One of the things I love about The Office, particularly the American version of the show, is that it manages to keep the characters insane and quirky and hilarious while they grow and change. It is about such a dysfunctional, often abusive, and horrifying workplace, but it is filled with so much humanity and compassion and humor. I think it’s the best thing on TV right now.

On a recent episode (“Did I Stutter?”), there was a really fantastic moment. Stanley has always been one of the characters who’s just openly contemptuous of their boss Michael, always willing to point out how ridiculous he and other people are being. And Michael has always had terrible, terrible boundaries, which is the source of their scary work environment and provides much of the painful humor that is their trademark. Here (sadly not embeddable, but in a neatly trimmed clip) for the first time, we see him SET A FREAKING BOUNDARY. And it’s textbook. It’s just the neatest thing.

Oh, and the scene is funny, too, maybe especially to anyone who’s ever wanted to tell off a jackass boss. But I feel like the denouement there is just a shout-out to everyone who has ever worked on their shit. Like all of us here. Sit back and watch it with me, won’t you?

Truly honest communication in The Office 

This is a new meme – new to me! They put out a set of fill-in-the-blank sentences each week and everyone gets to fill them in and share. I’ve been meaning to post more personal experiences, and this seems like a good way to start! I’ve bolded their prompts:

1. The last time I lost my temper, I… Hm, I don’t know what exactly would qualify as losing my temper. I got pretty pissed off earlier when someone – we think it’s a creditor – called for one of my co-workers. I answer the main line most of the time, and this particular woman is out on medical leave for a while, and I’d already asked the probably-creditor to take this number off. I didn’t think they would because the caller was just all “You have a nice day!” which is not an agreement. And indeed they went right ahead and called back again today. I told them in no uncertain terms that they should not be calling her at work, that she will not even be here for a while, and that they need to take this number off their list, and the woman refused at first and then finally sent me to her supervisor, who took it off.

I was proud of myself for standing my ground but I was surprised how triggering a simple thing like someone refusing to stop calling, and claiming that what I said is exactly wrong can be! (They claimed that she told them this was a good place to call her and that they don’t have to stop ever so there – like she wouldn’t have given them her direct line, and like it’s relevant if she’s out for months.) What was triggering was the experience of getting all geared up and righteous and flaming-sword-of-stop-calling-here, and then the potential shift into “you’re totally wrong, you shouldn’t have insisted you were right with the first woman” – basically, the simple temptation to shame myself for “being wrong,” which is going to be the topic of a big upcoming post.

2. The way abuse has ground these shaming beliefs into my brain is what I’m fed up with!

3. The next book I’d like to read is something by Terry Pratchett. I’m reading my way through the Discworld series in order again, and I stopped because I realized I’m missing several books! I think I’ll have to hit the library to get started again, although I also am selling some books to Powell’s soon and maybe I can use the credit to help. (Did you know they’ll buy your books online now and let you ship them for free? Store credit only, but still!)

4. Reading the next Buffy comic, writing more, and buying a house is what I’m looking forward to.

5. If you can’t get rid of the skeleton[s] in your closet, who the fuck cares?

6. The best thing I got in the mail recently was a refund from the power company because they got their butts kicked for cheating people! I’m doing the “1/3, 1/3, 1/3″ rule of thumb with it – a third for fun, a third into savings, a third toward debt.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to art night at my house!, tomorrow my plans include art afternoon at my house… and Sunday, I want to *blushes* sharing this would be wildly inappropriate

See also Holocaust denial. False Memory Syndrome is not a true syndrome, nor is it a recognized condition in the DSM. It is a descriptive label for a situation in which someone supposedly remembers abuse which did not happen.

The Basic Problems

The biggest problem with False Memory Syndrome is that it does not exist.

Yes: there have been many studies which people claim proved its existence. They claim to have convinced their subjects that they were lost in a mall at age four, or that they saw someone in an accident scene who was not there, or whatever. The current favorite is a study in which a large number of people who watched news coverage of September 11th reported having seen a plane crash into the second tower on September 11th, when that footage was not shown until the next day.

Here’s the thing.

All they have proven with any of these studies is that the details of everyday memories can be messed up, especially when someone asks you leading questions or (in Elizabeth Loftus’ case) mixes in “false memories” with very similar stories that they know happened.

We already know that our memories can be confused, whether it is about what we had for breakfast yesterday or whether we were raped at age four or age five. This is not the big deal, the whipped cream on the sundae, the tops or the coliseum.

The question was not, “Hey! Can I get confused about things that actually happened to me, and embroider them, expand them, get the dates wrong, when you tell me direct lies about my experiences?” The question was, “Can I make up a memory about something totally alien to my experience which normally I would never accidentally think happened to me, and believe in it for the rest of my life?”

And consistently, repeatedly, every single time, the answer has been NO.

And, in fact, consistently and repeatedly and every single time, the major researcher on the subject (Elizabeth Loftus) has lied about her findings, and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has misrepresented them both in the media and in courts.

The Drama, The Madness

Read the rest of this entry »

Trish over at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? shared this problem in her blog the other day. Basically, she has a tenant who said he couldn’t make April’s rent and that he would be out by the end of March, and “Instead, I come back to Reno to find his door locked (I don’t have a key) and his cell phone disconnected. GRRR!! So April 1st rolls around, he’s nowhere to be seen and I want his @#$% out of the room.” He came back for some of his things, but he still hasn’t fully moved out. So her burning question at that point was whether to give back his $200 deposit. I liked my answer and she kindly said I could share it all here.

We’ve talked about some of the tools of abuse and the tools of recovery, and I think the idea of principles before personalities is a really excellent tool of recovery. I wrote:

I am on the side of all your other readers who say not to return the deposit – with a caveat.

This strikes me as a situation where you need what people in 12-step programs call “principles before personalities.” Like, we tend to want to put personalities first, as in: I feel bad for him because he’s broke all the time, I want to be a nice landlady, I don’t want to get into a big confrontation…. All the stuff about what we feel and what we fear. But if we have some clear principles, clear boundaries, then we can avoid all the vagueness and the confusion.

So my first question would be, did he sign a lease? And if so, what does it say about:

1. what the consequences are when he doesn’t pay rent, or doesn’t pay it on time
2. what his deposit is used for and when he gets it back if it’s not all used up
3. how much notice he has to give you to move out

Some of the “principles” stuff is going to be in local laws, too. Like, my lease says that if I don’t pay my rent by the 10th then I have to pay a certain amount in late fees per day, but also, in California, if I don’t pay my rent on time the landlords can give me a Three-Day Notice To Pay Rent Or Quit. And if I do pay it within those three days, the whole thing is dropped and nothing more is said; if I don’t, and I don’t leave, then there is more legal action they can take to evict me.

Your local laws can probably tell you whether him saying that he was going to move out by the end of March is legally binding, and what to do now that he hasn’t. It seems to me that the question isn’t really what to do with the deposit, because he hasn’t moved out, right? Unless something has changed since you posted this (which would be nice!) your biggest problem is probably how to get his ass out of there….

I think in your position, this is what I would do:

1. Get a key to the unit! Probably by getting a locksmith to come make a second key for the lock.
2. Check the lease and the local laws and see what they say about all this stuff. If there are areas they don’t cover, figure out what my own personal rules as a landlady are going to be from now on.
3. Possibly call up a landlord organization or housing lawyer and ask a couple of free questions about what the appropriate next step is.
4. (Based on whatever they say, but this is what I am guessing): Hand the guy a three-day notice and a letter restating the situation, like: “On x date, you told me that you could not afford April’s rent and would be moving out by the end of March; it is now April 4th and you have neither paid rent nor moved out. As a result, the next tenant I have lined up cannot move in. Therefore, I am deducting the pro-rated rent from your deposit at a rate of $x per day ($x monthly rent divided by 30) until you have moved out. You have 3 days (until midnight on x date) to vacate the premises….” and consequences if he doesn’t, and so on.

(It’s also possible that the deposit wouldn’t cover any cleaning/repairs AND the rent, in which case I’d probably give him a bill for the rent, with late fees (if the lease allowed for late fees) and prepare to take him to small claims court if necessary, and take the cleaning/repairs out of the deposit by themselves.

I really identify with this whole question because it combines a lot of issues I’ve been working through myself in recent years… boundaries, challenges with landlords and housing stuff, and collecting debts, especially from other people I have lived with!

Here are some resources that I think are really powerful for this stuff:

• Codependents Anonymous http://coda.org … for anyone who wants better relationships with themselves and others. FABULOUS for boundary stuff.
• Debtors Anonymous http://debtorsanonymous.org … especially Business Owners’ Debtors Anonymous groups, because landlording counts for that… it’s good for all kinds of money issues, and BDA (or some people abbreviate it as BODA) has awesome guidelines/principles for use in business that I think can be really helpful with problematic tenants…. sometime in the next year I look forward to using them for that myself!
• NACA http://naca.com … it is a really great organization that helps people at all income levels buy homes, and it encourages them to become landlords and offers classes on dealing with all kinds of landlordly issues, so that you get to be fair AND safe.