been able to evaluate each of my writers on the outcome of their labor. I don’t critique their process, hours worked, friendliness, hobbies, or attractiveness—variables that play a role in traditional workplaces.

Some of my office-bound friends have been quick to point out two problems with working from home: 1) They’d never get anything done, and 2) They’d get lonely. 

To the first point, I wonder how people get things done in brick-and-mortar companies with the roving buffet of distractions. Unless you have a private office, having an unbroken stretch of concentration is tough to achieve. Even with noise-canceling headphones—office-speak for “Don’t Fucking Talk to Me”—there is a flurry of activity in one’s peripheral vision. At least at a cafe, strangers are unlikely to approach.

Telecommuting was a bit of an adjustment, I admit, but this work can be treated like college: sure, you’ll spend a little time in a classroom, but you get to choose the environment where you study and write papers. Some people aren’t self-starters who thrive without structure, but like anything, this can be learned.

To the second point, it can be tough to lack a community of coworkers, but it makes me that much more eager to fill up my dance card in the after-hours making dinner for friends, enrolling in classes at the University of Oregon, or joining Spanish conversation meet-ups. Plus, unless you’re in charge, coworkers are like a family: you can’t really choose them. You’re thrust into their company, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. It takes more effort, but I’d rather nurture relationships that I choose rather than those of proximity, power, or convenience.

If we want our workplaces to be purer meritocracies—places where we’re evaluated strictly on our output—giving employees the freedom to labor when and where they please is helpful. 

All winter-lovers are alike—but each person who is unhappy during winter is unhappy in their own way. 

I’m not built to withstand extended periods of cold darkness. I grew up in Laguna Beach, where temperatures and daylight hours varied little throughout the year. Even in winter, beach days were abundant and apart from the gossamer marine layer, the sun kissed everything in its wake throughout the year. 

In 2016, however, I fell hard for an artistic city that didn’t have an endless summer. Eugene, Oregon, just west of the Cascade Mountains, welcomed us our first year with ice storms, unplowed roads, and power outages. Although the snow we receive is adorable by midwestern standards, the perennial gloom late October through April got under my skin. 

The drumroll toward the holidays isn’t bad—everyone is in high spirits despite the unfriendly chill and unending rain. But now that we’re sweeping up the New Years’ confetti, the realization sets in: we still have several more months of cold rain and wind before the tulips and fruiting trees burst into bloom.

Since I moved to Oregon, this time of year has always been rough for me. People retreat indoors and the sun rarely shines. I realize a little glacial rain and gloom would constitute a mild winter for many Americans, but my background made me cold-averse. I needed to develop a system that made me look forward to these days.

Like many others, I admire the Danes and read up on “hygge”—their sense of coziness, familiarity, and togetherness, embodied in a warm pair of socks or candlelit dinner of hearty stew. I also took stock of my cute coats and indoor hobbies (reading, writing, painting), hoping to unlock a routine. This winter has been much easier than in years past, helped in part by a few axioms and tricks I’ve picked up over my years in my new (often sun-starved) home:

There is no bad weather—just insufficient dress. My friend Justin shared that this is similar to a Norwegian proverb—and it’s spot on. It took me a while for me to find the right coat and hat for icy, angled rain (among other conditions), but once I did, winter could no longer keep me inside. I was never much of a clothes horse growing up—I lived in my more stylish friend Alexis’ hand-me-downs for most of my 20s—but having well-made Patagonia and Pendleton jackets has saved my ass. I even found some of them second-hand at Plato’s Closet, so there’s no need to break the bank. 

Candles slay the gloom. There’s something primordial about our love of a blaze. Who among my readers hasn’t been captivated by a bonfire? I have candles all over our living room and bedroom and I only light them when it’s cold. This simple ritual—inspired in part by my readings on hygge—lifts my spirits every time. 

Invest time in making your space welcoming to you. Whether you’re a garage sale aficionado or a modern minimalist, take pride in where you live since you spend so much time there. It will make it that much easier on the day you don’t feel like facing the blizzard. 

Slate specific winter hobbies and events. Every Tuesday, I play indoor volleyball with an awesome group of girls. I typically read 25 percent of my books for the year in January and finish at least two acrylic canvasses. My partner and I also love hosting parties. I did none of these things (apart from reading) when I first moved to Oregon—and I suffered for it. Growing up in southern California, I’d never divided my interests into seasons, recognizing that I can foster different parts of myself depending on the time of year. Recognizing this fact—likely obvious to people who didn’t grow up in sunny beach cities—catapulted my winter serotonin to new highs.

Am I soft? Absolutely. But if there’s a desert-dweller out there who needs to relocate to Minneapolis, they will be grateful for my superficial insights.

There’s something intoxicating about constellations of city lights along a bridge or skyline. I stand in awe of these concrete, steel, and glass cathedrals of industry—the banks, the department stores, the tech companies, the historical structures—tracing the tops of their buildings, creating a jagged key of the unique angles from where I stand. It’s moments like these that make people forget the smell of skid row on a hot afternoon or paying half one’s salary to rent a hovel. As the glitz and grime rose in tandem, one day I woke up and San Francisco—my Gold Medal City—was no longer my home. 

Gold Cities are the major metropolises of the world: New York, Tokyo, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, etc. These places have made it. They have achieved global relevance due to their density. They are crowded with structures, machines, events, wealth, and bodies—the ingredients of a dynamic financial and cultural economy. They are marvels of human achievement but can be cold to the touch, gilded and exclusive, blind to strangers. They are littered with wide eyes and empty pockets, company cars and expense accounts.

Just as many New Yorkers bemoan their love/hate relationship with their home, I grew tired of the coarsening demeanor of San Francisco. What had once been a nice place with open arms and a beating heart was going into cardiac arrest after a binge of evictions. Tent cities sheltered the displaced. Little boys with computer science degrees masqueraded as businessmen and fancied themselves the emperors of modern Rome.

What’s left when teachers, janitors, families, and artists can no longer afford apartments in a city? A one-bedroom (747 square-feet) in SF goes for $3,683. Oligarchs with fuck-you levels of wealth have multiple homes while most people are stuck on the unending treadmill of rent. The bigger houses are, the less they get used. 

San Francisco also now leads the nation in property crimes and theft. Residents are desperate and hardened, some of them addicted to opiates and other drugs. The gritty underbelly and exorbitant cost of living in a Gold City push people out—or like me, they leave voluntarily. And having developed a palate for good food and culture, a village wasn’t an option. I opted for what I call a Silver City—a welcoming mid-sized town with sufficient density to cultivate some of the best features of a San Francisco or New York.

Silver Cities are accessible and comfortable for musicians, writers, and other artists who grow with the region as they shape it. These places are often college towns in the Goldilocks zone of affordability, amenities, and social mobility. They are more casual, amenable, and sincere than Gold Cities, with less traffic and materialism.

Overall, in Silver Cities, wealth has not overwhelmed the culture. Those with few resources can still shape the area with their relationships and creativity. These community members are producers and participants. By contrast, grandiose Gold Cities contain awe-stricken consumers and ossified power, where wealth dictates what’s seen, what matters.

I’ve traveled around 42 U.S. states, visited dozens of cities, hundreds of towns. Our Gold Cities—among the largest metro areas in the country—include San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, Austin, and Miami. There are even some larger cities (>200,000 people) that still feel like Silver Cities on the ground: New Orleans, Portland, Boise, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis come to mind. And then there are the real Silver Cities, which often receive the creative spill-over from their larger counterparts: Eugene, OR—the town my partner and I chose to call home—is my favorite example with its thriving university, beer culture, bike-friendly streets, vibrant parks, and weekly community market. Other Silver Cities I’ve visited include Fort Collins, Flagstaff, St. Petersburg, and Knoxville.

Not every place fits neatly into these categories, of course. Some long-time residents of Gold Cities like New York might consider the Village or Park Slope their own cozy Silver Community. However, there is a big difference in the energy on the ground from a visitor’s perspective. 

When the creatives and other locals leave Gold Cities—the artists, teachers, long-time residents—there’s a palpable void that new wealth can’t fill. Silver Cities stand to benefit from the exodus and receive these people with open arms. 

A new friend told me that Eugene peaked in 2014 when the downtown had been revitalized but everything was still affordable. I suppose one person’s Silver is another’s Gold, depending on their experiences, income, and other opportunities. Maybe one day I’ll wake up and feel Eugene flirting with Gold status. After all, we are hosting the World Athletic Championships for track and field in 2021—the first time this international event has come to the United States. In preparation, Nike billionaire Phil Knight is rebuilding the historic Hayward Field and the construction of new hotels and other facilities is rampant. 

I just know that right now, to me, Eugene feels perfect—snugly in the zone of world-class culture at a fraction of the Gold price. Friendly, not too crowded, and so damn beautiful. 

Across the United States, the gyms are packed. It’s early January—that great time of abundance when waistlines have expanded with holiday cheer. And as divided as we are in 2020, the majority of Americans share one New Year’s resolution: lose weight and get into shape. 

When I was a teenager, I used to flip through Woman’s World, Prevention, and other garbage magazines at supermarket check-stands in search of tips to slim down. Those rags traffic in making women feel terrible about their bodies. I was a healthy size 9, but there was nothing I wanted more in the world than to be a petite size 0 or 3 like some of the other girls at Laguna Beach High School—a physiological impossibility for my frame. 

I used to stare at the young women with lithe limbs and flowing clothing, especially when they seemed not to care what they ate. What is their goddamn secret? I played sports; I ate healthy; and I obsessed over my body, but I simply couldn’t lose any weight.

By the time I got to college, my size 9 was thrown into relief by Berkeley’s demographics—a far cry from Laguna’s supermodel standards—and I stopped caring quite so much. But echoes of that pining to be more slender endured. I even wrote my sociology honors thesis on the disordered eating behaviors of young American women. 

There is an entire range of methods to control one’s food intake apart from severe restriction (anorexia) and purging (bulimia). There are emotional and behavioral manipulations and nearly all of the 30 girls I spoke to had her unique techniques to placate her carnal obsession. 

Some women put bright-colored stickers on “off-limit” foods in their fridges and cabinets; one wore a rubber band around her wrist to snap it in punishment if she reached for the wrong thing to eat; others chewed up massive quantities of junk food and spit it into a vessel like wine-tasting—the satisfaction of taste without the threat of digestion. 

Young women in particular labor under a yoke of bodily shame and anxiety. What I realize now in my mid-30s is that what prevented me from achieving my ideal body wasn’t really grounded in what I ate or how I exercised. It was more psychological—my constant fixation on the issue was my biggest problem. Counterintuitively, the more I focused on it, the more difficult it became to get thinner. Sure, good habits are a foundation, but disabusing myself of the obsession was even more important.

These days, people sometimes ask me now how I stay in shape. I’m a size 4 or 6 and I no longer watch what I eat. I’ve developed habits that mitigated my old preoccupation with size—and most have nothing to do with diet or exercise.

Since thinking about my weight consumed so much of my youth and it’s a popular New Year’s resolution, I wanted to share what I’ve learned. Keep in mind that I’m 35, have no kids, and work from home. I also happen to love vegetables and proteins more than pasta and dairy. I realize that not everyone has the same freedom or flexibility in their schedules as I do. The underlying principles, however, can be adapted to scheduling constraints with some effort and planning:

Find a job that doesn’t make you count the hours until lunch. Too many employers in the U.S. tell people when they can eat. School is also like this. You have to abide by your teacher’s or boss’s schedule, whether or not your body craves fuel. This makes us associate food with a break from a grueling activity. It also makes us eat at times we might not be hungry and forgo food when we need it. I believe that this rigidity and the subsequent association of food with a reward is partially responsible for the obesity epidemic in this country. Now that I work from home, I eat when I’m hungry—not when someone tells me I can.

Get as much sleep as you need. In school and at all of my jobs in San Francisco, I was sleep-deprived. The benefits of getting enough sleep are well-documented. As WebMD puts it, “Skimping on sleep sets your brain up to make bad decisions.” Not getting enough sleep also affects our metabolism and elevates our cortisol—a stress hormone that makes our bodies hang onto more fat. 

Develop your hobbies. Another difference between now and when I was in school is that I’ve had sufficient time to figure out how I enjoy spending time. When I was younger, I never understood how people could “forget to eat” because at that time, thinking of my weight and food was unrelenting. I also hadn’t enjoyed the luxury of figuring out who I am and what I like to do—the activities which now occasionally make me forget to eat. I read, write, paint, travel, hike, and catch up on award-winning films and TV series that I never watched. (I’m in the middle of Mad Men right now and just finished the Sopranos last year.)

Cook most of your own meals, but treat yourself to good restaurants. I didn’t grow up cooking (and my single mom rarely had time), but I started to take pleasure in culinary creativity and the way it shows love to others. I’m lucky my partner also enjoys cooking (so it’s not all on me) and we have friends over for dinner frequently. I’ve also learned a lot from dining at well-reviewed restaurants. I treat going out as a learning experience and try to recreate my favorite dishes at home. For example, my favorite cuisine is Thai. I took classes in Bangkok and I now grow my own chili peppers to make prik nam pla, the fish sauce and chili condiment you’ve probably seen. From eating at so many different Thai places, I’ve improved upon my old recipe, adding lime juice, fresh-grated galangal (Thai ginger), and garlic. Also, as much as I like to cook, I don’t like following recipes. I cook by taste, which for me is more fun and creative.

If you dislike the gym, find a different activity. I’ve always hated gyms and I wonder what our calorically-challenged ancestors would think of them. You can’t imagine a 17th-century farmer—much less a cave dweller—running a track or lifting weights to try and maintain their figure. It turns out that a lot of people don’t like the gym. They go because it’s the most time-efficient way to burn some calories. Once my schedule became more flexible, I started taking the same 7-mile hike up Spencer Butte—the highest point in Eugene—a few times per week. I ride my bike to the trailhead and listen to podcasts while walking through a lush forest. I look forward to these two-hour outings and now realize that I don’t like to exercise indoors (unless it’s for a sport like volleyball). I also rarely use a car and walk or bike nearly everywhere in town. Rather than treating my body’s work as a chore or task of maintenance, I use it to get where I need to go. Everyone has to find something active that works for them and fits seamlessly into their schedules, even if that exercise is carrying trays of food, delivering packages, or chasing down a toddler. 

Beer is not the enemy. People are sometimes surprised that I’m an avid beer-drinker. I’ve visited over 250 breweries across the country and live in Oregon, the state with the highest number of breweries per capita in the country. To me, beer is as variable as food and can play with all of the senses in a way that wine and pure spirits can’t. Each brew is an opportunity for me to try something new, whether its a slightly salty and sour passion fruit gose or a caramel-rich stout on nitro with chocolate notes. 

When it comes to eating, go for quality—not quantity. I look forward to my food. Whether I’m cooking or dining out, I’ll eat anything, but I’m picky about quality. I’ve found that mediocre food makes me want to eat more of it to find satisfaction. Instead, seek out the best culinary experiences possible every time you’re hungry. Sure, it costs more sometimes, but can we put a price on future health and present pleasure? 

Get to know when you’ve had enough. I don’t calorie-count; restrict portions; or have any specific “diet tricks.” I pay attention to when I’m full and because I’ve sought out the best quality food, I leave most meals satisfied.

Overall, my perennial obsession with food and weight began to melt away when I started living the life I chose—working from home in a creative and rewarding job, living in a city that my partner and I selected after a year-long road trip, engaging in all of the activities I’d finally figured out I enjoyed. 

When I was younger,  I didn’t have so many choices and food served as an escape from a schedule I disliked at school or work. After many years of hard work and self-reflection—most of it unrelated to diet or body image—food is now a pleasure to me rather than a forbidden reward. 

I hope others can create the life that works for them because once this happens, they might find that weight and body goals no longer dominate their New Year’s resolutions.