Some stories
When I was 16, I took my very first paid job, first busboy and then stockroom attendant at K&W Cafeteria in Cameron Village in Raleigh. Some days people would be absent and the cafeteria line understaffed; I was now and then sent out to lend a hand.
One such day, I dropped a spoonful of mashed potatoes while the line was at its longest. I hastily and sketchily cleaned up the worst of it, then went on serving so as not to hold up the line. A minute or two later, the oldest and most irascible of the regular servers returned, took one look, and shrilly demanded, “Who made this mess?!”
Uh-oh. Was I ever in for it. This woman could do ten-minute tirades that flayed flesh from bone. “Um, I did,” I said meekly, “and I’m sorry. Here, let me finish cleaning it up—it just got busy all of a sudden.”
She looked at me for a moment, baffled at my confession. “Naw, now you give me that,” she said gruffly, taking away the damp cloth I’d just picked up. “I’ll take care of it, hon. You just get along back to the back room.”
Better than half my lifetime ago, and I still haven’t forgotten that.
Early in CavLec’s existence, I became acquainted with another feminist tech blogger. Without fully acquainting myself with the history of her blog, I started backing her up on CavLec, and we became friends. We aren’t any longer. I eventually found out that the on-blog battles she was fighting got meaner and less contained off-blog. I also found out that active participation in both on-blog and off-blog struggles was more or less the price of her friendship; non-participation, or the least hint to her that perhaps angry confrontation was not always the best course of action, brought immediate accusations (mostly off-blog, but occasionally on-) of betrayal of friendship and conduct unbecoming a feminist.
Now, as we all know, I am something of a chameleon; I take on the characteristics of the people I hang out with, for better or for worse. I’m also an arrant coward; confrontation scares me and hurts me and if extended, threatens to drag me into depression. I lost stomach for her fights pretty quickly, and I didn’t have the guts to take her on (nor did I think it would make any difference if I did). The whole thing ended badly. I’d heard she was ill and in trouble, and was making arrangements to go visit and see what I could do when an angry, accusatory email landed in my inbox.
And I said no, no, I can’t do this, I probably should be able to, but I can’t, it’s only going to mess me up worse without helping her… and there things sit to this day, not patched up.
Not long afterward, I got into a role-playing game played by web bulletin board, a game with a fascinating setting and a GM with a deft turn of phrase and an excellent talent for surprising his players. Things were going swimmingly (ugh, wrong word, but never mind) until a typical CavLec rant about an ill-behaved child in a restaurant offended him. He posted a return rant on his own blog, casting specific, detailed, and caustic aspersions on my personal character. I withdrew from the game. The other players understood.
I got an email shortly thereafter from someone who told me that this was a pattern of behavior with this particular individual. She predicted that he would shortly destroy his website and pop up in another guise, with another site name and URL, and that he would never admit to his previous history except with paranoid assertions that various people were out to get him. She was right on all counts, and the pattern has persisted to this day; he’s even using pseudonyms now, and “out to get him” has escalated to “cyberstalking” and nebulous unsubstantiated threats to his family.
Not long ago, I connected the dots between him and his latest pseudonymous venture in public, because the cycle had recycled and he’d abused some more people, and I thought those people (and the people who followed, since more will follow; this cycle has gone on for years and at least four iterations that I know of, and appears unbreakable) should know who he was. Even less long ago, I got a complaint in email about it from his wife, wanting to know why I hadn’t let it drop, trying to make me feel bad about what I had done, again adducing threats to the family (which in all honesty, I don’t believe a word of). I didn’t answer. But I thought about it for several days, because really, what was I up to? Due warning, or cheap revenge?
I’m not above the latter. I know myself better than that. When I feel wronged (or worse, when someone I care about has been wronged), I get self-righteously mean and petty. Some of the time, I manage to throw a rope around it before much harm is done; I actually lost my temper good and hard with Meredith during Five Weeks and the Akismet problem, but I don’t know that she realized it, because I knew my inner reactions were ridiculous and therefore kept my outer reactions in check. But sometimes the rope misses its hold.
At my best, I’m not a bad egg. I know that. But I’m also well aware that I’m not always at my best. Meredith has reason to say nice things about me in connection with Five Weeks. The crew at Open Access Research has entirely legitimate reason to hold a different opinion, because I’ve been slacking badly with them—forgetting to return emails, not doing some design work I signed up for, and generally putting them on the back burner. Ugh. Bad me. And not the only ball I’ve dropped lately, either.
(Don’t panic, Jen. I’m working on the book. I really am! And don’t you panic either, Necia. Some things I’ve still got under control here.)
The point of all this being, the divide between what I am and a net.kook or a snake in the grass or a welcher or a messy pile of grinding rust-toothed grudges is sometimes shockingly narrow. Ask code4lib if you don’t believe me. Or consider my reputation in the biblioblogosphere, which surprises me unpleasantly on a regular basis—scared of me? People are scared of me? For heaven’s sake. But then again, “sometimes… just plain cranky and wrong” is a fair assessment, perhaps even a generous one.
(Though I do think two other things are happening: one, people remember my rants more than my other blogging, because rants are colorful and galvanizing; and two, I’m a woman not blogging like a lady, and that’s still a salient thing in today’s world.)
I don’t run myself down because I’m overly modest. I do it because I’d be a very monster of pride if I let myself. (And also, I think, because I don’t care to become jaded.) I don’t downplay my accomplishments because I’m humble. I do it partly because I’m uncomfortably aware that my accomplishments aren’t the whole story… and partly because if I rest on my laurels, which is sometimes tempting, I’ll start breaking more promises, letting more people down, and passing up chances to learn out of the arrogant and erroneous belief I’ve nothing left to learn. I don’t apologize publicly for my screwups because I’m a supremely reasonable human being. I do it because I’m quite the opposite—and I learned when I was sixteen that sincere apologies deflect a lot of ugly consequences, and I’ve learned since then that not apologizing when an apology is due creates even uglier consequences than the original sin.
Look, I can’t rely on beauty or charm; I haven’t got either. I can’t rely on a faultless history; mine is full of pitfalls and wrong turns. Brilliance? Nuh-uh. I’m smart enough, but plenty are smarter. Talent? Nothing earthshaking, and nothing especially focused. Agreeableness? Not natively, as the blogosphere is well aware, though I do okay when I work at it. So what’s left?
Relentless self-awareness and self-questioning, that’s what, along with a willingness to accept and (when I’m really ticking over properly) confront my own weaknesses and errors. It’s not the most enjoyable tool in the toolbox, I assure you, but it’s done better by me than any other.