Field Notes on People
In the last two months I researched emotional intelligence. Researched is the right word. Not soul searching. I found the books on relationship psychology, on emotional versus logical minds, and I read them the way I read anything I don't understand. I did this because people are hard to understand, and I am expected to understand them anyway. The expectation is doubled in my case. I work in HR. My entire profession is, on paper, people. Here is what the difficulty actually looks like, since it sounds abstract until it isn't. Someone says something to me. Anything. A comment in a meeting, a message, a remark in a corridor. Where other people apparently just respond, I run analysis. What did they mean. What do they want from this. What is the correct response, and why is it correct. Every statement goes through this process, carefully, every time. It works, mostly. It is also exhausting in a way I can't explain to people who get the answer for free. What I wish for is simp...
