Very few people love algebra and equations. I love both.
The stories that I tell are much like listing all the components of an algebraic equation.
In elementary school, I competed in a national competition in a game called “Equations“. It is because of this game that I love equations, why I love algebra, why I love math.
So, my note taking is very much like an equation. There is a lot of unpacking that needs to be done in order to get to root of the purpose of the note. There are so many reasons I write this way.
First, I have a deep, deep, deep need to be understood. And, throughout my life, I have found that only about 3% of the people I speak to fully understand what I am saying. When I say, I want chocolate ice cream with fudge and crushed peanuts and some whip cream with a cherry on top, and my father says he understands… I get disappointed. What I ended up with is a Dairy Queen peanut parfait. This is not the same thing.
When I am astoundingly specific about items, it means I want that very specific thing. Years of disappointment and mental whiplash, I devised a defense mechanism of pushing away the answer. What do I want for dinner? Anything without cucumbers, because I hate cucumbers.
This is an easy stance. I found out later that people hate this because they feel forced to make the decision. Luckily, when it comes to eating, my significant other loves picking the places we eat. She has grown comfortable with this role, because I don’t judge or complain. If I do say “no”, I provide a clear and specific reason why I said “no”. It’s very co-dep… co… soothing… damn, she called it something that made it sound good.
Long ago at work, I had a boss that was abusive. One several occasions, I was in fear that he would actually hit me. When he was fired and I took his job, I was in fear that he would shoot me. This is not said for drama, this was a reasoned and thought out possibility based on everything he said and did.
I troubleshoot and repair machines. Very complex, very expensive machines. My brain and genetic makeup was created to work on machines. My family tree is rooted in machine fixers. When I do it, I am methodical and thorough. This isn’t a bragging thing. It can be very annoying at times, especially when sometimes all you have to do is jiggle the handle, and I want to tear the toilet to pieces to fix the jiggle.
Equations, Notes and RSD
My Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria always made me paranoid that I wasn’t doing enough, or checking deep enough to find the problem. My boss was chaotic and would lose track of what was already done in the troubleshooting process. So, I started taking notes. Extensive notes. Part numbers, serial numbers, voltage measurements, document pages. Because, when my ADHD kicked in and someone told me “no, the voltage at that test point was 24 volts”, I couldn’t remember because we had checked so many things. Deep down I had a feeling that, no, it wasn’t 24 volts at that point, but then RSD kicks in and I think, “maybe I’m fucked up, and it was 24”.
So, as I said, I took all kinds of notes. I wrote down every detail so I could recreate every step of the path.
And even then, with the details laid out, I still doubted myself.
At first, I only did it for big projects. But then, a few times, the “quick repairs” ended up being much bigger. Or, there were times I would unplug something and immediately forget where it was plugged in. So, I started carrying a notebook around work and if I touched a machine, I wrote it down.
This led me on a path of moving to a job that was nothing but writing procedures for others to follow. This was frustrating. I wrote in excruciating detail. Every button touched, every switch flipped, it was all in there in the procedure. And, when people skipped steps, the procedure would fail. So, instead of fixing the people, I tried to fix the procedure. I tried instituting a training program. I tried putting layers on layers on layers to avoid dealing with the root of the problem.
The root cause of the failure was people just didn’t like dealing with the way I wrote notes.
