Personal

Conscient du fait que mon français n’est pas très bon (j’apprends), je pense cependant qu’il est important de l’écrire dans cette langue, car vous m’avez fait savoir que toute autre langue n’est pas acceptable.

Il y a quelques jours, j’étais chez un restaurant Valentine avec ma fille de six ans. Nous y étions allés parce qu’elle adore leur hot-dog et puisqu’elle avait fait un super effort à l’école ce jour-là, j’avais décidé de la récompenser. Vos raisons pour y être doivent être encore plus mondaines que ça.

Nous sommes arrivés au Québec depuis moins de trois mois et ma fille est toujours en train d’apprendre le français. Et bien qu’elle s’efforce de se faire comprendre par un monde qui ne la comprend pas, elle a encore des difficultés. Elle devient souvent frustrée. Et pourtant elle persévère. Sachez que je suis très fier d’elle.

Elle venait d’entrer à l’école avant les vacances d’été, juste pour apprendre le français. Un jour, les élèves devraient avoir un examen de mathématique et les enseignantes avaient décidé de sortir ma fille de la salle pour continuer à étudier le français. Ma fille a commencé à pleurer et supplier. Les enseignantes ne comprenaient pas pourquoi. Ils m’ont alors appelé et je suis allé à l’école. En y arrivant, nous avons finalement compris : elle se croyait punie et elle ne savait pas ce qu’elle avait fait pour le mériter. Elle implorait le pardon. C’est de ce genre de situation à laquelle elle doit faire face tous les jours.

Encore une fois, elle a six ans.

Elle a perdu toutes ses amies. Elle a dû laisser presque tous ces jouets. En tant que père, ça me brise le cœur de la voir en regardant des autres enfants qui jouent, parce que je sais qu’elle veut jouer avec eux, mais elle est souvent gênée à cause du français.

Je suis certain que vous serez d’accord avec moi quand je dis que ça n’est pas facile pour un adulte, et encore moins pour une petite fille. Mais elle fait un vrai effort là et je suis tellement fier d’elle. Vraiment fier.
Et c’est pour cette raison qu’il m’a fait tellement mal quand vous avez décidé de lui réprimander de ne pas parler français avec son papa.

Elle jacassait comme d’habitude quand vous l’avez interrompue pour me dire qu’il fallait parler français au Québec. Ça m’a surpris un peu, mais j’ai commencé quand même à vous expliquer qu’elle apprenait. Vous avez décidé de m’ignorer et de pointer votre doigt à une petite fille et de crier « en français ! »

Je suis un nouvel arrivant et je n’avais aucune idée, à ce moment-là, comment réagir. Je ne savais pas si vous auriez l’appui du reste des gens chez le restaurant ou pas. Mon instinct était juste de protéger ma fille de vous. Ma petite fille qui se protégeait derrière moi, intimidée par une madame qui partait en colère pour quelque chose qu’elle ne comprenait pas.

Et pourquoi ?

Je vous demande, madame, c’est à quoi exactement que vous vous attendiez ? Je comprends que vous considérez votre langue importante. En général, j’appuie l’idée que tout le monde doit être capable de se communiquer en français au Québec. Je pense que c’est absolument juste que personne ne vous demande de parler l’anglais ou d’autre langue, quelle qu’elle soit. Vous êtes au Québec et le français devrait être suffisant pour y vivre. Je suis d’accord avec tout ça.

Mais si ma fille veut parler à son papa en sa langue maternelle, qu’est-ce que vous avez à voir avec ça ?
Essayez de vous mettre dans notre place. Essayez de vous imaginer à un autre pays. Est-ce que vous arrêtiez de parler français avec vos enfants ou votre conjoint ? Soyez honnête.

Je ne sais vraiment pas ce que vous pensiez à réussir, madame, mais ce que vous avez réussi à faire c’est de me faire repenser le Québec et les québécois. Vous m’avez fait me demander si les québécois sont tous des colons. C’est ce que vous avez réussi, madame.

Mais même là, vous avez échoué.

Lorsque vous êtes partie, des gens chez le resto sont venus s’excuser de vous. Une femme a donné à ma fille des crayons et une feuille de papier pour qu’elle puisse dessiner afin d’arrêter de pleurer.

J’ai donc conclu que non, vous ne représentez pas le Québec. La plupart des québécois avec qui j’ai eu le plaisir d’interagir m’ont traité avec respect. La plupart des québécois avec qui j’en ai parlé m’ont dit la même chose : vous, et ceux comme vous, avez perdu la guerre. Vous êtes une relique d’un passé honteux de cette belle province. Vous représentez le passé.

Ma fille est l’avenir. Deal with it.

Years ago, I was part of a project that went completely off the rails. A little context: we were a services company and we had local offices in cities all over the country. My team provided 2nd-level support which means we often had the PMs call us from those via an annoying Nextel radio.

I won’t go through the details but suffice it to say this project envolved one such branch going rogue and committing actual fraud, with criminal proceedings and all. People were on the edge, and the relationship with that branch was increasingly hostile. There was also an internal power struggle in the company between some directors at that point. In other words, a clusterfuck I’ll always cherish, if by cherish you mean hate hate hate. Anywho…

One time, there was a national holiday on a Thursday and we were going to make it a long weekend. As customary, I communicated with all the PMs about contigency plans. This PM then told us that we could not take Friday off because the customer wanted us to fly over there. We were supposed to be at the customer’s site early Friday morning. That meant we would have to fly Thrusday afternoon. I wasn’t happy.

It immediatly felt arbitrary too. As I said, the relationship was not good and we suspected he was just trying to cost us our days off. I knew enough of the customer to be fairly sure they would not have requested us that Friday. Why did the customer want us then? There was nothing yet on production and if it was just to show progress, surely we could move it to Monday. At worst, can’t we make it over the phone? No, no, no, he said. The customer was adamant that we be there on Friday. Sucked to be us.

So we flew over Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning we headed to the customer’s offices only to find it closed. They too had made it a long weekend and wouldn’t be back until Monday.

Normally I would be furious over the waste of time but to be honest, both I and my colleague smiled at that. It confirmed that the PM just tried to screw us and the customer have never asked for us. We headed back to the local office.

Before coming in, we both bought ourselves some icecream. My friend stayed in the little garden in front and I went in. The PM immediatly saw me and demanded to know why I wasn’t at the customer yet. I didn’t answer. Instead I grabbed the Nextel radio and headed back out with the PM following. I then sat down on the grass and called my director. Smiling and staring at the PM, I told him about the office being closed. The PM’s face froze when my director asked to talk to him.

We sat outside under the sun, enjoying our icecreams while the PM got shouted at. It was the best icecream I’ve ever had.

I am currently trying a new approach to deal with my social phobia. Basically it involves avoiding avoidance behaviours. You see, people with social anxiety tend to avoid problematic situations and run to metaphorical safe places. After a while, the avoidance behaviours become almost automatic, almost imperceptible.

Almost but not quite.

We behave so without thinking but we recognize the behaviour while we’re doing it. And that’s exactly when we have to force ourselves to avoid avoidance. It is very difficult and the temptation of avoidance is almost irresistible. The problem, of course, is the more we avoid things, the harder it is to stop doing it later in life.

Last night I posted something to Facebook —

https://www.facebook.com/robteix/posts/10153208453849048

The voices of social anxiety immediately started working in my head. “FriendA will mock at you,” they shout. “FriendB will think you’re pathetic.” And so they went. I came this close to deleting the post before stopping and forcing myself to ignore the voices.

It is not easy. It is so not easy that I am writing a blog post about it. Social phobia makes my mind work against me: it constantly attacks me, my self-esteem, and my confidence. It would be so much easier to just delete the post.

Dealing with social anxiety involves many counter-intuitive measures: it forces socially anxious people to go against what our own brains tell us is not the safest route.

I need to keep working on it. I’ll need to continue to force myself into doing more of what I desperately want to avoid. Let’s see how it goes.

I am sad. The New York Times —

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

I am actually sad. As much as Star Trek was a part of my life, I had not felt this way when other cast members passed away in the past.

I suppose Nimoy was different somehow. My theory is that as Spock, he would (almost) never smile and that made his rare smile that much more important. When I think of Nimoy/Spock, it is his smile that I picture in my mind. When out of character, he was always smiling. This contrast forces an emotional connection or something. I don’t know.

What I do know is I am sad. For whatever’s worth, Nimoy was a part of my life.

You’ll be missed, Mr. Nimoy. I have been, and always shall be, your fan.

A few years ago I wrote about how social anxiety makes me use fake accounts on the web.

I love coding. I have done it since I was a kid and it’s the best thing I know how to do. And then there is open source. Open source projects should be the perfect venue for me to have f un. Except I am scared stiff by the idea that someone might laugh at the code. It came to a point where it is impossible for me to contribute. Then I’ve come up with a solution: an alias. For the past several years I’ve lived two different lives online: one as myself and another as an alias. I keep them strictly separate.

Actually I today use more than one single separate life. Looking at my Chrome identities menu I count four (including the real me), but I actually have more around that I have abandoned.

It has allowed me to do what I like to do. I don’t have to be afraid because I know all I have to do is abandon one account and start over with another. It’s a good solution but it has some issues.

I have been offered this great job in the past by the manager of someone I’ve worked together. It was one of the Big Tech Companies, a place I really would love to work. All great, right? Except the offer was not addresses to Roberto Teixeira, but to one of my aliases. Tough luck. I’ve soon abandoned that alias for good.

So yes, it sucks. But not as much as it has sucked this week.

I—under an alias—have been working with a developer of a big open source project out there to try to solve a problem we were having at work. And I found a solution that was pretty clever. That developer checked it out and thought it was great and then we both wrote a proposal and submitted it. And it was accepted and our change will be part of their next major release.

I’m not saying it was something revolutionary or anything. Still, it was something I am very proud of. And there will be a name there in the changelog/release notes/whatever but it will not be my name.

This happened the same week I learned that someone I–the real me; real name and everything–interviewed with a few months ago had dismissed me for not having open source contributions.

In short, I am sad and angry. Fuck social anxiety. 🙁

(photo: Christopher Walker (Sadness) / CC BY-SA 2.0 / via Wikimedia Commons)