I Am So Not A Good Salesperson

I should be better at publicizing my blog and newsletter. I was pretty concerned about such things when I was in the process of quitting my job and hadn't yet found a new one. But then when I found and started a new job I took a break from writing and marketing. I gratefully dropped out of Facebook and Twitter. So what's a boy to do in getting the word out?

Luckily, I don't need to go viral. There are people who need to make money blogging. I'm not one of them. With money off the table, I just write, publish, and let things happen.

And I do it mostly for myself. Sorry, but it's true. I'm glad when something I wrote works for someone, but I write here because it feels good, feels right, feels like the next level of something I've done most of my life and always will.

Yesterday I posted a newsletter link to LinkedIn, the one social media that seems worth my time. I wanted to identify myself as a writer there and maybe provide someone some enjoyment. It won't expand the subscriber ranks much.

There are easy things I could do to increase readership and having a larger audience might push me in some interesting ways. I'm not against having more readers, but for the moment I'm not interested in pushing that. I'm more curious what happens if I keep showing up and doing the work. I have a feeling things will work out as they should.

I started with less than a dozen readers, all family. Fifty-seven people subscribe to the newsletter now, one more than a month ago. Slow growth? Sure. I can live with that. I'm in it for the long haul and for things other than fame, glory, and money.

That said, if you want to send me money, shower me with glory, or connect me with fame, I suppose we can work something out.

Thank You

Thank you, woman in Wegmans who looked at me today and then, when I looked, glanced away only to look at me again. It has been longer than I care to consider since I was last checked out and I'm over the moon that it happened today.

It was a challenging day at work. I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing but kept doing it. After a day like that it's not Miller time so much as Wegmans time for bagels to break my wife's and daughter's Yom Kippur fast and a bag of pistachios for me. That and to people-watch. In the bakery aisle I got bagels and slowly made my way to dairy humming Springsteen's — "Western Stars" — until I remembered we didn't need cream cheese. I went to the back corner thinking I might get beer but decided against it and turned down the snack aisle so I could decide against a bag of chips. I grabbed pistachios hoping they're maybe least a little healthier.

Along the way I saw two guys laugh near the flowers, a small child pointing at her teeth less to show me than to count them (she was on twenty-nine when I passed, which I thought was optimistic), a woman limping in high heeled sandals, three old people hanging onto carts being gently pulled by quiet people with faraway eyes every one, a woman in black dress, heels, and make-up fit for a state dinner, three college women carrying fancy water bottles and wearing black running tights, and one dog being trained to help others. Don't pet. That dog's working.

At the registers the old woman ahead of me paid with her "Oh, it's so easy!" she said. The boy nodded, eyebrows raised. After she left, he scanned my pistachios and I told him, "five bagels." I tapped my phone (so easy!) and thanked him. Picking up my bag, I looked at a woman looking at me. She turned her eyes away then looked again and turned away. I smiled, not at her (creepy!), but at getting checked out. Day made.

Now, sure, I might have had ink on my shirt in the shape of a gunshot wound or a split down my pants (two things I've had at Wegmans before), but no, so I'm going with the odd notion that she checked me out and riding that high. Why not?

Thank you, woman in Wegmans who checked me out today. It's hours later. The sun is down. Yom Kippur has ended for my wife and daughter (I'm not Jewish). The moon is up and there I go, right over it, into the heavens.

Anxiety And The New Job

Indulge me a moment.

Monday night I lay in bed working myself up into a good deal of anxiety about work. Didn't I quit the job that makes me anxious? Yes, yes I did, and I'm in a great job now. I like the work I'm being asked to do so much that I worry about not doing it well enough. Monday night I blew past anxious almost to panic. It's no wonder my dreams were frantic and in each of them I was helpless.

My inclination in such times is to shut up, hide, and hope no one notices. That's led to some predictable results. Sometimes I get through, but the anxiety seed takes root and waits to bloom again. Other times things fail to detonate, like a kid waiting and waiting for his lie to be exposed (not that I've had childhood experience with that, no not me). Still other times the whole thing blows up.

Tuesday morning I woke figuring I would go with the usual plan. Habits. But, in the waiting room of my daughter's MRI, I read a Harvard Business Review article "What Makes A Leader?" (subscriber only link, sorry) about emotional intelligence and leadership. Good leaders show "a propensity for reflection and thoughtfulness," something I like I'm well practiced i doing. I was still feeling anxiety from Monday night, so I stopped reading to acknowledge that.

Then I wondered, now what?

Here's a lot of why I like my job: I have four people to whom I report and I talked with two of them today. I told them about my anxiety and not only did they wave it off as nonsense but they assured me I'm doing well and suggested ways forward. Both also offered specific assistance instead of "anything I can do, let me know."

This is my new job. In my old job, it was all too easy to be alone in my anxiety. In my old job I had to hide from management. In my new job I work with leaders. What a difference.

I still feel like I have to do a better job, but I get that I need to grow into things, and I'm pretty sure I'll get there. I know I've got help. I expect to sleep better tonight.

Thanks for listening to my therapy session. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Small Kindnesses

by Danusha Laméris
from The Writer's Almanac

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead—you first," "I like your hat."

---

All of which has me thinking about the person who waved me through the stop sign ahead of my turn, the other driver who gave me a thumbs-up instead of a wave as I let her merge on the highway, the child who said "hello, mister" when I passed him on the sidewalk, the elderly neighbor who drags my empty garbage can up my driveway while we're all out at work, the colleague who placed a jar of fresh jam on my desk after we had talked about her berry picking, the friend whose letter arrives in my mailbox, the friend of my daughter who thanked me so politely for dropping him off at his house and for going all of two blocks out of our way, the woman who told me how lovely my email was excusing the late shipment of something I had ordered, the secretary who told me to have a blessed day, the woman who teared up when I asked if her niece was recovering from surgery, the dog's tail as I handed her a piece of cheese, my daughter's mumbled "I love you too" last night before bed, my wife's gentle kiss on my forehead when anxiety eats at me, and the memory of my father somehow telling me without words that there is more good in this life he has left than bad and I might as well notice all that wonder.