Internship Things Part 2: Great Expectations

It's really hard for people to not expect things as we go through life. Especially those of us in the West, who are raised in a scientific world where "cause and effect" are a way of life. We do X, we get Y. Do X again, get Y again. It's ever harder to not expect things if we're told to expect them.

I'm not sure it's humanly possible to go through life without expecting things. I go to work, I expect to get paid. If I didn't expect anything from my labors, why would I even work? Expectations are the way Humanity moves forward. Hell, some day I expect to retire and build a plane. I'm looking forward to it, and it's one of the reasons I'm expecting (there's that word again) to devote a good portion of 2015 and 2016 to studying aeronautical engineering.

During my internship with MAF this summer, and even before that, I was told to expect certain things. I'd applied for an internship in a certain country, and was approved. Due to that, I expected to work in that country. The operation in that country works on certain airframes, in a certain culture, and so I expected those things.

I didn't really have a reason not to. I had plane tickets, a visa, a packing list, even a pocket guide to the local culture and language.Hell, it wouldn't have made sense to expect otherwise. Only a crazy person would see a plane ticket to Asia and expect to spend two months in southern Africa.

So when I got to MAF this summer, I had some expectations. Nothing absurd, just a certain gig, in a certain country, on certain airframes.

I was looking forward to it as much as I'd ever looked forward to anything. I was stoked. I was excited. I'd get all bubbly talking about it, because it was something I was truly passionate about.

But I made a couple mistakes, and they cost me. I totally blew my first chance, but was told that I'd get a second chance, and if I panned out, if I earned it, I'd get to get back on track with the original internship. "Do this thing for us," they said, "and we'll put you on a plane."

Cause and effect. Do X, get Y.

I did X. I got back to the US, they said "You did X, Y is coming."

Why on God's Green Earth would I not expect Y? What possible reason would I have had to not hopefully expect Y, which I had applied for, been approved for, had tickets and a visa for, and had now been told by the vice-president of the organization was coming?

But Y did not come. I got a lovely, plausible excuse as to why Y did not come, but even a plausible excuse does not erase the optimisim, hope, and expectations that come with over a year of working towards a goal.

It was depressing. 18 months of work and every expectation I had, no matter how reasonable, came to nothing.

So with a fair amount of dejection, I took the next available assignment.

I ended up in Z. Lesotho. It was not what I had been told to expect, nor what I wanted, but by that point I simply wanted to do something useful.

When I got there, instead of being put to work doing useful things on an airplane, like I had expected, I was stuck in the back room, counting parts. I was told that despite my prior training, the organization hadn't certified me on anything more complicated than counting parts, so I would not be touching airplanes with a wrench.

I'll admit, I didn't take that very well. All the things I'd been working towards, all the things I'd hoped for and expected, and all of it had turned out to be bullshit.

Mighta had an argument with the boss after that.

Got told by a guy in Lesotho that expectations are a bad thing. Good servants hope for nothing, and expect nothing, he said. A good servant doesn't care where he serves, or who he serves.

Dude's full of shit. I bet that dude expects that when he goes home from work, his wife will still be there, taking care of the kids. I bet he expects his paycheck to come in, in the expected amount, on the expected day. I bet he expects that when his boss tells him to expect something, he expects it. I certainly expects that he treats his wife differently than other women.

But somehow, I became the bad guy when, after being told to expect Y, I didn't have the same feelings about Z. Z should be just as fulfilling, just as good.

Where the hell do people come up with this stuff?

I seem to remember a story about a guy named Jacob working for a girl named Rachel's father for 7 years so he could have her hand in marriage. He worked hard, and at the end of the 7 years, he was instead given a girl named Leah.

He didn't go "Well, good enough. A girl's a girl. Wasn't the girl I was working for, but whatever."

Quite the opposite, actually. Jacob went back to work another 7 years to get the girl he wanted, because he had a goal, and something else just wasn't going to do. I'm sure that the transition was a bit of a struggle for him. His expectations were reasonable, as he had been told to expect Rachel.

Nobody would have expected Jacob to say "Well, I spent seven years working for Rachel, not Leah, but Leah will do fine."

I, on the other hand, was expected to say "Well, I spent 18 months working towards one thing, but some other thing will do just as well. After all, a program in Africa is just like a program in Asia, and there's no reason to want one more than the other."

I wish that was sarcasm. Unfortunately, I was actually expected to say that. I was expected to view one as just as good as the other.

Wait a second, hang on. Why the hell, if I was to not have any expectations, if any thing is as good as any other thing, why did HQ have such a problem with me anyways?

I mean, they expected (for unknown reasons) a relaxed, low-key mechanic. Instead they got one of the most intense people to ever walk through their doors. They expected someone who won't speak up in class...they got me. They expected me to view any program they shuffled me off to as just as good as the one I worked for.

So...can someone explain why their expectations are reasonable, while mine were not? Why my depression when all my expectations fell apart was bad, and their reaction to the falling-apart of their expectations was perfectly justified? Hell, why'd they even have expectations if expectations are bad?

Honestly, I don't know. None of the answers I can think of make much sense.

But I do know that I will continue to expect things. "Do X, Get Y" is one of the basic principles of the world. It's the basis by which we humans interact with each other, and to throw that aside in the name of "meh, whatever" is madness.

"Do X, Get Y" is not an unreasonable expectation to have. It's the foundation for the modern world, and the basis of trust. The expectation of "Do X, Get Y" will work is the basis of every transaction two people can have. It's how economics works, it's how science works, it's how everything works.

But this summer, "Do X, Get Y" did not work, and I became the bad guy because that bothered me. I did X, I was told I was going to get Y, and I expected Y. Honestly, it's not that a security situation in a third-world shithole caused housing troubles that bothers me now. It was disappointing, of course, but I know that sort of thing happens.

What really bothers me, even months later, is that people became disappointed with me because I was expected to not be disappointed that my expectations came to nothing. But only my expectations were bad, and only my disappointment was unjustified. I don't know how I keep ending up the villain, but I'm do know this:

People who think expectations based on "Do X, Get Y" are unreasonable are probably not people I want to fix airplanes for.

Internship things

I haven't really sat down and sorted through (in writing) all of the things I learned while I was in Africa. Part of it's been a time consideration, part of it was that it's been an ongoing process, and part of it is simply laziness.

But I need to start, because for me, writing has become a large part of the way I sort through things. Writing, for me, forces me to articulate the vague and swirling abstract concepts that a lot of philosophical thinking is done in. "Freedom is good!" is that sort of abstract concept, but it's not the abstract concept that matters, but the articulated explanation of how it can be applied to life.

Until I really get down to the brass tacks of the explanation, most of the hard work of actually processing what I've learned hasn't been done. It's easy to pay lip service to a concept, but it's really the work of explaining things that reveals flaws in the argument, and so that's what I need to do.

I suppose the most logical place to start explaining what I learned in the four months I spent with MAF (and the two I spent in Africa) is...honestly, I don't know. It's frikkin complicated.

See, I could say something like "I'm done proving myself. I've proved everything I needed to prove while I was in Africa, and now I'm going to relax and just be me."

But explaining that is something else entirely, because the devil is in the details, and exactly what I proved, and to whom, depends on who one talks to. MAF wasn't very impressed by how things went, while I had a somewhat different impression.

I mean, I only got in like three arguments in Lesotho, maybe four if one counts the near-argument on the drive to the airport. I didn't get into any arguments in Haiti, and if I didn't do well in Nampa, well, I blame the other guy, because starting a conversation with "what meds do you take?" and "How did your father die?" is fuckin' rude. I showed up for work every day (except when I was sick, of course), and obeyed to the best of my ability the directives of the program managers I had to work for.

I worked as hard as I could, every day, to get as much done as I possibly could. I didn't slow down for depression, and I didn't quit when things went several kinds of sideways. Even when MAF said I wouldn't be going to the country they had given their word I'd be going to, my first question was "OK, where else can I go?"

But when it comes to proving things to people, it's the standards people are looking for.

MAF, to be quite honest, doesn't seem to give a shit if people work hard. They want nice people, and that's all they seem to care about. They won't care if you're depressed because they canceled your internship after promising that they'd come through, the only thing they're looking for is a positive attitude. It doesn't matter if you resolve arguments and move on, they're looking for people who don't get in arguments.

To them, I proved that I was trouble.

I see it a little differently.

I see a person who's dealt with depression his entire adult life. I see a guy who spent three and a half years trying to join MAF, no matter what or who tried to discourage him, even when it was MAF itself. I see a guy who gave his second chance every microjoule of effort he could. I see a guy who only asked where else he could go when the promised result of the second chance wasn't delivered. I see a guy who was assigned to a program that was pressured to take him, a program that did not want an intern, and made the best of it.

When I look at my internship, I'm quite happy with how things went.

See, I'm not a man who values "nice" people over people who will show up for work every day, no matter what life throws at them, and do their best. Even if they're in a country they never wanted to be in, working for people who didn't want them there, on airframes they don't care to work on.

I value people who will resolve their arguments over diplomats who never get into arguments. No matter how petty the argument is, or how quickly one side gets logically ripped apart. 

I value people who will pick themselves up after getting their asses kicked and go straight back to what they believe they should be doing over people who allow a bad day, or a bad week, or a bad month to change their goals.

I value people who keep their word, never promise more than they can deliver, and don't expect any more than that from anyone over people who demand perfection and can't keep their own word.

When I judge my performance in Haiti, HQ, and Lesotho based on the values I espouse... I could have done better. I won't even start to say that everything went well, or that I did an especially good job at being a missionary. Frankly, by the end of my time in Lesotho, I knew that I had a list of things to improve before I'd be "ready" for overseas missions.

BUT!

By those same values, I didn't do a terrible job of living out the values I, umm, value. That's not particularly eloquent, but even if it's clumsily said, I proved to myself what and who I am while I was there.

I'm not perfect. Some days I'm a pretty solid bastard, actually. But at the same time, I'm proud of how far I've come from the total shitbag I was in 2003. I'm like a totally different person, and I'm proud of the change. There's a lot of things I could have become after being that guy, 

Some of those once-possible futures are probably better than this one. Not everything has gone well.

But it could have gone a hell of a lot worse, and having seen who I am when life goes south, I am well-satisfied with being this guy.

Because I know who I was, who I might have been, and who I am.

I didn't learn who I was by smoking pot and playing video games, I learned who I was in the fires of suck. I've learned who I am when everything falls apart, and I'm not ashamed to be that guy.

And honestly? If you're OK with who you are when your world goes to shit, even if you're not handling it well?

You have nothing left to prove to anyone.

I am *done* with proving myself.