The GGA Project -- Day #354 "Suck it UP"

A few months back I mentioned doing a Facebook friend sweep, unfriending the people with whom I'd had no actual contact since accepting or sending a friend request.  I did this, mainly, because I tend to share a fair amount on the site, and I felt it was disingenuous of me to have "friends" know things about me that I wouldn't share with them should I see them in person, which would never happen as it would with a real friend.  I suspect most of the people didn't even notice the unfriending, which is better, since I didn't mean to be hurtful...I just didn't want to be phony.


Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a very generous and kind, supportive action on the part of one of these recently unfriended friends--coming as a total surprise--caused me a bit of sweeper's remorse.


Today's New Activity: Tail-Between-the-Legs 2nd Request


I was touched by and grateful for my friend's outreaching, and though I suspected he never noticed we weren't still "friends" (the thing he did happened via a mutual friend's Facebook account), I wanted to reach back.  The problem is, when you unfriend somebody on Facebook, you can't just decide you're friends again.  You have to send a new request.  And I thought that was a perfect opportunity for me to write a message to reconnect, catch up, and explain why I'd unfriended in the first place.  Because with this particular friend, it was more than just lack of contact...I'd convinced myself that he didn't want to associate with me, even though there was nothing about him that should have caused me to imagine that.


Perfect opportunity for a little honest sharing and clearing of the air.  It turns out there was nothing of the sort going on.  And you know what?  I've found there almost never is (because the past year has found me checking in with a few different people whom I'd made assumptions about or who I'd thought were judging me)!  And even in the cases where there is, I've finally realized how much better it is to just suck it up and have a somewhat uncomfortable conversation and KNOW (even if there is some actual air clearing to be done) than to sit and wonder and imagine things in your mind.


Learning, learning, learning...

The GGA Project -- Day #233 "A Day Without a Thumbs Up"

Okay, so remember a couple of days ago when I mentioned that Facebook was my guilty pleasure?  Well it occurred to me that it may be more than that....something more nefarious and worrisome and lurking than that.  I think it has actually become an addiction, and I don't like that idea.


I don't like the idea of being beholden to anything in that way -- the way that involves an impulse, a desire that can only be satisfied by hitting the feeder pellet (which in this case was the "notifications" icon on the Facebook app on my phone).  I kicked a smoking habit once, twice, and the third time for good.  How could I let a little old thing like Facebook keep me?


I decided I needed a break, if only just to prove to myself that I'm just fine that fix.


Today's New Activity: Self-Imposed Facebook Exile


It feels pathetic to admit this was difficult for me.  I was at work for a large part of the day, which was good because my mind was occupied a lot of the time.  But the boring, down times at work were when I was typically most apt to pull out my phone and start scrolling, commenting, "liking," and status updating.  Ugh.


And so many times today I was tempted to do just that.  I'm just so used to using that as a way to ward of boredom and kill the time.  And what an incredible time suck it is.  Half the time I write blog it takes me twice as long as it should because I have a Facebook window open at the same time and am always finding a way to get distracted.


I turned the alerts feature off on my phone so news of whoever was trying to communicate with me or who else commented on something I found interesting wouldn't be tempting me all day long to peek all day long.  Man, those first few hours were rough.  And then it got easier.  And now, at 11 o'clock in the evening, I'm thinking I could go a few more days without Facebook.


Or maybe not...


:P

The GGA Project -- Day #161 "Clean Up"

Despite the fact that I put some seemingly very private things about my life out onto the great wide interweb for all to read, I do enjoy some privacy.  I am usually in the camp that thinks people who raise privacy concerns about things like Facebook are being kind of idiotic.  Everything about Facebook is self-regulated.  You don't even have to have a Facebook account, and plenty of people don't.  Even if you HAVE one, there are tons of ways to control your privacy, and if you can't figure out how to use them, maybe you shouldn't have a Facebook account.


Still, I've had some thoughts on privacy lately.  First of all, unlike a lot of my friends I have a bunch of family members as Facebook friends.  This means being on good behavior always...not a problem--I generally am on good behavior.  But that doesn't necessarily mean I want everyone I've seen fit to friend on Facebook to know everything last about me.  After all, me and plenty of people I know have somewhat "inappropriate" senses of humor at times, which certainly comes out now and then on Facebook.  And while there are plenty of ways to limit who sees what, I'd rather not have to censor.  I'd rather only have "friends" whom I actually consider friends, and who shouldn't be judging me anyway.  Similarly I'd also rather only do things I'm comfortable with everyone knowing.


Enter


Today's New Activity: Facebook Cleanse


First of all, I did change a few privacy settings, but that mostly had to do with long-ago-created photo albums.  What seemed more appealing to me, today, was to start taking a hard look at whom I call my "friends."


Now...I really love Facebook.  I do.  I love that I can be in contact with long lost friends and do some catching up.  But I hate that its simple existence has made the concept of friendship seem so complicated and confusing.  For a long time I've been wanting to do some friend list editing, but I didn't start because I was concerned I'd have a hard time discerning what a friend was.


This didn't used to be an issue.


I decided I would start with the easy stuff today.  Anybody among my friends whom I knew from high school but hadn't spoken to since (or since first adding as a friend) would be gone.  What is the point of just collecting people?  I admit I was curious, when my FB account was in its nascent stage, to see pictures of people from high school all grown up.  But once that initial thrill was gone I was hard pressed to come up with a reason to keep this collection of FORMER friends around.


For a long time I've been contemplating the idea of past.  It used to be that the people we knew in our past were just that.  We didn't have the option of revisiting and regurgitating that past in some kind of new, oddball incarnation.  We just had our memories and the lessons we learned from those events.


People who are now in high school will NEVER know what it is to be curious about an old high school flame or to think about people from their past as people from their past.  They'll just keep 'em around for the next 80 years, just part of the collection.


All that said, I'm grateful for the reconnecting that has led to actual, sustained reconnection.  There are some people I'm very happy to have back in my life and with whom I truly enjoy communicating.


But it was definitely time for some editing.  The high school distinction made this initial round easy, and even during that I came across some non-high school "friends" who were obvious candidates for deletion, so I made those executive decisions.  And some further revisiting is in order.  It would be nice to get to a point where privacy concerns aren't even an issue because anybody I know on Facebook knows the real me, up close and personally (even if from far away, paradoxical as that may seem) anyway.


Baby steps...

The GGA Project -- Day #67 "Latte and Some Help Writing my Last Will and Testament, Please"

My last year in college was probably the busiest year ever in my life.  I took 6 & 7 classes in the fall and spring semesters, respectively, worked all week as a tutor in the school's writing center, (wo)manned the desk in the Philosophy Department on Friday mornings, and then worked all weekend at Starbucks.  On top of those obligatory dibs on my time, I also had homework to do (tons of reading as an English major, of course), food to find and consume, and then the more fun task of carving time out to relax or take in a poetry reading here and there.  I write that now and think I must have been on coke!  Or Red Bull at least.  But honestly, it was just naturally exhilarating to have that much going on.  I can say it was one of the fullest and best years I've experienced.

Still, why in the world, in the midst of all that, would I elect to also join the Ethics Bowl, a debate team of sorts that met weekly to prepare for a regional and national tournament, in which we would debate opposing positions on current, highly controversial topics, using philosophical arguments?  Why would I do that?

Basically, I would do that because Ramon Jimenez (now Esquire) persuaded me to, and he's a persuasive individual--which is why he's likely to make an excellent lawyer.  Technically he already is a lawyer, but he hasn't yet spent much time in front of a judge, or any time at all in front of a jury.  And maybe he won't ever.  Not all lawyers get their "You can't handle the truth!" on (just think how many thousands of them are out there carefully crafting the licensing agreements you'll scroll over and agree to without so much as skimming).  For now, he's working part time doing the unglamorous work of collecting debts on behalf of a lumber company, and moonlighting as San Francisco's own in(coffee)-house counsel.

Today's New Activity: An Evening at the Offices of Cafe Lawyer

I reconnected with Ramon a few months back and caught up on what's gone on since we got our asses handed to us at the tournament in North Carolina, since one of our fellow team members (Jeff) happened to marry my best friend Kelsi, and since another of them went to law school and then promptly went back to his MMA, cage fighting ways (as The Hungarian Nightmare).

Turns out Ramon got his law degree from Santa Clara University, passed the Bar Exam last year, and has for the past few months been setting up shop in San Francisco area coffee shops, offering legal advice at the bargain price of $1 per minute.  $1 per minute!

I wish my own lawyer were so generous.

Ramon admits the Cafe Lawyer gig is gimicky.  He knows some people probably think he's a lunatic.  But the idea of offering legal services to the population at large--in a casual setting, and at an unbelievably good rate--was borne in a practical hour.  He has student loan debt after all, and attorneys find their clients almost purely through word of mouth (unless they are paying for spots advertising the chasing of ambulances during episodes of Judge Judy and Cheaters...not exactly appealing).  He hopes to do some good work for people, get repeat and referral business, and ideally be offered full-time employment as in-house counsel for a start up or other small business.  I'd say that in these days of rampant unemployment (especially high among recent law school graduates), it's a pretty sound business plan.

As I type this, I'm overhearing Ramon speak with a client who arranged to meet with him after coming across his website.  I'd feel bad about eavesdropping as these seemingly confidential concerns about photograph copyright are expressed, but hey, it's a freakin' coffee shop!  Obviously this client is okay with the idea of his business being out there in the public air, mixed in with the sounds of milk foaming, the Nas album playing overhead, and the click click clicking of the laptop keys of every single patron in this largish space.

Ramon tells me the couple who he was working with when I arrived this evening were discussing a very personal, highly sensitive matter, right there in the middle of the coffee shop.  I thought this very strange until he reminded me that people talk about such things with friends in the middle of coffee shops all the time.  In fact, I'm sure this approach is very appealing to people who are intimidated by the idea of retaining a lawyer and then having to spend time staring at the bad art on the walls of their offices (or maybe that's just my lawyer...I don't blame her...the senior attorney there picks it out).  And perhaps there's a bit of the idea that near-beggars can't be choosers at work there as well.

I think Ramon's idea is genius.  And I think San Francisco is the best possible place to pull it off.  The approach has a certain community-minded feel to it, as so much of what goes on in The City does.  Really, a LOT of people find themselves in need of legal advice, and my word is it expensive!  This way, he can keep his overheads ridiculously low (needing do no more than purchase a cup of coffee during any given session), learns about all different kinds of legal issues (since obviously he has to take what comes and research the issues in order to really help people), and meets interesting people along the way.  I'd personally much rather work in a coffee shop than pretty much anywhere else I can think of.

On my drive up to San Francisco tonight, I was talking on the phone to Kelsi, who just got her license as a Marriage and Family Therapist.  She asked if Ramon had ever heard of a Cafe Therapist.  We agree there is a market for this service as well.  Just as I've had *quick* legal question I thought could be answered without all the pomp and circumstance of hiring a permanent lawyer, I've also had a concern about my personal life that I'd love to run by a stranger in the interest of gaining new perspective.  I know there are professionals (likely long-established ones) in either of these fields who would be insulted by this approach, thinking it trivializes their work, but I think there's room, as well as a viable market, for all the approaches, and probably plenty of others, too.

Nothing says we have to keep doing things in the same (budget-braking) way, just because that's the way they've always been done.  And I love that so much of the business that comes Ramon's way comes via traffic on his website and Twitter feeds, Foursquare and Facebook check-ins.  These new social media means are helping with the important work of launching revolutions and toppling authoritarian regimes, but they're also helping a hard-working young man get a bite to eat.  I say kudos all the way around.

Hey, here's the Cafe Lawyer now!

If you see him at a coffee shop near you and decide to employ him, be sure to tell him the Cafe Blogger sent you.  Who knows?  You may even get a discount ;)