What’s up friends. It’s with tremendous joy that I present this conversation I had with the illustrious Ania Drabek. Part Two can be found on her blog.
I’ve also included screenshots of other conversations I had in Senegal.
RYAN: Hi friend! I’m kinda awkward and sometimes ask a question just by making a statement. So: there’s a book, The Pale King, that’s partially about a work environment that’s so dreadfully dull that someone dies on the job, and it takes 4 days for anyone to notice and ask if he’s alright. It seems like we’ve both sometimes felt that we’re working in an office like that.
ANIA: Heya! This is great, thanks for cooking this up with your one of a kind creative mind. This book you mention – is it real? If so, must get to it
Re: the topic at hand – one day, I overslept and came into work an hour and a half late, and no one so much as batted an eye. Another day, I was meant to visit a regional office for an event planning session, but the car had left without me because no one notified me of the 06h30 departure time.
So after some weeks of this, the zonal manager from Velingara has mercy on me and invites me to his zone for some work. The difference between the two offices is night and day. People care here – not just about me, but about each other. They work. A lot. I know it’s a bit different for you. I’d love to get your response on this.
In all this time I’ve spent being pretty low key, I’ve been reflecting on what I will do about it to avoid as much disappointment for future interns. I’ve decided that I want to speak to future interns about my experience. I don’t want to paint my stay here in a negative light, but just want to provide peers with some tips on how to prepare psychologically for some unstructured moments. Insisting on a city they actually want to be in is key, I’m so glad I landed where I did geographically.
I guess my two questions for now are – what info do you wish you had had to avoid a Pale King situation, and now, having had it, how will you respond, react, learn, share from it?
RYAN: Oh man oh man oh man you’re giving me a lot to work with here. Lemme respond to your questions so I don’t forget. What information do I wish I had in order to avoid a Pale King situation? Idk, it’s tough— because I’ve tried: I’ve showed up at the office and found nobody there, I’ve had people not respond to my emails, etc. I don’t feel like I could’ve prevented it.
But it hasn’t been all bad, and I’ve gotten to experience a few different office vibes here. Like in my last office I had a friend who I’d do handstands & pushups with in the office, and he’d take me to play basketball. That guy would notice my death. So luck has a lot to do with it. I’ve just tried to make myself flexible and patient as possible.
And yes, The Pale King is a real book. The book’s basically about what it means to ~feel~ and to know what you are and have a sense of purpose and commitment. Which is really cheesy— and the author knows it, so he has to play all these postmodern games and then try to go a step further than postmodern ennui.
I vibe with DFW’s sincerity bit, because at the end of the day I’m hopelessly sensitive and I want to believe that people can love each other & vibe and be good and honest with each other. I mean, everyone can’t love everyone— at least not meaningfully— but I still want to believe that relationships can be more than just material calculations, that there can be sincere emotional intimacy.
I think the absence of that feeling, the emotional intimacy, is what makes me feel invisible. I wonder if it’s the same for you? It’s not the lack of work. I don’t work with my sister or my mom, but we manage to love each other. This office is loveless, or perhaps I don’t understand their love languages.
Love’s probably not the right word. I don’t want to go around thinking I’m worthy of/entitled to peoples’ love. Nah. Idk, maybe warmth & sincerity? Nah: not sincerity, because a person can be sincerely awful (e.g. Trump). Ok so warmth is part of it, but what else? What are the positive signs?
ANIA: Ry! I have so been looking forward to this, but did you have to get so philosophical? Dang. Yeah I know I know, for my intellectual development. 
Thanks for coming around to emotional intimacy – emotional intelligence and all issues surrounding it are so important, yet I fear they are severely understated in today’s world. In employment decisions, for example, I haven’t yet heard of a situation (maybe I haven’t researched well enough) in which people are tested on their emotional intelligence. This would include picking up work when you see someone else is swamped, knowing how to welcome a newcomer into the office, being truthful and frank and just overall alert to others’ needs and moods and such. This would not mean catering to people’s every whim, but rather just being aware and responding as such.
For example, the little things: shooting a text to ask how you’re doing. Turning towards you and asking “Ça va?” when you’ve been behind your computer screen for a bit. Letting you know they’re heading out for lunch, perhaps inviting you. Ccing you on an email – that was done never in my eight weeks in Dakar so that whole time, I had not idea of what was going on, ever. Being honest about what can and cannot be provided to you.
This all is making it sound like I’ve learned much more about people – groups, myself, engrained systems – than I about content. On the one hand, was that the goal? But on the other hand, wasn’t it? We learned everything in class once, practiced, and if we see the same technical aspects during our internships, that’s all cool. But we spent a lot of time talking about context. The logframe will remain the same, plus or minus a row in excel — it’s the place we
create/revise/implement/analyze it in, and the team we do it with, that really matter. So, in essence, putting it that way I am pretty glad to be learning all of these “people” lessons. Working next to the mama who loves her Christian rock is sure to prepare you for the next time to work with someone much different from you, who may or may not notice your presence. And when that time comes, you will be less shocked after having lived it before. That’s got to be at least as valuable, if not more, than working on a theory of change in a quiet cubicle with a diligent, reliable team. // does that even fully exist, btw??!//
RYAN: Lol my bad for getting too philosophical. Maybe I’m generally like that, but especially lately b.c. since I don’t have many opportunities to really express my thought-feels here.
dialogues, experiences, thought-feels 