How are you?

Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on December 27, 2020.

Earlier during the pandemic, my wife told me I should quit asking people how they are because it forces them to lie.  No one is doing “well” or “fine” these days. With regard to answering the question, she’s probably right about people who are polite, private and introverted like she is. People like me, however, who are boundary-challenged and blurt out overshares have no problem answering honestly. 

Depending on the time of day, you’ll get a different answer from me as to how I am doing. At the time of this writing for instance? I’m good. Great in fact. I’ve been going through all of our digital photographs from the year to make photo collages for our 12 and 15 year old boys as New Year’s gifts. (They’re unlikely to read this, but shhhhh.  Please don’t spoil the surprise.) The smiles in our pictures present the bits of joy we experienced in 2020, and I’ve been sitting here reliving it.

Before the March shutdowns, I worked from home often. The nature of my job has me running software at all hours of the day. I will often work while we watch movies in the evenings, kick things off to run overnight, and analyze results first thing in the morning over a cup of coffee. On March 16, however, I checked out a monitor, my custom green office chair and a plastic chair mat to set up a semi-permanent office area in my basement. With a 6-foot Costco table next to a space heater and the cat gym, I was prepared to work from home as long as needed.

When the work force trickled back into office settings in June, I was still doing my morning and evening work tasks at home but returned to the facility fulltime. I have my own hard-walled office where I’m able to work mask-free, and when I need to collaborate with colleagues or walk through common areas, I mask up and carry on as “normal.” As far as the pandemic has gone, I’ve felt extreme gratitude swirled with a touch of guilt at how fortunate I am to not only have kept working, but to be working in environments that are low risk for COVID-19.

My wife, however, works in the lab at a hospital. She has a seven-on/seven-off shift that’s aligned to have her working both Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2020. She's one of the few who run their COVID-19 tests, so her paws are in it daily. She wears an N95 for her ten-hour shift, and when she’s worn one out and gets a new one, the out-of-the-box elasticity leaves grooves, almost cuts, on her face. There are extra shields, hoods and precautions when she's working with live samples, but she’s got a relentless shroud of unease that she will bring the virus home to her kids or her asthmatic and now-out-of-shape wife. I can see the heavy effects of her job first hand while she sees the even heavier effects on the doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers alongside her.

It’s no wonder she suggested I quit asking people how they are doing.  Not only do we have strikingly different personalities, our professional pandemic experiences have been poles apart. Following her advice, I did stop asking my friends and acquaintances how they were doing. The older I get, the more I realize that striving to treat others as I would like to be treated isn’t always the best route. Sure, it’s a good guide, but with our innate differences, to be a good friend, partner and even citizen, I’m getting better at seeking to treat others how they would like to be treated, aside from what I might prefer.

My wife got her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine last week. The picture she sent immediately following shows her sleeve raised with a Band-Aid at the shot site and, although her mask covers much of her face, I can see the brightest smiling eyes of 2020. That picture is going right in the center of the boys’ photo medley.

This gift for the kids is meant to highlight the rainbows among the rain in 2020, and it has been marvelously therapeutic for me.  Even when I thought we were not doing well or fine, I can see that we were doing okay. I often want to fix things and solve all the problems, but this past year I couldn’t. I’ve had to learn that listening can be as important as fixing, and with that I am going to go back to asking people how they are. If people feel moved to give me a lying “fine”, that’s okay, but as I’ve seen our 2020 replayed in these photographs, I’ve got a renewed energy to ask and listen. How are you?

Not a Prize to be Won

Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on December 20, 2020.

It’s that time of year for the annual performance evaluation. I’m asked to provide a self-appraisal before my manager writes my review. I should be working on that instead of this, but alas. Here I am. As I think back on this past year, thoughts drift into reflections upon my entire career.

When I graduated from college, I was one of two women in Idaho State’s College of Engineering graduating class. During my last semester, I got an internship at local semiconductor manufacturer American Microsystems Inc. (AMI). My semester’s task was to incorporate code into test programs to reduce part test times and ultimately save costs. That internship led to my first full-time job as a Test Engineer.

My mom convinced me to buy new slacks and blouses so I would look professional. What I experienced, however, was that among my team of a dozen male engineers, I was the one asked to make copies. I was often mistaken for the new secretary and wasn’t included in technical lessons that the male new hires were. If I was going to be treated like an engineer, I learned I had to start by dressing like one. Jeans, comic book t-shirts, and sneakers took over.

Within my first few months, I attended a staff meeting where a vice president (who left the company a few years after this) shared big news. We were awarded a contract with a prestigious tech company. He gave the customer presentation to our team to wow us the way he wowed them.  There were about 20 engineers in the room. I was the only woman at 23 years old.

As a rookie, I didn’t know the vice president well, but I knew who he was. I had been in a fender-bender with his daughter in high school. Jamming to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” and not paying attention, I hit her back bumper right in front of Big Gary’s snack shack in the after school swarm. When my mom and the VP talked on the phone that night to discuss insurance details, he insisted everything was fine; it was a “teenager car” and there was no need file a claim. As a single parent, she couldn’t have handled an insurance cost increase, so we were always grateful for his kindness.

Toward the end of his presentation, a slide cast on the wall showed a cartoon businessman in a blue suit next to a smiling dog. The VP said something like, “We love the past work you’ve given us but we don’t just want your dog projects. We want more. We can do more.”

He advanced the slide and the cartoon engineer had a bigger smile and was standing next to a woman in a red bikini on an awards platform holding a gold trophy. She was blond with a pageant-style sash over her chest, cleavage a-plenty and a toothpaste commercial smile. “We want your prize projects. Your top-notch ones. Our past work shows we’ve earned them.”

Even if it was a cartoon, why were we seeing so much skin in a staff meeting? Was the trophy supposed to represent the contract award or the woman? Or both together?

He was using a woman displayed this way to indicate an honor. A prize. Something beautiful that everyone valued and our company sought to win. While I grasped the intended honor of the imagery, this characterization of women in my workplace perpetuated a singular representation of all women. My every day had been an effort in demonstrating that women are technical counterparts - that I was a brainy equal who belonged there. The vice president’s unwitting workplace endorsement of women as a prized beauty sabotaged everything I was working toward. His framing of women and the ensuing cheers and whistles may have been a well-intended display of admiration of women, but in so doing, they were failing to see how women could be working right alongside them brimming with brainpower, and how this characterization was affecting me.

When the meeting concluded a colleague gave me an elbow nudge and said, “you’ve got to get yourself one of those outfits, eh?” I was still processing, but replied with a forced smile “Red’s not my color. Besides, there weren’t any pockets for my tools.” I learned to always bring the focus back why I was there: because I was a smart, capable, creative problem-solver – not a prize to be won.

My current company works to include and accurately represent women in all elements of the business –from external marketing to internal messaging; from hiring and recruiting to training and development. There will always be ways to improve and work to do, but to cultivate a collaborative culture where innovation can thrive, these efforts are vital.

Now to queue up some AC/DC and get back to my self-appraisal…

 

 

Without Public Comment

Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on December 6, 2020.

I first encountered Pocatello High School principal Lisa Delonas at a funeral in January of 2014. Nineteen year old Nick Borzog-Omid died in a car accident on New Year’s Eve. Mrs. Delonas delivered his life sketch to the packed Catholic chapel on Seventh Avenue. She had been Nick’s teacher at Jefferson Elementary and they reconnected at Poky where she was the vice principal at the time. Nick was a football star who spent more time in Mrs. Delonas’ office than either she or his mother would have liked. His family’s choice in Mrs. Delonas to give his life sketch along with her comments presented both his and her humanity in a way that will be with me forever.  

At the time of Nick’s accident, I was 20 years into my career as an electrical engineer and three months into a two-year stint as a columnist for the Idaho State Journal on the side. Writing newspaper columns had never occurred to me, but during Pocatello’s fight over adding the words “sexual orientation and gender identity” to the city’s non-discrimination ordinance, the rippling effects of the horrendous public dialogue catapulted me into conversations.

They weren’t even conversations really. Letters to the editor appeared from people who had seemingly never shared a meal with someone they knew to be gay. I watched Lutheran and Mormon friends saying terrible things about “gays and their lifestyle” on social media. I had gay friends reacting out of pain and anger being equally mean. I went to the City Council meetings where religious leaders touted scripture, and a new-to-town guy from California spent hours on his public access program painting gays as the trouble with everything.   I was hearing commentary on an issue that wasn’t about “an issue” at all. It was about people.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people weren’t just hearing our parents argue (literally and metaphorically), we heard all of the arguments about us while we were there in the room. It was awkward and awful. I have to think that the remarks in recent months about the Pocatello Indians mascot are similarly sensed by Native Americans and other People of Color. This isn’t about a mascot or a school district’s decision-making process.  This is about people, their culture, and their experience. 

In the November 11, 2020 ISJ article “Sentiments Echoed” we heard about the perspective and experiences of the Echo Hawk family.  Fifteen year old Ryken is a freshman football star at Poky. His father Paul recalled when he was a student at Highland in the 1990’s and student assembly organizers asked him to “throw on a headdress and run around the gym, chanting and hollering, before being killed by the Ram mascot.”

At a September school board meeting with a blend of honest courage and vulnerability, we heard the first-hand perspective of two young women who are Native and play basketball at Poky. Not only at the microphone, but presumably in more personal one-on-one settings these young people, have helped teachers, principals, and other district employees understand the complexities and hurt inherent in Native mascots.

School leadership teams regularly make decisions in the best interest of students without public comment. The dangers of swings, teeter-totters and slides came to light, so school playgrounds have changed. Educators realized taking away recess as a punishment for kids who need to move is terrible, so the practice has been altered.

In 1988 when I began at Poky, initiation was a district-sponsored activity. Upperclassmen could “purchase” a sophomore and enter them in the Sammy Olympics.  In skin-tight purple long-johns with too-small bikini bottoms over the top, I competed in various contests at Raymond Park. Although the school district took the reins and tried to do initiation “right”, it became obvious there was no right way to allow the practice to continue. As research trickled out and personal stories were shared, the long-standing tradition of initiation was halted in the 1990’s without a peep of public comment.

With research about the harmful effects of Native mascots in hand and narratives from Native American students, their parents and Tribal leaders in her ears, Mrs. Delonas requested that the school board retire the Pocatello Indians mascot without public comment.  She was well within her duties as a school principal to make that request on those accounts alone. For me, however, as someone who is a part of population who’s been smack dab in the middle of public comment and controversy, I was hopeful her request might prevent the ugliness that can happen when the gates of public comment are open wide and civility is trampled.

Back in 2012 my response to the tenor of public comment was to write. Out of that, my columnist wings formed. While I’ve always been grateful for the opportunity to write columns, I will stop short at feeling gratitude for the ill behavior and ignorance that paved the way. Until name-calling stops and civility leads, the hearts of many would fare better without public comment. 

 

The Bedrock of Education

First appeared in the Idaho State Journal on November 29,2020

Last week I dressed up as my former alter ego, The Cow Crusader for Kindness to address the Pocatello Chubbuck School Board of Trustees. For three school years beginning in the fall of 2014, I was the ambassador for the School District 25 CAKE award. I got to present cupcakes to two students each month celebrating their Character, Attitude Kindness and Encouragement. I wore one of my cow suits and a purple cape last week to bring an air of kindness to the podium because it’s so often missing in the sphere of public comment. My remarks centered on the following content.

The kindness of all kindnesses would be if our school board could make everyone happy – if they could say “yes” to everyone.  But they can’t, so who should they listen to?

I’ve identified six categories of who I think an elected school board should listen to.

First, they should be listening to the parents of current students and the students themselves about what they want and feel they need. I have seen our school board doing this.

Secondly, they need to listen to Superintendent Howell and the professionals in the District office. These are people with decades of experience and degrees in higher education in areas like Educational Leadership and Curriculum Development. I’ve seen them listen to this group.

Third, they need to listen to administrators. Our secondary principals – Mrs. Brocket, Mrs. Delonas, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Prescott –I trust them.   I grew up two doors down from Highland High School’s Mr. Wallace and only knew him as a little guy, so one day I asked Pocatello High School Principal Mrs. Delonas, “What can you tell me about Brad?” Her reply was genuine and swift, “Oh my gosh! That guy reads everything. He’s tuned in to educational best practices, is learning all the time and loves to talk about it all.”  The school board needs to listen to that guy who reads, and they need to listen to his colleague who respects him. I’ve seen them do this.

Fourth, they should listen to individual teachers along with the teacher’s union representative. From last year’s Comprehensive Financial Audit Report, I learned we have 186 teachers with a Master’s or Doctorate degree. I put a call out to my Facebook friends who are teachers to get an idea of what some of their Master’s degrees were in. The replies included Master’s degrees in Literacy, English, Biology Education, Natural Science, School Counseling, Child and Family Studies, and more. I have watched the school board listen to our teachers and their union rep.

Fifth, what about the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the early childhood staff, the District computing and technology department, the facilities crew, the finance guy, the woman over Human Resources… all of the support staff who keep a school district running? They must listen to them to ensure they’ve got what they need to do their jobs, and I’ve watched them do that.

And finally, our local school board must listen to community groups. When agencies like law enforcement, the health department, or the Cities of Pocatello and Chubbuck offer guidance or direction, it’s usually in a crisis or to prevent one. On those occasions, the school board along with Dr. Howell and his staff really, really need to listen to them.   Thankfully, they have been.

When the Board of Trustees hasn’t done what a group or individual wants, it does not mean they have not listened; it means something else convinced them to go a different direction.

I am not in blanket agreement with every decision our local school board has made, but I have an appreciation for the process and all of the voices they must weigh – or choose not to weigh.  I have seen them prioritize the professional opinions of educators, the research those educators present to them, and guidance from subject matter experts throughout our community as they make decisions.

Pockets of public opinion may conflict with the findings of scientific research. Public opinions may conflict with the needs of teachers, and public opinions may conflict with agency and expert recommendations.  As the bedrock of education in this country we need our school boards to embrace a growth mindset that leads to continuous learning, and value education itself. Our school board has been doing this.

 

Due to COVID-19 restrictions limiting the maximum number of people in a public setting, I waited in a conference room before giving my testimony.

Loud, Proud Poky Pep Band Member

Published in the Idaho State Journal on September 13, 2020

This August marks thirty-two years since I got my first Poky High t-shirt. It was bright red with a white screen print of a Native American in a headdress with the words “Loud Proud Poky Pep Band Member.”  I played the trombone, so the “loud” came easy. As I joined the ranks of Pocatello High School’s culture and traditions surrounding the Indians mascot, the “proud” came even easier.  

Kevin Callahan, acting chairman of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, recently sent a letter to Idaho schools with, in his words, “concerning mascots”. In an August Idaho State Journal editorial, Mr. Callahan said, “We hope we can arrange for future dialogue with school districts and municipal leadership that will hopefully lead to improving and transforming local and state race relations. From a Tribal perspective, what was once acceptable is no longer acceptable today.”

He is speaking from a Tribal perspective and his personal perspective. It is important to me that I listen.

In high school, I loved playing the Traditionals on my trombone. I loved earning tomahawk patches for my volleyball sweatshirt. I love that I was a part of something that has lasted for well over a hundred years, but I am now processing how something so dear to me has contributed to undercurrents of bigotry and been outright racist.

Those are harsh words. Undercurrents of bigotry and outright racist. I say them without hesitation because, through reading and research, I have come to accept the slap-in-the-face those words feel like. It has been a very personal, willful endeavor in learning.  With that in mind, the question before us isn’t really, “should the Pocatello Indians mascot be retired?”  But rather the two questions before us are (1) is the Indians mascot racist, offensive or harmful and (2) do we care what that answer is?

That first question has been answered with personal stories, social research and expanding definitions of racism that come with increased understanding as diverse humans live together. The Indian mascot has intended to honor, but voices heard throughout the nation in recent decades are saying that the impact has been quite the opposite – that mascots have led to bullying, harassment and cultural appropriation that is an affront to Native Americans and their heritage.

The Shoshone-Bannock Tribe as a whole has requested that Native mascots be removed, but what about the individual Native Americans who think the Indian mascot and the way that Pocatello High School has worked to be respectful is an honor?

Here’s how I see it. The Poky mascot is akin to the Poky rock. It’s a symbol of pride and tradition when seniors and alumni paint it, but it’s also a purposeful target. Rival schools don’t often vandalize Poky buildings because they go for the rock. A mascot, like the rock, serves to be a source of pride but to also absorb attacks from rival schools.

Years after I graduated, I coached volleyball for Poky in the 90’s. It was easy to lead cheers of “Go Indians!” and view ourselves as warriors, but when I coached for Century in the early 2000’s, the language that came to mind in team huddles gave me great pause. Levying a war, albeit an athletic one, against “the Indians” didn’t sit well with me. 

We cannot simultaneously assert that the Indian mascot is an honor that represents Native Americans and their culture but say it’s not the culture or Native People presented to be a target for rival schools. We tease, poke fun and mock rival mascots. An individual Native person may tell me that they grasp the intended honor over resulting ridicule, but I am not comfortable treating an Indian mascot the way I would treat others mascots.

Our intended means of honor is not that anymore. The mascot is racist, offensive and harmful. So in the decision tree, we are left with, “do we care?”

Perhaps it’s my own discomfort that’s helped me to hear Native voices in recent years, or perhaps it’s the realization that this former “Loud Proud Poky Pep Band Member” needed to be quiet and humble to truly listen. It’s not Poky’s mascot that will continue to honor our Native American friends and neighbors, but rather it’s listening to them. If we aren’t listening, then one must question if honor is really our intent.

Poky High halftime show, 1989