Digging a read
by Anton Zuiker on September 19, 2024
At date-night dinner with Erin, at our favorite local spot Pizzeria Mercato, I told Erin how much I’ve been enjoying reading again. Especially novels.
Today, for example I finished Glorious Exploits by the Irish writer Ferdia Lennon. I loved this story about ancient Greece (Syracuse on Sicily, really) told in a contemporary Irish voice. It was funny, both a tribute to classical poetry and theater but also a rumbling middle finger to war. Also a tall tale that reminds us about the value of friendship.
Now I’m about to dig into the latest book by Michael Ruhlman. It’s a young-adult novel about working in a professional kitchen.
Our strengths
by Anton Zuiker on September 18, 2024
After work—the DCRI Research Communications & Engagement department gathered for a rewarding retreat focused on our top five strengths (per our individual CliftonStrengths reports)—Erin and I zipped over to our local bookstore, Flyleaf Books, to attend a talk by our friend Kelly Alexander and hosted by another friend, Max Owre. Max coordinates events for Carolina Public Humanities, and Kelly was there to “delve into the relationship between those seeking political office and the food they consume for the camera.” She gave a smart, insightful, funny, and thought-provoking presentation.
I started reading Kelly’s writing in the food magazine Saveur back in Cleveland in 2000, and once I realized she was living in North Carolina, I began to follow her work, hoping to collaborate someday. Eventually, we did meet. Kelly has a new book, based on her doctoral studies in Belgium, coming out next month. Truffles and Trash looks intriguing.
Max I’ve known longer.
Both of these friends inspire me with their strong intellects.
My time
by Anton Zuiker on September 17, 2024
Today, as on most Tuesdays, I had three one-on-one meetings with my reports, research communications specialists for whom I am their manager. I’ve tried, over the last couple of years, to approach these check ins—sometimes face to face in the office, often over Zoom or Teams—as open as possible to give my colleagues the opportunity to share what they want.
Still, I know I can do better. Listen deeper. Be more curious.
As it happened, this week’s interview in the Coaching for Leaders podcast is all about the 1:1 meeting. Host Dave Stachowiak interviewed Steven Rogelberg of UNC Charlotte.
Near the end, Rogelberg explains the key point this way:
The manager has to explicitly say, this is not a status update. This is not a meeting for me. Don’t do this meeting for me. This is a meeting truly for you. If you want to talk about a particular project, fine, because it’s your meeting.
A straightforward lesson that I’ll focus on in the weeks ahead.
But that also got me thinking about my own motivations for the 1:1 meeting with my manager, as well as when I meet with my professional coach, my therapist, my doctors and dentist and orthodontist. Over the last year, I’ve come to understand that I’m often unclear about what I want to get out of session or appointment, or timid if I do know. Except that time I insisted over the phone that my primary care physician give me a prescription for an antibiotic because I’d been bitten by a tick—he presecribed a single doxycycline pill, and at a later visit gently explained that there’s not much to worry about with ticks in Chapel Hill (except now there might be with ehrlichiosis).
Anyway, good advice from Rogelberg and others: know what you want before you go in, and make it your meeting.
Pause at the sign
by Anton Zuiker on September 16, 2024
The recurring tip I’ve heard over and over from my therapist, my professional coach, numerous podcast interviews, and others is to slow down. To breathe. Check in. Enjoy the moment.
I thought about that in Cortland after I left my aunt and uncle because I was stopped at the tracks as a train went by. Actually, this was the second train—I pulled up to the line of cars just as the first train finished, the gate arms went up and then immediately came down as a second train approached.
Slow down.
No, stop. Watch the cars roll by, look at the graffiti, notice the welcome sign in this ‘third largest town’ in Illinois. Hum a few lines of that Josh Ritter song Train Go By.
Later, I left the Whiskey Acres Distillery in a slight rush to get over to cousin Judy’s house, neglecting to look at the receipt for my purchase of a bottle of seven-year bourbon and a few branded items. If I’d slowed down I would have caught an error in the total (charged twice for one item). Similarly, in the morning when I’d rented a car from Sixt at O’Hare, a pause before signing would have given me a chance to tell the slick agent that I’d wanted a smaller, less expensive car so please go back and adjust the contract. (I would have saved maybe $25, enough for the hat and tin tacker at Whiskey Acres.)
Slow down.
Seeds of change
by Anton Zuiker on September 15, 2024
I’m back home in Chapel Hill after my shortened stay in DeKalb. I’m glad I went, happy to be connected with family and friends, amazed by the vibrancy of Chicago and awed by the beauty of the Illinois farm lands.
The DeKalb hotel in which I stayed was across the street from the first apartment that my mother and brothers and I moved to in 1984. When I lived there, there was no hotel but instead a 100-acre soybean field farmed by Jerry Montavon, the brother-in-law of my uncle Stoddard Allen. Uncle Jerry hired me one summer to walk the rows with a hoe and take out rogue weeds.
In the mistersugar archives, I’ve just found this post I wrote in 2005 after I read Calvin Trillin’s essay about the DeKalb County farmland and mentality. “No bid deal” is right.
On my way out of town this morning, I drove past the duplex in which our family lived for most of our time in DeKalb. Then north, through town, to Sycamore for coffee at the Coffee Rosters Collective, north past more farm houses and corn and soybeen, to the tollway that returned me to busy O’Hare Airport and my flight home.