On Suburban Segregation

Not necessary reading material (because it's just an infograph), but something worth looking at to prove that I'm not entirely insane: Suburbanization of Poverty

Wet and cold (at least I was), we headed home from last Monday night's Bronco game via public transportation. Mike and I found ourselves at Colfax and Broadway at half past midnight, seated on a wet and cold park bench.

That bus stop is always busy, and half past midnight on an early Tuesday morning is no different. As we sat, people surrounded us, all talking about the game. But what caught my attention was the fact that they hadn't gone to the game as spectators, they had gone as employees. Kettle corn, beer, other food-service.
The commonality was football statistics; the man behind me knows more about football than I ever will; the crazy man pacing knows much less.

I felt guilty, shamed by my spectator-status as they discussed what had gone on behind the scenes and counted out their tips. One guy had a fistful of one-dollar bills. I was tempted to tell him to shove them back in his pocket, lest someone steal them. (Cape Town really got that in my brain. Last Saturday when I was out, I found that I had stashed $42 in my bra, just in case.)

The bus was not coming. I was grumpy.

I listened to the girl a few seats down start talking about where she was staying (Mississippi and Sable) and how long it was going to take her to get home (forever) - but then I got the impression that she was still in high school. And possibly homeless.
The guy next to her was also headed out to Aurora.

To my great relief, the bus finally came and we squished on. (For the record, people in Denver have no idea what a crowded bus is - they were balking at the prospect of having to move back and squeeze in, claiming that the bus was "full." Not full at all, but I wasn't in the mood to get stern.)

As the bus lumbered up Colfax, it stopped at nearly every stop to add more people. You'd think, perhaps, that as the bus left the city center, it would slowly empty rather than filling. No. It seemed that everyone was headed east. What's east? First of all, the Colorado Blvd connection (and the #40 bus), but second, and more importantly, Aurora.

Whenever I bemoan my situation (as I so love to do), I'm absolutely overlooking the fact that I have a support system. That I have transportation, that I have Simon.

I'm overlooking the fact that, like the girl seated a few seats away, there are varying degrees of homelessness in our city. Not everyone who's technically homeless has a cardboard sign and wants your money. They're sleeping on people's couches; they're crashing at a friend's place; they're staying awake all night; they're riding the bus around until they get somewhere. That's how people manage not to freeze during winters in Chicago - they ride the train until the end of the line and then turn around and do it all over again.

I'm overlooking the fact that I don't have an hour-long commute each way. I don't have to be dependent on the bus, something that can add hours to any commute, anywhere. I don't have to get on the bus with my arms loaded with groceries.

Unlike the woman with at least three, possibly four, kids and two strollers, I don't have to rely on the kindness of others to get my family safely off the bus. The kids reminded us of the township creches. They were cute, polite, but desperately needed clean clothes and baths. And a decent bedtime.

In Cape Town, the suburbs hold populations that fall into varying classifications of income levels, from the rich (Camps Bay) to the poor (Steenberg) to the poorer (Lavender Hill) to the townships (Vrygrond) to the informal settlements (Village Heights). As you go further down the income ladder, you find that the population density increases exponentially, as does the crime rate. But what falls at an equal rate is access to transportation.

Poorer neighborhoods are further from access to trains. Instead, they have to take a minibus from their neighborhood, probably to another minibus, then eventually to the train. This adds to their commute and can be a determining factor in their employment status.

Vrygrond was strategically placed away from train lines. The white Cape Townians didn't want the colored and black populations to have access to the transportation, but instead, wanted them to remain in their designated neighborhoods.

Minibuses, the other transportation alternative to trains, are dangerous. I've never been so harassed as I was on the trains and minibuses in Cape Town. It's the touching that really gets you. You're either about to be groped or robbed, and neither are pleasant. But people have to do that every day. Sitting on top of strangers, next to strangers, pushed up against them.

It's funny because just as the transportation effectively cuts off the poorest, it also secludes the richest. You can't take public transportation to Camps Bay, the wealthy, white side of Table Mountain. You have to take a cab.

In Cape Town, when I was finding jobs for the unemployed, many of the ads stipulated that people be from certain areas only. For a country that has come so far from Apartheid, it's disheartening to see such blatant discrimination.

Is that what we want here? A segregated workforce? But more importantly than that, is that what we're eventually going to have? Are we becoming a more diverse population or a more segregated one as time passes?

As someone who usually has access to transportation, it's a wake-up call to realize how much your life can be affected by the inability to commute. Mobility is a key to success. By continuing to eliminate entire populations of workers by simply making it difficult for them to access transportation, we're effectively ensuring that only a select portion of people will be able to apply for, and eventually obtain, those jobs.

We need to focus on building effective transportation systems that are easily accessible, by everyone. We need more trains. We need more bus-only lanes. We need a swifter boarding process. We need to be able to get to the Denver airport via train. We need to be quick about it.

On Impatience

No one would ever call me a patient person. It's just not in my nature, I guess. Once I want something, I want it right then and there. I'm not good at playing waiting games.

But lately, I've been wondering if we're not more impatient as a result of our media consumption.
I watch tv with Mike - usually one of our shows. They're an hour long (with commercials, average of 41 minutes without). In that hour, we see a situation unfold, explode, and be resolved neatly by the end.

So how much of that are we carrying over to real life?
In simulating real-life situations via television, broadcasting them, creating fantastic realities in which ordinary people do extraordinary things, are we limiting our ability to actually process like humans? Have we redefined reality to be a mirror of these simulations?

Television shows and movies have necessitated the cutting of extraneous things - such as waiting - from their plot lines. It won't do to have the entire courtship shown in an under 2-hour romantic comedy. Instead, we are treated to a montage, often accompanied by music. Or some sort of situation that represents the relationship.

So the time between things is often understated and underrepresented.

Arguably, our society has started to do the same things. Gone are the days of snail mail, instead, love happens via one-night stands and text messages. War, something sensationalized by television and movies, glorified by the 24-hour news channels, is left forgotten once there is no quick conclusion. We triumphantly marked the fall of Saddam Hussein but have neglected to mark the minutes since.

Everything looks easy. Conflict is solved with a single conversation, brooding becomes a beautiful expression of anguish, and all love affairs are solved with a passionate expression of love at just the right time. People wait for other people, their schedules always magically line up.

Are we becoming jaded? Bombs? Cars blowing up strategically?

Would any of us even know what to do in case of an actual emergency? "I saw this on tv once" certainly isn't going to help. Those bombs and magic fires that burn exactly where they're supposed to are movie magic rather than the stuff that real life is made of. Mike and I were talking about being a spy. And I reminded him that being a spy in the real world is hardly as sexy as it seems on screen. Lots of dead drops and waiting.

Even criminal behavior. It's not that easy to hack into just any old bank system. Or any government computer. Of course, magically, the screens you need are up just in time for you to enter your data. I spend a good percentage of my work day digging through our drives, looking for a single file. And I know the layout. Imagine walking in cold to steal data. Yes, it can be done. But it's just not that simple.


I often wonder if I am a victim of this kind of conditioned thinking. How have my expectations been molded by the media I take in?
How have certain things become normalized?

Women, swearing and the workplace

By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN

updated 1:46 PM EST, Mon September 12, 2011

Ousted Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz vented her displeasure with being fired via phone to Fortune magazine.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Profanity, candor were trademarks of Carol Bartz's management style as Yahoo CEO
• "It stands out because it's not expected," professor says of her tendency to swear
• Attention devoted to language reflects "double-bind" women face in corporate America
• E-mail to colleagues announcing she was "fired" via phone "brilliantly refreshing," author says

(CNN) -- It's not every day you read about one top-level executive asking another where his balls are. But in the end, former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz lived up to her reputation for "salty language" and candid management style.

Since Bartz's very public departure from Yahoo last week, her penchant for blunt, profane language have become recurring themes in discussions of her career, driving conversation about what women can and can't be in the workplace.

"It stands out because it's not expected," said Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University and author of "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation."

"We always take notice of what's unexpected and women are still not expected to curse, so when they do, its noticed more."

Bartz got the ball rolling when she called the board members that fired her a bunch of "doofuses" who "f----- me over" in her first public comments after the now infamous firing-by-phone. Those statements came two days after Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock called her on her cell phone last Tuesday to deliver the news. In response, she sent an e-mail to Yahoo's 14,000 colleagues telling them "I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's chairman of the board," and wishing them the best.

Since then, tales of her "characteristically salty language" and perceived abrasiveness have peppered the post-mortems on her two-year tenure, which many seem to agree ended due to her failure to boost revenue and lack of long-term vision. Even The Wall Street Journal published an amusing compilation of "Carol Bartz's Best Quotes," a testament to how her "crude honesty" and "blue language" became part of her brand.

"What do I look for when hiring? Well, let's get past the assumption that they can do the job. There has to be a no-a------ rule," she said in a 2010 interview with Esquire titled, "Hi, I'm Carol Bartz... Are You an A------?"

The attention devoted to Bartz's candor, profane or otherwise, reflects the double-bind faced by women in the business world, especially those in high positions, Tannen said.

"If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, its seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive," she said. "Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation, either you're not talking as you should as a women or as boss."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you believe women are treated differently than men, Tannen and others think that a dirty-mouthed man would not receive as much attention for his blue language as Bartz has.

"For people to call it 'salty language' shows how we're uncomfortable talking about women who swear. I don't think anyone would describe a rapper's language as being salty," said former Nickelodeon executive Anne Kreamer, whose book, "It's Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace," came out this year.

The fact that Bartz was known for swearing, crying and confrontations also reflects the tight-lipped, button-upped culture pervading corporate America, Kreamer said. In researching her book, "Emotions in the Workplace," Kreamer said she found that 60% of employees reported never seeing their bosses get angry or display any kind of unpleasant emotion.

"People are barely keeping it together and that's why this becomes a conversation point because everyone wants to be able to publicly flip off the boss one way or another. But you swallow it because you don't want to lose your job," she said.

Not everyone considers swearing in the workplace appropriate, said Charles Conine, who runs Consilium, an employee and labor relations consulting service. But standards vary depending on whether the workplace is a corporate office in Silicon Valley or a battlefield in Afghanistan.

Yahoo isn't known for its culture of confrontation, which could be why Bartz's actions -- while at Yahoo and in her public flipping-off of its board -- still has power to shock the public, Kreamer said.

"We go through these Kabuki-like dances of ways to save face in corporate America," Kreamer said.

"The way she simply said, 'I've been fired' was brilliantly refreshing. She said it as blunt as she did because she was pissed off, and we rarely see that."