Stacee Reicherzer

When I ran, screaming, from corporate America nine years ago, I swore that there were things I’d never want to see or do again. I wanted no part of organizational management- away with the flowcharts, spreadsheets, and silly buzzwords that we euphemistically used: “push-back” to refer to a major system of conflict between two people, for example. I envisioned becoming invested in the transgender liberation struggle as a counselor, working with clients to tackle significant problems in living directly.

In the years since I entered my undergraduate studies in human services, through graduate school and into the present day, family stuff (italics added here for emphasis) has always been a fascinating thing to examine. Encountering counseling theories was like a treasure trove- “that’s so why she does that when my mother’s around!” and we won’t even talk about the riches the DSM revealed.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the interesting experience of sharing with both clients and research participants articles that I’d written about them. Working in LGBT counseling agencies with beautifully unique client experiences, I’ve asked a few of my clients, as we were concluding the work, how they’d feel about having a description of our work shared with other professionals via a journal article. Within this, I include a lengthy description of confidentiality and how it would be maintained, the use of an alias, etc. They have all generously agreed to this. One of the things I appreciate the most about counseling in the LGBT community is the spirit of helping others that pervades.

I really appreciate when I have the good fortune to stumble on a professional opportunity that blows my expectations out of the water. I tend to have high expectations, a trait that has had led to inevitable disappointments in life. I think that over the years, I have learned to curb a bit of that an approach things from a perspective that I’d like to think is more Zen-like.

I have to begin this week’s blog entry by explaining that I’m a union gal of old, having become a steward with the Communication Workers of America shortly after beginning my first career in telecommunications. Through those times, as well as in my later phone company years as a manager, I came to understand and respect the give and take that came from having a collective bargaining unit (our union) in assuring that the company’s logical goals of profitability were made with account given to the rights and needs of the workers who were building that profit.