Cold, Hard Truth of the Workplace?

“Amy, you’re going to have to realise soon that your looks will get you further than your smarts.”

I tried not to look as shocked as I felt. We were sitting in the lunch room of the workplace where we were interns – both of us from the same university, but working in different departments. I think we both felt out of our league – we knew the theory behind the work, but it can be overwhelming to go straight from university into the workplace. I’d been lucky enough to have someone in the department I was working in decide to help me out. He’d worked there for years and before that had been an intern himself, so he said he knew what it was like. All I had to do to get other peoples help was ask.

Jerry (the other intern) didn’t seem to have it as easy. I’m not sure if he was ignored by the people in his department, or if he didn’t want to ask for work. He could see I was getting stuff to do, and perhaps that annoyed or frustrated him. At any rate, a few days before his opinions came out in the lunch room, he started making snide comments about the help I was getting.

I was aware of Jerry watching me when the guy helping me out came to check on me, and I was aware that he thought I had it easy compared to him, but I didn’t know if he thought there was a reason for that.

Grateful that I was being helped, I tried to help Jerry out when I could. I suggested he ask someone to introduce him to people working on something that interested him.

“You can talk about the technicalities and show that you have some knowledge of what they’re doing,” I suggested. He kind of smiled and I persevered.

I told him I believed it was all about the language that you used to try and get things. When I’ve wanted something from someone I’ve tried to adapt my language to suit the person I’m talking to, like working within a different discourse. He laughed, and I asked him why he thought it was funny. That’s when things got ugly.

I know the theories that girls can sleep their way to the top, that we “have it easy”, especially if we’re pretty. But any compliment I could take out of Jerry’s statement about my looks versus my intelligence was soured by the notion that I’m only getting help because I’m a girl. But to add insult to injury, there was more Jerry had to say.

“It’s so much easier for girls,” he lamented, unaware of how offended I was. The truth is that easiness is relative. Within both my fields of interest – drama and journalism – it’s probably easier for men because there is more demand for men. Girls have to look “right”, sound “right”, seem dependable (there’s some kind of idiotic idea that once we’re secure in a job we’ll go into nesting and start having babies straight away). As well as have the right personality (that goes for both men and women though).

I don’t think it’s easy for anyone. I think it depends on the person, and perhaps I have to believe that to think I’ll get a job when I graduate at the end of the year. I think interpersonal skills, communication skills, intelligence, initiative and determination are the values that will get people jobs, regardless of their sex or attractiveness. Otherwise why do people get on with me when they’ve only ever dealt with me over the phone? Oh, don’t tell me, I have a “pretty” voice, right?

Do people really still think that girls only get help if they’re pretty? That they couldn’t just be nice people who are getting help from other nice people? That empathy from professionals is impossible for interns unless they have long hair, nice eyes and curves in the right places? I still can’t figure out what offends me more – the assumption that I’m getting help because of my gender, or the fact that all Jerry seems to find validating is my looks.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

I approached this particular work with a cautious respect – having only read one other McEwan book I had some idea of what to expect, but the fact that this book is set entirely within the confines of one man’s Saturday suggested this was something different. I can’t recall reading a book set during one day before, so I knew it would be an interesting journey with McEwan as navigator.

I was pleasantly surprised by the pace of the narrative, the facts of Henry Perowne’s Saturday slipped into his thoughts and combined to create something which was both entertaining and philosophical to read. More than what happens to Perowne throughout the day, I found myself interested in his outlook on the world and, later, life itself. His thoughts provoked my own on how much the world has changed in recent times.

It’s easy to accept the social environment we live in today, where terrorism is a word striking fear into the heart of the Western world, racism is a subtle but still terrible cause of suspicion. Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the Bali bombings of 2002, the invasion of Iraq and the strife in the area of the world known as the Middle East, how could we remember not being cautious of those around us? But McEwan shows how far these events have permeated life, and how the speed of technological advancements has affected the way we communicate and how we see ourselves.

There seemed to be an emptiness to Perowne, although his day (and life) were filled with things, he himself was not. Perhaps it was because he was analysing everything, the reason he got up so early on Saturday, why it was his car that had a run-in with Baxter, how to beat Strauss at squash and even his family. As his daughter, Daisy, says, he “won’t stand by” what he believes, and the ensuing argument suggests that is because Perowne doesn’t know what to believe – he’s too concerned with assessing the facts to make a commitment.

Has it come to the stage in (Western) society where it’s easier to be analytical of world events than choose a side? Have we become so affected by the permeation of the media into all aspects of our lives that we now try to remain objective until there is an obvious outcome? Perowne’s argument with his daughter made me wonder, because if someone as educated as Perowne can be a fence-sitter, then all bets are off.

World events aside, Perowne’s approach to the rest of his life seemed just as analytical (and not simply because it was his thoughts we read about). His emotions seemed to take second place to his thoughts. Perhaps it was a way of removing himself from the situations, because he seemed more emotional during his squash game than he was during the touching visit to his Alzheimer’s affected mother. In addition to this emotional stupor, Perowne’s awareness seemed to stop with his own thoughts. His empathy was very little when dealing with Baxter, and it was only when he was called into surgery later that I felt he redeemed himself somewhat.

For all my seeming to attack Perowne, I can sympathise with his approach to situations and thoughts. There are times when I have found myself taking no “side” in a passionate argument, and analysing a confrontation instead of trying to put myself in the other person’s shoes. If we are to believe that we are a product of our society, how people become so removed while remaining involved in life?

I think passion has something to do with it. Perowne was, in a way, passionate about his work as a neurosurgeon, but also saddened (jealous?) of Theo’s music, his creativity. Although he was involved in the arts through his children, it almost seemed as if he didn’t understand art’s significance. Indeed, at one stage he thinks:

“This notion of Daisy’s, that people can’t ‘live’ without stories, is simply not true.”

He then turns on the television to wait for “his story” about a crashed plane. Perowne may not think of a news bulletin as a story, but in today’s society news is a part of almost everything, and the bulletins (commonly called “stories”) are a form of entertainment. Why would commercial stations be so concerned with what stories to run otherwise? Why would having the right presenter (engaging, authoritative, reassuring) be as important as it is? It may not be a view commonly expressed, but the fact that the weekly TV ratings in Australia have at least two news and one current affairs program in the top 20 suggests to me that news is entertainment.

In some way, it seems, Perowne finds this factual, “real” story of his more legitimate than the stories Daisy may have meant. True, there is urgency to news because it is current, immediate, but the literature that Daisy talks of is relevant to the human condition. Like history, without stories we can’t move forward. They are a way of looking at ourselves and others, and how different social conditions will affect individuals. Stories are engaging and, more often than not, entertaining. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of Perwone’s thoughts on them.

Despite my criticism of Perowne, he is a character I could sympathise with. The choices he makes change not only his actions and approach to things, but also those of the people around him. While I think it would be hard to come up with a definitive summary of Saturday (I’ve heard countless, all true in their own way), to me it is a book about one man’s day, and how the world current social configuration has shaped it. McEwan’s writing is smooth, startling and ironic, and he pulls off the continuous narrative style with a skill hard to surpass.

Cathedral Rock National Park

The view from above - on top of Cathedral Rock

A granite boulder formation at Cathedral Rock National Park

The path for the Cathedral Rock walk

There were about 17 of us – 15 teenagers, two adults and a 10 kilometre walk through Cathedral Rock’s sub-alpine woodlands in the middle of winter. The trip had been planned and agreed to months before, but we weren’t ready for that kind of cold and exertion after a morning packed with visits to a water recycling plant, Dorrigo National Park, and several stops to admire and take note of geologically interesting areas. And after that long hike through areas of native grassland, eucalypts and banksias scattered around granite formations, we set up camp and spent a night freezing in the sub-zero temperatures and high wind conditions.

In retrospect our senior high school teacher and her husband were brave to take us on that trip at such a time. While I appreciate the experience now, at the time I was more concerned with complaining about the throat infection which resulted from the camping. But years down the track I can’t seem to get enough of those national parks.

Every time I visit my family in the countryside of northern NSW I’m eager to visit the national parks that dot the surrounding areas. Over the years I’ve become fond of not only the closest and most familiar, Dorrigo National Park, but also those around the New England Tablelands. The first time I went to Cathedral Rock I got sick, but the last time I went I was determined to do the shorter, 5.8 kilometre walk despite being sick.

The combination of sub-alpine heath, dry sclerophyll forest and the visibility of the New England Batholith make Cathedral Rock National Park a truly amazing place to visit. The view from Cathedral Rock is amazing, stretching out towards the see on one side, and more of the tablelands on the other. The walks vary in intensity, but options are inclusive, whether you’re an active seeker of a challenge or just out for a leisurely stroll around the area.

The tradition for me has been to get up early and aim for a lunch-time finish of one of the walks, picnicking with my family in the Barokee rest area, where many of the walks start. It’s a great place to admire the vegetation and keep an eye out for birds like the white-cheeked honeyeater (Phylidonyris nigra) and the odd wallaby (the common ones are Petrogale penicillata and Macropus rufogriseus) or kangaroo (mostly Macropus giganteus).

The Barokee rest area is 1385 kilometres above sea-level, so if you decide to visit in winter be prepared for the cold. The first time I saw snow was there, so that’s some indication of what to expect. But all in all, I would want to visit Cathedral Rock at any time of the year, in health or in sickness, because it is an amazing natural asset to the land.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to have some input.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

There is something so compelling about exploring the human condition and looking at how certain people in certain social environments will react to any given stimuli. In the case of The Cement Garden, I found it fascinating to look at the workings of a close-knit, somewhat socially skewed family. The story follows the thoughts of Jack, a teenager struggling within his adolescence.

After his father’s death, Jack, his two sisters and younger brother live with their mother in an isolated development area. Jack is in the midst of struggling with a crush on his eldest sister when their mother is taken ill. And when she dies, the children panic, knowing the eldest, Julia, is too young to look after them, and fearing they would be separated. To avoid this destruction of their family, Jack and his two sisters decide to keep their mother’s death a secret, burying her in cement in their basement.

Before reading this I was familiar with some of the themes presented when my sister brought it up – she did a presentation on it and discussed how McEwan used the idea of “taboos”. Taboo is a significant element and some of the content is more shocking and confronting because of the way McEwan subverts social taboos. In particular the relationship between Jack and his eldest sister, Julie, is quite a disturbing constant throughout the book. Jack is fascinated by Julie, almost to the point of obsession, and for a lot of the book I was unsure of where Julie stood with the situation. The ending wasn’t entirely surprising, but it wasn’t something I expected or was familiar with either. But their relationship was as compelling to read about as it was confronting.

There is something engaging about the disturbing content of The Cement Garden which I haven’t often found in books. The thoughts and events are sometimes not conventional or even socially acceptable, but the combination of breaking down taboos and McEwan’s sharp writing engaged me in a way I didn’t expect. At times I would find myself cringing when I read of Jack admiring Julie during the long summer when most of the narrative takes place, but then, because the characters are so well drawn, I would question why I was cringing. Why are these things considered socially unacceptable, taboo, strange or disturbing? Who has imposed those values on society? And why do we often take them for granted, not even thinking about what would happen if a taboo was broken?

The Cement Garden was a confronting, thought-provoking read which left me with some speculative questions about socially constructed norms. The characters were real enough, and likeable enough that I empathised with their situations, and that in turn made the breaking of taboos more challenging to deal with. In the end, people may say we are a product of our society, and possibly most of us are, but there is a multitude of things which will affect the way we act, the way we think and the rules we break.