Wear Clean Draws  (’coz there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

have only skimmed this and haven’t posted — or worked out! — because i have been way too busy at work. it’s been a mini-whirlwind of the busyness and the craziness and the overtime working 7:30 to 8 or so.

Yesterday, I got up, got ready and greeted a bare nekkid R getting up from his morning’s glance at email. I gave him a cheery, “Happy Birthday Birthday Boy in the Birthday Suit!” and hugged and kissed him. We’ll have sushi tonight, ok? I said. Then, I dashed off to work.

Got to work to enjoy the sun rising and that awesome light that filters into the building. I relished the peace and quiet for a moment, then plunged into work consulting the 20 minute list I write before going home every night. I usually stop, spending some quiet time thinking about the next day, jotting a todo list and so forth.

I glanced at the calendar, trying to be better about making sure I turn the page to the new day — coz I’m bad about that. I saw the number 12.

d’oh! I’d gone and started celebrating R’s birthday a day too early! Ha ha! He very kindly didn’t point out the error.

Anyway, that’s why I’m home relatively early tonight. I’m sitting here waiting for R to get home from work. We have to go buy him something green to wear. hee. He’s working in a boutique design firm, and they really get into the parties whenever there’s an excuse. I am all hee hee about that because, well, this is R’s first time out in the civilian labor force. It’s cracking me up that he’s exposed to just the kind of thing that would be kind of irritating — only I think he’s finding it kind of fun.

Oh. Real quick. One of the reasons things have been crazy is that my new team is pretty cool, but one guy is a bit of a problem child. There’s lots of reasons for that — some his character, but others because of the way the company’s fallen down on the job in terms of communication, cultivating employees, making sure smart people have interesting things to do, etc. Anyway, long story short: an employee everyone’s been worried about — described sometimes as a warm body because of the bad attitude — has just completely turned around after we had a talk Monday. He’s warm and friendly … and checks in with me regularly — something he wouldn’t do before. Blah blah. Hard to explain but, basically, I’m cautiously optimistic that it helped that I was willing to be straightforward with him and spend some time figuring out who he is, what makes him tick. As it turned out, from where I sit, the thing the guy’s needed all along was to be recognized for having a career outside of the one that pays the bills. But also, someone who had listened to what he said — his crits about the business — and reflected them back so that he, for once, felt heard.

This all sounds so corny, but it all kind of spilled out in the meeting this ways:

I told him I enjoyed his enthusiasm and thought he had some good ideas;

told him that I thought it was my job to work with him to make sure he got good evals and pay raises and that I wanted to give him what he needs to do his job, so tell me what you need;

told him that I really appreciated his commenting up his code, especially on bug fixes (and I fucking mean that: it’s not done enough around here) and yesterday I told him I appreciated that he was really putting an effort in after our talk.

but, … and then I told him what I needed and what my expectations were. I kind of didn’t do the best job of explaining what he could expect of me — beyond my explaining that, if I expected him to call in when he’s sick, that I would also do the same. It was funny, but it clicked with him that he would expect me to call in sick but that he didn’t have to… I don’t know if that makes sense.

so, I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re all starting off on a better foot. I know it sounds dorky, but we managed to have a pretty good team — lots of bonding and such going on — when working on the project for which I was originally hired. I had noticed that the regular folks didn’t seem to have a very happy or enthusiastic environment. The place always seems like everyone cultivates an air of not giving a shit. Anyway, things are clicking a bit better, which is a load off for me because that last thing I need is to have to worry about someone who strolls in late, leaves early unannounced, sulks in the corner and never talks to anyone else, etc. Which was what the first couple of days working together had been — and everyone on the ladder above me was biting their fingernails that this would be a problem, especially to our productivity and tight deadlines.

This part of being a manager… I like. And I’m happy I’m doing OK at it given the situation: I’m new to the company, etc. etc. The part I don’t like is being a working manager and not being able to get my own work done! Ack! Especially when I’m pulled off to work on other people’s stuff because…. I am thorough! :)

gotta run.

oh, btw, there’s no reason why the title I came up with for the article below is in anyway unrelated to what I’ve written above. ha ha.

Decriminalize prostitution: Paying for sex is common. The U.S. should follow Mexico’s lead and accept that. By Patty Kelly

March 13, 2008

[…]

Recently, I spent a year working at a legal, state-regulated brothel in Mexico, a nation in which commercial sex is common, visible and, in one-third of the states, legal. I was not working as a prostitute but as an anthropologist, to study and analyze the place of commercial sex in the modern world. I spent my days and nights in close contact with the women who sold sexual services, with their clients and with government bureaucrats who ran the brothel.

Here’s what I learned: Most of the workers made some rational choice to be there, sometimes after a divorce, a bad breakup or an economic crisis, acute or chronic. Of the 140 women who worked at the Galactic Zone, as the brothel was called, only five had a pimp (and in each of those cases, they insisted the man was their boyfriend).

The women made their own hours, set their own rates and decided for themselves what sex acts they would perform. Some were happy with the job. (As Gabriela once told me: “You should have seen me before I started working here. I was so depressed.”) Others would’ve preferred to be doing other work, though the employment available to these women in Mexico (servants, factory workers) pays far less for longer hours.

At the Galactic Zone, good-looking clients were appreciated and sometimes resulted in boyfriends; the cheap, miserly and miserable ones were avoided, if possible.

To be sure, the brothel had its dangers: Sexually transmitted diseases and violence were occasionally a part of the picture. But overall, it was safer than the streets, due in part to police protection and condom distribution by government authorities.

Legalizing and regulating prostitution has its own problems — it stigmatizes sex workers (mostly by requiring them to register with the authorities), subjects them to mandatory medical testing that is not always effective, and gives clients and workers a false sense of security (with respect to sexual health and otherwise).

But criminalization is worse. Sweden’s 1998 criminalization of commercial sex — a measure titled “The Protection of Women” — appears not to protect them at all. A 2004 report by the Swedish Ministry of Justice and the police found that after it went into effect, prostitution, of course, continued. Meanwhile, prices for sexual services dropped, clients were fewer but more often violent, more wanted to pay for sex and not use a condom — and sex workers had less time to assess the mental state of their clients because of the fear of getting caught.

New Zealand’s 2003 Prostitution Reform Act is perhaps the most progressive response to the complex issue of prostitution. The act not only decriminalizes the practice but seeks to “safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protects them from exploitation, promotes the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers, is conducive to public health, [and] prohibits the use in prostitution of persons under 18 years of age.”

Furthermore, clients, sex workers and brothel owners bear equal responsibility for minimizing the risks of STD transmission. In 2005, a client was convicted of violating the act by slipping his condom off during sex.

And this brings me to clients. I have met hundreds of men who have paid for sex. Some seek any kind of sex; others want certain kinds of sex; a few look for comfort and conversation.

Saying that all sex workers are victims and all clients are demons is the easy way out. Perhaps it’s time to face this fact like adults (or at least like Mexico) — with a little less moralizing and a good deal more honesty.

As for Spitzer, if he had walked into the Galactic Zone, my questions would have been these: Was he respectful? Was he safe? Did he pay well? If the answer to all three was yes, then, well, I voted for him once, and I’d vote for him again.

Patty Kelly, an anthropology professor at George Washington University, is the author of “Lydia’s Open Door: Inside Mexico’s Most Modern Brothel,” due out in April.