Wordwizard's Updates en-US Fri, 17 May 2024 04:21:19 -0700 60 Wordwizard's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg GiveawayRequest585006394 Fri, 17 May 2024 04:21:19 -0700 <![CDATA[<a href="/user/show/1017763-wordwizard">Wordwizard</a> entered a giveaway]]> /giveaway/show/387852-even-though-i-knew-the-end Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk ]]> ReadStatus7249864859 Thu, 30 Nov 2023 05:03:58 -0800 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'Weasel in My Meatsafe']]> /review/show/6013459375 Weasel in My Meatsafe by Phil Drabble Wordwizard wants to read Weasel in My Meatsafe by Phil Drabble
]]> ReadStatus7199759239 Tue, 14 Nov 2023 15:29:02 -0800 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'Gardens of the Moon']]> /review/show/5977182301 Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson Wordwizard wants to read Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
]]> ReadStatus7192054649 Sun, 12 Nov 2023 10:11:59 -0800 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'My Heart Will Find You']]> /review/show/5971591639 My Heart Will Find You by Jude Deveraux Wordwizard wants to read My Heart Will Find You by Jude Deveraux
]]> ReadStatus7186638148 Fri, 10 Nov 2023 13:39:08 -0800 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction']]> /review/show/5967751923 A Pattern Language by Christopher W. Alexander Wordwizard wants to read A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher W. Alexander
]]> GiveawayRequest521984133 Tue, 24 Oct 2023 04:28:01 -0700 <![CDATA[<a href="/user/show/1017763-wordwizard">Wordwizard</a> entered a giveaway]]> /giveaway/show/376557-even-though-i-knew-the-end Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk ]]> UserQuote88218676 Fri, 29 Sep 2023 19:58:43 -0700 <![CDATA[Wordwizard liked a quote by Ashe Vernon]]> /quotes/10964562
Wordwizard liked a quote
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� don’t you dare, for one minute,
believe that my kindness makes me
anything but insurmountable.
I did not unzip my chest to every kind of hurt,
and stagger back, wounded and alive,
just to hear you call me weak for trying. � � Ashe Vernon
]]> Review5679378332 Sun, 09 Jul 2023 08:20:09 -0700 <![CDATA[Wordwizard added 'The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership']]> /review/show/5679378332 The Female Advantage by Sally Helgesen Wordwizard gave 3 stars to The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership (Paperback) by Sally Helgesen
Picked this up when someone at NYU was getting rid of a bunch of books and finally read it. The actual content isn't anything new--I've read Brene Brown's books, which go far beyond this in the "strict chains of command that are about enforcing status and distance aren't actually productive and people would rather work in places that treat them as human beings," and all that. Mostly what I read it for is the fact that it was published in 1990. The way work works has changed a lot in the last 30 years!

- Multiple women profiled in the book made a point of their organizations replying to mail within three days. (Three whole days!) And of course, it's all physical mail.
- One woman has a cell phone in her car and took a meeting in a parking lot after a parent-teacher conference ran long. Ah, the ways of the future. :)
- These people have SO MANY PHONE CALLS. It stresses me out just reading about it. Most of it is the kind of short thing that now, at least where I work, is settled by IM--"I'd like to chat about this, let me know when you have time"--or in a short email. But GAH. PHONES.
- So much scheduling and comparing calendars with secretaries and trying various systems to see what works best. Google Calendar and equivalents really changed that part of work.
- I am pretty sure none of the executives in the book has a computer in her office. There's not a ton of description, but the book touches on piles of paper and magazines and books that people have but never mentions computers. Similarly, there's clearly *physical* mail rather than email. There's a reference to things being typed, but usually by secretaries. I imagine they had word processors at this point, not typewriters, or *maybe* computers--but it doesn't seem like that was something the executive did herself at this point. There are discussions of sales projections but no one seems to open up Excel and look at a spreadsheet on a computer. I suspect a lot of the phone and meeting time is now email time, because those communications now take place online.

There IS an interesting thing at the beginning where Helgesen compares the women in her book to male executives in a 1968 study. As one woman in the book put it, women "get pleasure from the actual doing of it, rather than from the abstract notion of getting it done." Is that not true for everyone? Relief from the anxiety of having a task undone is not enough to make a job worthwhile if actually doing the task is also terribly unpleasant. I'd rather enjoy how I spend my time *and* be glad I finished something than have a life of dread broken by lessened dread. Maybe for some people the dopamine hit of completion is a LOT bigger? Orders of magnitude bigger?

There's also a bit about how a previous book about women in the work place said that "Seeing a career 'as personal growth, as self-fulfillment, as satisfaction, as making a contribution to others, as doing what one wants to do,' women lack men's focus on the all-important question, 'What's in it for me?'" and I have to say that BAFFLES me. What else is there to be 'in it for you' than satisfaction and usefulness? Money, sure, you want to be able to live well and to have the recognition aspect of it--but since this is a book about work and not volunteering, that's probably a given. I suspect there's something else there that I don't quite get. Perhaps some power-over element that is utterly unappealing to me. I think there's been a cultural change away from that in general--and the places where it still is in place are getting more and more obviously toxic.

Anyway. Not news (anymore) but fun and quick to read. ]]> ReadStatus6765721803 Mon, 03 Jul 2023 19:25:45 -0700 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England']]> /review/show/5665799453 The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson Wordwizard wants to read The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
]]> ReadStatus6765719937 Mon, 03 Jul 2023 19:25:08 -0700 <![CDATA[Wordwizard wants to read 'Lone Women']]> /review/show/5665798099 Lone Women by Victor LaValle Wordwizard wants to read Lone Women by Victor LaValle
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