First things first
In my last (and first) post, I pointedly said Polymathy changed how I talk about my research, my interests, who I am as a person and, most important to you, what I post through this site and other social media channels. Sounds like a lot of hyperbole, doesn’t it? Well, it is not. It really changed everything. Before I go too far down the rabbit hole that is my mind and the many bits that has stuck to its Velcro, I would like to share a little about myself. I feel this will give you a bit of insight into where we might go together through my posts. Plus, it might help you understand how polymath either currently exists or can be developed in your life.
It cannot go without saying that I come from a crazy big and dysfunctional family. In short, too many mouths and not enough money created an environment of what some would call neglect, but I call self-reliance. I had a lack of supervision ergo autonomy that showed up as a lot of alone time at a very young age. I believe that experience, though difficult, manifested in a lot of out of the box thinking…mostly because I didn’t know a box existed.
Next, I have been poor, poor to the extent of homelessness more than once in my life and, at times, with children in tow. That’s a conversation for another day which I will happily have with anyone who would like to discuss the effects of poverty on a psyche. However, in the context of this story, I will leave it at the profound resiliency that one develops after time and time again pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Poverty mandates bouncing back. There is simply no time to wallow in sorrow or self-pity.
How do those things play into a career? Well, if you recall, I wrote about opportunistic employment which is basically taking whatever job is in front of you. In my case and in hindsight, each job I took because it was the first with an offer, had more benefit in creating “Dr. Sam Weissrock” than I could have gained if I intentionally plotting a course. At the age of 20, I found myself a single, mother with another on the way and in the process of getting divorced. There was a recession and I needed work. I found a position at the local court house and my career thereafter has been a series of serendipitous events.
I served 14 years advocating for elderly and mentally ill persons who had been exhorted (robbed). It was the most painful and satisfying career you can imagine. Sadly, I stopped being surprised at what people would do for money by my fourth or fifth year. On the other hand, I have so many stories that would split your side with laughter and more than a few that would cause you to cry at beauty, humanity and kindness that people can extend.
Unfortunately, satisfying work doesn’t always pay the bills and I moved from nonprofit to healthcare administration out of necessity. I started off as a secretary to 6 directors and supported 750+ team members making a whopping $32,000 per year. Two years into the company, I asked for career path and was told there was no career path for administrative assistants. So, I self-studied and earned a Project Management Institute certification without telling anyone until I finished. Impressed, my boss allowed me to run projects— in addition to my regular duties. Over 17 years, I worked my way into project management, then program and portfolio management. I quickly earned a reputation of delivering on time, difficult projects with high ambiguity and tight timelines. Much of this was done without a college education; so, I was often handed the more challenging projects with the unsaid “figure it out”. Needing the work and being clever, I did just that while my peers earned significantly larger salaries and frequently took the credit.
In January 2011, I started college for the last time. I went from the paltry 12 credit hours I had earned stumbling along when the babies were little to completing my Bachelors in Continuing Studies, Master of Interdisciplinary Studies, Master of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Doctorate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology by February 2021. Fun fact, I started my first masters because I was broke, we were looking at homelessness again, and I could use the extra cash from student loans to survive. Financially, not a great idea, but as James Baldwin said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
Why in the Hell would anyone dedicate 10 years and a quarter of a million dollars she did not have to the little understood field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology? Well, foolhardiness for one thing. The other would be because we spend more time at work than we do with our loved ones—and we typically don’t really like our coworkers; so, it seems important that we figure that out.
Also, if you recall that earlier conversation, I had with my then boss, Admins did not have a career path. However, I was responsible for coordinating and making sure that everything went seamlessly at women in leadership seminars. I was horrified by the way I watched female “leaders” show up: new outfits, fresh hair done, mani/pedi, squealing at how fabulous each other looked, rolling eyes at conversations about their husbands or children, and then complaining they were not taken seriously. On the other hand, I watched some of my close male friends being passed over for promotion for no other reason than Shareholders wanted more women in middle management. Diversity? Check.
I know that last bit may have struck a nerve, and that’s okay. Hopefully, you will keep reading this and future posts and, like me, learn more than you ever thought possible. I learned so much about people, what motivates them, how we communicate, how our brains work, how self-fulfilling prophecies manifest, how our work lives influence our personal lives and vice verse, the complexities of healthcare, the perils of mental health care, how so many people cannot afford treatment, and developing effective leaders. Random? Not at all. In academia, we are required to narrow our focus to an extremely fine point. Our focus becomes so small that we lose sight of the complexities of what it is to be human. As we say, “The only good dissertation is a done dissertation.” For me, I was fortunate or foolish enough to choose a topic that was not well understood by my committee and, as far as I can find, not really researched. So, I was able to look at a wider slice of life. I’ll have more information than you ever cared to know about Critical Discourse Analysis and how language used in academic studies influences our beliefs.
What I hope to share is my joy in seeing people for who they are and what motivates them. By doing so, I continue to learn about myself and here’s a little secret: every psychologist, regardless of their field of study, is just trying to figure themselves out.
I’ll close with this. What I offer you are my insights in Healthcare, Mental Health and Brain Structure, Neuroscience, Psychology, Discourse Analysis and Self-fulfilling Prophecies. Believe it or not, all of these play into to my dissertation and goes back to the women in leadership seminars I mentioned earlier, my life growing up in and living in poverty, and how the stories we tell ourselves become our reality. That’s where the fun really begins!
I hope you will enjoy my site and the many topics that I have dug into during my experience of this wacky thing called life.
