STANDING ON THE SIDELINES

The past few months seem all too much like the late sixties, when after centuries of oppression and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., African Americans grieved and rioted. Back then I wanted to be part of the civil rights movement, but did only a very small bit. I wrote letters to newspapers, helped to integrate an all-white neighborhood in Chicago. It was all too little, of course. Others fought and died in that battle.

While Chicago police clubbed demonstrators in Lincoln Park, I lay in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. It gave me an excuse for not doing something more, for merely being on the sidelines of a major battle.

Now I am 83, “too old” to go out and march in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the murders of George Floyd and others. It would be ludicrous, I say to myself. Would police treat gently an old lady using a walker? They might, considering my age and “white privilege” status. If they clubbed or tear-gassed me, that might be a useful protest, but I’m too cowardly. Once again, I will watch braver souls on TV, write the occasional letter, and hope that this time there can actually be an improvement.

 

 Copyright © September 27, 2020 by Carol Leth Stone (a.k.a. RovinCrone)

SMILE!

Jessica Bennett wrote in a recent New York Times article that there is a silver lining to the mask problem, at least for women. Those of us who don’t smile continually no longer have to listen to remarks like, ”Hey, sweetie! Lighten up and smile!” Unless we knit our brows and scowl, we look like anyone else. For all anyone knows, we are smiling broadly under our masks.

Maybe it’s genetic. My father was a handsome, serious man who wore a pleasant expression but seldom smiled broadly unless he was laughing. For years, no one bothered him about it, but by the time he became a school principal in the sixties, things had changed. As you can tell from comparing school photos taken in the fifties and sixties, smiling for photos became mandatory around 1960. No one sent the memo to my dad. Finally, when he had to pose for a faculty photo, the frustrated photographer shouted, “Smile, Henry! Smile!” He did so reluctantly, and the result was gruesome. He looks like someone who has a few too many drinks. I saved the photo and used to tease him with it. Mother, on the other hand, smiled easily and often.

Though the smile mandate caused a slight problem for my dad, men in general seem able to look serious without being criticized. In fact, it seems to give them an advantage in business and political situations, where looking too happy may make them seem too lightweight. Women, in contrast, are expected to smile in social situations, but to look and act only slightly serious otherwise. We can choose between seeming too accommodating and being perceived as shrewish.

Smiling has different connotations in different cultures, too; German waiters seem to take pride in looking severe, while American servers of both genders may smile too often for customers’ comfort. Both groups must be handicapped by the current need to wear masks.

 

THE POST-PANDEMIC WORKPLACE

The kind of office you have was once a status symbol. When I began working for the American Medical Association in the early sixties, I shared a small windowless office with another editor. One day some workers came in with a bag of tools and began measuring the door. We asked what was going on, and were informed that they would be installing a coat hook. We pointed out that there were two of us, we were enduring a brutal Chicago winter, and we needed two hooks for our coats. One guy looked at us pityingly and said, “Lady, this is a one-coat-hook office! “ Oh. Subsequent experiences at the AMA confirmed that lesson.

Later in the sixties, working happily for another employer, I had a small but sufficient office to myself. The furniture was old, and my file cabinet was far down the hall, but other editors were near by for conferences and “reading back” galley proofs. I even had a window providing the natural light editors need.  That office was fine.

By the seventies, the cubicle had arrived. Mine featured all-metal furniture designed to keep me from moving and wasting any time. Files, an electric typewriter, and other equipment were compressed into a tiny claustrophobic space.  A thin metal partition separated my cubicle from another editor’s. As everything I needed for editing was in the cubicle, my only excuse for leaving was to visit the restroom, which luckily was far down the hall. Drinking a lot of water provided that excuse. After a few years in cubicles, most of us gained weight (what was then called “secretarial spread”) and were miserable. Recently I have heard with horror of “toilet cubicles” that can be inserted in cubicle-based offices. I don't even want to think about it.

Since around 1990, office workers have seen some long-overdue changes in their workplaces. Computers have made many changes possible. Telecommuting has become popular at companies where workers must drive long distances to the office. Some workers have been able to work at home, using email and other methods of communicating with fellow workers and clients. This has been an especially welcome change for those who have children or elderly parents to care for.

A home office can be essential for some. After my husband had a heart attack and my mother moved to California, I set up a very comfortable home office so that I could be a caregiver as well as a writer and editor. It was successful in many ways, but I missed the contact with others (even that spooky secretary who looked like Morticia Addams and who glided in silently once a day to drop some galleys on my desk). I no longer had easy access to training programs, just when computers began dominating the publishing world (and that’s another story). Essential as a home office was for us, not being visible in a physical office ended my original in-house career. I was able to set up my own small business, The Stone Cottage editorial service. From then on, I was self-employed and did more writing than editing.

Those who continued working in more traditional offices also have seen changes. The open office plans in many companies are planned to encourage collaboration and sharing ideas more than individual thinking and introspection. Some Silicon Valley offices have become so luxurious that workers (especially young single males) have few reasons to go home. I’ve heard of some who sleep in their offices, hit the gym and shower in the morning, then go back to work.

Currently the pandemic has changed the workplace for nearly everyone. Some are forced to work at home, whether they want to or not. They may have to use Zoom for meetings, Skype for one-to-one conferences. Many are discovering the advantages of having a home office and may never voluntarily go back to working in a traditional office.  Others are too constricted by the arrangement.

It’s impossible to predict now what offices of the future will be like, but certainly they won’t be like those of the past or present. If I were a young, single textbook editor now, with the power to design my own workplace, I’d choose to work in a home office two or three days a week, where I could concentrate without interruption. During the rest of the week I’d go to the publisher’s main office, where I could meet with authors, confer with other editors, and work with artists. Perhaps I could share office space there with an editor having another schedule, and our office would have two coat hooks. Hopefully the glass partitions, masks, and other protective equipment needed now will soon be unnecessary.

 Copyright © May 28, 2020 by Carol Leth Stone (a.k.a. RovinCrone)