I have been trying to go to a cafe to read papers for 2.5 hrs now, blame the email.

I just want to say that previous to beginning my MA, I had no idea I was so bad at negotiating power relations. Which is funny, 'cause all the theory I am reading relates to the dynamics of power in communications, and then I stupidly send emails to my professors saying things like:

"I forgot to mention after class yesterday, the paper i just handed in has undergone only one copy edit, mine (yikes). So I have handed it to a friend from the journalism department who knows how to edit and they will send it back to me.

I am going to print up a copy and leave it at your office next Wednesday. Or I can email it to you. I hope that is amendable to you - I don't want you to have to read bad grammar again."

Not realizing that things like due dates and grammar rules aren't just little harassments put in my way to detract from the otherwise smooth flow of life, they have significance.

Accidentally I have insulted my professor, I have insulted language. I get in trouble, not really intending to. Which is worse than being a rebel on purpose to "not get it" is just plain naive.

So a conversation with my dad, which began as a discussion about what size slippers I need for my Christmas present turned into a family history, about the genetic inheritance of an inability to recognize lines, or seeing them, a sort of demented capacity to, "not toe them".

The fact that my dad spent 30 years at the same desk without ever having job permanence, that my mother finished her PHD and did not get a faculty position etc... That they did not marry inside their cultural spheres. There seems to be (With the exception of my little brother, who is a born diplomat and the shining apple of my eye.) a tendency in the family mode, to take Machiavelli's rules and just pretend they don't exist.

Which lately, isn't working out so well, now that I am back in school and trying to deal with professional obligations which require varying degrees of diplomacy, tact, and understanding of the way social power is distributed and allocated.

Also and less on a personal level, I find it odd that all these big name theorists write mostly about the effect of power on the powerless, and not about the effect the exercise of power has on the powerful. (Except Bourdieu - I really like him).

I am thinking this because;

A woman came in for a meeting yesterday who is looking for work, she is in her 50's and it appears she has been redefining her life fairly consistently for years. That can be a frightening way to live, and I think she was in a transitional period, so she was nervous, and probably also broke. I am in my late 20's and just started this job, so have very little institutional knowledge to back me up during these interviews, but I am young and I have a job.

The only job opening I have at this moment is for one person and it's not a lot of money and I expect to get quite a few applications. All that to say, that though I had some power, I felt very limited in my capacity to actually help her to obtain some of it for herself.

This happens often in work situations, the person who has instrumental power(me) is actually socially, and from a lived experience perspective, the rank inferior to the person who lacks power. It happened to my dad when he was laid off and a 30-something redundancy consultant tried to "help" him see his other options. You can also refer to the scene in American Beauty when the husband gets laid off, by the smarmy new marketing guy.

Anyways, that story plus the email miscommunication has led me to think about theories of power, and I have decided that I am less concerned with how people who lack power obtain it. I am more concerned with how power manifests itself as a feeling. Of what: Control? Obligation? Entrapment? Superiority? And how those feelings about power can explain or impact the way people display and enact their power in society.

Personally I think I am never comfortable when I feel I have power, unless I feel like the people I am dealing with have the exact same or a very similar amount of power as I do, and I am not comfortable with the feeling that I have less power than anyone (clearly, to my detriment) and I am also not comfortable with the idea that power can be dispersed and lack an agent (faceless collectivities, I do not trust.)

So far the only rule I can think of to guide my own actions and explain my crooked toe behaviors is that I will not tolerate nor become, someone who enjoys their power too much.