Shirley F. Rivera

This is part of a series of essays to explore workspace environments, beginning with lived experiences of unfair and unjust treatment.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Change agent.

When did having to overcome and navigate unearned unfairness become a skill to garner in workspace environments?

#namecalling -“This is how I learned that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” —Audre Lorde

Stubborn.

This is among words that management and peers have used to describe my striving to resolve issues at work.

Summer 2001.
"Got your itinerary. See you curbside." He hangs up the phone.
Curbside.
She winks. "Let's do this again."
Many curbsides since.
He touches her arm. "You look great."
"JINX! 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 …" They laugh. She twirls her hair.
Fall 2006.
She remembered his smell, his look before work, before his chemo.
They hugged twice on one occasion.
Never kissed.
Curbside.
"Watch your step, ma'am." She nods at a stranger.
Inhaling deeply, she will rent a car.

This is part one of two essays, as I explore one of my 12 favorite questions about mortality - Where grief is inevitable, how does its value enrich one’s life? Do you have a living trust or will?

My tears fell on the Southwest Airline infographics as I obliged the flight attendant's perfunctory safety lecture. On April 17, 2002, my sister-in-law called to tell me my Dad died unexpectedly. A heart attack. My Mom, a retired registered nurse, revived him briefly before the ambulance arrived. 

Code blue at the hospital. My brother was with Dad when he died. 

This is a kick-off of a series of essays to explore workspace environments, beginning with lived experiences of unfair and unjust treatment.

#treesound - "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" ~ Unknown

Everett is African-American. As a Filipino-American woman, it’s difficult to comprehend the institutional and aversive racism he experiences, so I commiserate. I can only fully understand my own lived experiences of workspace inequities.

Workshop 8 of Linking Your Thinking (LYT) has started welcoming and onboarding folks in advance of the first Super Session on Tuesday, June 14 at 9:00am (PDT)/16:00 UTS. During LYT 8, I will serve among a group of Facilitators helping students wayfind throughout the workshop.

My first LYT was in Cohort 4a (Sept 2021). Onboarding eventually includes completing a PKM Planet survey, based on Nick Milo’s (creator and founder of LYT) PKM Planet explained in this video. Therefore, the first time I took the survey was in September 2021 for Cohort 4a, then again as part of the previous LYT Workshop 7 in February 2022. Here is a comparison of the results.

This read is part of Community, an intended series of essays where I share my thoughts and experiences about communities emerging from PKM (personal knowledge management endeavors) and cohort-based courses (CBCs).

TL;dr. When finding out that BASB’s Tiago Forte enrolled in the next LYT Workshop, I shared thoughts with the BASB community platform (using Circle) - about how BASB and LYT co-exist for me. I was introduced to BASB before LYT. Below I’ve edited and updated excerpts from a few of my BASB Circle posts.

Thank you for being part of this journey, Community, an intended series of essays where I share my thoughts and experiences about communities emerging from PKM (personal knowledge management endeavors) and cohort-based courses (CBCs).

I consider this PKM Interplay - where I have cobbled the various sources of approaches, methods, and philosophies about PKM - directly, indirectly, and even seemingly unrelated.

Upcoming essays will be repurposed from content I have shared within CBCs, emails to friends, and excerpts of transcribed conversations (thanks Otter!).

Below is my repurposed essay which served as my story at Ada Cheng’s monthly Pour One Out storytelling event on September 8. In March, I wrote a personal essay, I am a Brown Asian with Smooth Skin, in response to the March 17 Atlanta, Georgia killings of spa workers. My essay was subsequently published by Visible Magazine.

How can you all live with yourself?" - a community member at a government meeting asked, with a tone of disgust. If words were hand gestures, she was definitely flipping us off. This was in the 1990s. I was seven years into my career - specializing in air quality, energy projects, and environmental communications.

The following is an overview of my CliftonStrengths assessment. It is one of several professional and personal development assessments (e.g., DISC, Myers-Briggs, 360 Feedback, etc.) administered throughout my career.

“When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” ~ Audre Lorde The throughline that weaves together how I can understand and navigate my lived experiences is Belief, 7 among my 34 strengths. . . .

Thank you for being part of this journey, Feral Improviser, a sporadic series of essays where I discover my made-up thoughts on the improviser diaspora. Here, you can agree, disagree, and debate. Truth. Fiction. Semi-Fictional. Does it matter? You tell me.

If cats can be categorized based on their needs and emerging lifestyle, why not improvisers?