When I was finishing up my master’s degree I decided my next project would be to trace my family history. I’ve always been curious about where my family is from and what patterns and parallels I can see between my ancestors lives and mine.

The show Who Do You Think You Are? also inspired me to start my research. If you haven’t seen the show, it traces celebrities on their journeys to find out more about their ancestry. It’s a fascinating show and it has given me some insight on the types of questions i should ask my elder family members in order to get the most accurate information to base my research on.

I’m starting my research with my mom’s side of the family because my grandpa (pictured with me above) already has a wealth of knowledge about his family history. Some of it has been researched before and some of it is hear-say. I met with my grandpa today to get some more details and to find out what unanswered questions he has about his family.

The meeting was extremely helpful; my grandpa loves history so I knew he would know the years things took place and if our family was involved in major historical events, like the Civil War (we were). What we don’t know is what European country we came from; we theorize we came from France. We also don’t know much about his mom’s family. I left my visit with grandpa with a great starting point for one piece of my puzzle and I’m looking forward ton seeing what I find out.

Has anyone else researched their ancestry? What tools did you use and what tips do you have for me?

On Friday a group of social media friends and I went to see The Social Network. As many of you may know, the film is about how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea of Facebook, how the company was launched, and the drama that occurred as a result of some of his less than ethical business decisions. The story, which is written by West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin,  is based on factual information, but — like any great Hollywood film — there are parts that are fictionalized. As an audience member it’s up to you to discern what is true and what’s not, which is very difficult to do.  Overall, the film was pretty good; as a group we gave the movie about a 7 out of 10. The acting was great and the writing was excellent, but it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen. One thing to note is the musical score, which was done by Trent Reznor. The score is amazing and the way music was used in the film was pretty cool too.

After watching the film, the group I went for a cup of coffee and had a chat about our thoughts on the film. One of the most interesting things we talked about was how creative the idea of Facebook is and how unsurprising it is that a college kid came up with it.  As a 20 something working on my career it dawned on me that most of my really creative ideas and moments of inspiration happened while in college.

After graduating from college and hitting the workforce I found I had to be a “yes” person in order to climb the corporate ladder and achieve career success.  Becoming a “yes” person often meant stifling my creativity.  Looking back at my career I can identify many times when my ideas were dismissed without really being listened to or taken seriously. This makes me wonder: What would’ve happened if Mark Zuckerberg presented the idea of Facebook to his first employer? Would it have been so well received?

So what are you going to do today to make your big idea heard or to make the people around you feel their input is valued?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave without TV or internet you’ve heard about JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s resignation. As the story goes, Mr. Slater had enough after being verbally assaulted by a passenger and so he got on the loud speaker, announced he was leaving, grabbed two beers, and slid down the airplane’s emergency slide to freedom. Hailed as a workplace hero, Steven Slater has been talked about by every major media outlet. Jimmy Fallon even wrote a hilarious song about him:

The same week Steven Slater quit his job an article about a young woman quitting her job via a whiteboard went viral (see below). It turns out this was fake resignation, but nonetheless the piece spread very quickly; on my Facebook newsfeed at least five people posted this humorous take on quitting a job.

Girl Quits Job on Dry Erase Board.

Both of these incidents have me wondering what is wrong with the culture of work in America? I’m sure almost everyone has daydreamed about quitting a job like a rockstar, but is this healthy? I realize we are still bouncing back from a recession, but it seems our workplaces have become toxic to our health. According to workforce.com in 2009-2010 40% of employers reported a higher use of health care benefits due to workplace stress.

Speaking as someone who quit her last job due to workplace stress, I’ve often wondered if I was the problem and not the job. Don’t get me wrong, I am much happier now and I don’t regret the decision, but I wonder if I was too weak or if I just lacked the proper coping skills to deal with a work environment. Ultimately, I think I could’ve benefited from additional coping skills, but the fact was the environment was toxic for me and so did what I needed to do and I took myself out of it.

As a nation, I think we have several major problems in our workplace, but at the core of all of them is the way we define work for ourselves. In our culture of perfection it’s easy to internalize our jobs because we want to do the best we possibly can and there is nothing wrong with this; internalizing our work motivates us. The real issue is how much we let our work define our personalities.

Since quitting my last job I’ve had time to think about what I could do differently in the workplace. Now instead of getting upset I try to ask myself two questions:  In ten years will this particularly stressful day matter? If my family/friends were watching, would they be proud of me after the things that have taken place today?

99% of the time I can say no, this won’t matter in 10 years, and I can say yes, my family and friends would be proud of me. And while I still love the badass way Steve Slater quit, I do wonder if he had taken the time to ask himself these questions if he still would’ve grabbed “two beers and jumped”?

This summer I will begin research for my thesis paper, which is the last step in my master’s degree program.  I know I want to write my paper on something relating to social media, technology, and sociology, but I need to drill this down to a more specific topic.  My thesis is one of the many reasons I started this blog…I need a place where I can chronicle my thoughts and bounce ideas off other people.  Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.  In my Saturday grad school class my professor, who HATES technology, said something very interesting:

” Technology crafts behavior and behavior overcomes one’s personality.”

I agree technology crafts one’s behavior.  I definitely have changed the way I interact and work on things because of technology, but has this changed my personality? I’m not sure. Is it possible to have a behavioral change that doesn’t affect one’s personality? Technology has changed my interpersonal relationships and has expanded my network, but at the core I think I’m still me.  If anything, I think I’m a better version of my myself because these tools have made me more efficient.

What are your thoughts? How has technology changed your behavior? Has it impacted your personality? Let me know what you think.