Yes there is a plot against you!

As we pass through the education system, we begin to receive the programming that channels us into being "normal."

As we start our jobs, we continue to receive the programming to further channel us into being "normal."

Trust me; I have become well aware of the programming I have received over the years that has made me comfortable with continuing to be "normal."

And worse yet, I contributed to the programming of my children as they passed through my care. Now the grandchildren are coming along, but I am in a different position. I have become aware of the programming that made me "normal." 

One of the biggest myths we are exposed to is the PYRAMID. It becomes an excuse for everything we are presented. So lets look at the myth vs the reality.

We normally picture a PYRAMID sitting on its base with the point at the top. This is a "stable" configuration. In most job situations we are somewhere in the middle of this PYRAMID. We can always find people above us or below us in the chain of command.

As we try to rise in the PYRAMID, the COMPETITION gets keener; the jobs are fewer; the perks are greater. We reach a stage where we may have to trade off some of our personal and family values to continue to participate in the COMPETITION. 

I can remember early in my military career, when I first received the "It will affect your career" answer to a request I made to stay in Idaho with my wife for an extra six months. Our first child was due to be born about six weeks after I completed my prototype training. The other options were for my wife to precede me back to the east coast to stay with her parents so she could fly safely, or for her to remain behind in Idaho when I shipped out for my next course in Connecticut and join me some time after the baby was born. Since our request was denied, she did fly home early and I was fortunate enough to have our first daughter to be born on a Saturday so I could be present for the birth. But there was no time to stay behind and I was back at school in Connecticut when the baby came home from the hospital.

Somehow as a new ensign going through my initial training stages, I could never figure out how it was going to really hurt me to be six months behind my contemporaries in completing my initial pipeline training, or how it would really impact the Navy or the Submarine Force to be without this unqualified ensign for that period of time. One I did figure out was that no one else cared about my family situation. The "needs" of the Service came first and that was going to control what happened.  

The same types of choices have faced us all. Business requirements are frequently much more important that being around for "first steps," recitals, and other similar milestones in our children’s lives.   This is a common excuse when businesses are confronted with patterns of sexual discrimination in that the women in the organization took time to meet the child rearing responsibilities that come along. It is the mother who generally gets the phone calls when the child gets sick, or stays home when the child wakes up sick, or takes time off to take the child to the doctor’s appointments. 

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