Don’t work with assholes—and other lessons from
my trip to Spain Susan Mernit
Oakland Local/Hack the Hood/LiveWork Oakland February 2014
July 2013, Oakland, CA: ! I use my last frequent flier miles!to buy a ticket to Barcelona in January 2014.!
My goal is to have a mini-‐sabbaHcal and spend 3 weeks in Spain
By December, I really need a break—fundraising is grueling—and we don’t really make our goal
By January 14, I am so ready to go:!Not only am I leaving the country for 3 weeks—I am not even bringing my laptop.!
Spain is amazing
We eat, !we drink, !we talk, !we read, !we sleep, !we look….!It is so relaxing!
We go everywhere….
And I decide I love what I am doing! in Oakland!--I just need way better self-care
And then I come home
I have a full day of work,!a bunch of meetings….!
And I am in a !terrible mood!when I go home.!
What’s with that?
And then I realize…I am in a bad mood because some of the people I had to deal with were complete assholes.
It’s the scarcity mentality.
.
Or, to put it another way, if I was a fruit tree, they’d pick the fruit, chop the tree down for firewood, and then complain that the tree DIED.
And what would we have left then?
So I have a profound insight !3 days after I come back !from this amazing,!restorative trip---:
I need better language to !ward off the assholes
“So how are you going to support! my organization?”
“My consulting rate for that work is….”
“No.”
And with those words---!I should be feeling !A LOT better….
Thanks!