“The moment I develop confidence, it’s over for all of you” – Me, sometime in 2020.
My favourite movies are the Ocean’s trilogy – the quotes and themes from these movies always find a way to be relevant in a myriad of everyday situations. No, I do not rob banks or plan elaborate heists with a cohort of charming thieves; perhaps I wish I could, as it may be a more lucrative career than engineering. Nevertheless, these movies resonate deeply with me and I find myself, quite often, laughing about one of the opening scenes in Oceans Eleven. Rusty (Brad Pitt) has secured a gig in teaching a bunch of celebrities how to play poker, and at one point he surveys the room: “What’s the first rule of poker?” and one of his pupils replies “Leave your emotions at the door”. This is merely a silly line from a comedy movie, but it has always sat with me as one of my go-to quotes and is an apt mantra for everyday life. Perhaps naively, one would expect the first rule of poker to be skill-oriented, such as “Don’t go all-in on a 2/7 mixed suit before the flop”; however, it highlights the importance of being emotionally reserved/dignified in a game that is based minimally on skills and majorly on probabilities. You don’t want to have a “tell”, you don’t want your opponents to know anything about what’s in your hand (good or bad), emotions are the most substantial avenue of control we have when we play the game. I have come to realize this principle is largely true for all facets of life; career or otherwise. Of course – I have recently done a lot of thinking about this, and I have some grievances.
In such a case, let’s keep it succinct: I am pissed off. I am not leaving my emotions at any door for this blog entry. When I write something of a reactionary nature on here, I feel like I’ve ought to justify my reactions or attempt to appease the criticisms of the reader before I write anything further. For instance, I was going to begin this blog with something similar to “I know it’s unbecoming of a novice engineer to be feeling pissed off”, but I no longer think I should be doing that. At least, not this time. This blog serves to dissect my most raw and genuine thoughts & feelings – I do not write this to maintain or remain in control of a “dignified image” in any particular way. Furthermore, I am human – it is apart of the human experience to feel all range of emotions. Even the negative ones. With all of that being said, I am genuinely pissed off – and I’m going to write about it however I deem fit. Writing these blogs is the most tangible way I can process how I feel and I hope that by the end of this one I’ve made sense of today’s thoughts.
I usually don’t allow myself to feel pissed off. I heavily value leaving emotions “at the door”. The reason behind this is twofold. Firstly, I have internally developed a prejudice against being pissed off – I feel as though it could be immature and unproductive. Being pissed off is “losing”: perhaps it’s losing control of a situation or an image, perhaps it’s losing an argument. When I catch myself beginning to feel upset or angry, I try and divert that energy into what I feel is a more productive feeling such as confusion (I’m not pissed off, I’m just confused and I can be doing better to understand), or exhaustion (I’m not pissed off, I’m just tired). When I’m upset, I tend to find myself thinking about what I could have done differently to avoid it. Secondly, I’m apprehensive to allow myself the room for anger because of how others have historically perceived it. Leaving your emotions at the door is a lot better than leaving your emotions in the hands of others. From an external perspective, I do not feel I am qualified to weaponize my anger where I work. Now – I don’t think it’s particularly noble in and of itself to weaponize one’s anger, it’s not something to strive for. However, some people are able to exploit their own anger as a tool for change, and others aren’t. Person XYZ is pissed off, and this is reasonable; moreover, this is a signal for everyone else – they are now responsible to resolve the systematic issue that caused the anger. However, for someone like me – I feel as though my anger is viewed as a weakness and is easily used as a weapon against me. She is pissed off, and it’s likely unreasonable; moreover, it’s her responsibility to resolve her emotional issue, how immature. Some people get angry and it signals an external system issue, other people get angry and it’s their own emotional issue. I’m speaking in unnuanced generalities here – but it’s meant to illustrate the point that I do not feel as though anger is perceived equally. It is quite easy for others to invalidate, undermine, or dismiss a young female who is pissed off. It’s both a power-dynamic issue and a gender issue. The people who are allowed to weaponize their anger are afforded the grace to do so, and are often revered as strong or a great leader. When others sense that I am pissed off – they stop listening.
Both of these mechanisms considered (internal prejudice and external perception), I do not let myself get upset without feeling really awful about it. It’s just an unacceptable emotion to display, and in doing so – I violate the first rule of poker! I do not extend myself ample grace to be pissed off. No, I do not actively seek to be upset, pissed off, angry, or what have you; but I think I ought to allow myself to be sometimes. I fear that not allowing myself the capacity to be upset has made it so that I only hold myself accountable for my emotions or for difficult situations (as it pertains to my career or otherwise). In poker, all you have to be upset about is fate and being dealt a poor hand; whereas in real life, concealing anger may conceal any analysis into what caused it. I am so focused on not being upset that I neglect to think about what valid cause may have led me to be upset in the first place. Because of this, I often do not hold other people accountable for making negligent decisions that may effect the work I’m responsible for – or even in a personal sense, I do not hold people accountable for being shitty people. Not holding others accountable is what allows people to take advantage of people like me in the first place – there is no consequence of doing so, I will try to not be upset. I’m the one who bears the responsibility of fixing whatever caused me to be pissed off, whether its a real systematic issue or otherwise. It’s time for that to stop. At worst, If I let other people have a chokehold on how I conduct myself and my emotions, I am performing a great disservice to all of the other young women in industry whose emotions continue to be disproportionally policed and met with unrealistic expectations. Do not get it twisted – there is nobody on this planet who ought to be absolved from being held accountable for their own actions, whether it be myself, a CEO, or the president of the United States.
It is so ridiculous to me to think of this all. Much like poker, I calculate each decision I make, I carefully construct every sentence I write or say – for fuck sakes, I chose the pair of pants I wore last Thursday to minimize the chance of pissing somebody else off. I worry so much about upsetting others because; 1. As a human, I do not want them to feel that way and 2. if they do become angry, I will automatically assume that I bear some amount of the burden to resolve it. I do not want this to change – I want to continue to care about not upsetting others (within reason), as it’s a fundamental requirement for being a good person. However, in most cases I do not feel as though this sentiment is reciprocated. It feels borderline absurd to think that most people would be worried about pissing me off the way I do for them. I worry quite a lot about if I’ve pissed off somebody else, but I’ve come to learn it’s time that a lot of these people ought to be worried that they’ve pissed me off. My anger has power too.
Now, despite writing all of this – I’m not giving myself carte-blanche access to just being upset all of the time and being an asshole about it. There are plenty of times where my own anger is reasonably caused by myself and should be my own problem – but I should also be more mindful of not always assuming that to be the case. What I’ve come to realize is that rather than avoiding feeling pissed off in order to preserve “control” and “dignity”, I can obtain further control over situations if I do more to resolve the anger and dissect what/who may have caused it (if not myself). Leaving emotions at the door is prudent – but I can still allow myself the room for anger, even if it remains internal. Feelings are signals, and anger isn’t inherently infantile. There is a threshold for valid anger and it deserves adequate consideration. We are all allowed to be angry, and I resent that there is some deep-seeded cultural aversion towards some people’s anger. Perhaps none of this entry made sense – maybe writing it has lost me some points amongst people I know. Regardless, it achieved its goal: I am no longer pissed off.
(November 23rd, 2021)
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