In defense of good leaders

I have been interested in the topic of good leadership for some time, and will be writing more about it in the months to come. I want to write about it because I think it is something that is sorely lacking in most workplaces these days. And the few good leaders who are left are having a tough time of it. It is interesting that there appears to be no correlation between good leadership and the number of management courses one can take to help one become a good leader, but nevertheless, these types of courses are increasing in frequency and workplaces are becoming more insistent that their leaders take these courses. I am open to the idea that people can become good leaders, but I think it has more to do with the type of workplace environment one finds oneself in as a leader plus the type of values a potential leader has. Is the potential leader an ethical person who believes in fairness and in rewarding hard work? Or is the potential leader only interested in promoting himself or herself at the expense of his or her employees, and what type of behavior does the workplace support and reward? These are all relevant questions for discussion. The conclusion may be that good leaders are born that way, not made, but I don’t necessarily believe this either. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but that fact does not diminish my interest in the subject.

I bring up the subject of good leadership because I have been witness to, and experienced myself, poor leadership or lack of leadership in the workplace. I have also experienced good leadership and the differences are viscerally clear to me. I have written a book about passive-aggressive leadership in the workplace and how demoralizing that can be for employees http://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Recognizing-Dealing-Passive-Aggressive-Leadership-Workplace/dp/1442159200. My feeling is that many workplaces these days promote and support passive-aggressive leadership--that it is a management strategy for systemic procrastination and effective employee control because most of this kind of behavior is always right on the edge of what can be considered ethical, correct or true. In other words, management cannot be taken for this type of behavior toward employees and they get away with quite a lot in this way. Employees suffer, but leaders who are trying to be good effective and empathic leaders also suffer because the system does not support their efficiency, honesty or empathy. Leaders who do not side with the passive-aggressive approach will find themselves at the mercy of bureaucrats and administrators higher up in the system that will make their work lives miserable for not conforming to the current system.

There are many ways to bring down (or at least attempt do so) good leaders in a passive-aggressive work environment. In my book about passive-aggressive workplace leaders, I did not discuss this particular aspect in any detail, but rather focused on the effects this type of environment has on its employees. But much of what I brought up in that book in terms of how to keep ordinary employees (not in management positions) down can also be applied to keeping good leaders down. If passive-aggressive management identifies one or two good leaders (by my definition—ethical, honest, empathetic—and not very adept at playing political games) as ‘problem-people’ in the system, it won’t be too long before those people are ‘silenced’ in some way because they represent a threat. They may find themselves ‘frozen out’ of the popular clique, may be demoted, may be ignored or overlooked for new projects or promotions, or may be the recipients of a new type of behavior that I find quite disturbing. This type of behavior utilizes the employees who work for good leaders who for many reasons may be dissatisfied with that person’s structured approach or expectations or demands on them. If these employees feel stressed or put-upon, or if they feel that the demands of the job are too great or overwhelming, they can now accuse their leader(s) of harassment, which puts the burden of proof not on the employee making the accusation but immediately on the leader (and eventually the workplace) to refute the accusation. The accusation of harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature. In fact, in the instances I have been witness to, with one exception, the accusations have had to do with that the leader(s) were perceived as too tough, too demanding or too strict. In other words, the leaders could say no to these women if it was deemed necessary and this didn’t sit well with them. Why would employees do this to their boss, one might ask? I asked the same question. I have now seen this happen several times in the past few years, and I asked the same question each time. Young women have been the instigators in all of these situations—they have charged middle-aged male leaders with harassment because they have not been able to measure up to the demands of the jobs they were asked to do by these men. Or they were denied something they wanted and instead of waiting to see if the answer could in fact be yes the next time they asked, they took matters into their own hands. Who informed these women that this was a potential strategy for dealing with their situation? The only answer I could come up with was that the bureaucrats and administrators higher-up in the system who did not like these leaders suggested this to these women as a way of causing trouble for those leaders. And these women followed that advice. The result? Management informed these leaders that so-and-so had filed harassment charges against them, resulting in the women being moved into another department or group, which is what they wanted in the first place. The accused leader had no choice but to accept this outcome, and if he or she wished to ‘fight’ to refute the accusation, was informed that one was of course free to do so. But it is common knowledge that this involves using a lot of time to ‘clear’ one’s name and possibly getting a hold of a lawyer or a union representative or both to take the case or look at the situation, which could cause the workplace some grief. If the accused leaders do not have the support of their own leaders, then the likelihood of clearing their good names is very slight. For all intents and purposes this means that these leaders will have unfounded ‘harassment’ charges against them that will remain on their records indefinitely. As long as these leaders do not fight back or raise a ruckus, the passive-aggressive strategy of systemic procrastination levels the conflict to a status quo situation—the women get what they want, which was to get out from under that particular leader and to prevent that leader from having any contact with them whatsoever, and passive-aggressive management gets what it wants—the silencing of what they consider to be a problematic leader. This is what has happened in all the instances I have been witness to. The accused leader is caught between a rock and a hard place; fight the accusing employee or fight management. It is mostly a lose-lose situation. Over time, rumors travel and reputations can be destroyed. It is horrendous that such things can happen in 2010 without repercussions for either the accuser or for management that support them blindly. Things just continue as before at the workplace. But what about those who are unjustly accused? What happens to them? Why is this fair? What about the families of the accused? Have these women doing the accusing taken into account the stress that such situations cause the families of these men? Do these women ever realize that their false accusations cause problems for women who really have been harassed? I doubt it, and this makes them disloyal employees in my book, because if they can do it to one leader they can do it again to another, and in this way they always get what they want in an already tainted workplace. I have to wonder how they live with themselves. It might be worthwhile for the accused leaders to pursue the situations to their ends, because if no one ever does then injustice will always win out.

Women and careers in science

I attended a seminar entitled ’Young Women and Science’ this past Monday afternoon at the Science Library at the University of Oslo that began with an excellent lecture about the topic by a woman named Ellen K. Henriksen who is an associate professor of physics at the University of Oslo. Her talk was followed by an hour-long panel debate about the topic that was very interesting and that touched on a number of issues that could explain why young women are not choosing to pursue science studies or careers in science generally. Dr. Henriksen focused on several research studies that have shown that there are two areas that preoccupy women when it comes to choosing to pursue science studies. The first is that many of them feel that they simply are not smart enough to pursue a career in science—that they will not be good at it or master what they need to master, and the second has to do with the fact that many women want their careers to be meaningful—to feel that they are helping others in society by their work. Many of them thus move away from pursuing the harder sciences like mathematics, chemistry and physics that often lead to academic careers, into medicine and health-related studies. The panel debate focused quite a bit on the importance of smart and enthusiastic teachers in helping to get students hooked on math and science. The lack of such teachers in grade school and high school was held up as a contributing factor for why students (girls and boys) simply don’t choose science these days. The other aspect that was brought up was the lack of role models for women in science. Some of the women scientists in the audience meant that there were no role models, or only one or two when they were younger and wondering what path to take, but that they chose to pursue a career in science despite this lack, but that for many women, the prospect of working in a male-dominated profession for the rest of their working lives was simply not attractive from a professional standpoint. The men on the panel, both in their sixties, also bemoaned the lack of women in their fields and meant that it was important to have a gender balance if it could be achieved. The debate created more questions than it answered, as always with a good debate; it was interesting to listen to and to think about afterwards.

I was lucky to have had two very smart female teachers in high school, one of whom taught math (geometry and trigonometry) and the other who taught advanced biology. Both teachers were inspiring and both encouraged their students to do the best job they could. The advanced biology course ended up being mostly independent study because the teacher was also the assistant principal and was quite busy. She gave us the structure we needed but left us mostly alone to pursue the studies she had set out for us. They consisted of three different projects that we had to complete over the course of one year: learning the anatomy of the cat using a full skeleton to learn the arrangement and names of the different bones; learning basic Mendelian genetics by breeding and crossing fruit flies to get progeny that we could observe and classify; and learning how to map gene loci on different chromosomes. I loved this course and it led to my choosing to major in biology in college. Besides basic biology, I took zoology, microbiology, histology and embryology/developmental biology in college (Fordham University), and advanced cell biology and molecular biology in graduate school (New York University). I did quite well in undergraduate chemistry (inorganic and organic; I loved organic chemistry), but was not so comfortable with either physics or calculus, possibly because the teachers were rather uninspired. I decided fairly early on during college that I did not want to pursue a career in medicine. And even though I loved studying literature as much as science, I knew that I would earn more money in a scientific career of some sort, which was important at that time because I had to be able to support myself once I got out of college. I started my first job as a research technician at a research institute in Manhattan while I was still in graduate school. The research institute was not far from New York University medical school where many of the institute researchers taught. In graduate school I took not only biology courses but computer science courses: one to learn Fortran, an advanced computer programming language; and the other to learn machine language, which is the most basic language that the computer ‘understands’. It was fascinating because we learned about addresses and memory and registers and how to ‘talk’ directly to the computer’s CPU. While I have forgotten most of it, I remember thinking it was such a cool thing to study when I was in my twenties. After one year of classes and lab work in graduate school I started working full-time at the research institute and finished my degree (writing my thesis) at night and on weekends. I mention all of this because at the time I studied science and computer science, I don’t remember that I worried all that much about whether or not I could master this or that subject. Thus, when I was younger, I didn’t worry about the first of the two considerations that young women at present have when choosing whether or not to pursue science. I took the courses I had to take to get my degrees and got good enough grades for the most part. I did hit the wall once with an advanced biochemistry course (that I dropped out of) taught by a particularly boring teacher who disappeared halfway through the semester and then returned for the final exam. No one knew where he had gone and the university did not fire him because he gotten a prize or two and that is a prestigious thing for a university. Prizes bring fame, attention and money in the form of grants and endowments.  And universities often keep bad teachers on staff because they may be good researchers.

Recently, I started to think about the higher-academic level women (PhD and beyond) I’ve met and gotten to know since I first started working in science. There aren’t all that many, to be sure. There were only two women with professor positions in my first job (one was close to eighty years old at that time and the other woman worked for her); the majority of such positions were filled by men at that institute. The three women who worked together in the lab with me in my second job at a top cancer research institute were all post-docs when I started working there. Only one went on to become a professor at a nearby university; eventually all three left academic science. One went on to medical school and became a radiologist, the other moved into industry and became head of global marketing for an international scientific company, and the other moved into university administration and is currently the president of a large city college. They were my role models at the time that I worked together with them, because they were dynamic women with doctorates in their respective fields and because they were enthusiastic about what they did. I remember sitting in taxis together with them on our way to one or another conference, talking about our careers and what we wanted to do and how the sky was the limit. We were young and the world was our oyster. It was an inspiring time that I am grateful to have experienced.

Ironically enough, at the same time that the sciences are having problems recruiting new students, academic science is becoming more difficult to get a foothold in or to remain in, for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with lack of funding, smaller budgets, more ruthless competition, and so on. I have reached a certain plateau—senior scientist with professor competence. I have been a project leader, a section leader, and am now considered a group leader even though I have no real group to lead! Besides myself, there is one other woman at my workplace who could be considered my peer. She is a formal professor and a group leader, but she not very interested in supporting, encouraging, or offering advice to women generally or to younger women who may be wondering about a career in science. Her sole focus is on promoting herself, and I guess I have to wonder if her approach isn’t the smartest given the current conditions. But had I met her earlier on or worked for her type when I was young, I think I would never have pursued academic science. The reason I pursued it at all is mostly due to the positive experience I had working together with the men and women in my second job who were professional, respectful of others, and supportive.

So what are the problems with choosing a career in science these days if you are a woman? Most scientific fields are male-dominated. While that doesn’t have to be a problem, it often is because men tend to network with other men in order to help them get ahead. In the twenty years I’ve been here in Norway, that is the rule, not the exception. Additionally women don’t often attempt to network with other women, so women (especially younger scientists) lose out. Some men I know have turned out to be snakes in the grass—they talk a good game (that they support you) but don’t really do so in practice. They ‘forget’ to mention your name when they could, or they work against you by questioning your qualifications even after you’ve proven that you are qualified for a position or status (professor competence, for example). But they do this too to some of the men I know as well. I miss camaraderie with other scientists, be they men or women, but more women wouldn’t hurt. Academic science is for the most part a lonely profession. I have a collaborator in Italy (a woman about my age) who has the same problems I have, getting new students, little funding and a tiny network of collaborators. We stick together, share our joys and woes, and try to come up with decent projects that we can work on together in order to keep our collaboration viable. She is a nice woman and a smart one—a good combination for the younger people in her research institute to see and to look up to. You might want to choose academic science as a career if you met her. She is a good role model, but she is more the exception than the rule, unfortunately. And she, like me, is honest with the younger generation, women especially. It’s difficult to make it in academic science these days whether you are a man or a woman. So if I was younger, I would probably choose another way to use my love of science, perhaps science journalism or working as an editor for a scientific journal. I know I could have been satisfied in those careers as I have been up to this point in academic science. It remains to be seen what the future has in store for those of us who see the major changes, can do little about them, and who wonder where it all will end.

Nordmarka

I thought I would post some photos that I took on our walk through part of the Nordmarka forest on Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day and I was lucky to get some nice photos. Enjoy!

Skjærsjøen lake

Skjærsjøen lake

Autumn Days in Oslo

Yesterday and today were beautiful autumn days in Oslo. It was a shame, as my friend Juli said at lunch, to have to be indoors, linked to our office chairs most of the day while the sunshine and blue skies beckoned to us to come out and play. Luckily, I did manage to get myself outdoors yesterday. My husband and I took a long walk in Nordmarka, which is the forest area north of Oslo. It is a fairly big forest area, with brooks and lakes scattered here and there, as well as rivers running through it. The forest is quite serene in parts even though it is a well-frequented area by walkers and cyclists alike. The cyclists especially zoom past on the gravelly forest roads on their mountain bikes and dressed in their cycling suits and helmets. I call them the Thor Hushovd wannabes, because Thor’s participation in the Tour de France has definitely encouraged interest in bicycling in this country, which is a good thing. But I also understand why the newspapers have written about the ongoing feud between the walkers and the cyclists, because sometimes they whiz by so fast that it could be dangerous if you stood in the way for any reason. But all that aside, it is possible for both to peacefully coexist, and for the most part, they do. Mostly though, I don’t think the cyclists get a chance to see the beauty of the nature around them because they are rushing by it. If I were biking in the forest instead of walking, I’d want to do it leisurely, to stop every now and then to look at the wildflowers or walk down to the river’s edge and look at the water.

Some of the forest trees have completely turned color, while others are halfway there. The reds are particularly vibrant this year. Looking out across Skjærsjøen Lake yesterday, it was possible to see the trees with their foliage in the distance, framing the water’s edge. It’s a beautiful sight and one that reminds me of looking across the Hudson River at the lovely autumn colors of the trees on the Palisades, or the autumn foliage in the forests bounding the Croton Reservoir in upstate New York.

There is something about the colors and the sunlight during the different seasons here in Oslo—the way they change and blend with each other. They make for some lovely photos. During the summer, when we are out on the boat, the gray and blue colors in the sky and clouds contrast with the green and blue colors of the sea water and the brown earth colors on the shore, and it is literally thrilling to see the photographic results. During the autumn, I always have my camera with me on our walks, and there is always something interesting or beautiful to take a picture of, from flowers to foliage to small crawling insects to different bodies of water. I managed to get a picture of a centipede crawling across the road yesterday; I wonder if it made it across without being crushed by the passing bicycles or walking feet. I have to remember sometimes to take pictures of people. I have an ordinary digital camera that I have grown quite fond of using. Its lightness makes it easy to bring along and that is an advantage. I remember back to ten or fifteen years ago when I had my camera bag with my 35mm camera and one or two lenses—it was quite heavy to carry but I did. I got some great photos then, but I have to say that some of the photos I take now with my little digital camera are just as nice. Photographing nature is probably what I like to do most when it comes to photography because nature motifs interest me the most and always have since I was a child and started taking pictures.

The Creative Process

Writing blog posts several times a week as I try to do is a pleasure, not a chore, and I find myself mentally arranging my time schedule during the day now so that I have enough time during the evening to write. I try to hang onto some of the creative ideas that pop up during my work day in order to use my evening time to develop them. The creative process cannot be dictated to, but it can be encouraged by allotting oneself a good slot of time within which to write, read, or be creative in numerous ways. In other words, one should have some time to ‘play’ each day that is all about pursuing one’s creative interests. This form of play for me is not about mindless activity, but rather about letting one’s mind off the leash that it is on for most of the (fairly-structured) work day. For many years I craved that free time but never managed to create the space necessary to allow it to happen. I worked too much, or housework took over, or there were other constant distractions and interruptions, TV being one of the major time-killers. I wanted ‘a room of my own’ a la Virginia Woolf. I don’t see how anything creative can happen without that room. As I have gotten older, I have realized that ‘if not now, when?’ When am I going to allow my creativity to happen? When was I going to finally focus on the creative ideas I have? How long was I going to wait? They are important questions, because I talk to so many people who want to pursue their creative interests but just don’t know how to get there. I know how they feel because I was there myself a few years ago. But I am not there anymore.

One of the first things I had to do was to give up TV watching and surfing mindlessly from one channel to the next in the vain hope that there would be something actually interesting on TV. It has not been difficult to give up watching TV because most of what is on TV these days does not interest me. Reality programs bore me, and except for the occasional movie on one of our movie channels, most of the other regular programs are so much alike that no one particular program stands out. There are just so many animal, nature, history or crime programs that can be watched. I watch a few of them from time to time and then I want to be outdoors myself, photographing nature or taking a long walk up along the river, or some such thing. It was not difficult to give up TV, and once I weaned myself off that particular bad habit, I had to be careful not to fill the extra time with unnecessary housework or other things, because that is another time filler that satisfies the passive part of the brain. I also had to get comfortable with silence again. And by silence I mean lack of distractions—verbal, visual or tactile. It’s not that I’ve been uncomfortable with silence, but more that society around me seems to be uncomfortable with it. I cannot step onto a bus or walk into a store or a mall without some kind of music blaring or without being assaulted by giant TVs that advertise this or that item, or without some well-meaning salesperson attempting to sell me something. I cannot have one work day without an important meeting or without answering numerous emails. There is always something to attend to. Since I live in a city, one might argue that it will be difficult to find silence, and that is true generally unless I find a park with few people in it as happens from time to time. Most importantly, I find silence at home because I have created that space for myself in the evening. I actually look forward to that time now, not because it is ‘my’ time but because I know that when I enter that silent zone, I will be finding out more about myself and that is a worthwhile endeavor. I write on my laptop, and in the beginning I had to fight the temptations to check my email and to surf the net periodically. After a while it became easier not to give in to those temptations. So that now I can honestly say that I use my silent time creatively and it makes me happy to be able to say that. I write for free, yet the activity of writing gives me the most satisfaction these days compared to my work activities. Some people have commented that if I had to write for a living, I would feel differently. Perhaps that is true, I cannot say. I would welcome the opportunity if it came along in the form of some journalistic endeavor or similar. And I do write more than my blog—I write poetry and have been doing so for many years. I have written one book and have plans to write another. It’s just to let it happen, and that is what I am doing these days, letting my creative interests take me where they want to go. I’m enjoying the journey and do not miss the activities I have given up in order to make this possible.

Playground politics

The end of the work week, and not a moment too soon—thank God it’s Friday. I found myself wishing for the end of the work day already around 12 noon, after a particularly ineffective and confusing meeting, but of course I couldn’t leave for home at that time, even though I wanted to. The woman who never played hooky in her entire scholastic career has suddenly learned what that temptation means. I want to run away from most forms for stress. The more uncomfortable the situation, the more I want to exit it. I don’t want to get embroiled in any work-related conflicts after twenty years in Norway because they never get resolved—all people seem to want to do is to hear themselves talk about them ad nauseum) and I see no point in rehashing a lot of situations that have already been discussed and buried. I cannot believe the amount of inefficiency that exists and that people tolerate as part of their work life. Meetings account for much of that wasted time.

The day was a bust because of the ineffective meeting, but also because of a phone call I received from a man who is the leader for an organization that I belong to. He was upset because he felt that another woman whom we both know had been rude to him in a public setting and he wanted me to side with him. It was not a suggestion but more of an order, and I do not take kindly to being told how I should feel or what I should do in most situations. Those who know me know that this is a dead-end approach with me, to try and order me about. His next tactic was to try to make me feel uncertain about another work-related situation that I have asked both him and this other woman for advice about. He kept insisting that I talk only to him about this situation and not to her since he was the leader, and that also does nothing for me. We live in a free country, as I was often wont to hear from my peers in arguments when I was growing up. I absorbed that way of thinking, thankfully. So in the back of my mind, when someone is telling me what to do or trying to bully me into changing my mind, my inner voice is telling me something else--I’m free to decide for myself. We’re not in grade school anymore, where playground politics dictated who you could and couldn’t talk to and who you could play with or ignore. I won’t be bullied into taking sides, and in this particular situation I actually have decided already to side with the woman involved because all she ‘did to him’ was to voice her opinion, and he seems to have a problem with women who do that. I don’t have that problem. I prefer people who state their opinions and who allow others to do the same. I am suspicious of people who always have to be right, always have to dominate, always have to have the last word, always have to drown others out by talking over them, always have to be king of the playground. I often discuss playground politics with one of my co-workers who has done a lot of politically-related committee work in my workplace. She often comments on the childish behavior she sees and has experienced around her. I have to agree. I haven’t seen much to impress me in the way of conflict negotiation/resolution in the twenty years I’ve worked here. It might just be my workplace, but I doubt it. The playground kings dominate and are always trying to push people about and to get them to do what they want them to do. It has never worked particularly well with either her or me.

The most efficient thing I did all day was to clean and organize our laboratory work area together with Aasa, one of my co-workers who shares my dislike of clutter. It took us a couple of hours to get it in order again. We threw away a lot of old boxes, papers, and plastic items, and by the time we were finished, the lab benches were suddenly attractive work areas again. They have looked like a mess for quite a while now. Once again, the elimination of clutter helps to free us mentally. I swear I might start a business to help people organize their daily lives—either at home or at work or both. I think it might even be reasonably successful and that I might enjoy the work—or at least that feeling of efficiency that one gets after finishing up. And best of all, I would not have to deal with the kings of the sandboxes and their playground behavior.

'Trickle down' economics--my version

When I talk to my friends and family in the USA these days, what they say confirms my suspicions that are only heightened each time I read a newspaper or watch the TV news. The American economy is not really getting any better. The economic crisis persists and is becoming chronic. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Small businesses are not making it, and middle-level managers in numerous generic corporations are having a hard time finding a new job if they’re laid off. Average people are paying a fortune for health insurance. I don’t care about the Wall Street numbers—the Dow is up today and down the next—who really cares? Where is its connection to reality? It doesn’t seem to me that there is any correlation between stock market numbers and how people and the economy are really doing, at least not a correlation I particularly care about.

When I was online looking at real-estate offerings in upstate NY recently, I was shocked by the number of foreclosures. And when I was visiting a friend in Albany this past August, we drove around her neighborhood and I got a chance to see all of the houses that were for sale. We’re not talking one or two houses within a block or two of where she lives. We’re talking up to ten houses in the space of a block or two. It is a strange sight to see. I wondered what happened to all those unfortunate people who have lost their homes or were forced to sell. I can’t help but wonder if many of them just had the rug pulled out from under them. I think of all the people who lost their pensions in recent years at the hands of greedy and corrupt corporate leaders. The middle class is having a tough time of it. I don’t see an end in sight, especially if talented intelligent people are unable to find a job within two years of being laid off. I know three people who fit this description, all of whom have reached middle-age. Is that the reason they’re not being considered for new positions? Is there age discrimination at work? It reminds me of the nearly two-year period in the late 1970s when my father was unemployed. He was in his early fifties then. He finally did get a job, but that period of unemployment cost him the little health he had left by that time. I remember talking to him about it all, and I know that the stress of being unemployed and his loss of self-esteem were often overwhelming. He was always grateful to the last company he worked for, but he never had much good to say about corporate America in general.

I don’t really understand how it got to the point it’s reached at present. I do know that greed has played a role in creating the current economic crisis. Bad loans that have been prettily-packaged and marketed globally haven’t helped things. Overspending hasn’t helped, either at the personal, corporate or governmental level. I don’t know how the problems will be solved. I don’t think the solution will have anything to do with a political party shift in the White House. The Republicans don’t have any better answers than the Democrats. They just think they do. They keep pushing the idea of rugged individualism as the trait that made America the great nation it once was. And they’re right, it did help, early on, but that trait isn’t enough anymore to make it. There are no rewards for rugged individualism anymore and there are very few rewards for the strong work ethic that used to characterize the generation of Americans I knew and know. I am not sure what happened, but there has been a global shift toward not rewarding hard work and loyalty to a company. What have gotten rewarded in the last thirty years are greed and more greed, dishonest dealings, and unethical behavior—at least that’s how it seems to me. Companies who fire hard-working loyal employees to save money but who keep their CEOs and CFOs who are making multi-million dollar salaries are not my idea of what is good about America. You can give me all the arguments you want—that their leadership is good for the company and that they made their companies successful, etc. But still I ask--what do they need with a 50 million dollar annual salary when there are talented intelligent people who are earning very little on the unemployment line? These unemployed individuals are possibly the same people who helped make those companies successful, because we all know that a leader or leaders can never become successful in a vacuum. So if they reduced their salaries to a million dollars a year, think how many people they could employ with the remaining 49 million dollars. Wouldn’t it be great if some of that wealth could ‘trickle down’ to the middle- and lower classes in the form of jobs or salary increases for the underpaid? I’ve got to applaud Oprah Winfrey for recently giving all of her employees a 10 thousand dollar raise and an iPad http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/16/oprah-doles-out-thousands-to-magazine-staff/?hpt=Sbin. She is a wealthy woman who at least made an attempt to reward her employees. There should be more like her.

I know that there are workers who are lazy, disloyal, uninterested, who feel ‘entitled’ and who have done little or nothing to deem them worthy of a reward. But I personally don’t know these types of people. I do personally know unemployed people who have worked long hours for their companies, traveled for them, given up time with their family for them, who haven’t been there to say goodnight to their children because they had to work. I also know people who are struggling to keep their small businesses afloat while they watch the large companies that they try to compete with, outsource manufacturing of the same types of products to China. The idea that they can compete with these companies and with this type of betrayal is a joke. The small businesses lose. I don’t think it takes an MBA from a prestigious college to figure that out.

I spend a lot of time observing what goes on around me and in the lives of the people I know in the USA and here in Norway. I listen to what people tell me. I look at my own work life and workplace. I see the discrepancies, the hypocrisy, the dishonesty, as well as the positive things--the faith that the younger people have in their futures—that things will be better for their generation. I hope that is true. I also hope that society finds its way back to an appreciation and reward of traits like loyalty and a strong work ethic, as well as fair treatment of loyal employees by company leaders and fair treatment of small businesses by their respective governments.

You know you grew up in the Tarrytowns during the 1960s/1970s if......

I grew up in Tarrytown New York during the 1960s and 70s. I remember a lot of different things from my childhood and teenage life in that small town, and have already talked about some of them in this blog. It is funny what one remembers, and also what one forgets. When I write about my growing up there, I do so from a distance of a good number of years, in other words, I’ve gained perspective, and it is mostly the good memories that remain now. But it was not always so easy to grow up in a small town, especially if you wanted or needed a certain amount of anonymity to survive mentally or emotionally or both. But somehow as you get older, the anonymity is no longer so important. It becomes more important that people know the real you. One’s teenage years are about trying on many different coats to see if one of them fits. If you find one that fits, you hang onto it for a little while because it feels comfortable. The coat can be a clique of friends where you fit in, or doing well in school and winning praise from your teachers and parents, or being part of sports’ teams, or all of those things. Many of these coats are tried on in the context of small town life, where it is safe, even though you don’t really know that at the time. Looking back now, the ‘smallness’ of our lives then is appealing, but when we were young, some of us couldn’t wait to get out into the big world. In those intervening years, much has happened, both to those who stayed put and to those who traveled out. We now have the chance to know what happened in the lives of many of those people, thanks to Facebook. Facebook has closed the gap of those intervening years in a way that nothing else has before or will again in quite the same way.  

 ‘You know you grew up in the Tarrytowns during the 1960s/1970s if’ is a Facebook group that now has close to 670 members.  It is a fairly active group in the sense that there are new posts published regularly, not necessarily daily, but it doesn’t matter. I joined the group a couple of years ago, right after I joined Facebook. I don’t remember how I found the group but I'm glad I did. I know some of the members personally, others I’ve heard of, but most I have never met. What is appealing about the group is what they remember about the Tarrytowns--Tarrytown and North Tarrytown (renamed Sleepy Hollow in 1996); their posts reflect this. Some of the more recent posts have informed about the deaths of two Tarrytown women many people knew and loved, while others wonder about what happened to this or that person. The uploaded photos are priceless, literally a walk down memory lane as well as a walk into town history. Some of the photos are probably worth some money, taken as they were during the early 1960s and 70s. I think especially of the photos of the big fire on Main Street that destroyed a major portion of the building that faces onto Broadway, or of the old General Motors plant on the Hudson River in North Tarrytown. Some of the photos of the old Tarrytown Music Hall are just beautiful. I spent many a Friday night there at the movies. I saw one photo recently on the site of a long trailer truck packed with new cars--a standard sight in Tarrytown at that time--hauling new cars up from the General Motors factory, out onto Broadway where the road would take them out into the world at large to be sold elsewhere. Broadway was (and still is) the main thoroughfare through both towns. When I was a teenager you could visit the little hole-in-the-wall bookstore near Main Street, the Murray Franklin stationery store for cards and gifts, small stores like the Great California Earthquake with its penchant for hippie clothing, larger clothing stores like Genungs, the Baskin & Robbins ice cream store (with the great-tasting pink bubblegum ice cream with actual pieces of bubblegum—talk about chewing and trying not to swallow the gum at the same time as the ice cream, as well as the heavenly mint chocolate chip ice cream), the Pastry Chef (with its memorable cakes—lemon sponge, Boston cream pie, marzipan—all of which remind me of special family events that we always ended up celebrating with a cake of some kind from the Pastry Chef; Jean and I were talking about this recently when I was in NY), several funeral homes, supermarkets and finally the majestic Warner library with its late 19th century bronze sculpted front door http://www.warnerlibrary.org/node/888. I haven’t seen a more beautiful library building except possibly the New York Public Library in Manhattan. It is interesting to see from the newer photos posted on the site how the town has changed since then—Sleepy Hollow high school has undergone extensive renovations, gasoline stations have been replaced by diners, Patriot’s Park is now the site of the Farmer’s Market, the old Woolworth store is now a gourmet food store, supermarket fronts have been spruced up—just to name a few changes within the last decade or so. The riverfront areas of both towns are more or less unrecognizable compared to what I remember from my childhood, except for the train station in Tarrytown and of course the Tappan Zee bridge, which is unchanged and which remains the landmark that identifies that one has finally reached one’s destination on the east side of the river and the bridge—Tarrytown. The riverfront areas have been renovated and built up with apartment building complexes, among other things, and this I know just from my driving around the areas this past summer. I’ve written about these changes in some of my earlier blog posts.

I love looking at many of the old photos of the Tarrytowns on the Tarrytown Facebook site. Recently I came across a paperback book that took me even further back than the 1960s and 70s. It is called Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (Images of America), and is by and large a collection of black and white photographs from the late 1800s up until 1947. The Introduction to the book states “Not intended to be a comprehensive history, this volume offers selected images of our community from 1609 (artistic renderings of specific areas) until 1947”. The book was written and put together by The Historical Society Inc. serving Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, and published by Arcadia Publishing. It can be purchased through different sellers via Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Tarrytown-Sleepy-Hollow-Images-America/dp/075240881X. It is not an expensive book; I don’t think I paid more than 15 dollars for it. But it is a must-have book if you are a history buff or if you are interested in rediscovering the town you grew up in. I wanted to rediscover Tarrytown, and in doing so I got in touch with those parts of myself that remember and appreciate this beautiful historic Hudson River town.  

Marcus du Sautoy and the Public Understanding of Science

I had the pleasure of listening to Oxford University mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy talk about Symmetry this past Monday at the University of Oslo. The lecture was entitled Symmetry: Reality’s Riddle. The event was co-sponsored by the New Science Library (Det nye realfagsbiblioteket) and the Freedom of Expression foundation (Fritt Ord). The library building (Vilhelm Bjerknes house) will undergo extensive renovations starting in 2011, supported in part by the Freedom of Expression foundation. When the building renovations are finished in 2012, the library will be used as a center for seminars and debates about science and its role in society. Professor du Sautoy was invited to give a talk because he is also a professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and the library is interested in focusing on this aspect for the future. After listening to du Sautoy talk on Monday, I can understand why. Here is a man who can talk about mathematics in a dynamic way, in a way that captivates an audience while at the same time educating them. This is no mean feat. He is smart, clever, good at what he does, but more importantly, he can talk to people outside his profession and get them interested in his work and in mathematics. He has done this by writing best-selling books, hosting TV and radio programs in Britain, holding lectures internationally and so forth.

During his lecture on Monday, he spent a good deal of time talking about the symmetry found in the mosaic tiles of the Alhambra, a building in Granada Spain designed by Moorish architects. He also talked about M.C. Escher, whose art fascinated many of us when we were younger. He was the artist who drew staircases in space that merged into other staircases and it was impossible to know where one started and the other ended http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/back-bmp/LW389.jpg. What I didn’t know was that Escher has done an entire gallery of symmetry drawings as well http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/gallery-symmetry.htm, and that he was fascinated by the Alhambra. So I can thank Professor du Sautoy for this new bit of knowledge. Overall it was a very interesting lecture, and it struck me while he was talking that he did not have to hold an actual talk about the ‘public understanding of science/mathematics’ in order to impart an understanding of his field. His subject was complex, and this was clear to the audience, but his presentation was not obscure or unintelligible. His talk imparted a general understanding of the complex mathematics underlying symmetry (the number riddles involved—hence the name of the lecture, Symmetry: Reality’s Riddle) in a way that was fun, exciting and challenging. The other thing that struck me was that the audience had a lot of questions for him after his lecture, and that is the sign of a good lecture. People were not afraid to ask questions or to share their own experiences and thoughts, and that simply means that he inspired his audience rather than driving them away. I found myself remembering my calculus professor from my freshman year in college. He was such a poor teacher, even though he probably had a good grasp of his subject. He simply could not communicate his knowledge to his students, and the majority of students failed his class. That did not seem to matter to him. I stuck it out for the full year, but never took a math class again after that. I hit the wall somewhere around ‘integration by partial fractions’ which he could not intelligibly explain to us to save his life. But in high school, I really enjoyed all my math classes, and that was due in no small part to Ms. Moloney, our math teacher, who could explain what needed to be explained in an understandable and fun way. That made all the difference. Good teachers who know how to communicate their knowledge and who do so in interesting and motivating ways are the key to attracting students into math and science professions. Professor du Sautoy is one of them.

An Uncluttered Life

Over twenty years have come and gone since I moved to Oslo. I moved here with about eight large boxes filled with my most treasured possessions--some of them useful and some of them of sentimental value. At the end of my husband’s postdoctoral stay at UCSF in California in 1993, I arranged for the shipment of the remainder of my possessions to Oslo---a total of forty-five large boxes, a dining room set and other smaller pieces of furniture and other assorted items that had been in storage in a warehouse in New Jersey. We rented a truck, filled it with all my possessions and drove them to the harbor warehouse, where the shipping company built two large crates for the boxes and the furniture. The crates left New Jersey harbor by boat in early January 1994 and arrived in Oslo in the middle of March. It was a pleasure to unpack all my boxes and to find things I had actually forgotten I had. It is strange that we can learn to live with very little--that when asked to do so, we can actually manage to whittle down our possessions to a few boxes of things that we need to have in order for life to ‘feel’ normal and comfortable. For me, those things are often books given to me by family and friends, music, and my kitchen things.

I was reminded of this earlier time in my life recently because I have spent the past six months cleaning out our attic and cellar storage areas that have pretty much been untouched for the past twenty years. We have added to their contents, but not subtracted. The contents included about ten unopened boxes from the original shipment in 1994. I have often talked about doing this but it never happened until March of this year (and during the summer months when our attic was invaded by moths that ate their way into items that I would never have thought they cared about eating). I began with the attic storage areas and managed to throw away a lot of things that I/we never use and have not missed at all. I came to the (uncomfortable) realization that I was a pack rat in my earlier years. I could not believe the amount of paper I had saved from the time I was a teenager--from small scraps and notes to school handouts to letters from universities to Christmas cards of all kinds. Most of it was easy to toss. When will I ever re-read geography handouts from the seventh grade? What was my intention in saving all my application letters (copies) to different universities, or my GRE scores, or textbooks that are obsolete? I guess at the time I saved them it just seemed natural to do so. I have now thrown away a lot of old items that in retrospect were clutter in my life; I have saved a number of books, cards and letters from people who are dear to me.

I feel lighter and freer and it feels wonderful. I am not weighed down anymore by a lot of material possessions or by tons of paper. I realize that I have done something that many people wait until they are retired to do, but I’m glad I’ve done it now. One of my husband’s friends commented that it was good to do it now, before one is physically unable to do it. He is right. I could have waited another twenty years before I tackled it, but my newfound sense of urgency told me to do it now. So I did. And as far as how I plan to live from here on in, I do not want to accumulate any more paper. I don’t want piles of magazines and newspapers around me that I have to sort through, read through, or take a stand on. I don’t feel good at all when I see the paper piles growing around me. I am glad for the digital age in the sense that I don’t have to print out every single article of interest, especially my scientific articles--I can read them online and know that they are there for future reference. I will always find them again on Google and PubMed. If I can save some trees, then I will have done my part to prevent too much deforestation. But mostly, I want a simpler and more uncluttered life and I know I have taken the necessary steps to get me there. 

A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

Yesterday was probably the last real day of summer here in Oslo. As much as I enjoy autumn, I prefer summer, with the hot sun and the warmth and the greenery around me. I prefer the lazy days and the slower pace of life--nothing one has to do and nowhere one really has to go--like our summer vacation this year. I say this because once we start working again after vacation the pace accelerates from zero to sixty in the space of a few seconds. At least that’s how it feels. I’ve been back to work for about a month now and I already feel like I need another vacation.

Autumn is always a reminder that time is passing--and a reminder of the inevitability of that passage. I see that in nature as well. The yellow jackets are confused, flying into and out of our kitchen, seeking warmth, seeking food, trying to live out the remainder of their short lives on this earth. Dazed and confused. Ditto for the flies and moths that find their way in to our living room--I find their still dried-up bodies at some point when I am vacuuming. The pigeons and the sparrows have taken up residence outside our kitchen window again before we leave for work in the morning, hoping for a handout of some bread crumbs. They already look like they’re shivering, at least the pigeons, the way they ruffle their feathers and hold their wings close to their bodies. The temperature this morning was about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Goodbye summer. Yesterday the afternoon temperatures were up around 68 degrees Fahrenheit and we took an enjoyable, if short, boat trip on the fjord. When we came in to the dock, there was a lone white swan that swam up to our boat. We have seen it before and wondered why he/she is alone, since swans are usually together in pairs. But it was very hungry, and it ate at least five of the flatbreads we had in the boat before it swam away. I always wonder how such birds survive the winter. The wild geese are gone already. The mallard ducks stay put and tough it out during the winter months. The pigeons do that as well. But I’m sure a lot of them don’t survive. The change of seasons always reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem--“Spring and Fall: To a Young Child”. It is a beautiful melancholy poem about life and the inevitability of death, and one that has haunted me since I was a child and read it for the first time.

So the temperature plummeted overnight. I found my turtleneck sweater, leggings, and leather boots this morning. But I’m not mentally ready for the change of seasons. And I’m never really ready for winter. Several restaurants have already posted ads in the city newspapers about their Christmas party menus and how important it is to make sure you book early so you get a table. I’m still thinking about my trip to New York in August and how enjoyable that was. It always rounds out the summer for me and I need it each year. I need it to prepare me for the long winter ahead. Like the pigeons and the mallard ducks, I tough it out each year--the cold, the darkness, the grayness, the long long winter. I guess there is a purpose to each season, but if I had my druthers I’d rather be out on the boat, lazing in the sunshine, or walking up along the Akerselva river, enjoying the long warm days of summer.  

Dark Shadows and Collinwood mansion

Long ago, before the current fascination with vampires--before True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries, there was Dark Shadows, the afternoon TV horror soap opera that ran from 1966 until 1971, Monday to Friday. If I remember correctly it was a half hour soap opera that started at 4 pm, at least in New York. The series was created and produced by Dan Curtis, who also made the two Dark Shadows movies that came afterwards. A remake of the series appeared in 1991 starring Ben Cross as Barnabas, but nothing ever beat the original Dark Shadows. It was truly a creepy series, and one that we and our friends followed devotedly. I remember playing basketball after school when I was in the seventh grade and running home from practice after it was over in order not to miss it. When my father became ill in 1969 and was home on sick leave for a while, even he got interested in watching the series with us in the afternoon.

The opening music itself would draw you in (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUuQK4CR5fM). It was spooky in its own right, accompanying the opening shots of the Collinwood mansion that sat atop a hill overlooking the sea, shrouded in mist during the early evening. I don’t recall all the plots and storylines, but I do remember the characters well: Barnabas Collins, the vampire, played by Jonathan Frid; Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the Collins family matriarch, played by Joan Bennett; her daughter Carolyn, played by Nancy Barrett (with the beautiful long straight blond hair); Angelique, the witch, played by Lara Parker; Victoria Winters, the governess, played by Alexandra Moltke; Maggie Evans, a waitress, who resembled Josette du Pres, Barnabas’ love from long ago, both characters played by Kathryn Leigh Scott; Julia Hoffman, the doctor and friend of Barnabas, played by Grayson Hall; Quentin Collins, played by David Selby; Daphne Harridge played by Kate Jackson, and so many more. Barnabas could be quite evil at times and yet there was some sort of pity for him too- he was a vampire who wanted to be cured of his affliction. The stories were well-written for the most part, and quite strange. They were haunting--they got under your skin. Characters became identifiable with specific music as well; I remember Josette’s music box song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LItWENw8Plk&feature=related), and Angelique had her music as did Quentin. The stories revolved around different love relationships (past, present and future), betrayals, witchcraft, vampirism, ghosts, and numerous Collins family problems. At times overly dramatic, sometimes campy, sometimes funny, but always memorable and the acting was always mostly good. There’s a reason the series has the fan base that it has, so many years later.

The actual mansion that was used (at least the exterior of it) as the fictional Collinwood mansion in the TV series is located in Rhode Island. When Dan Curtis decided to make his two Dark Shadows movies, he chose the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndhurst_(house)) as the film location. The Lyndhurst mansion became Collinwood mansion. Both films, House of Dark Shadows followed by Night of Dark Shadows, came out in 1971. The actual filming at Lyndhurst was done during the early spring in 1970, and there were many people who hung around the gates of the estate waiting to get a glimpse of or an autograph from the actors and actresses after they were finished filming for the day. I remember doing that with some friends from grammar school; we waited for hours for them to be finished on the set. The actors and actresses were always very gracious and they would sign autographs and pose for pictures with us. I have photos from that time of two of my friends posing together with Jonathan Frid, and I have autographs from Jonathan Frid, David Selby and Kate Jackson. It was an exciting time, and even more exciting when the films were actually shown for the first time at the Music Hall in Tarrytown. It was fun to see the Lyndhurst mansion transformed on the screen into a house that was inhabited by vampires and witches, a real house of evil.

Lyndhurst mansion--back view

Lyndhurst mansion--front

Fårikål season

Summer begins to seem like a distant memory. It is chilly here during the day now, whereas I see that in NY it is still warm. With the cooler weather come the traditional meals that one associates with autumn. We are approaching ‘fårikål’ season here in Norway. ‘Fårikål’ can literally be translated as ‘sheep in cabbage’, and that’s exactly what it is. Google Translate translates it as mutton stew. A stew according to the dictionary is a dish of meat, fish or vegetables (alone or in combination) that is cooked by slow simmering, so a stew it is! Fårikål is an autumn meal that is very popular in most of Norway and is often served at dinner parties. It was originally made with meat from older sheep (mutton), but is now made with lamb meat, which I prefer. It is fairly simple to make. The grocery stores now sell pieces of lamb meat (often with attached bone) for fårikål already cut for the purpose. This, plus a head of cabbage, whole black pepper, and flour are all that are needed to make this dish. The recipe that follows is for 4 persons; you will need a head of cabbage (about 3.3 lbs), 3.3 lbs meat, 4 tsp whole black pepper, 2 tsp salt, and 1.2 cups of water.

1.      Cut the cabbage into medium-sized chunks

2.      Place the meat pieces (fatty side down) in a big pot

3.      Add a layer of cabbage pieces, sprinkle with whole black peppers and salt, then another layer of lamb pieces, then another layer of cabbage, more pepper and salt, etc., ending with a cabbage layer

4.      Add water and bring to a boil, then simmer for at least two hours until the meat is tender (falls away from the bone).

5.      Serve with boiled potatoes.

Fårikål is one of the first Norwegian dishes I ever made. It came out really well (because it is so simple to make) and it is very good. It tastes even better the day after you’ve made it.

Du bor i forskjellige rom (You live in different rooms)

Du bor i forskjellige rom 

Og flytter mellom dem

Med jevne mellomrom.

Jeg har banket på en dør en hel dag

Bare for å komme inn,

Å finne fram til deg

Da døren var lukket.

Jeg har forskjellige nøkler

Men du skifter lås like ofte

Som du bytter rom.

Jeg puster hardt bare for å holde tritt med deg.

---------------------------------------------- 

(English translation)

You live in different rooms

And move among them

At regular intervals.

I have knocked on one door an entire day

Just to come in and find my way to you

When the door was locked.

I have different keys

But you change the locks as often

As you change rooms.

I breathe hard just to keep up with you.

from Parables and Voices 

copyright Paula M. De Angelis