This has been nagging at me for quite some time now. And it might expand a bit beyond the actual definition of respect, but these things are interconnected. 

And let me start my saying, I'm not perfect. 

I can be disrespectful, inconsiderate and downright obnoxious sometimes and I know it. Sometimes I know I'm doing it and simply don't care, but sometimes I'm just unleashing emotions that I've lost control of for a (hopefully) brief moment after being pushed too far or being stretched too thin.

But having worked/interned in a variety of newsrooms, nonprofits, museums, hockey teams, bagel shops and also volunteered for more nonprofits, there are some general themes and regular occurrences that are guaranteed to drive me bonkers. 

That said, I believe in respect. At work, at home, at play, everywhere. 

It doesn't mean being nice to someone just because they exist. 

But it does mean recognizing that there will always be someone smarter, faster and better than you. Learn from that person. 

It also means that respect is not given out like cookies. It has to be earned. 

I come home whining about this a lot lately and M keeps telling me that I sell myself short. He reminds me that I may not be the oldest person in the room, but I have experience, skills and expertise in certain areas that make me someone legitimately able to wield some influence and that it's truly my duty to do so in order for things to improve.

I remember being a young journalism student, then intern, then rookie reporter. There were plenty of things I thought could be done better. But instead of telling those who had been around longer than I had how to do their jobs, I watched, learned and took all of that to inform the kind of journalist I wanted to be.

Instead of telling others how to behave, I first made sure I was doing my best work, quickly and without complaint. 

And I can promise you, that alone began to earn the respect of my peers and those who had been in the business far longer than I had. Then I kept doing it.

It's also a little of letting people do their work. I don't think I understood this so much as a rookie, but when I'm up to my neck in work and am putting out fires left and right, it's not a good time to pester me with something that you can easily Google, or nonsense that is not at all relevant to the tasks at hand. And for the love of all things, don't respond to a very detailed email that has answered every possible anticipated questions with a single line asking something that I just told you. 

And a little bit of realizing that not everyone around you wants to choke on the perfume you apparently bathed in or listen to your recap of American Idol or whatever else you did last night. Once in awhile, fine, be loud, laugh, goof off, but if that's all anyone ever sees you do, I guarantee you, I will not respect you. I might eventually throw a box of paperclips at you.

There's always that old saying "on oversight on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." 

I believe in recognizing how much you don't know. I know a lot about what I do, but also feel overwhelmed on a pretty regular basis with the sheer amount of things I don't know. Hell, there's plenty out there that I don't even know exists, let alone know and understand. Work to know as much as you can in your field, be confident in your knowledge, but don't assume that race is finished. Keep learning and getting better.

I believe that always talking about how much you know will usually expose just how little you actually know.

I believe in admitting that you're wrong, or just deferring to the person who knows more about a particular thing than you do. Or go really big and learn from that person.

I believe in thanking those around you for a job well done when deserved. On the flip side, don't complain, criticize or be otherwise a jerk when you were not the person who did all the work. If you know how to do something, do it. If you don't, let those who do get it done and then say thanks.

I believe that "reply all" is very rarely a good idea.

I believe in learning the lay of the land before starting a crusade to shake things up. But when things really need to shake up, learn it fast.

I believe that sometimes you have to work within an imperfect structure to get things done. Complaining about the imperfections won't get the work done any faster. 

At some point, you have to roll up your sleeves and DO something. Talking about ideas is great, complaining about everything that's going wrong is fine sometimes, but if you really want my respect, get to work. Put those ideas in motion, start fixing those things that are wrong.

Really, above most things, I believe in being good at what you do and letting that speak for itself. I used to tell my college news staff all the time, "Don't tell me that I'm wrong, prove to me that you're right." If you want me to think you're good at what you do, don't tell me, show me. 

Lately, I've been super busy with all kinds of projects at work, the rink, journalism organizations, and more. I can't say I've been super on top of it and gotten everything done that needed to get done, but if I'm digging in and devoting my time to raise the bar, my irritation with everything listed above tends to go through the roof. 

So perhaps I'm being judgmental and intolerant, but I'm having a very hard time understanding why such simple things seem to be so hard. And I have an even harder time just letting it all go and carrying on with my own awesomeness (which is usually M's advice).

If you want respect, earn it. When others earn it, respect them. 

What about you? What do you believe it when it comes to respect or professional life? What are you pet peeves?

This week was an incredible mishmash of emotion.

My sister had her first child last weekend, welcoming another August baby to the family. Good news.

Some changes in the news industry have created a lot of uncertainty and a lot of frustration for many journalists, myself included. Not so good news. 

On Thursday, I was involved in covering a high speed vehicle chase that killed a local sheriff deputy. Terrible news. 

A number of other things were getting under my skinned too, like a canceled meeting I'd spent weeks preparing for, the house remaining in disarray as we work on outdoor projects this summer instead of indoor renovations. Everything was on my nerves this past week, everything.

I'm not sure I realized how stressed and wound up I was until Thursday night when I was trying to make mac and cheese for dinner. Minimal nutritional value but it was one of those nights. 

I burned myself dumping the pasta into the strainer, then dropped the entire pot on the kitchen floor while trying to pour the strained pasta back into the pot. 

You guys, I had a complete meltdown. There was crying, yelling, slamming things and me acting like a 5-year-old. 

Seriously, the pasta was no great loss. I didn't even really want it for dinner, but it was the available food that took the least amount of work. 

M cleaned up my mess and salvaged my dinner while I pulled myself together. 

There was no single point that lead to my meltdown last night, but the culmination of continued stressors throughout the week, lack of sleep and frustration on a lot of fronts. 

Truly, nothing in my life is terrible. I'm an aunt, no one I know personally was hurt in any incident this week, I have house and home.

And it's always that realization that brings me back to center. Sometimes slowly and sometimes crying and childish antics are involved, but all times, finding my center is what keeps my world together. 

I've said this before, but I'm not an especially calm or relaxed person. All my energy, ideas, motivation, feistiness, whatever you want to call it, goes into forward motion, positive change. But when it hits walls, or stumbling blocks, sometimes it all bubbles up into not to positive behavior, like me snapping at people for no real reason or crying over spilled pasta. 

In those moments, it might take me hours or a few days to pull myself back to center again, but I always get back there. 

By Friday, I was feeling better, my resolve had kicked in and I was feeling less like giving up on certain projects and more like digging in and making things awesome.

And for every bad day, a pep talk from Kid President is the perfect remedy. M pulled that out for me when I particularly grumpy early in the week.

So what's a girl to do when everything feels like it's falling apart all around you (even if it's really not)?

+ Shake it out. Go for a walk, a run, dance like a lunatic in the living room, whatever suits you to give that negative energy a place to go.

+ Breathe. Long, deep breaths. Focus on it. I never used to understand that focus on your breathing thing, but when I'm really worked up about something, it helps.

+ Give yourself some time. If you feel all off kilter, give yourself the time to talk it out, think it out, dance it out, cry it out, whatever. When your world feels cattywompus, you can't expect to have it all figured out in five minutes. Don't beat yourself up for feeling upset, it only makes things worse and then you'll cry over spilled pasta.

+ Focus. What is it that you're upset about? What is the core issue? Figuring out the problem helps come up with solutions.

+ Decide. Is it something you can fix? Do you want to fix it? Do you want to dig in and make things better? Then do it! if it's one of those battles you just can't win no matter how hard you try, it might be time to let it go. The sooner you sort that out, the faster you can get back to positive, forward motion. 

Clearly I'm no master at this, given my pasta meltdown the other night, but in my heart of hearts, I know I'm at my best when I take it all back to center, and folks, the center must hold. 

The world can go on with out me for sure, but that's no excuse for me not to give my passions my best effort. 

So, that was a lot of rambling that was as much for me as it was for you lovely readers. 

While I'm over here sorting through a lot of uncertainty and getting it together, tell me, what do you do when things get wonky and your center must hold?

After months of work craziness, with no end in sight, I popped in the first disc of The Newsroom. Again. 

It's fiction, yes, but in that fictional journalism fantasy world lives a journalist who through some major blunders starts speaking truth to power and to stupid. 

This is one of my favorite quotes from the show:  “I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people,” said Charlie Skinner, president of the fictional news division. 

Some things have been weighing on my lately and honestly, truthfully, making me rageful. 

I'm a reporter. Nothing I write will make everyone happy. That's not my job. My job is to gather facts and put them in context to help people make sense of their world, vote, etc. 

In my work, I've conditioned myself to use as few adjectives as possible. It's not my place to insert my opinions, my thoughts, my perspectives and biases into news stories. These are the kinds of things I worry about constantly. It's why I struggle so much with writing about what I really think about a lot of things here on the blog. It's like a tectonic shift has to happen in my brain. 

It's not just a job, it's a duty and a responsibility to readers to give them information they need and write as close a version to the truth as I possibly can. There's no doubt that my industry is struggling and some reporters don't hold themselves to same high standards, but here's the thing. People write insanely awful comments on news stories. About reporters. About news organizations. About people in the stories. 

As Americans, they're entitled to their opinions and have the right to voice them, but I would ask that you, the news consumer, try a little harder. I'm a journalist. That comes with being hung up on, yelled at, called a racist, liberal, commie, idiot who can't spell and worse. Is it awful that people treat other people like that? Yes. Did I know that's what I was signing up for? Mostly. And you learn to deal with it. You focus on the calls, letters and comments from older ladies in the community who thank you for telling them about events they can no longer get to. From the families who thank you for how you handled stories about their service member killed in combat. From the woman active in many community groups who thanks you for making sense of some complicated issues. Those calls are few and far between, but those are the people I work for and try to keep in mind when I'm losing my mind in the weeds of the nonsense. 

You kids out there in blogger land tend to be more thoughtful commenters and a more pleasant lot, but for the sake of educating the masses, let's review. 

+ Read the story before demanding information on a news organizations Facebook page. Not just the headline. Really, reading is the key here folks. We work hard to get the information for you, but we put it in the newspaper. Journalists are not your personal Magic 8 Ball. 

+ Before chewing out a news reporter for not writing about something, do just a cursory search of the site to ensure they haven't already written about it 16 times in the last month. If we consistently fail to report things, go ahead, chew us out. 

+ Please, for the love of all things, learn the very basics of government. I'm not saying you need to understand federal, state and local budgets and all the complicated systems involved, because it really can be hard, but if you think a president can overturn a Supreme Court decision, we have a problem. 

+ Read stories from multiple news organizations. Develop some media literacy. That requires not accepting everything a single news source tells you is absolute. Read them all, learn to spot stories that include inflammatory quotes from people who aren't credible. Read a lot.  And read critically. I don't mean reading and then sending a nasty-gram to a reporter. I mean reading and actually thinking about what you're reading. 

+ If you have a question, ask it. By all means, if something in my story didn't make sense to you, call me to talk about it. But don't yell. Don't call me names. I am perfectly happy to have a civil conversation with you about the information I have gathered and if I've missed something, I'll certainly look into it. 

+ Stop saying the media has gone to hell and can't do news when all you read are awful crime stories and celebrity gossip. We know what you're reading. We know what you click on. You, media consumer, looked for entertainment and got it. Demand high quality news and when we give it to you, read it. 

Again, I watched the entire first season of The Newsroom in about three days and have made long speeches to M about the state of the media and our society that seems to have become okay with not being informed. As a journalist, I want to demand more of us, I do. Trust me, I am tougher on my industry than most non-journalists could be. And I actively work to improve it. I'm on boards and work with student journalists to help those coming after me to be better. But I need help from news users. 

It stresses me out in ways I cannot even put into words that so many media consumers are so entrenched in their political cocoons and apparently too good to actually read the news before harassing us with the same questions about the same restaurant that we told you was coming to town, we're sorry it's not built yet, we're not in construction. 

Have your political opinions, but can we please, please, please raise the level of informed debate? Can we have adult conversations about things affecting our communities, our nation, the world? 

How do you consume news? Do you think quality news is still valuable today?

A friend once told me I was easy going, calm and not easily agitated. 

My mom would tell you that I'm not especially patient, stubborn and cranky when tired. 

My go-to expression of my displeasure as a kid was to slam my door as hard as I could. Then, depending on my anger level, I'd throw something at my closed door. Once it was about reading a book I didn't want to read, so I threw the book at the door, got up to get the book, sat down on my bed, threw it again. For at least 10 minutes. Have I mentioned, I'm a redheaded Irish Leo?

That's not really an option in adult life, at work, in public. 

There are still plenty of nonsensical, illogical, inconsequential, plain silly things that raise my blood pressure and put me on edge. This week though, it's been plenty of completely legitimate and properly focused frustration over very real issues.

I tend to perform better under pressure, but in situations of extended pressure, I'm rarely at my best. 

Lately I've been thinking more and more of the things that disrupt my calm and how better to cope. Because when I am consumed by nonsensical, yet irritating, things all day, I cannot do all the good work I need to do every day. And I am better than the things that annoy me.

Being outraged about things deserving of outrage is just fine, but letting something so silly as a co-worker in another department talking loudly about American Idol ruin my day is just not right. When it's the things deserving of outrage, I tend to dig in and work 50 times harder.

Sometimes, I just need to vent. Having a trusted person who can listen when you just need to let it all out and not think less of you helps. Just be sure you're willing to be that trusted sounding board when they need to vent. Sometimes I talk to someone who understands the situation and people involved. Other times, I talk to someone who understands me. That person is usually my mom. No matter what crazy things I say, she'll end the phone call with "love you."

When I feel my calm crumbling, I go for a walk if I can. A quick walk to the vending machine, or the water cooler or around the parking lot. Fresh air tends to cool my jets and help focus my thoughts on my work. If the weather is decent, an after work jog does wonders for sweating out frustrations. I might talk to myself while running, but you know, it's cool if the neighbors or people on the trail think I'm weird, right?

Think happy thoughts. I have a few photos and trinkets around my work space that I can glance at and smile. Postcards my friends sent while working as embedded reporters or world travelers, a photo of a squirrel in camo gear cracks me up every time and a sweet photo of Grover that my sister took one Christmas always lift my spirits. 

Breathe and count to 10. Tried and true for the minor agitation. 

Queso, chips and wine are my go-to comfort foods. This is most certainly the least healthy of coping mechanisms, but hey, it works for me. 

Puppies. Before Grover, I'd borrow a friend's dog for cuddles, a run, a walk. Puppy love has an incredible way of washing all the tension out of you. Now, I just smother Grover in hugs that I'm not sure he always appreciates. Hey, it's your cost of living in this house, Grovester. 

Sleep. Pretty much anyone will tell you that sleep is good for you. A college friend used to say "I can sleep when I die" and it kind of made sense to me in my caffeine fueled college years, but now, I simply revert to a snotty, grumpy five-year old when I'm overly tired. My mom and grandmother seem to function on something like four hours of sleep a night and maybe I'll experience that someday, but for my 30s, I am perfectly cool with going to bed early whenever possible. 

All other outside factors aside, I'm usually most irritable when I feel overwhelmed. I can do something about sleep. I can work to let all the irritating things roll off my back, but I can't do anything about external forces. So when I feel the overwhelm creeping and the blood pressure rising, I tune into a good Spotify playlist, make a plan of attack and then take action. As I tackle my to-do list and starting making meaningful progress on projects, my focus sharpens and all those irritations start to melt away. 

Don't let me fool you into thinking I'm some sort of Zen master. I most certainly am not. But, I'm working on it. I will not be owned by those nonsensical, inconsequential, illogical, silly irritations.

What about you, how do you manage daily irritations and those things that you know are nonsensical and yet still make you highly agitated?