About Last Night...

What’s Going On In The Jewfro Right Now?

I'm writing this as my own way of processing last night.

First of all, this was a beatdown. No other way to say it. Hopefully, Kamala concedes quickly and we can move forward.

Why was this so bad when state ballot initiatives on abortion were so good?

People use a different calculus when considering federal vs. state and local candidates. I even did that this year, letting my bias get in the way of acknowledging that for others.

When you're talking about one issue, it's easy to get an up/down vote. Hell, the abortion referendum in Florida almost passed—it needed 60% but came in just short at 57%. Single-issue items are really easy to decide on.

On the flip side, you're also seeing school voucher programs being voted down when they come up as referendums in very red states.

Which leads to decisions that require multiple considerations, which is more typical.

At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #1: The Pandemic Response and Public Trust

As we all remember during COVID, we hunkered down. Unfortunately, after the vaccines were available in early '21, Biden offered more sticks than carrots to get people vaccinated. And while I am very pro-vaxx, I also understood that it wasn't as well tested because it had to get out so fast. I'm pretty sure it wreaked havoc on my menstrual cycle, and they tried to do some studies after the fact. After racially tinged trials like Tuskegee, you had enough skeptics. Other mandatory vaccinations have been tested forever. The COVID vaccines were not, even though developed from research initially aimed at HIV.

(Side note: I now fear we have a large swath of the country who won't get any vaccines anymore because of this—hello RFK Jr.)

Public servants lost their jobs because of these vaccine mandates, which probably isn't going to endear them to vote for the responsible party again since they left money on the table from pensions, etc. It didn't matter much in '22 since even federal races were "local"—no POTUS. But by that point, many were seeing what happened to people, particularly kids and the elderly, without socializing.

At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #2: Identity Politics and Economic Concerns

Now, you have identity politics on steroids. The focus on pronouns, boys playing girls' sports, men in women's locker rooms, Latino vs. Latina vs. Latinx, etc. A large swath of Americans are experiencing inflation (due to various reasons not necessarily the President's fault but still associated with him), higher home prices, seeing fentanyl infiltrate their communities, and being told the border is not a problem.

Biden was lecturing half the country, saying they weren't seeing what they were seeing. He kept saying things were improving. Statistically, they might have been, but that's not where people were. I'm a (mostly) Dem voter, and I felt like he was gaslighting people. Kamala may not have been the border czar, but he assigned her to look into causes at the border. While she did yeoman's work on root causes, they both should have known the visual was always going to be the border itself. After the Dems didn't get crushed in the '22 midterms, they should have put the border bill together that day. They waited too close to the election, and Trump killed it.

Consider Latinos and Blacks. I believe Trump is a racist to his core (see Central Park Five). But to assume they'd always vote Dem was arrogance. Like all of us, they want economic mobility. Clearly, not enough felt they were getting that with Biden/Harris. People I know mostly don't care about being labeled Latino or Latinx. Can they buy a home? Can they send their kids to college? Then throw in loan forgiveness—yeah, no, to a large swath of the electorate. Do I feel college is too expensive and the student loan machine is a scam to inflate the price? Absolutely. But I've never been sold on forgiveness as the solution here. So the extreme focus on identity politics over kitchen table issues was front and center. It's the economy, stupid!

At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #3: Crime and Public Safety

Fast forward to '20, where you had the defund the police movement, which I knew was going to be a mistake as soon as it happened. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others were more humans murdered by law enforcement. Police brutality is never okay and is way too pervasive in America. That said, I believe the people who work in law enforcement do important work in keeping us safe. As one of my Black friends said, "We don't want less police; we just want them to stop being assholes to us for no reason. We need police in our communities to keep us safe."

At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #4: Foreign Policy and Antisemitism

Let's talk about crime and antisemitism. It's a fact that most Americans value our relationship with Israel. Biden's policies with Israel sucked. They did. Bibi may be evil, but overall Americans, especially American Jews, care about Israel's right to exist. The foreign policy sucked, but what made it visceral for America was what happened in major cities (mostly liberal) and college campuses everywhere. It fed into the storyline that liberal cities are unruly, and we don't want that for America. Never mind that red states have higher murder rates than blue states, or that most violent crime is committed by white men. It doesn't matter. Visuals are everything, and when you combine antisemitic protests with rampant shoplifting stories making the news (people walking into pharmacies with enough things locked up), it's a terrible look. Telling people it's not there, like what happened to me in Seattle, is dismissive. Shapiro could have gone a long way toward bridging this but...

Schumer sucked on Israel, especially in recent days in his emails with Columbia. And Harris told two completely different stories to people in Dearborn (who ended up voting for Trump or Stein—good choice there; hope it works out for ya!) and in Pennsylvania. Word got out—it's not 1992 anymore. You can't get away with that shit. You try to appeal to everyone, and you appeal to no one.

That leads to more than half the country having their fourth "What the actual fuck?" moment. Jews who tend to vote Democrat and are socially liberal feel abandoned by other oppressed groups because they're "white enough" so we don't count. And what happens? Those center-left people go to Trump—they may not know exactly what his Israel policy will be, but they know he won't tolerate left antisemitic protests (obviously jury is still out on Proud Boys and other right wing white supremacist groups).

So where does that leave us?

Despite all the chaos and frustration, I still believe we can find common ground. Maybe it's naive, but I think most of us want the same basic things: safety, opportunity, and a fair shot at a good life. Like it or not, we all need to do a better job of listening. We're better than this, and I refuse to believe all is lost. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

PS – This election cycle has demonstrated how incredibly flawed our media model is.

Yada, Yada, Yada...

via GIFER

On a daily basis, I am seeing posts on LinkedIn of people being laid off in the most unceremonious ways or being ghosted in interview processes after candidates have put in a significant amount of work. It is awful and enough to not want me to be on the platform at all but the sad reality is most of the jobs are posted there so LinkedIn is a necessary evil these days.

I want to focus on the situations where people have done the right thing in terms of rejecting me (because let’s face it: if you didn’t get the job, it’s a rejection). Each of these people gave specific feedback that helped me hone my approach a bit more instead of the generic “we have so many great candidates - yada, yada, yada”. I hope by showcasing some people who have done things the right way that others who have not can hopefully learn how to showcase the same going forward.

• Great Expectations: I did SO MUCH prep work for this interview loop and I loved every minute of it because it was bringing me back to my big data roots. I really enjoyed talking to all of the people I met with and appreciated the product-centric approach that everyone in the company espoused. Unfortunately circumstances changed which meant the role changed, and that meant I wasn’t the right fit anymore. I was gutted but the hiring manager had enough respect for me to set-up a call and explain it all. Thanks, Hernan.

• Stealth Start-Up: I did not get as far into this loop as GX, but I did spend some time thinking through the problem and possible ideas on how I would take things forward. Some good conversations took place but in the end, it wasn’t the right fit. But it was fun doing the homework. Again the CEO took the time to get in touch with me and explain things instead of ghosting or having an automated email come to me, which I appreciated. Thanks, Jim.

• Puzzle: This was another one where I went all-in on the loop and in the prep, and things went pretty far. I really liked the CEO and the people on the team. By the end, I suspected I was not what they needed for where they were at and if a rejection came, it wasn’t necessarily about my qualifications. Sure enough, the email came from him and it was very forthright on his thinking along with an offer to help me in my job search if I needed it (which has happened). Thanks, Sasha.

• Healthcare start-up: The role I was talking to the COO about was going to be a bit of a combination of things as they closed out their Series B. As the economic climate shifted, they decided that they had to ruthlessly prioritize other roles in 2023. The COO asked to chat and explained a number of things that were going on that were driving the decision. He didn’t need to go into the detail that he did…. but he did. Thanks, DC.

If any of these people (and some others I did not mention) ever contacted me for a favor, I would not hesitate to help them because they still treated me with dignity and with class even while rejecting me.

To all of my fellow job-seekers out there: Regardless of the circumstances around why you are looking for a new role in what is arguably the worst job market since the dot-com crash in 2000/2001, I see you. And know that no matter how poorly some of the hiring managers/recruiters may treat us that we are all going to get through this. It isn’t going to be pretty but we will do it. Finally if I can help, even if it is to vent about feeling like crap or being treated poorly, please reach out.

To the recruiters/hiring managers out there: If someone actually gets to the interview process and participates in an interview, please recognize that this person likely spent a significant amount of time prepping to be their very best for you. By not taking the time to give people specific feedback that they can use to potentially snag another role, you are not helping them. Hiding behind a corporate policy in these times is a choice you make as opposed to choosing to show empathy. And yes, hiding behind an ATS (applicant tracking system) is lame if someone has taken the time to interview. If you feel as though you cannot conjure up actionable feedback without being worried about being sued, you likely have a bigger problem.

Please don’t ‘yada, yada, yada’ your candidates. It’s a rough job market out there and as we have seen over the past 12 months, the pendulum can swing both ways and people will remember who treated them well and who did not.

I Guess We Are There... Kind Of?

More gym equipment.

In one of the posts from last year, I posed the question “Mom & Dad, are we there yet?” in reference to getting through this phase of our lives known as COVID[-19]. It appears in Seattle and in most of the places Marc and I frequent, the answer is “yes”. We’ve been vaxxed, have been able to take a couple of trips via plane, resumed seeing people and I have been able to complete the rehab on my hip (still a little bit of work on the knee/calf, but that’s minor). My sister and a couple of close friends convinced us to buy a Peloton because as regular followers of this space know, the Becks’ need more gym equipment. All positives.

As for many, COVID took a toll on me mentally and emotionally. When I had a chance to look back, I realized it started last fall and it wasn’t until late winter that I really identified that I needed to take some steps to deal with it. True to form, I had to understand the who, what, where, when, why and how. This led to me seeking some professional help on the mental health front as I did not have the tools to figure it out.

Look at those crazy kids on Patmos in 2002.

Long time readers of this space know that I saw the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was working for a global investment bank which did not really tolerate “weakness”. Sure, they had counseling circles where employees could commiserate about the trauma they experienced, but no one actually trusted the system. We all likely thought that the facilitator would “rat us out” that we were “soft” and would get managed out of the firm. And especially as a ‘she/her’ on Wall Street, I was expected to “tough it out”. I did that and, by sheer luck, I ended up being ok and somehow met Marc less than a year later.

When I realized that I was feeling “off”, I realized that shame on me if I make the same mistake that I made all of those years ago knowing what I know now and not get some assistance. Fortunately seeking out mental health counseling does not have the same stigma as it used to have and I was able to find someone via referral to help figure things out.

I was going through my sessions and doing some homework via reading, etc. In the midst of all of this, Marc and I were able to go visit my family back in New York after not seeing them for 14 months. It was a wonderful weekend and really recharged me personally, which I was not expecting. [Random tangent: My Mom showed me this article, which made me laugh because my Rabbi used to give me these while I was prepping for my Bat Mitzvah back in the day.] That said, on the plane ride back home I had a sense of dread about returning to work that was more than the normal “ugh, it’s work tomorrow after being away.” In looking back, I realize that I had this feeling previously in the past few months but blocked it out because that was what I had always conditioned myself to do.

Hurricane Ridge - May, 2021.

The frustrating part was that I really liked the team I was on, enjoyed the work I was doing and had good leadership support behind me. It didn’t reconcile with the feelings I was experiencing. We were getting out for regular hikes, which I know has a positive impact on my mental health. I started examining my typical work day and seeing if I could identify any triggers. I was annoyed that I did not recognize this decline sooner so I could nip it in the bud. But that’s the thing - you’re living in the micro, and it is so easy to miss out on the macro things going on in your life.

What I was able to discern was that I switched roles in mid-October and that led to a steady cadence of 6am (sometimes earlier) meetings because the organization is more east-coast centric. By the time I would have dinner with Marc, I would be thrashed and was not good company because I had been working for 12+ hours. The schedule also made it more difficult for me to get my workouts in, which definitely impacts me mentally and physically. I also realized that I was pretty burnt out from doing 3 months of daily rehab from my hip surgery on top of my workouts and everything else. And I missed seeing my friends and having laughs in person.

My PT conjured up lots of games to keep me engaged with my rehab.

Right. OK. Fortunately more and more of our “people” were getting vaxxed so that was helpful in addressing the lack of social contact over the past 15+ months. The gatherings that I have been in have brought me true happiness. Hip rehab concluded in late April and I’m breaking records for mid-life career professionals hula hooping. Marc and I were able to resume a couple of traditions that had to be suspended due to COVID. That left addressing the proverbial elephant in the room - my current role, most of which I truly enjoyed except for the daily very early morning starts. That was the biggest issue out of all of it since it impacted my time with Marc.

With that, my last day at PwC is on Friday and I will miss the people I met at P-Dubs, who were generous with their knowledge and their time. They are smart and funny, and my last team, in particular, brought me tons of joy. I had the opportunity to influence many folks during my tenure at the firm in terms of teaching people about ‘product’ and mentoring a few people along the way on their career journeys.

Snowshoeing on Rainier - April, 2021.

I’ll be starting a new role at the end of next month, which I am really excited about. It also coincides with being back in the office in a hybrid capacity, which also makes me happy. More on that once I start up there with my new set of colleagues whom I am looking forward to learning from and partnering with to achieve great things.

And with that, onward!

Becoming Bionic and Being Thankful.

So you are working through a sports injury for a couple of months and in a matter of 3 days, you go from “hey, it is probably something that can be solved through cortisone shots” to “you need a total hip replacement”. Whaaa…..

The results came in before I had a chance to consult with the surgeon. I saw the MRIa (it’s a “special” MRI) report and while I couldn’t understand 50%+ of the words, any time you see the words ‘extreme’ and ‘severe’ in this context, it can’t be good. I decided to send it to 7 different medical professionals and they all independently came back with some form of “uh yeah, that’s a total hip replacement”.  Extra bonus for those professionals who were around me on a somewhat regular basis who made comments around the fact that I had no business functioning at the level I was in terms of hiking, weightlifting and cardio. Uhm, ok.

Lake Ollalie hike in between Christmas and New Year’s - 3 days before the news that I would be ‘becoming bionic’.

It took me about 12 hours to come to grips with this news, which included copious amounts of wine, frantic texts and manic web searches. I was fortunate to get an appointment with the person who is known as “THE” surgeon for hip replacements about a week later, and he was able to confirm that my hip was, in fact, in deep sh**. What was hysterical was that in the surgical consultation, he was trying to “sell me” on the replacement surgery with this gradual story and I just interrupted him to say “Hey, doc…. I’m already in. I talked to people and I know how bad it is. When can I go?”

[You can take the girl out of NYC….]

After some back and forth, I was able to get scheduled for surgery in 2 1/2 weeks. I am beyond fortunate that I work for an employer that was very supportive and has very established policies for taking time off for this kind of thing, and be fully compensated. So off to surgery we went and likely my inaugural step, in many to come, in “becoming bionic”. I did my research on devices - woohoo. I was fortunate to speak to a few people who had the surgery and I trusted. Two people in particular were a huge help. One is a cousin and one is a friend. Their feedback on the unwritten things was and continues to be so helpful. 

Torta Setteveli - if I only bought enough chocolate to cover the cake…. because enough chocolate wasn’t already included!

In between, we had to celebrate Marc’s birthday. I was trying to behave myself for 2 weeks in between the holidays and the surgery and that pretty much went to hell. Oh well, Marc’s birthWEEK celebration was fun and worth it, even with COVID - particularly on January 20th with a particular focus on the events of Washington, DC. PS - If you haven’t heard of Goldbelly, you should check it out. It’s not the same as going to that favorite restaurant for a special occasion, but it’s pretty awesome. I cooked and baked for Marc’s birthday knowing he was going to have to take care of me so here is my rendition of Prue Leith’s GBBO “Torta Settevelli.” Let’s give it up for finding a way to temper chocolate that didn’t make me insane.

January 20th - early am PT. If you don’t have anything nice to say….

Fortunately, no hiccups in any pre-op work (passed the COVID test) and I was rolled into the surgery suite where I saw lots of tools that you might see at a hardware store. They started “medicating” me pretty quickly so I didn’t have time to think about that…. Anyway they do the surgery and release you the same day. In between, they test you for walking and a few other basic life tasks. 

Enter stage left: Marc (aka Mr. WaterClown).

For the past month, Marc has been taking fabulous care of almost everything as I have recovered from surgery. And somehow I managed to NOT need to ring the literal cowbell to summon him to my beck and call (as opposed to ‘beckOn’) that we have from my running days. We were also so lucky to have a great support system to help the both of us - near and far with all sorts of “creative” gifts and food deliveries that made us laugh. Obviously with COVID, support is very different than under other circumstances. I put a strict no-chocolate/no sweets rule in place, but somehow that was circumvented because everyone figured Marc, the chocoholic, would need it since he was taking care of me. No comment.

One of the many crazy exercises that our Physical Therapist assigned me for rehab. Getting the left leg up is harder than it looks.

In the interim, I have been fastidious about rehab and rest, along with taking care of some Beck projects. I’m doing lots of cycling on the assault bike and making Rocky montage videos. (DRAGO!!!!!!!) OK, I have watched a ton of TV shows too, which is not a normal thing for me. But the comedy was a much needed relief for me so it was the right call (thanks, B(J)S, for keeping me on task there). We received so many well wishes along the way via text/email/DM from family, friends and colleagues — all of which were really appreciated. Some of the text threads have really kept me laughing in their absurdity… in a good way! We also have our outdoor COVID friendly set-up, which has helped a lot with people coming to say hi. 

I head to work on Tuesday with much to do from a rehab perspective, but THANKFUL that I was able to build a base on which to continue my progress from, as well as have the support of so many folks. Ups and downs will continue throughout the process. With respect to COVID, I hope that we are closer to the end than we are the beginning but if you know of someone going through a situation that would normally be helped with some hugs and human contact, also know that regular engagement also makes a huge difference when you can’t be together in person. Onward with a pic from a video that I recorded this evening for a good friend’s birthday.

Keeping it classy, as always.

Baking. Jill. Weird.

Quarantine life has brought out the ‘almost impossible’ in me. A willingness to attempt to bake something sweet. Readers of this space know that I do not like baking savory things on the best of days but I could be motivated to do for the right occasion.

The issue when I do bake is that I rarely attempt the simple. And the problem with that is that baking is generally anything but simple….. if you don’t like to follow instructions to the letter. Ahem. It is why I enjoy savory cooking because I can “off road” in a variety of ways based on what is in season or whatever I may be fancying. Baking requires precision, patience and leaves very little latitude for error. Meh.

My other problem when I attempt to bake is that I tend to pick complex recipes by chefs I follow. I mean, if you’re going to go big….

With that, most of my baking has been in either the Bouchon Bakery cookbook or the classic Bouchon cookbook. Both eateries are owned by Thomas Keller. I am a big fan of most of his restaurants and one of the highlights was taking Lisa and Jarrett to Per Se when I had the “purple claw” from the Australian Walkabout.

In the past, I have made things such as his Quiche Lorraine on a number of occasions. I wouldn’t say it is complicated, but it requires planning and is a multi-day effort. From the Bouchon Bakery cookbook, I have made 'Bacon-Cheddar Scones’ because, of course, savory, cheese and bacon are involved. Also made were ‘Nutter Butters’, ‘Fuhgeddaboudits’, ‘TKOs’ as well as puff pastry made from scratch. This was for another special occasion dish made here at Chez Beck called ‘Duck Wellington with Mole Sauce’, which is Vitaly Paley’s recipe from Paley’s Place.

[Side note: When I was on Facebook back in the day, I tagged Chef Paley on my dish after making it and he complimented me on the presentation. Proud amateur chef moment. Anyway…..]

As part of quarantine living, Marc and I have started watching GBBO (aka the Great British Bake Off). It’s pretty fun and I must have had too much wine one night when I decided that I would bake something for an upcoming socially distanced gathering with some close friends. See, all in-person gatherings are now special occasions. And with that, I chose to make Thomas Keller’s ‘Oh Oh’s’ recipe.

I am unsure what the hell I was thinking (again: see wine comment above) because I had never rolled baked sponge pastry and I certainly never tempered chocolate. In case you never tempered chocolate, it is a challenge and requires that whole ‘precision, patience, whatever’ thing I mentioned at the top. And as with any Keller recipe, it requires multiple days of effort in the best of circumstances. Alrighty then. Let’s do this anyway!

The sponge was relatively easy to make and the cream filling from scratch was also pretty uneventful. I remembered Marc had made these previously and it was great to have some notes around scaling the recipe, particularly around the cream. I did find myself looking furiously at the oven to see about overbaking and doing the whole toothpick testing thing, a la GBBO. I’m such a wanna-be.

I doubled the recipe, including Marc’s recos, so I had a bit of buffer as I only needed 8 Oh Ohs to be remotely acceptable. Rolling the sponge with the cream was tough. Next time, I might err towards slightly underbaking as the sponge may cook a little once it comes out of the oven. I had to do a bit of a flip to get the sponge cakes out of the cookie sheets, but fortunately those went off without any problems. Got them all rolled and prepped to go in the freezer overnight. A little cracking, but not too bad.

Wait. What the hell am I talking about, “next time”? No, thank you!

Got ‘em rolled. Ready to go in the freezer overnight.

I checked on them dutifully, but had to be careful as I may have gone into hoarding mode when it comes to our collection of Crowd Cow meats and seafood in the two freezers we have. I barely got them in without scraping against anything. This required putting a special sign on the freezer to ensure everyone (all two of us) was careful with the precious cargo in the freezer. Normally I would have coated them the next day but the plans were in disarray due to the smoke and fires in the area.

We decided that plans were moving forward so I started with tempering the chocolate 48 hours later. Tempering chocolate is a complicated process, as I mentioned above. You cannot screw up the temperatures and you need to monitor it incessantly. You’re talking 3 phases. The 1st phase was just melting the chocolate from bar form. Standard. Then the 2nd phase has you taking it off of the double boiler and letting it cool, which TAKES. A. FREAKING. LONG. TIME. Then for the final phase, you have to heat it briefly and then get it on the cakes as quickly as possible.

Attempting to temper chocolate.

The 2nd phase took well over an hour. Kept stirring it. But the chocolate was taking its sweet time. It finally hit the temperature but we didn’t have a tempering fork, so I was handling the cakes with my hands and then even though we had the cakes with chocolate on a cooling rack, they still stuck to the bottom. An unmitigated disaster. Lots of f- bombs dropped. [Note that we had lots of f-bombs dropped the previous nights because Marc and I are fans of the Broncos and the Giants, respectively, and they both showed up in lame fashion on MNF.] Anyway, in spite of Marc’s best efforts with his baking expertise, I was pissed off. I realized I was going to have buy a bunch of chocolate early the next day and repeat the tempering all over again with some modifications.

Worked out the next morning and went to PCC. The cashier said I was well stocked in chocolate to get through the next pandemic. If he only knew. I also decided that tempering was out and that I was just going to melt the chocolate. Everyone was going to have to be ok with non-shiny chocolate and live with that. Oh, the struggles of COVID. Got the chocolate melted. Marc also recommended that we continuously move the cakes once they had been coated with chocolate so they wouldn’t stick to the cooling rack. I also decided to use 2 spatulas to coat the cakes in the chocolate. The good news is that both of those moves turned out to make a positive difference in the outcome.

Progress with pearls and everything….

OK, now we were talking. Get these bad asses in the fridge to harden for later in the day. Check. Brought them to the dinner party at friend’s house. They worked. I even got serenaded for some strange reason. All in all, good. But I’ll say that I’ll likely never temper chocolate again, much in the same way that I’ll never make puff pastry from scratch again. Yes, it is a point of pride to do both, but the taste is not demonstrably different and the frustration level is way lower. Call me lazy. I’m good with that. Now quiche crust, on the other hand, is something worth making from scratch.

Squats and Tacos, baby! Oh, wait… Cardio and Chocolate!