#PROFESSIONALISM

[girltalkcollectives]

Double Standard Dictionary: A Guide to Things That Are Only "Problems" When Women Do Them

Let's have an honest conversation about something that drives me absolutely crazy. You know those little comments and judgments that somehow only seem to apply to women? Yeah, we need to talk about that.

The Professional Edition

When men vs. when women do the exact same thing:

He's assertive → She's aggressive

He's focused → She's cold

He's passionate → She's emotional

He's dedicated → She's obsessed

He's confident → She's arrogant

He's strategic → She's manipulative

He's busy → She's neglecting her life

The Dating Double Standards

The classics that never seem to die:

He's dated around → She has "a past"

He's a bachelor → She's "left on the shelf"

He's selective → She's picky

He's career-focused → She's married to her job

He's a social butterfly → She's attention-seeking

He's "finding himself" → She needs to settle down

He's direct → She's desperate

The Appearance Police

The endless contradictions:

Look professional, but not too try-hard

Be attractive, but not attention-seeking

Wear makeup, but keep it "natural"

Be fit, but not too muscular

Dress well, but not too sexy

Look youthful, but not immature

Age gracefully, but never look old

The Emotion Edition

How it's perceived:

His anger is justified → Her anger is hysteria

His sadness is deep → Her sadness is dramatic

His stress is from hard work → Her stress is from "not coping"

His excitement is enthusiasm → Her excitement is over-the-top

His concerns are valid → Her concerns are paranoid

His anxiety is pressure → Her anxiety is weakness

The Family Chronicles

The never-ending judgment:

He's babysitting → She's just parenting

He's helping around the house → She's doing her job

He's focused on work → She's neglecting family

He needs time to himself → She's selfish

He's weighing his options → She's wasting time

He's figuring out what he wants → Her clock is ticking

The Office Politics

Things I'm tired of seeing:

Men get mentored → Women get hit on

Men network → Women "sleep their way up"

Men are busy → Women "can't handle it"

Men are thorough → Women are perfectionists

Men delegate → Women are lazy

Men need work-life balance → Women are uncommitted

The Social Scene

The ridiculous expectations:

Be fun but not too wild

Be social but not too friendly

Be smart but not intimidating

Be successful but not threatening

Be independent but not difficult

Be strong but still need help

Be confident but still humble

The Success Paradox

What we're dealing with:

Be ambitious but not threatening

Lead but don't be bossy

Achieve but don't outshine

Negotiate but don't be demanding

Succeed but stay likeable

Excel but remain modest

Win but make it look effortless

The Reality Check

What this actually means for us:

Constant second-guessing

Walking on eggshells

Energy drain from overthinking

Imposter syndrome

Reduced authenticity

Limited self-expression

Unnecessary stress

The Way Forward

What we can do about it:

Call it out

Name the double standard

Question the logic

Point out the inconsistency

Support other women

2. Break the patterns

Reject unfair labels

Define success personally

Set our own standards

Celebrate authenticity

3. Change the narrative

Share success stories

Highlight achievements

Create new networks

Mentor others

To Every Woman Dealing With This

Remember:

You're not "too much"

Your achievements are earned

Your feelings are valid

Your ambitions are worthy

Your standards are important

Your voice matters

Your path is yours

[typhlonectes]

[femmefatalevibe]

Femme Fatale Guide: 15 Essential Business Skills Everyone Should Master

Articulate, confident communication

Crafting effective, compelling pitches

Operating and communicating through a solution-oriented framework

Research of all types (Google, market research, studies, polls, interpersonal conversations, etc.)

Learning how to streamline, edit, and organize information in a clear and logical way

Accumulating high-level working knowledge/proficiency in all tools and programs directly related to your type of work/industry

Budgeting and financial optimization (investment, tax benefits, etc.)

Reading and interpreting legal contracts/documents

Setting rates, boundaries, and learning when/how to delegate

Good posture, direct eye contact, and a firm handshake

Building streamlined systems for onboarding, different repeat project scopes/workflows, and KPI measuring

The art of following up, listening to (potential) clients' needs, asking thoughtful questions, and benefit-oriented salesmanship

Consistently reading, learning, and studying current events/cultural platforms/industry and field-related knowledge

How to spot customer/client/business partner red flags

Self-management, task/project prioritization, and optimization of your personal energy clock + levels

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Professional vagueposting but if you're going to use ChatGPT to write your resume please for the love of Optimus Prime also rewrite it so it doesn't look like it was written by ChatGPT.

[thepersonalquotes]

Professional men run the business started by the courageous men.

Amit Kalantri

[safety-pin-punk]

Bit of a tough one, but got any ideas for adding punk style to office/business clothes? I love my job - and still wear my beat-up, ladder-laced docs and safety pin earrings - but some days I really miss my patch pants, deathhawk, and jacket :(

Uuuuuuhhhhhhhhgggggggggg I HATE professional attire SO FUCKING MUCH

I was an chemistry/education double major for almost a full 4 years before I switched to straight chemistry. Not because I hated teaching, I actually loved it. My students were my kids. But the environment was horrendous. Administration was horrific. The ‘ethos’ you are supposed to follow as a teacher is just dehumanizing and toxic.

But during those 4 years, I had a very strict dress code that I had to follow. Stricter than the dress code of the actual schools I was working in. I ended up wearing pretty much the same outfit every day in a different color. Sweater with a collar underneath, khakis, and boots that looked enough like dress shoes to get by. And technically I wasn’t even allowed to wear that because it was a ‘mens outfit’ but my supervisor didn’t snitch on me for it soo. But yeah, I felt this ask to my core

Now I don’t know what type of job you have anon, but here are my best ideas for you.

Wear a jacket to work, not while you work, but to work. And not just a jacket, but a battle jacket. Take it off when you’re there, put it on when you leave. (Bonus points if you theme one to your actual job)

Leave your old patch pants for after work and more fun occasions. BUT, theres no reason that you cant wear a pair of jeans with a *few* patches on them during a casual friday or office party. Especially if there is nothing ‘offensive’ on them

Add chains. Just say they are wallet chains. They are all wallet chains. Yes you just have that many wallets. No they can not see them.

Im sorry. I wish I was more help here. I hate professionalism rules. The only reason jeans are considered unprofessional are because they were popular among the poor when they were first made in like the 1800s (dont quote be for the year)

[karalianne]

NaNoWriMo Fire

I have been posting comments on NaNoWriMo's Facebook page, to the most recent three posts there (copied and pasted). My latest one has apparently been blocked or something, so I'm going to start sharing here. Please do share this far and wide.

If you don't know what the NaNoWriMo fire is, I have two resources for you:

Reddit Post (took two to post the whole story)

Google Docs summary (being actively updated as things continue to burn)

So below the fold I'm pasting the comments I put on Facebook, in order. Enjoy!

March 5, 20204

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the goal here is to shutter NaNoWriMo as an organization. I wish you guys would just DO IT ALREADY instead of pretending you're trying to do right by the community. That ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS ABOMINATION of a new ML agreement is reprehensible. I hope NOBODY signs it, because it is BLATANTLY trying to put ALL BLAME for anything that goes wrong directly on the ML's. Which is ludicrous. On top of that, if people have concerns about the agreement they are automatically being removed as ML. That's not good faith. It's not transparency. I've been trying to believe the best but obviously that was really silly of me and I apologize for believing that everyone is capable of actually doing better.

March 7, 2024

The Board Update is laughable and reinforces the impression I offered in my previous comment. Basically, nobody on the Board right now was even there when all this stuff happened. NaNoWriMo the organization is not actually listening to the feedback from the community; supposedly there have been focus groups but none of the people I'm in contact with (which is a lot of people who have all been very heavily involved with the organization over the years) ever got an invitation. I am just one person, and I am aware that I am not owed anything. However, this entire thing continues to be mismanaged, and I do not for one second believe that the organization is heading in the right direction.

Again, I suggest you just shut things down completely like you're obviously planning. All the noises about trying to do the right thing, followed by this alarming lack of actually doing the right thing and incredibly tone-deaf approach, are not helping the situation. Support for the organization is dwindling, and I am not surprised. That's what happens when you ignore and/or woefully mismanage your response to concerns.

March 9, 2024

Well, I'm back for another round of "I thought I told you not to do this kind of thing." Again, I know I'm just a person and nobody has to listen to me, but I know plenty of people who agree with me.

First, regarding the FAQ for MLs, there are contradictions and missing words. I try not to criticize that sort of thing too much (in spite of being a trained proofreader) but this is supposed to be a writing organization, and you people at HQ are supposed to be writers. Do better.

Second, it has come to my attention that both the Terms & Conditions and the Codes of Conduct have been updated with no notification. That is ridiculous and unethical, not to mention poor business practice. Literally every organization I am connected to sends an e-mail to let me know when there are changes upcoming, and often those changes are outlined so I know what to expect. And then I have the option to leave if I don't agree with those changes.

If you did send a notification e-mail prior to these changes being implemented, well, hey, we already knew the e-mail system was borked so whatever. But it looks like literally NOBODY got a notification of the upcoming changes, which indicates that there was no attempt to follow best practices.

It is clear to me, and to many other people in the community, that nobody at HQ actually knows how to manage a non-profit. I'm also pretty sure you don't understand ethics or best practices. You're trying to get ahead of bad things that ALREADY HAPPENED, and if you're actually consulting a lawyer about all of these things before you do them, they are giving you horrible advice. You also needed a PR team back in like November (maybe even October).

There's a weird attitude that I've seen all over the place, that people who are being vocal about this disaster are being mean or trying to destroy NaNoWriMo or something like that. I want to be crystal clear here: People who are being vocal are speaking up on behalf of people who needed a voice. People were being abused and others decided to help them get out of that situation. When the expected solution (reporting to HQ) did not result in appropriate actions, they moved to make the situation public. (That's when I found out and got involved.)

When we were discussing problems and asking questions on the forums in November, we were trying to be productive. We were looking for answers, making suggestions, explaining what was wrong (because as we talked we learned that there was far more than just the Mod X situation that was wrong), offering our assistance... and we got shut down.

Now I'm also hearing that there has been a focus group. Who was in that focus group? How did you get the participants? Nobody I know was contacted to be on that focus group. Are you actually LISTENING to the participants? Are the people you're recruiting all folks who've made it clear they're mad at those of us who are using our voices to call out abuses of power, poor organization and business practices, and unethical behaviour? I don't care if I'm not approached to be a part of a focus group, but making sure you involve an assortment of viewpoints would be beneficial.

I am just incredibly disappointed in how everything has gone and is going. The yacht has sailed. It's time to accept that and move on.

March 12, 2024 (the one that isn't showing up)

Every time I turn around, it seems, there's something new to facepalm over. It is becoming increasingly clear that HQ is on the defensive. You need someone on staff, like, six months ago, who is actually capable of professional communication. Right now, we're receiving passive-aggressive whinges about how many e-mails there are and how you're giving up vacations in order to reply to them. At least some of the foolish "answers" on the FAQ (which again, why is that on Zendesk? That makes no sense.) have been removed. The thing is, nevermind Pepperidge Farm, the Internet remembers. EVERYTHING.

It is not professional to tell your subordinates (whether staff or volunteers) that you're giving up personal time in order to deal with a mess that is your responsibility to deal with. It is not professional to complain about having to do a job you agreed to take on.

It is not ethical to try and get anti-union verbage into an agreement for volunteers. It is not ethical to try and get volunteers to take on all liability for events they organize on your behalf.

It is incredibly rude to treat adults as if they are misbehaving children. Especially not when they are bringing you legitimate concerns and criticisms about how your organization is handling a serious situation.

And yes, a lot of this one is specifically about Kilby, because WTF? How have you been on multiple boards and not learned how to do all of this stuff properly? You were absolutely NOT the right person for the job, and it's laughable that you think you were.

[sleepy-bebby]

Boring: warm regards, kind regards, stay safe, have a good day, thanks, awaiting your reply

Interesting, eye catching, fun, unapologetically cringe:

[odinsblog]

Trash talk is a part of most sports, but it’s definitely a part of basketball.

Let’s break it down and get to the point: Angel Reese was humiliating Caitlin Clark. And she made the John Cena gesture at a time when Clark and Iowa had no possibility of winning. This made qwhite a few people mad. The real questions we need to be asking are 1) Why did it make them mad? Because Caitlin was expected to win and had already been dubbed the girl boss darling of the tournament. 2) Why weren’t those same people upset when Caitlin Clark told an opposing player to her face, “You’re down 15 points, shut up!”? Why was it cute “girl boss” when Caitlin was mean and rude to someone else, but it’s “poor sportsmanship” when Angel Reese gave it right back to her?? 3) Why are white people sooo comfortable making up brand new rules that suddenly advantage them but penalize others whenever they aren’t in the winner’s seat??

What all the upset white people are really saying is, Angel Reese did not show Caitlin Clark the “proper” amount of respect. Caitlin was supposed to be the inevitable winner.

And it doesn’t matter if Caitlin did the same thing to others. Because it very specifically burns white people up when a Black woman has the upper hand and isn’t suitably “kind” or not demure enough—even to someone who taunted the Black person first.

And for many of the selectively outraged people, it didn’t begin until Angel Reese did something wrong. That is sO very much like white history in America: ignore everything that happened preceding the event. Ignore or make excuses for everything that happened right up to the point where white people got mad.

The same thing happens every day in schools, politics and workplaces: except we call the double standards and made up rules “professionalism,” and certain white people are allowed to flaunt professionalism and other Black people are not.

Also, people saying this has nothing to do with race are lying. A predominantly Black team beat a predominantly white team. This is 2023 America and racism is alive and well.

Who do you think most of those players on the Iowa team are going to vote for in the next presidential election?

And it bears repeating again: Jill Biden inviting Caitlin Clark and the Iowa team to the White House is thee foulest, most white privileged, All-Lives-Matter kind of bullshit. Everyone is super focused on making sure that the white girl doesn’t feel bad.

Oh, last thing - it’s not against the rules of basketball to follow someone around on the court. Some people call that covering your opponent. If you follow (cover) the wrong person or don’t follow them well enough, ultimately your team loses points and loses the game. Just like Iowa lost. To LSU.

[askagamedev]

Have you, or some of your colleagues, ever worked on a game you didn't particularly like? Not like "the creative team is wrong and I hate it", but more like your taste didn't align with the director's, or the game wasn't something you'd care to play. If so, how do you cope with that, given that projects can last for several years, often with intense working conditions?

Thanks for the blog!! It's always a great read.

My very first job in the game industry was working on a game in a genre I had little personal interest in, programming parts of the game I never had any particular interest in. I was quite far away from the kind of games I grew up playing or dreamed of making, but I did my best anyway because I knew that it was the best opportunity I had to get to where I wanted to be. Since then, I've worked on projects that I thought were great until they got cancelled, projects where I didn't see eye to eye with the creative leadership, and all sorts of other projects besides.

Even if the big picture game isn't in my particular wheelhouse, that doesn't mean I can't do my best to solve the problems I'm tasked with. I enjoy coming up with creative and engaging ways to grab the attention of the target players. Even if the game isn't to my taste, the problems I solve are still interesting and the solutions I deliver can still be clever, elegant, and robust. I can still do work that I can be proud of. This is what it means to be professional - I'll always deliver high quality work at a shippable level, even if I don't personally enjoy the game I am making.

Taking a step further back beyond the personal circle, I've also learned that the project itself doesn't mean much if I'm not working with people I can enjoy collaborating with, no matter what dream IP or concept it might be. What really matters are the people I work with, not the project itself. If I work with great people, the project will be great. If there's no team cohesion or camaraderie, the project can't be great. I remember going from a team with little cohesion and noncommittal leadership (leading to terrible morale) to a team with stronger leadership and cohesion. I know that my morale palpably improved after transitioning off of the first team and onto the second.

That's really the long and the short of it - on a personal level, I get more job satisfaction when I'm solving interesting problems and challenging myself to level up as a designer, engineer, and developer. On a project level, my morale is higher when I'm working with people I feel I can trust to do their jobs and that we can all work towards well-defined common goals. The particular game idea, story, genre, etc. tends to take a back seat to both my role and my team. Without a good role and team, I'll be miserable and even the most interesting game idea or IP in the world wouldn't be enough to keep me from looking to jump ship.

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[animentality]

[nopizzaaftermidnight]

[femmefatalevibe]

Babes I need tips on how not to take things personally. I take criticism very personally and I think because of it I will never be good enough

Distinguish and place different criticisms in two buckets:

Constructive criticism

Deconstructive criticism

For constructive criticism:

Decouple the criticism of a work assignment, conversation, behavior, or decision from your personhood. Approach your perception of the criticism as 4 distinct elements:

You

The other person/group of people

Your demonstrated work product or behavior

The feedback on said work product or behavior

Consider constructive criticism as an opportunity for self-reflection, learning, and growth. If you instinctually ask yourself: "How did I do this wrong/why did I mess up?", consider asking yourself these more productive, growth-oriented questions instead:

What "mistakes" did I make that I can learn from? How can I prevent a situation like this from happening again?

How can I use the outcome/feedback from this situation to do better next time and going forward?

What can I do in the future to set myself up to win?

Are there any new habits/skills I can learn or books I can read/courses and programs I can enroll in to significantly grow in this area?

For deconstructive criticism:

Remember others' unnecessary criticism is usually a projection of their own emotions, experiences, and life stressors. Their behavior is a reflection of them, not you

Practice emotional differentiation: Accept and validate where the other person's emotions/experiences end & your feelings and personhood begin

If you begin to question your worth or positive traits, objectively evaluate the situation and interaction you had. Separate the objective facts and logistics from the emotional reactions/responses or subjective meaning you believe they hold. Don't gaslight yourself. Stick to the facts, accept your emotions, reflect, and move forward

Hope this helps xx

[backtonormallife]

Cults

People who stan W&C are exhibiting very cult like behavior. Their favs can do no wrong, at least in their eyes. Fine, don't put your Father/FIL for even 5 seconds in your video. But the PDA was very unnecessary and the fandoms would have been all over Harry and Meghan had they put out a video with so much PDA.

Is it racism, misogyny? Who knows, but the double standards are uncouth.

Also, one minute W&C are being Mr. and Mrs. Cool, middle class parents, the next minute it comes out their eleven year old is taking flying lessons. Because most eleven year olds have parents who can afford that. Not begrudging George taking flying lessons, but William and Catherine need to check their privilege. Pick a lane - privileged royals or middle class mom and dad.

[nightcapd]

There are two types of pseudoregalia players;

Goat Lady butt

Cat Bunny zoomies