TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Part of why I was late is part of what(sighs) I was talking about. They threw out my craptastic concept [...] (inaudible at 00:00:23) libraries. A friend of mine, whose name is Morgan – he's like a guy who knows a guy.

THERAPIST: He's been trying to get you to talk with somebody.

CLIENT: Yeah. And so a week and a half ago he sent me this e-mail that was basically, "What the fuck? This is appalling. I need your answer." I talked to him last night. What was funny was that I was saying how I was really frustrated and he said, "The problem is that you've been talking to people without power. [00:01:02] I don't do that. I only talk to people with the power to make change." Okay! He asked me if I could print out the last three years of relevant blog posts contact list.

[...] (inaudible at 00:01:31)

CLIENT: Yeah. So I printed all those blog posts..."and also if could you print any relevant e-mails..."

THERAPIST: These are posts that you've written?

CLIENT: Yeah. [...] (inaudible at 00:01:54) it's a lot easier to say. [00:02:05] I had made [friends locked] (ph?) to my blog post about work periodically. The one about asking me to log my time in 15-minute blocks and me finally being like "fuck you – no" is what actually got him to send an e-mail saying "Jesus Christ. Contact me." I was just kind of doing it and then I realized I was feeling a lot of feelings about that and I had to get through the last chunk. [00:02:59] I felt like if I stopped I would not – because I had like ten e-mails left or whatever. I was like, "If I stopped doing it I will never do it again." I printed it all out, three inches thick, not all of which is relevant, but whatever. Right now I feel mostly super-emotionally exhausted, but also headachy and really upset and just – there's something about going – especially through the old e-mails – and being like, "Yeah, that really happened that way." My own blog entry I might use hyperbole or I might – actually I do use hyperbole, but whatever. [00:04:04] The actual e-mails are just "that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened."

There is actually one more thing, which I don't know if I can get myself together to look at, which is when someone from Operations tried to put in a complaint about my work into my performance review and I flipped my shit. The head of Operations does not like me because when the students were doing Occupy [...] (inaudible at 00:04:49) I gave them computer support and told them the [...] (inaudible at 00:04:59) head of Operations [...] refused to give them his name, so I said, "that's his name; that's his phone number; this is the assistant's name and phone number." So I told them that stuff. [00:05:11] He saw me helping them and also he's a big union buster. He actually sold his consortium company because he didn't want to have to hire union workers. I'm like "huh." So we don't get along always. He had done this weird complaint about how he was shocked at how messy my desk was and it was causing pest problems. I was kind of like, "Okay. Whatever."

THERAPIST: Oh, I remember that. That was actually not that long ago.

CLIENT: Yeah, it was a year ago. [00:06:02] I cleaned it up. When I got that year's performance review there was a paragraph about that and I asked Chet, who said other Chet (sp?) in Operations told someone to tell Chet to put it in my performance evaluation, so I went to HR and a meeting and refused to sign it until it was removed, which upset a variety of people – including me. I feel kind of mad at myself for having (sighs) (pause) – I don't even know. [00:07:09] And when Drake said, which I think is both true and funny, "I only talk to people who have power and you haven't been, which is why you're so frustrated." Yes, that's true, I guess, except sort of not. I guess with HR it depends on whether or not you think they have authority, but some of them totally have the authority to say yes or no to that – or that violated all our procedures for doing things and you don't get to just yell at me about it. [00:08:05] I think [I'm also a mild heaping of semi-self-loathing] (ph?) for – I don't know. I guess there's something about seeing me spending six months trying to get [...] (inaudible at 00:08:36) project to do something and going through all this effort to this, that and the other thing; and then having it get shit-canned. I'm just like, "That was a lot of effort I went through and nothing happened, except me being miserable and having [...] (inaudible at 00:09:03)" (sighs) [00:09:07] (pause)

Part of me is still like, "Maybe I should have..." something-something-something, like I should have done something different. I was going through the e-mails where [...] (inaudible at 00:09:41). I was looking at it and was like, "No, that's still fucked up." Especially [...] no, never mentioned that before. [00:10:01] I got this e-mail justification for why. I'm like, "Nope. That's still bullshit. Okay." (pause) I was just sort of like, "Why did all that happen or, rather, why was everyone around me?" All right, there were six or eight people involved in this. Why/ how did Chet let that happen? Why/how did Gary let that happen? (sighs) [00:11:01] It's kind of like when a company puts out an ad or something, like a commercial, that's super offensive and you're like, "How the hell did this get made considering all the people that it has to go through? What the fuck?" That's kind of like how I feel. There are all these people involved in various ways and I talked to all of them and e-mailed many of them and – nothing. It's also actually why I hate the book, Lean In.

THERAPIST: About the woman tech mucky-muck? [00:11:59]

CLIENT: Yeah. I didn't make it past the intro. I thought I should at least skim it and the intro has the story where she's like, "I'm pregnant and I didn't want to waddle so far through the parking lot." She went to visit someone at Google, I think, and they had pregnant people parking at the front and she goes off in this whole, "This is so ridiculous. Why don't we have this? There are all these people at this company. Why didn't any of them ask for this?" It was this weird, long "I don't understand why somebody else didn't request pregnant parking." Then she goes to the CEO's office and they were like, "Yeah, sure." I'm like, "Well, the receptionist cannot walk into the CEO's officer, first of all. Second of all if she was like, "I really would like pregnant parking, no one would give a shit." [00:13:03] She didn't have a sense of that or she didn't have a sense of "you have no idea what people have been asking for." I don't think it's nice to blame the people who couldn't walk into the CEO's office, even if she seems to feel that she's not going to do that. So I guess I feel like I'm [not for pregnant people parking.] (ph?) I was also talking to a co-worker. We were brainstorming something and she's been at a very frustrating meeting. She was complaining about how she had been throwing out ideas and had gotten shot down really hard. She felt, in a way, that it was excessive. [00:14:03] The deal was that the group didn't want to make any real change and one of the group members is incredibly resistant to change. It's really intense. Somehow it came up that I was like, "Yeah, the person who was racist and sexually harassed me at work is still an instructor at Harvard. Blah, blah, blah. They're all still working here." And she was really shocked. I was like, "I don't know what to tell you. They're all still here." The Harvard police actively discourages students from contacting the Cambridge police in cases of rape and assault. [00:14:58] Yeah.

THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:15:00)

CLIENT: Yeah. The rationality is that the Cambridge police will be antagonistic because of town versus [gown] (ph?) and will be mad at you for being a student; and that the campus police will be more understanding in that situation and they can be a liaison to help you deal with the Cambridge police. One of the big outcomes of that is that crime doesn't get reported to the police, or to the campus police, who may or may not do anything about it. And if you go to the Cambridge police, the school is really pissy to you about it institutionally. And yeah, we were discussing why everyone that is [...] (inaudible at 00:15:58) at work really closeted. [00:16:02] She was like, "I don't understand. Blah-blah is gay." I'm like, "Yep. And so is that guy and that guy, but none of them ever talk about it so I don't know what to tell you. They're gay as Christmas but won't really say it." I get that some of it is generational, but I don't think that's the only reason. I also don't want to go through this stack of paper. I don't want to write up a who-is-who cast of characters. (pause) (sigh)

THERAPIST: Drake was a little bit like [...] (inaudible at 00:16:57) and you were feeling like wanting to talk to the CEO and he sort of was being a little dismissive and is also a bit ignorant, I think, about what you tried, who you've talked to and what is going on. [00:17:23]

CLIENT: Yeah. He is aware of what I've tried and part of why he said "I want to talk to people who can do things," he's saving all that emotional energy and people who can't make any changes, it's a waste of energy because I put all this effort in and got nothing. I guess that's true, but also "You're fancy and I'm just some chick."

THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:17:52) the whole story. You're telling me that many of the people you talked to could have done something, but they weren't sympathetic, which reiterates the problem. [00:18:05] They may not have been sympathetic because they were involved in the same [...] (inaudible at 00:18:12) context, but... (pause)

CLIENT: They still had power and chose not to use it?

THERAPIST: Yeah. I don't think you went to talk to people who you didn't think could have done something, in most cases.

CLIENT: Yeah, which is also part of the depressing part.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That's what makes it worse. You're not going to the president's office, but you haven't just been complaining to co-workers who can't do anything or a manager whose hands are tied in some fashion and can't do anything. [00:19:11] [It isn't clear the politics,] (ph?) but I guess it seems to me what you've done and how thought about it to date, you haven't talked to anybody who had done anything and wasted your time on people who didn't have the power to do anything about the things you were complaining about.

CLIENT: I was going to say it was, to me, the most frustrating part I was like, "Drake, I hear you. You've been trying to help me and I've been really busy being depressed and that's been taking up a lot of my time." He was like, "No, I get that you have a down day." "No, no, no. I've been really occupied with trying to stay sane. (sigh) [00:20:04] I'm like, "You've never experienced major depression," was all I could think because some days I feel like, "That's what I did today all day." There is only so much extra... In theory, my highest priority is my own emotional health and that totally means sometimes not doing things because I'm done.

THERAPIST: I just want to be clear. I don't mean to be critical of Drake or say anything that won't be helpful.

CLIENT: I understand. It's just like, to me, my bigger frustration – like I was frustrated the instance he said that he understood I had down days. [00:21:11]

THERAPIST: Yes, which totally feels characterized, from what you've told me.

CLIENT: To me that was more upsetting than the other things, which I agree are totally valid criticisms. It's just that in my head that's not what I'm thinking about. (pause) At work the Library Association Conference is coming up in two weeks or something and there is something about that, a little part of me is, "I should have gone/should go. I could stay with a friend." Then I'm also like, "I don't think I'm in any mood to schmooze." I'm not sure that I can schmooze without raging out against Cambridge a lot. I don't actually want to do that. When I went to the workshop that Cambridge wouldn't pay for I had this moment where I was bitching about something and was like, "Oh, this person knows him and knows to call people at Cambridge and this could get back to him in approximately three minutes." [00:22:58] Also, someone was talking about how they were hiring and I was like, "Oh, I wouldn't hire me right now." I wouldn't necessarily hire someone who was bitching hard about their current workplace and naming names.

THERAPIST: I would imagine how well you knew them and trusted them.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. There are definitely people I would trust who I would just be like, "Here's the deal."

THERAPIST: No, I meant like, "Oh, my God. I've heard from three other people all of these things about Cambridge. I can definitely see why you want to get the hell out of there."

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:24:03]

THERAPIST: I think you're pretty quick to assume, in a variety of ways, that you lack credibility about things like that or that when you say things like that they'll have the worst possible repercussions – that they will get back to the people who you're talking about and that would make a difference in that would cause you harm and also that you would lose credibility with people who might hire you.

CLIENT: Yeah. For Will (sp?) part of it was that people were saying his name as if it were this awesome... [00:25:01]No one had heard anything negative or gave back, be like, "Yeah, I heard it's been kind of crazy." (sighs) (pause) I was actually kind of shocked that no one said, "Yes, I've heard that the Harvard Library [...] (inaudible at 00:25:26)." I guess, in part I feel like instead of the Harvard Library reputation being notoriously bad, part of me thinks that if I talk about it being bad everyone will be like, "Yeah, I heard it's horrible." And having no one being like that made all those worries feel more real. [00:26:08] (sighs) (pause) And that Will still works at Cambridge and he got a promotion. Ugh. (pause) [...] (inaudible at [0:26:39] sexually harassing me at work. [I now am, I guess, higher ranking than he is, in some theoretical way.] (ph?) So I'm like ehh. You've done nothing with yourself since then, which is you have the exact same job and I don't, so that's kind of awesome. [00:27:08] I think you succeeded at that and... (pause) In many ways I feel like sometimes people don't take me seriously for a variety of reasons. Like today I was [in the store] (ph?) and I was talking to some students and they thought I was a [...] grad student. I'm like, "I get it. I'm wearing a maxi dress and sandals and not looking very librarian-y at this moment." [00:28:03] But things like that, using informal language at times or using the language these kids today use or whatever is the feeling of being in a meeting and a woman says something and everyone is like, "Arghh." The guy says the exact same thing and they're like, "Oh – it's brilliant!" and to me, Will (sp?) is sort of the epitome of that for everything.

THERAPIST: Yeah. We should stop.

CLIENT: Okay. And we're not meeting on...?

THERAPIST: Right. We're on for Monday.

CLIENT: We're on for Monday/Tuesday.

THERAPIST: Do you want to try to meet again this week?

CLIENT: I think I can't do it emotionally.

THERAPIST: I understand.

CLIENT: Thank you.

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure. The reason you can't do it are probably the reasons I suggested it.

CLIENT: Exactly. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: I'll see you on Monday.

CLIENT: Okay.

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