Indian Matchmaker. You watch it. I watch it. None of us knows why, but here we are: slim, trim, and not-so-tall, tuned in and wanting all the best in the world for Nadia, Ankita (legend), Akshay, and Vyasar. And Aparna.
Yes, even Aparna. Aparna who I found thoroughly obnoxious. Aparna who was rude to horoscope-uncle, dismissive of virtually any suitor within firing range, and who really does need to relax.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Aparna (in a caring, platonic way), trying to figure out why someone who – by her own words – badly wants to be married also seems so resolved to reject every suitor thrown her way for the slightest of reasons.
Why she holds her bar so prohibitively high, and why she seems so intent on convincing everyone who comes her way that they are not worthy and have quite a lot to do to “keep up.”
My friends assure me that Aparna is afraid. That she’s so afraid of disappointment in the eventual relationship that rather than accept one of a few decent men, she may be more willing to set the bar for her affections so abnormally high to allow her to blame her singleness on her options simply not measuring up.
Doing the rejection – while keeping her single – is probably a less painful way to hurt than her being rejected or worse, being disappointed by someone she eventually lets in. I’m sure she’d disagree, but…Dilip Uncle agrees with me.
It brings to mind a hiring challenge one of our teams at work is currently having.
They have about a 20% vacancy rate (i.e. about 98 occupied positions against a budget of 125 roles), and an attrition rate high into the teens. They are also responsible for two of our organization’s five highest priority strategic initiatives. They are finding it hard to hire.
My team (transformation) offered to help them with their hiring, expecting that given their circumstances, they’d be thirsty hiring managers, soaking up every qualified candidate with a pulse until things stabilize and they could afford to be pickier. Not so.
In the two months since the issue was first flagged, we’ve seen hundreds of applicants and leads, increased the target compensation range to attract even more candidates, revamped the hiring process, and brought in an external recruiting agency for support.
Not. One. Hire.
Reading through interview notes this week, I found a level of selectiveness that’s frankly unbelievable for a team so under-staffed and over-worked. One candidate was turned down for “not seeming to have it together.” One was rejected for receiving one soft “no” after getting EIGHT strong “yes” ratings. No one the team meets seems to have the “technical chops to deliver on our standards.”
I think it’s bullshit. It’s Team Aparna, a group of people who would rather set the bar so irrationally high that while they might be punishing themselves, they at least don’t have to face the potential disappointment that’d come from letting in someone who later didn’t meet expectations.
Plus, there’s the minor ego boost gained from asserting a false sense of unattainability. They are the survivors, the “bar-raisers,” the “chosen few,” too good for second-rate analysts who merely look the part.
It looks like high standards. It reeks of fear.
A fear that you will be disappointed. Worry about making the wrong choice with the one shot you have. A calcifying belief that your problem is so great that only the perfect candidate can address it. That anything less is a failure to grasp the true complexities of your condition or to address the full weighty gravity of your persecution.
And if by this point you can’t tell that I’m really talking about Kamala Harris and this 2020 election…I don’t blame you. It took me a while to get there myself.
The criticism Kamala Harris has received in the weeks since her nomination has been (like the nomination itself) unsurprising yet important. From the left and the right, Ms. Harris has been accused of everything from being a phony to being a coward. Her critics have questioned areas in which she’s shown she’s untrustworthy, like the death penalty.
First off, it is important we ignore the incoherent ramblings of the right, who always seem to feel qualified to make determinations of people’s morals and ethnicity, and concern ourselves only with conversations that may bear some merit. And what are those?:
- That she’s a cop, formerly self-declared, at a time when police brutality is chief among crimes against domestic freedoms
- That she changes her mind too often on key issues and has adjusted her language and positioning on these when convenient
- That she’s more centrist than progressive on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and police reform
I don’t know enough to debate any of those in-depth. Are they valid? Perhaps. But to her accusers, I ask: Who, then, will be your champion? Who is your preferred candidate – qualified, available, and currently relevant – who meets this bar of ideological purity, unflinching moral certitude, and decades of public service while maintaining a platform over that consistently over that period matches the social preferences of the present?
Who has served in high office without compromising on any of the several issues you hold dear, and has never changed their mind on anything? And who is also a woman? Or a person of color. A woman AND a person of color?
I know what feels at stake. The issues on which the most marginalized members of our society are punished daily are matters of life and death. How can we, in good conscience, place faith in a leader in who there is even the slightest shadow of a doubt, the faintest risk of disappointment?
How can we get excited about who someone only partially addresses our needs? How much longer must we compromise? Could we look ourselves in the mirror if we cop-out here, putting our own lives at risk?
I would suggest that those are questions not from a place of rightness, but a place of fear. This election, we cannot fear disappointment And we need to relax.
Because our rational minds know that the person we claim we want doesn’t exist. She doesn’t, and it’s okay to mourn that. She almost can’t, not when rising to high office in this country requires true political skill, an art concerned with influence, with winning and holding control, with navigating competition between interests, and with address the total complex of relations in a society.
Such an art by definition mandates flexibility the sort of which would break our own sacred requirements of flawlessness. The closest we have to a servant of ideological purity and consistency in Bernie Sanders, a man of steadfast principle and of a platform on which he has only slightly shifted in almost 50 years.
And what have we won from that? How many laws that affect you personally today? How many bills has he passed in his 30 years in congress? Has he not driven most of his important work via amendments to other bills, that itself requiring some give and take? Did he not contest the presidency under the Democratic standard, an establishment vehicle, rather than as an independent?
As for her changing her mind over time…I can’t help but find that more refreshing than worrisome. I’ve never understood our public obsession with asking leaders to stand exactly where they were decades ago, and personally look forward to a leader who can change their mind when confronted with facts, even if for convenience.
And I would hate to be judged today on my positions and speech from even just 20 years ago when I sat squarely within my Niger-evangelical mores that – for instance – doomed all the gays to hellfire. I have waffled on the death penalty, on taxes, on elements of racial inequity, and even in my belief in God. Should I ask a politician – who represents many – to be less human, less capable of error and correction than I who represent only myself?
This is not copping out. This is reality. The last time we lorded a qualified candidate’s imperfections over her and established false equivalence in crimes, we allowed the election of a man who is quite literally a threat to the modern world. #ButHerEmails
Look…I’m afraid too. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could disappoint. They could make mistakes and waste this opportunity. They might even take the wrong side of history on a key issue as President Obama did with Syria.
But no one else is coming. We have no other champion. I choose to reflect less on things present in criticism of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and more on the things absent from that criticism.
They are not racist. They are not unintelligent. They are kind and compassionate and have led. Both know how government and international coalitions work. They’ll read. Even the damn briefings. Kamala Harris has fought discrimination on the basis of religion while being a Baptist herself.
It is notable that while Fox News will attack Ms. Harris on garbage, they won’t come after her on substance. I sense they know that on every meaningful metric, she stands head and shoulders above their deeply criminal, intensely hypocritical, and maniacally wicked ticket. They know that even in her imperfection, she is far far better for us than the option Donald Trump presents.
We must, without fear, afford her that same grace.
Well said
Well said