Hello everyone.
The other day I wrote a diary about my first job in a year, a diary which surprisingly rocketed to the top of the rec list. I am still glowing from both getting the job and receiving so much support from this community. In fact, you guys were so supportive I ended up blubbering like a fool more than once, so thanks for that.
In that diary, I said that I had learned a great deal that would pay dividends for the rest of my life, and I would like to share what I learned from my yearlong ordeal. Not everything I write below will make sense to everyone, and some of my writings may come across as somewhat strange. But with any luck you could use some of the lessons I've learned in your daily lives and hopefully you can provide some of your unique insights to add to this conversation.
Perhaps this diary comes across as too self-centered; if it does I apologize. Please know that I wrote it in the hopes that we can all learn from one another and cope during these difficult and stressful times.
Anyway, follow me below the fold if you would like.
Before getting the interview for the company I will be working for, I thought long and hard about how different strategies for approaching interviews, work and life in general. Here are just a few things I have learned, in no particular order.
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Applying for a job is remarkably similar to beginning a relationship. In both cases, I needed to calm the hell down.
After I screwed up a few interviews and did a post-screwup-analysis, I noticed there was a remarkable parallel between the feelings of a first date and a first interview. In both cases, I tend to talk waaaaay too much and suck the oxygen out of the room. I am reminded of the song, "Hold On Loosely" by .38 Special that says:
Hold on loosely
but don't let go
if you squeeze too tightly
you're gonna lose control.
Your baby (boss) needs someone to believe in
and a whole lotta space to breathe in.
Fortunately I was able to calm down for this interview because I had back-to-back interviews with two different companies; much like dating two interesting women and feeling both desired and desirable, I was able to settle my nerves and conduct the interview in a calm and rational manner.
In both dating and interviewing, I also tend to be overly-anxious and want to share how so very wonderful I am with the other person and ZOMG you just have to hire/date me because Goodness Gracious I'd be so perfectly awesome as a partner/employee and please please please love and accept me because I am great and then Yayness For Everyone! Both in dating and in jobs, people don't want overly-anxious applicants; they want someone who is level-headed, confident and can handle pressure. Getting overly-giddy does not convey such qualities.
During this particular interview, instead of talking about how wonderful I am, I listened intently and asked many questions. I tried to determine exactly what the company's needs were and was straight-forward with them about my work history and skills, both good and bad. In fact, at the end of the interview I even told the guy I was fired from my previous position, noting that it was just a bad fit and that there was no animosity between my previous employer and me. Since I have lived in China and my new boss is from Asia, I had a hunch that he would appreciate my honesty because Asians tend to be relationship-based and value honesty in the people beneath them. He even explicitly thanked me for telling the truth, thus turning a negative into a positive. So if you were fired from a job, it's not the end of the world, and you can even use it to your advantage.
I tend to give up on jobs too easily; instead of leaving, I need to be more proactive in my approach.
Just like in a relationship, there is no such thing as a perfect job; there are only varying degrees of compatibility. In both cases it is very easy to get swept up in the thrill of the first few months, but once the routine settles in you start to notice certain things that creep under your skin. From here on in, I absofrigginlutely will not let these little -- and sometimes big -- annoyances cloud my life. To be perfectly honest, at the age of 34 I have never held a job for more than 2 years. It sounds crazy, but as soon as I noticed things that I didn't like in a job I would jump ship. If this job really becomes unbearable, I have resolved to stay within the company (they are a huge, well-branded firm) and try other internal opportunities instead of leaving. As it turns out, the work/relationship parallel does not follow here. While I tend to leave jobs way too quickly, I tend to stay in relationships way too long (current relationship excluded, naturally), a topic suited for another diary at another time.
Keep the personal stuff personal and the professional stuff professional. Call it the Wall of Separation Between Me and Work.
Bosses don't much care for people with chaotic home-lives. They don't want drama or trauma, they want results. I tend to overdramatize things openly. That is not a prescription for career success and I have to somehow calm my nerves in this category. Any advice you guys can offer in this would be most appreciated.
$3 per day = $1000 per year. Starbucks and Jamba Juice are too expensive to enjoy daily, especially when I can take a trip to Paris instead.
I have been way too eager to spend my money needlessly in the past; since I have no more savings I have to start from scratch, and I have resolved to buy such frivolous items on special occasions.
For reasons other than financial, I quit coffee -- again -- about 8 months ago. After suffering through intense withdrawl symptoms, I realized that Starbucks is just too expensive to enjoy on a regular basis. Instead of getting a Single-Double-Whipped-Frappa-Dappa-Doo at 182.74 degrees with two and a half shots of Squirty-Whooty-Dootys for $4.95, I have resolved to make such beverages at home.
In my case, since I quit coffee, I will make herbal tea at home and in the office. An herbal tea at Starbucks costs around $1.80. I can get a whole box of gourmet loose leaf tea for less than $5 which will last for some two weeks. $1.80 may not sound like much, but I could save some $700 annually by not buying that stuff at Starbucks.
Along these lines, Jamba Juice is another deceptively expensive habit. If I really want a smoothie, I cut up and freeze a banana and blend in some orange juice. That is a surprisingly tasty smoothie and it costs a whole lot less than Jamba's $4 Whippy-Shakey-Thingy. $4 per day is over $1300 per year, and figured out that a daily Whippy-Shakey-Thingy is roughly the same price as a Paris vacation. And would lead a smaller gut too. Doesn't seem like much of a choice, now does it?
Being a tad ADD is tough, but I've learned to use it to my advantage.
My brain works at 1,000 miles per hour. Sometimes I will be working on a project and suddenly something springs to mind, at which point I stop working to Google that thing. Then I find a Wiki page which links me somewhere else. Before I know it, I am examining the scientific intricacies of Voltron and the philosophical implications of Forming a Blazing Sword from nothing, wondering about how they could turn nothing into energy into matter. Then I research deeply disturbing questions, like, where does the Blazing Sword go when they're done killing the Robeast du jour? What about conservation of matter? Are there a whole bunch of used Blazing Swords laying around, or do they turn it back to energy and make it disappear again? And speaking of cartoons and physics, how does Megatron, a 25-foot tall robot, transform into a hand pistol? And where does the ammo get stored? Those Energon Cubes are huge!
Crap, there I go again. See what I mean?
This approach has directly impacted my work. In fact, it is part of the reason I lost my last job. Fortunately, I devised a strategy to turn this negative into a positive with an ADD notebook. Every time something pops in my head, I write it down and come back to it later. So if I wanna check Huffpo or Kos, instead of jumping to it in the middle of my work, I write it in my ADD notebook and come back to it later. Simply writing it down satisfies my ADD cravings, thus keeping me on track. And when I take a break, I look at my ADD book, spend a few minutes researching what I wrote down and then I go back to work. (Oh yeah, and I have resolved to check every piece of correspondence three times before sending it. This takes more time, but it eliminates errors which could cost the company, and my reputation, a lot.)
Sure, we ADD types can be annoying at times but we can also be very creative and useful, if our unique gifts are channeled properly. Indeed, harnessing that creativity in a work environment can be very powerful and rewarding. I have found that writing down my ideas and coming back to them later allows me to focus on my tasks while adding real value through my outside-the-box thinking.
Be more optimistic -- the world has beaten my inherent optimism out of me. I need to reclaim my inner optimist.
I am by nature an optimist and tend to believe that people are good. But by nurture I am a pessimist and now assume most people suck. This inner conflict has created a great deal of stress, as I have found myself relentlessly focusing on the negatives in my life while ignoring my many blessings. Before I got this job interview, I decided to acknowledge my unemployment but not let it dominate my personality anymore. Instead, I now take a few minutes every day and count my many blessings: my girlfriend, my friends, (most of) my family, my amazing life with experiences most people could never imagine, my strong communication skills... there are many things to be thankful for, and I let the one bad thing in my life -- unemployment -- overshadow all of this.
There will always be troubles and difficulties, and I will always have something to complain about. But I now refuse to allow these negative events dominate my existence and thus skew my perspective. Instead I will try to keep all of these things in the proper context, counting my blessings while acknowledging the challenges I face without letting those challenges dominate my personality. Hopefully this will make me a more pleasant person to be around and a more effective itrapreneur (see below).
I will be an entrepreneur in my new firm... an intrapreneur if you will.
After losing my last job, I tried consulting on my own. I found limited success in this, in spite of running around and promoting my consulting services to everyone imaginable. So instead of viewing myself as an employee, I would like to envision myself as an intrapreneur, adding value to the organization by using all of my unique strengths to my best advantage. Luckily this new position will likely allow me to use these skills since they need outside-the-box thinkers to do their strategic planning. With any luck I will have the chance to apply my skills in ways they never imagined.
For instance, during the interview they said their department does not have a communications infrastructure; since I have experience in developing and deploying comprehensive strategic communication plans, I hope to take the initiative to develop such a strategy, thus adding outside-the-box value to their bottom line. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself in terms of the specifics, but the point remains: I'll try to be intrapreneurial in my future work endeavors to keep interest and excitement high.
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Certainly this list will expand as time goes on, and by no means is it complete. And of course some of you won't be able to relate to lots of what I talked about here. But as I said earlier, I hope that we can all teach each other new strategies for our work and daily lives.
I start my new job in about 1.5 weeks; if you are interested I'd be thrilled to post more diaries about my experiences there. Again, please please please offer any suggestions about creating a good work and life perspective. Thanks for reading.