When I first heard of followership, I immediately rejected the concept. My parents have told me, since birth, that I was a leader. It almost became an excuse for why the other kids didn’t like me or why the other girls my age bullied me: Zoe, you’re just a leader. Not a follower.

In the words of my parents, followers are people who go with the pack. The people who take drugs and succumb to peer pressure. Followers are the answer to the question if so and so jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge too? 

However, as I read the article in the Ivey Business Journal, I concluded that Followership is not behind or beneath leadership. I believe it is leadership adjacent. As I read further, I recognized myself in the characteristics listed.

McCallum outlined eight qualities of a good follower, and begrudgingly, I acknowledged that I possessed some of those characteristics.

Judgement.  Followers must take direction but they have an underlying obligation to the enterprise to do so only when the direction is ethical and proper.  The key is having the judgement to know the difference between a directive that your leader gives on how to proceed that you do not agree with and a directive that is truly wrong.

As I previously mentioned, my parents stressed good judgment from a young age. We were given the freedom to make our own decisions, but they tried to teach us right and wrong. I believe I have good judgment and a moral code to which I adhere.

Work ethic.  Good followers are good workers.  They are diligent, motivated, committed, pay attention to detail and make the effort.  Leaders have a responsibility to create an environment that permits these qualities but regardless, it is the responsibility of the follower to be a good worker.  There is no such thing as a bad worker who is a good follower.

I work hard, and I do excellent work. I strive to do my best on the smallest of tasks, and I never intentionally do less than my best on a project.

Competence.  The follower cannot follow properly unless competent at the task that is directed by the leader.  It is the obligation of the leader to assure that followers are competent.  Sometimes things go wrong because the follower is not competent at the task at hand.  When this happens, leaders should blame themselves, not the follower.  A sign of poor leadership is blaming followers for not having skills they do not have.

As my mother says, my core competency is competency. I am very vocal that I am the wrong person for a task if I am not competent at it. If I am adhering to the principles of Followership, then I am only making it easier for a leader to find a task that I am competent in.

Honesty.  The follower owes the leader an honest and forthright assessment of what the leader is trying to achieve and how.  This is especially the case when the follower feels the leader’s agenda is seriously flawed.  Respect and politeness are important but that said, it is not acceptable for followers to sit on their hands while an inept leader drives the proverbial bus over the cliff.  Good leaders are grateful for constructive feedback from their team.  Bad leaders do not welcome feedback and here followers have to tread carefully.  If the situation is serious enough, consideration should be given to going above the leader in question for guidance.

I am honest; sometimes brutally so. I have no issue telling someone they are wrong or if I disagree with what they say. I value honesty and feedback, and therefore, I will not refrain or bite my tongue for the sake of politeness. Sometimes, that gets me in trouble, but as Representative John Lewis says, there is such a thing as good trouble.

Courage.  Followers need to be honest with those who lead them.  They also need the courage to be honest.  It takes real courage to confront a leader about concerns with the leader’s agenda or worse, the leader himself or herself.  It is not for naught that Churchill called courage “The foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend”.  From time to time, it takes real courage to be a good follower.

“There are all kinds of courage,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I, therefore, award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom.”

I can be honest even when the situation gets tough. I am not afraid to speak my mind if someone is wrong. Courage is a virtue, as is honesty, and the two go hand in hand. If courage and honesty make me a good follower, then so be it.

Discretion.  A favorite saying in World War II was “Loose lips sink ships.”  Sports teams are fond of the expression “What you hear here, let it stay here.”  Followers owe their enterprises and their leaders discretion.  Talking about work matters inappropriately is at best unhelpful and more likely harmful.  Discretion just means keeping your mouth shut.  It should be easy but many find it next to impossible.  Bluntly, you cannot be a good follower and be indiscreet.  Everybody who works at an enterprise has a duty of care; indiscretion is not care, it is careless.

My dad sometimes says, “this stays in the family.” That means there’s some important business or secret that he had to tell me, but I wasn’t allowed to tell my friends. My friends know me as someone who can keep a secret. However, I am not the kind of person who keeps secrets that can harm others. Lately, in the media, whistleblowers have been making waves for breaking confidentiality and revealing the horrible things their corporations do. Discretion, to some extent, can be valuable. But here I disagree with McCallum: free-thinking, honesty, and bravery are more important than discretion.

Loyalty.  Good followers respect their obligation to be loyal to their enterprise.  Loyalty to the enterprise and its goals is particularly important when there are problems, interpersonal or otherwise, with a particular leader.  Followers who are not loyal are inevitably a source of difficulty.  They create problems between team members; they compromise the achievement of goals; they waste everybody’s time; they are a menace.  Loyalty is not a synonym for lapdog.  Rather, its essence is a strong allegiance and commitment to what the organization is trying to do.  Followers should remember that their obligation is to the enterprise, not a given leader at a given point in time.

I am loyal, often to a fault. Sometimes nonsensically, in the case of brand loyalty. I have never seen myself as a ‘lapdog’ for my loyalty. Instead, I have seen it as one of my greatest strengths. I am loyal to my friends. I am loyal to my family. I am loyal to my school. I am loyal to my sports teams– Go Pens! If I join an organization, it is because I have placed my trust and respect in that organization, and I will be loyal to them unless they wrong me.

Ego management.  Good followers have their egos under control.  They are team players in the fullest sense of the concept.  They have good interpersonal skills.  Success for good followers relates to performance and goal achievement, not personal recognition and self-promotion.  Sounds too good to be true and often it is.  It is difficult but the best organizations tie advancement and reward to performance and goal achievement as hard as that may be to do.

I often have trouble keeping my ego in check, and that is a personal problem that I have been working on for a very long time. I need to learn to derive my achievement from reaching my goals and acknowledging my own hard work, not from the recognition and approval of others. If I can strive towards ego management, I think it will not only make me a better follower but a better leader.

In conclusion, I still don’t 100% agree with the principles of followership. While reading the article, I found myself aligning more with the managers in the situation than the worker. However, unless I become the head of an organization (which I strive towards) I will always be managed. Until then, I think I can be an excellent leader by acknowledging the qualities of a good follower.

—

On May 18, 1899, my great-great-grandparents, Michelina Mickelsky and Martinus Rusiecki, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Warsaw, Poland, via Antwerp, Belgium. They settled in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, to work in the coal mines. In 1911, Michelina gave birth to my great-grandmother, Frances. In 1939, she gave birth to my grandfather, John. In 1963, his wife, Judith, gave birth to my mother, Laura. We are Polish through and through– after all, my mother is only three generations off the boat.

On my mother’s side of the family, our Polish heritage is strong. It is evident in the Catholicism she practices, in the way bits of Polish slip into her speech, but most visibly, in our food.

Regardless of the time of year, a rainy day means pierogies. Kielbasa is our preference, over hot dogs. Horseradish is ever-present on our refrigerator door, despite no one actually enjoying it.  

The home-made cookbooks that my mother received from my great-grandmother fill glass cabinets above the marble countertops. Inside these aging, hand-bound books, are yellowed recipe cards. Sometimes, the words change from English to Polish mid-sentence, as if whoever wrote them couldn’t find the word outside of her mother tongue. Sometimes, the words are indiscernible altogether. On some cards, there are red-purple stains that look (and smell) suspiciously like horseradish, despite no one actually enjoying it.

I never understood how unchanged and genuinely Polish my food was, until I traveled to Poland, and experienced it for myself.

—

Just like I hadn’t been to Europe before, I have never traveled in a group. Nor have I traveled with people my age. We clash almost instantly. I’m here to find my heritage. They’re here to vacation. It’s evident in our approaches to food.

My peers look curiously at our hotel breakfast. They don’t seem to understand why, exactly, there are four different kinds of sausages on offer. I, on the other hand, pile my plate high with Kielbasa, and I exclaim in delight when the first taste of savory, spicy pork hits my tongue.

My peers are anxious to eat the pierogis at lunch, at a crowded, overfilled restaurant tucked behind a bustling, cobblestone Warsaw street. The dumplings are stuffed full and overflowing with mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and meat, and cooked to perfection, their edges just slightly browned. As I bite into them, all I taste is the familiar; a home cooked meal on a Thursday night, my mother wearing an apron that proclaims OUR LADY OF ANGELS CATHOLIC CHURCH, listening to NPR and poking impatiently at pierogies in a sizzling, spitting skillet.

My peers decide to eat American food for dinner. Instead, I am on the hunt for the Polish street food I remember from Church bazaars, the smell of grilled onions and smoked meat filling the air as I jumped on the bouncy houses with my friends from school. I find a stand that sells Kielbasa on white bread smothered in sweet, juicy onions, and slathered in brown mustard.

My peers get ice cream for dessert, but I’m on the hunt for Paçzki, massive, fruit-filled doughnuts that my mother gets for us every Fat Tuesday. The confection is covered in powdered sugar, and I have to hold it with two hands, like a real American cheeseburger.  

You’ll get sick off of that stuff, my peers say, turning up their nose as I lick sweet fruit off my sugar-covered fingers, or I stuff some escaped onions back into my makeshift sandwich, or push potato back into the pierogi, or add another sausage to my breakfast plate. The food is too heavy; it’s too rich.

I won’t get sick. Like a world-class athlete, I have been training to eat this food my entire life.

—

Just like my Polish heritage is influenced by my father’s Judaism, Polish cuisine is also heavily influenced by the centuries-old Ashkenazi Jewish population of Poland.

Before World War II, Poland had the largest population of Jews in Europe, and the second-largest population in the world, outside of New York City. I am surprised by how seamlessly the two cultures blend; from the latkes served with my pierogies, to the Matzo ball soup served as an appetizer for my kielbasa dinner. The simultaneous Ashkenazi and Polish diet of cabbage and onions and potatoes intertwine, coming together like the Ashkenazi and Polish double helix that is my genetic code.

Even the bagel, the most ubiquitously Jewish food, was invented on the streets of Krakow. On a rainy morning in the Cloth Hall of Krakow, I eat the very first bagel. It tastes like every bagel I’ve eaten before– and I’ve eaten a lot. I’m a New York Jew, after all.  

This cloth hall and this bagel have been around since the 13th century. Maybe my ancestor once pulled a wooden cart across these uneven cobblestone streets. Everything in Poland seems like a memory of a past life, of places I’ve visited but never have seen.

—

In Auschwitz, I have apple cake with lunch. Apple cake, to me, is a rarity outside of Christmas dinner. The cake-pie hybrid is crisp and refreshing and tastes infinitely better than the water-without-gas I’ve been drinking. I’m dehydrated from all the tears I have cried.

As we return to our tour, we leave a barrack and enter a courtyard that was used as shooting grounds for thousands of helpless prisoners. In the middle of the gravel, bullet-riddled, brick-surrounded square, I see my mother’s second cousin, Pam.

Speechlessly, I walk over to her. We both have earphones in, listening to our separate tours. I wave. She looks shocked, before hugging me. My professor, Dr. Kennedy, looks concerned, before I say, excitedly, that this is my cousin.

I knew they were in Poland at the same time as me, but I never imagined to see them 4,945 miles from home. They live in North Carolina. I live in Georgia. We’ve only met once, when I was six, at my great-grandmother’s funeral, in Pennsylvania.

Yet here we are, in a death camp, in Poland.

—

When I return to Krakow, I meet my mother’s second cousins in the Old Square for dinner. We find a restaurant, and order soup prior to our meals. It’s like I’m at a family reunion. Pam and her husband, Robert, ask me about my trip, about college, about my plans for the future. They ask me what I thought about Auschwitz. They’re curious as to how I felt– they know my dad is Jewish. They heard my grandfather passed away last fall– how is my mom doing?

We’re served chicken noodle soup. It’s identical to my mother’s, down to the spices and long, spaghetti-like noodles.

My mother’s second cousin and I lift our spoons to our mouths and moan in delight. “Wow,” She says, smiling at me. We have the same chin, the Danielowicz chin. “This soup tastes just like my mom’s.” It doesn’t just taste like her mom’s soup, or my mom’s soup, or our Great-Grandmother’s soup. It tastes like Poland. It tastes like home.

November 27th, 2017

Dear Anna Zuckerman,

I am writing to inform you that I have made the very difficult decision to resign from my current position as your partner in this endeavor. My last day will be December 1st, 2017.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

Since joining your company on January 1st, 2016, I am so proud of what I have accomplished as your partner.

That New Year’s Eve, at David’s apartment, kissing you on the fire escape, red solo cups in hand as the clock struck twelve. You tasted like cider, because you hate beer, and I had drunk too much champagne. There was glitter in your curly brown hair. The tips of our noses were red from the cold, but as I kissed you, I never felt warmer.

I have learned so much and have grown significantly as a person and as an employee during our year together. From starting new projects to learning new programs, I am thrilled with the experience I have had over the past eleven months.

Walking through the park, our hands laced together, squeezing yours tightly. Hiking with you, holding your hand when you tripped over a branch and cut your leg and joked that you needed to amputate. Learning how to be kind to you while we argued over toothpaste caps and what to get for dinner and the exit I missed on the interstate. You wanted to get to our destination, but I was content to wander.

The decision to leave you has not come lightly, I assure you. After many months of talking to my friends and my therapists, I have decided that not returning to you in the New Year is not only best for myself and my future, but also for your continued success.

I told you, Anna, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It’s the way you spend too much time on your phone when we’re together. It’s the way you need to win every disagreement. The way you always need to be correct. It’s your militant attitude towards the world. It’s your constant need for justice, to see pain brought to those who have wronged you.

It’s a long time coming.
I’m afraid that the twang of my voice and the fact that I jump at constant car alarms and that I’ve never done Molly at 2 a.m. in a club in Brooklyn annoys you. You love the city, the noise, the lights, the people, the energy, and I hate it, and I’m afraid you hate me.

You were born here. It’s in your blood. After all, I’m just a hick.

Remember when you called me a hick? I do. I cried in the bathroom when you made fun of the pictures of me showing livestock in high school, happy and proud of my accomplishments. You called me a hick. You meant it jokingly, but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, your words are sharp as knives when you want them to be. They can cut.

It has been an honor to work with you, Ms. Zuckerman. The assistance you’ve provided me with and the insight you’ve shared in our field is invaluable to me. I consider you a mentor on both a professional and personal level, and I have learned so much while working for you.

It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

You stared, eyes wide, as we drove through my hometown. You said you couldn’t imagine living in a place where cows lined the winding roads, even though I can’t think of anything more beautiful. It has nothing to do with the bitchy way you told my mom you wouldn’t try her fried okra. It has nothing to do with the snarky response you gave my father when he asked you how your work in activism is going. You assumed they hated you when they wanted nothing more than to know you. But you were drunk. You know how you get when you drink red wine.

It has everything to do with Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend our weekend retreat. I apologize for the short notice.

We were supposed to go to that AirBnB in the mountains. Spend the weekend wrapped up in each other. When you first brought up our anniversary, all those months ago, I knew, even then, we wouldn’t make it that far. I think you did, too.

I will be happy to help fill the position that my absence will create. I have many friends that would thrive in the position of your partner.

I’m lying, Anna. I don’t want you to date anyone else. I want you to be miserable. I want you to be heartbroken over me. I want you to spend weeks in your apartment, drinking shitty tequila and eating Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey until you get sick because you’re lactose intolerant. But I know you’ll just fall into David’s bed. You always fall into his bed when something goes wrong. You always tell me it means nothing because he’s a man. It’s just a dick, you say.
Maybe this time it will mean something.

Please acknowledge this letter as my official notice of resignation. I will do my absolute best to ensure a smooth transition before my departure December 1st. I have been so fortunate to be part of this endeavor. I wish not only you, but the company continued success.

Sincerely,

Julia Sweeney
Your Partner

G-d was found in the desert
We wander
Our souls weary and broken
Salt flats cutting into our soles

G-d was found in the desert
Our tongues dry
Our lips cracked, our stomachs empty
Aching, crying

G-d was found in the desert
Of a different kind
The cold winds of a Polish winter
Snow stretching for miles

G-d was found in the desert
In so many deserts
For so many people
For so many years

G-d was found in the desert
Maybe Moses walked here
Where I lay on the pale dirt
A rock pressing into my back

G-d was found in the desert
The night is freezing
I gaze into the stars
A million more than I’ve ever seen before

G-d was found in the desert
Religions are found in the desert
Heritage is found in the desert
And maybe I find myself

G-d was found in the desert, they say, and here, in the desert, I know.

Pathways: A One-Act

Pathways is a one-act play that follows the lives of a recent high school graduate, James, and his girlfriend, Sarah, as they navigate the murky waters of future after high school. At the crux of their relationship, James cannot pay for college and is planning to enter the army instead, while Sarah is both financially and academically able to stay home and attend school. When James joins the army and prepares for his departure, the audience sees Sarah become desperate to make him stay. She proposes losing her virginity to James, and he disagrees, and their relationship dissolves into an argument just days before he leaves. This play explores the notions of virginity in adolescent sexuality, as well as toxic masculinity within teenager’s lives, and enters into a new genre of playwriting rarely explored, a juncture of theatre and adolescence.

A directed reading utilizes a cast and direction to bring a play to life without traditionally staging it. By staging a reading of Pathways, the Spring Annual Research Conference allows important sociological and psychological phenomenon to take the stage in a non-traditional presentation of experience, research, and craft. Pathways utilizes the traditional one-act format and linear narrative alongside a small cast and engaging dialogue in presenting common yet under-discussed themes of adolescence. Pathways is a finalist in the One-Act category of the 47th Annual Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival Writing Contest and is Zoe Katz’s first play.

The Enlightened Pirate

The Enlightened Pirate is a digital research project conducted in History 309: The Enlightenment in Europe. The Enlightened Pirate examines the Golden Age of Piracy (1700-1750) as an actualization of Enlightenment ideals. My research examines primary sources such as accounts, Captain’s accords, and historical texts as evidentiary support to the claim that men and women of the 16th century became pirates as an expression of enlightenment ideals. Supplemented by secondary sources such as Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age by Marcus Rediker, The Enlightened Pirate crafts a thorough argument that combines the excitement of the Golden Age of Piracy with the revolutionary ideals of the great Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, Rousseau, and Locke.

The Enlightened Pirate is a web-based research project, rejecting the conventions of typical research essays. Utilizing a sub-domain of the Summit Digital Portfolio dedicated to the topic, The Enlightened Pirate uses multimedia, primary sources, quotes, and text to create an accessible and entertaining format to present the argument the findings that pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy were more than petty thieves or criminals, but had legitimate intentions to create a new society as defined by Enlightenment ideals. The presentation at the Spring Annual Research Conference would combine the website with a powerpoint to discuss methods of research, arguments, and application of findings as well as the tools utilized to create the digital research project.  

I always hesitated to call myself a writer before this year, which is odd, because all I do is write. All I have ever done is write. From a very young age, I wrote story after story, created whole worlds in my head, wrote fanfiction, and wrote three 50,000-word novels. I wrote a play. I knew, logically, that I was good at writing.

But I would never dare to call myself a writer.

My late grandfather once said, venomously, that all artists were poor. My Nana, his ex-wife, is an artist; she makes beautiful mosaics and paintings. But he is correct: she is poor.

Writing is art. The two have always been equivalents in my head. So it was never a question that I could write professionally, lest I be poor. And I like shopping and take-out too much to be poor.

Then two things happened at once: my play became a finalist out of 18 submissions in a highly competitive writers’ festival, and I took Christine Cozzens’ Creative Nonfiction class.

In a red journal, I take to prompts like a bird to flight. My fingers cramp as I try to scribble every last word my mind springs forth, like an unending well of creativity. I have so many stories to be told, and the rapidly-filling pages of my journal are evidence. I’m a history major, after all. I love evidence.

This is not to say there is no difficulty in Creative Nonfiction. I quite dislike the craft. I’d much rather create characters and draw from my experiences for a dynamic, self-invented plot, rather than dig through my feelings and draw them out on paper. My memory is weak, and in what memories I do have, everything seems exaggerated. I’m a storyteller, a liar, an actress, an inventor: everything I have ever retold is inflated in some shape or form. That leads to a very inaccurate memory.

Still, I am writing, and writing well, and I could not be happier. For once, I felt my confidence in my work was not unearned or exaggerated. Just because I am not a creative writing major, doesn’t mean I can’t call a spade a spade: I am a writer.

I wear the badge proudly, however many sideways glances of annoyance I receive from my peers. I hesitate to take writing classes on campus; students don’t like me, or my ego. They think I’m brash and obnoxious. I can take criticism– when I know, it’s coming from neutrality and not dislike. I feel like an imposter around them. To me, the writers at Agnes Scott College have always seemed egotistical and clique-ish. They have wanted to be writers since the day they stepped foot on this campus. It appeared that, unless I were a major or a Center for Writing and Speaking tutor, I couldn’t dare call myself a writer. I now realize how foolish those thoughts seem.

Now I want to take as many writing classes as I can before I graduate. Before I become an author or a playwright or a dramaturg or whatever I may become, I am first, and foremost, a writer.

Realizing the Future: Bridge to Business Analysis and Reflection

When I first arrived at Agnes Scott College in August 2015, I knew what my future held. I was going to study International Relations, with a double minor in History and French. I was going to get a 170 on the LSAT and receive my dual J.D./M.A. in International Affairs from my dream school– Georgetown.

That dream abruptly ended when I realized how much I hated the methodology of International Relations, how little I wanted to be a lawyer, and maybe most importantly, how much I despised the thought of spending four years in grad school. But I had this dream ever since my ninth grade Honors Government class– what was I supposed to do now?

My advisor gently reminded me that I was working in a social media job, I was the social media or marketing chair for several organizations on campus, and my mother had her MBA in Marketing, my father, the same advanced degree in International Business. Maybe, she suggested, it was time to stop avoiding the obvious, and enroll in a couple business courses.

I immediately knew I made the right decision, even if I did feel like I was selling out. But how could I know for sure a career in business was right for me?

I had been interested in the Women’s Bridge to Business since before my first year at Agnes Scott– I received a pamphlet shortly after a visit to the campus in my junior year of high school. But as a Sophomore at Agnes Scott, I decided that it would be the final test– a confirmation of whether or not I was sure I would study business.

The good news is, I am now positive that I want an MBA. The even better news is that I want to receive that MBA at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business (or Chicago’s Booth School of Business, like my dad). Opportunity is in Atlanta, and that is abundantly apparent after my three weeks in the Bridge to Business program.

It was hard to choose which functional areas I was most attracted to over the course of the program. I think my favorite was Marketing because I feel as if I have a natural affinity for it, but I was also fascinated by Project Management and International Business. I think this may lead to a future in Brand Management, something I have always found interesting and a natural progression within my future career.

Within these modules, I was able to relate to the content and the skills being offered by professors with a wealth of knowledge. I could imagine myself, in their shoes, after years of experience working and learning, teaching to another young Scottie. I believe I enjoyed these areas because they required creative, critical thinking, and I aspire to have a career where I am creatively challenged and learning every day.

However, even though I enjoyed these areas of the program, it was the modules more tailored to our careers and futures that I found most rewarding. The modules spent with Catherine Neiner provoked me to ask questions about my future that I hadn’t considered. She was frank and honest about the future of working as women, and I appreciated that– often times at Agnes Scott, we live in a bubble where we think the future will tailor itself to us, and that is simply not the case, especially in the business world. It was incredibly refreshing to hear a powerful woman say, “you may be called brazen, bossy, or bitchy. Here’s why you should be proud of that.”

Similarly, I found our session with Gail Evans to be, quite frankly, the most rewarding three hours of my academic career. She encouraged me to think of myself, my personal brand, and my future in ways that I had never before. I was taught why ‘hardworking’ is a bad word, and that if I want to promote myself, I need to tailor my language to my own success. Instead of referring to myself as hardworking, driven, and creative, I will now refer to myself as productive, promising, and passionate. Because, as Ms. Evans said, that is how a CEO refers to herself. I have already engrossed myself in the book she gave to me, and I plan to make my mother read it as well.

While I immensely enjoyed my three weeks in the Bridge to Business program, there were some things that I definitely knew weren’t for me. My father is an accountant, but staring at financial statements, fiddling with Excel, and pulling my hair out over ratios and vertical analyses just wasn’t for me. Still, I gave it my best effort, and I was pleasantly surprised at the rewarding feeling I felt when all the numbers equaled 100.

I also was very frustrated with the Strategic Management Simulation, Minnesota Micromotors, which was disappointing, as I found the Strategic Management module fascinating. I always love to focus on the big picture, and I felt I did well in the ‘strategic plan for Agnes Scott’ activity. However, after I got fired three times, I figured that I can still think big picture and focus on the future of an organization– I’ll just leave the customer service, price management, and research & development to the experts.

I think I was fascinated by Strategic Management because it closely relates to Marketing and Brand Management, two things I see in my future. In marketing and brand management, you must think creatively and anticipate what the customer wants to see, and needs to see, in the future. I think Strategic Management combines all those things, and maybe, is the culmination of many different aspects of a business.

Another module I struggled with was negotiating– kind of. It wasn’t as if I didn’t do well in the activities– I did extremely well. I just felt so unconfident– which is very unlike me. I love to speak publicly, argue, and get my way– negotiating comes naturally to me. However, afterward, when thinking about the future and negotiating my future salary– a topic discussed with Dawn Killenberg– I felt worried.  What if I’m not worth the price I ask for? What if I’m laughed at? What if my job is taken away from me?

All these questions may seem silly, but I called my mother, and she confessed that she has the same fears. She has negotiated dozens of salaries and raises from dozens of employers over her incredibly long and successful career. And yet, she fears what I fear. Is she worth the money? Is she asking for too much? Too little? What will they think of her?

I wonder if men experience these fears as women do. I wonder if, by-product of more and more women entering the workforce and negotiating for themselves, these fears will slowly become less ingrained in our minds. I hope so because I never want to make any less than a man, especially if he is equally or less qualified than me. But before these past few weeks, I hadn’t even considered, nor confronted, these fears that now seem ever present in my mind.

Maybe that is the real reward of the Bridge to Business program– learning valuable life skills that will help me in my future profession, like being able to confront my fears over negotiation, or balance a budget even though the black and white numbers make my vision swim and my brain hurt. I know I will be successful in marketing, or brand management, or social media, or whatever my specialty may be. But I know I will have to confront what I am less excellent at– that’s life, and that’s business.

The Bridge to Business program taught me that, and those lessons are valuable– more valuable than being assured that yes, I’m good at marketing and more valuable than reassuring me that I want an MBA. I knew those things before I enrolled in this program. But to learn to face your fears and try something new, and at the end of the day, still want to dress in a suit and go to work in an organization, trying to change the world or the marketplace, is something unique. And it is definitely unique to the Bridge to Business program.

Ma grande famille

J’ai une grande famille. En plus de ma mère et mon père, j’ai deux sœurs, deux frères, deux nièces, un neveu, et deux chiens! Décembre Dernière, toute ma famille a visité pour la fête des Lumières, Hanoucca! C’était bon de visite avec ma famille.

Pour Hanoucca, mon frère, Douglas, a voyagé de New York avec ma nièce, Ashley, et mon neveu, JJ. Je n’ai visité pas Douglas depuis longtemps. Il est plus âgé que moi. J’ai 21 ans, mais Douglas a 34 ans. Nous avons visité plus souvent avant j’ai quitter New York. Ma nièce, Ashley, a treize ans. Elle est très intelligente et elle aime écrit. Mon neveu, JJ, a sept ans. Il est un petit comédien!

Ma sœur, Bethany, visite de la Virginie, avec son mari, Tommy, et son bébé! J’aime visiter avec ma sœur parce que son bébé, Ava, a un an et elle est trop mignonne!  Elle est très amusante à regarder. Ava apprendre à parler et à marcher. Elle a de grands yeux bleus et des cheveux blonde. J’aime visiter avec Bethany, Tommy, et Ava beaucoup. Ava me rend très heureuse.

Mon frère, Harrison, a 24 ans. Il vit en Atlanta avec son chien, Max. Il a conduit d’Atlanta pour Hanoucca. Harrison travaille avec les ordinateurs, et il est très riche. Je l’aime, mais il me met en colère. Toutefois, il me fait rire aussi.

Ma petite sœur, Frances, a quatorze ans. Elle habite avec mes parents. Elle est une gymnaste. Dans son école, elle est très populaire. Elle a beaucoup ses amies. Elle est très dramatique. Nous nous battons, mais je l’aime.

Nous sommes restés à la maison de mes parents. Je vis avec mes parents quand je ne suis pas à l’école. Mes parents, Alan et Laura, sont très intelligents. Alan a son MBA. Laura a sa MBA aussi. Alan travaille pour l’institut de technologie de Géorgie, et Laura travaille pour l’université de Géorgie. Ils vivent à Athènes, en Géorgie.

Mon père, Alan, est juif, et ma mère, Laura, est catholique. Nous célébrons Noël et Hanoucca. J’aime quand nous sommes tous ensemble. Parfois, nous célébrons Hanoucca ensemble, et parfois nous célébrons Noël ensemble. Quand nous sommes ensemble, nous sommes bruyants et fous. Nous sommes comme un cirque! Ma famille m’énerve de temps en temps, mais je les aime!

In their usual restaurant, with their usual menus and their usual table, their usual waiter, in her black apron and loose tie, asked for their drink orders, Alan ordered waters, instead of their usual beers.

Laura was pregnant, which was not usual, and as they sat in that restaurant, waiting for their spaghetti with clam sauce, they discussed the name for their baby, soon to arrive, a little boy or girl who would change their lives forever.

This baby kicked incessantly and never seemed to stop moving. This baby who, even before seeing the light of day, was already a handful. This baby was a miracle, as, perhaps, all babies are, and his or her name was a point of contention between Alan and Laura. As, perhaps, all baby names are.

Alan wanted a boy named Harry. It made sense– his grandfather was a Harry, her grandfather was a Harry– they could kill two birds with one stone, and honor both of them with one kid. Laura hated the name Harry. Their son would be Harry Katz, and that was a kid waiting to be teased. Still, she relented.

Laura wanted a girl named Zoë. She loved the name ever since she was a teenager. Alan was against it– how could a computer ever type the two dots above the E? It wasn’t practical.

They were interrupted by a woman one table over. She turned in her chair, a smile on her face.

“I hate to interrupt,” She said, “but my daughter is named Zoe. And she is one of the most beautiful, vibrant, joyous girls to live. Zoe is a beautiful name– did you know it means life in Greek?”

So it was settled. They would name the baby Zoe– if they dropped the diacritic. And a few months later, Harrison John Katz was born.

Three years later, my parents finally got to use the name Zoe. To me, the name Zoe has always been so fitting, so beautiful, that I could never imagine anything else. But I nearly wasn’t Zoe– my parents had an entire other name picked out, for a boy who was never born. They had picked out such a meaningful name for my brother, that surely they would choose one equally as beautiful for their second son.

They chose Greg.

Greg.

Why the hell would they choose Greg? I didn’t know a single Greg. I had no uncles, nor grandfathers named Greg. I didn’t even know any strangers named Greg. To me, the name seemed so pedestrian, so dissimilar to the whimsy of Zoe, that it was almost offensive.

My brother had Zoe (Zoe!) as a backup. And I had Greg?

Even my sister, who was born six years after me, had two beautiful, meaningful given names. If she were a girl, she would be Frances, honoring my great-grandmother who passed away a few months before she was born. If she were a boy, she would be Noah, the leader of the ark, the forefather of Judaism, the man who entered into the first covenant with G-d.

But I had Greg.

Gregs do not change the world. Gregs do not make art, nor write symphonies, nor become president. There are no king Gregs. There are no statues to Gregs. Sure, there is plenty of beauty and honor in the name Gregory, but I wouldn’t be called Gregory. I would be called Greg.

Who would Greg Katz be? Would he be as comedic as I? As attention-seeking? A middle child, waiting for the spotlight, with a flair for the dramatic and an astounding ability to mismanage money? Would he be a good son? A good student? A good person? Or would he be as ordinary as his name?

Would the world be the same, if there was never a Zoe Katz in it?

Thankfully, I am not Greg Katz. Just as my sister is not Noah, nor is my brother Zoe. Just as you are not Will, or Anne, or Sonya, or James.

I am Zoe, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Eve, born of the Hellenization of the wandering Jews. A name, like Eve, is G-d-given, birthed from the ashes, fertilized in the soil of the garden of Eden. I am Zoe, and all the vibrancy and hope that name carries. I have grown into this immense, expressive name, the name of queens, of stars, of the mother of life itself. I am the humidity of the August day I was born. I am the laughter I cause, and the tears that I cry. I am the infinite sadness and optimism and multitudes that exist within me.

But somewhere, I am Greg. A name I once thought of as pedestrian. As boring. As unimportant. I am Greg, who, I learned, was my father’s best friend from college. Greg, who was just as full of life and laughter as I am today. A man that passed away, lymph-nodes cancerous and swollen, too young, taken before his time.

I am Zoe. But more importantly, I was almost Greg.

This essay was written for ENG-208, Intro to Non-Fiction Writing and was selected as an example of the best work in the class. The prompt was to write an essay about your name to introduce yourself to the class.