Sita Sings Some Awesome Blues

I screened Nina Paley's Sita Sings The Blues last week on a borrowed projector to a group of friends.

The movie is, essentially, awesome; lovely animation, clever storytelling, vivid imagery. I have to admit, though, that part of it made me a bit jealous; Paley was selling an idea that I had tried for years to sell to various theatre faculty: the idea of telling a story "traditionally," then stopping and re-telling the major emotional moment of the story through music/movement.

"No," they said, "it's too intellectual."

I should have taken up animation.



Dear Nina Paley, you share my artistic sensibilities. I shopped this idea for years, storyboarded it, but could never get anyone to believe that someone would want to watch a few minutes of story (what happened "in real life") spliced with a few minutes of music (what happened "emotionally"). I staged a performance and was told, a week before it opened, to take all of the music parts out.

I'm so glad you made this film.

Oh, and I'm even more glad that you drew this particular cartoon:




That's part of the reason why I changed career paths--everyone told me I was thinking too much. I like being somewhere, now, where I can think as much as I want!

(Yes, as promised, I did send Sita a donation.)

Checking the "Conference" Box

Today I registered for a conference. I'm not sure if it's the best conference in the world (the seminars sound interesting, but the online reviews aren't great), but there ought to be at least one or two solid takeaways I can bring back to my job. So cross your fingers that my first dip into the world of professional development turns out well!

I also... um... had six inches cut off of my hair. At least six. I hadn't planned on doing it, but I had just signed up for cooking classes and registered for this conference and gotten new adjustments in my yoga class and I was running around the office managing an event this afternoon and at one point I saw how disheveled I looked, with my eighteen-odd inches of hair shoved out of my face by two bobby pins, and I thought "this is not the image of success I want to portray."

And yes, it is completely lame that I actually thought the phrase "image of success," but I went out immediately after work and asked one of Dupont Circle's nice young gay salon artists to please make me over, and he did.

I guess that's what writing out New Year's goals will do to you. (I wonder what crazy thing I will do next?)

Not A Soap

Thirty seconds ago, this was going to be a very different post.

To wit: today we all got Christmas presents on behalf of our office. What was really neat was that everybody got a different thing. Some people got gourmet cookies, some people got a CD, etc. When I opened my present, I squee-ed with excitement because underneath the wrapping paper was... a bag of scented soaps!

I was so thrilled that I immediately went to the person who had given all the gifts, and thanked this person effusively and with much gratitude for giving me this bag of soaps, because they were so pretty and I love soap! and what a great present!

And I was going to write a blog post about how fun it was to get some soap after I spent so much time blogging that I wasn't going to give any soap because I am the only person who actually gets excited over soap.

But first, of course, I had to take the soaps out of their little bag.

When I undid the (to my credit, moderately opaque) wrapping, I discovered that all the colorful little square-shaped bars of soap had wicks in them.

They were candles.

Part of me wants to imagine that the person who gave me these candles gave out enough presents that maybe, when I came in to thank her for the soap, she might have believed that she actually gave me soap (especially because I thanked her with such genuine excitement), but the kind of person who would take the time to give a personalized present to everyone in the office isn't the kind of person who forgets who got what.

In short, I made an idiot of myself today. (On the plus side, I got some pretty candles.)

Smart = Social (And Other Fun Things About My Job)

Now that I have a job I like, with people I like, my social calendar has much improved. Have been invited to post-work fun three nights out of the possible five. So... yeah, haven't blogged so much lately. :P

I suppose I keep waiting for the "other shoe" to drop. The truth is, this job is completely 100% amazing. There are so many things that are great about it, including the fact that they're giving me time to expand and improve my mad skillz. I'm all about the learning.

So I'm a bit afraid that something's going to happen and it'll all get taken away from me. I've got a bit of the ol' impostor syndrome, and part of my brain gets thrown away every day on "what if the economy goes under and they can't afford to keep me?!" (Or worse: "What if I did something wrong that I didn't know was wrong and they fire me?!!!")

That kind of thinking usually happens at night, after I've gone home. At work itself, I don't worry about it because I'm too busy working and being awesome.

Seriously, though. Every day I go in and think "how did I get to be this lucky?" I go early and stay late and don't want to leave. I am surrounded by brilliant people and I get to work towards a really cool product. It could have turned out so differently.

I'm so glad it didn't.

Stealing from XKCD and the Discovery Channel

I love my mornings
I love my Metro ride
I love my building
And all of the stuff inside

I love the whole world
Because I love my job. ^__^

Boom de yada, etc.

I love my style sheet
I love my spreadsheets, too
I love Oxford commas
They make flags red, white, and blue

I love the whole world
'Cause my co-workers rock.

(For serious. We have an X-Files club.)

Boom de yada, etc.

I love Ann Taylor
I love Ann Taylor Loft
Though it's undeniably and ridiculously crappy
I even love Microsoft

I love the whole world
Especially because of that dude who said all the buildings can't be higher than the Capitol Building, so when I go outside, I can actually see the sky, and so it's like the world is right there!

Boom de yada, etc.

I love fake bento
I make in my Tupperware
I love my candy dish
'Cause I love having stuff to share

I love the whole world
This place is freakin' sweet!

I Have A Job! (And It's A Really Good One...)

I have a job.

At a think tank.

And it's really, really good...

It's almost unbelievable, and I feel more than a bit lucky, because I wasn't ever expecting to get a job this good. Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be "I was hoping I might find something this good, but was prepared to settle for far less."

The interview was the most amazing interview I'd ever had. Again, it's that idea of fit; it was probably the only interview I've ever had where I felt like I didn't have to hide who I was -- or my unusual background! (Turns out I'm not the only person at this organization with an "unusual" background.)

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because I want to set a precedent early on of not actually blogging about my job. (I want to keep the job, after all!) But here's what's worth knowing:

1. The research this think tank does is perfectly aligned with my values/interests. This, for me, is huge. It makes such a difference to be working at a place where I'm really jazzed about the product.

2. The job itself will be challenging and interesting and exciting.

3. The job has the potential to start a career. This is also huge. I think I expected to get a "sort of okay" job at a "sort of okay" company and work there for a year or two before I could level up to a better job at a better company. But this job is the real deal. At the interview, the think tank people talked to me about what could happen in "the future," given my potential and the needs of the organization. I like their theoretical career path.

4. As soon as I get my first paycheck, I won't be poor anymore. ^__^

5. The people I'll be working with are so smart. ^__^

A For-Real Interview!

I have an interview for a job on Monday.

At a think tank.

^__^

From this post:

So I called my sis to ask about life in DC, and what kind of opportunities would be available to me.

And she talked about what she was doing at work, and what her friends were doing, and then she said the sentence that clinched the deal: "... and with your skill set, we might be able to get you an entry-level job in a think tank."

Which she had to immediately follow up with "Hey! I said might!"

A Caveat To The Below

I've had enough people PM me to say "don't be an idiot, you have to tailor your responses to the job being offered, e.g. if the job is all-filing-all-the-time then you say I filed this, and this, and then my supervisor gave me more things to file!"

I know that. ^__^

The mock interview wasn't, at least to my understanding, for any particular type of position.

Which is probably where I went wrong in the first place. When the agent said "we're going to run a mock interview," I should have responded with "what's the position I'm testing my interview strategies on?"

^__^

The Other Thing The Agent Told Me

After our mock interview, my newest career agent sat me down.

"Look," she said, "I've got some admin and EA positions I could try and plug you in for. But... I don't think they'd be right for you in the long run. Sure, you could do the work, but you're an intellectual-type, and you would do best in an intellectual job."

Then she looked at me.

"Have you ever considered being an editor at a law firm?"

Fo shizz she said that.

Turns out she had an admin-editing position at a law firm she wanted me to interview for. And I started bouncing up and down on my chair with excitement, all "OMG you wouldn't believe it but I did this thing with the proofreaders' books and spent all weekend learning about how to do this and it's just the kind of thing I've always been looking for etc. etc. etc."

The interview, with the firm itself, was set for lunch, the next day (e.g. tomorrow).

Late this afternoon, I got a call. Turns out the firm had just decided to hire someone else.

So I went from very excited to very disappointed.

Still, something to consider; that this agent was just able to look at me and say "this is where you fit."

^__^

Counterintuitive Interview Advice

I met today with an "upper-level" staffing agency (a staffing agency to the stars!), which specializes not in any-old placement, but in placing people in the best of all possible jobs.

Part of the longish "get to know you" process was a mock interview.

The agent asked me what I had done at my last job.

I said that I had started out doing what could be considered traditional admin work, e.g. filing, scheduling, phone screening, and then my employer "discovered my talents" and put me to work writing, editing, creating promotional copy, etc.

The agent said "You've just talked me out of wanting to hire you."

She asked me to try a different question. Picking another job from my resume, she asked me what I enjoyed best about this particular experience.

I said that I had really enjoyed the amount of responsibility I was given by my supervisor; he had let me single-handedly manage an unclaimed property search in which I called unclaimed property representatives in all 50 states and negotiated for over $13,000 in funds to be returned to the company in the space of a month-and-a-half. I finished up with how much I enjoyed getting to work independently on such a complicated project.

And she said "You've just talked me out of hiring you again."

She explained that when people staff entry-level jobs, they want candidates who are excited to do an entry-level job. "When you say that an employer discovered your talents and moved you on to something beyond making schedules and answering the phones, you tell me that you're not interested in making schedules and answering the phones. When you say you liked working independently on a complicated project, you make me wonder if you're not a team player."

She told me that the way to get an entry-level job was to only express interest in the job itself. Don't mention anything you've done in the past that isn't one of the requirements of the current job. Don't let them think you want "more" than the job requirements.

I asked her if there was ever a time to mention additional skills, either in terms of value-add or in terms of (as I had done in the first example) going "above and beyond" the original job requirements.

"Ah," she said, smiling. "That's the biggest mistake recent graduates make. They're all so accomplished, just like you, and so they want to tell employers all of the great things they've done. But to an employer, that sounds like a person who doesn't want to pay her dues. It sounds like they're saying I'm a recent graduate, where's my corner office?"

It seems to contradict other kinds of advice, (after all, every other interview guide I've read has said that the "I did XYZ, and then my supervisor saw I could handle the job and added ABC" answer is a great way to show employers that you are capable of learning-adapting-performing-giving back value), but I'll gladly change my interview style if it helps me get a job.

Has anyone ever given any of y'all this kind of advice?

More on "Fit"

So Gaurav, who has gone off-consumption, linked me to an article by Po Bronson titled "What Should I Do With My Life?"

Interesting reading, in the middle of a job search. Especially in the middle of a search where I feel like I'll have to take the first job that is offered, simply because I can't really afford not to.

Mr. Bronson, who rivals Studs Terkel in his continual assessment of the working world, does a variant of the old "follow-your-bliss" argument: he proposes that if everyone were able to find careers that aligned with their strengths and interests, workers would be happier and productivity and profits would skyrocket.

We are sitting on a huge potential boom in productivity -- if we could just get the square pegs out of the round holes.

He also writes:

Our economy is so vast that we don't have to grind it out forever at jobs we hate. For the most part, we get to choose.

This I find a little hard to believe because I know a lot of people who hate their jobs, and a lot of other people who wish they could be doing something different but can't find another alternative willing to hire them. (I know a lot of twentysomethings, which may be why my statistics are skewed.)

Still, he makes his point. Workers who get to use their strengths are happier. Happy workers work harder/better. Better work (should) equal more profits. Everybody wins!

At the beginning of my job search, I defined the career path I wanted as follows:

I'm not necessarily looking for a job in the fine arts, despite my degree. My goal is to find an admin or entry-level position in an organization which will allow me to use my analytical/writing skills. These seem to be the two biggest assets I have to offer an organization, and are also the parts of my current work which I find the most interesting.

With the entry-level job in hand, I'll begin to learn more about the internal structure of the organization, determine where my skill set could be most useful (and where I need to fill in the gaps in my education), and prepare myself for an eventual move up or a lateral move out.

Which means, at this point, that I'm not focusing on getting a job in a particular industry (e.g. "I want a career at a publishing house"). I'm looking at a variety of possibilities and am hoping to find an opportunity.

That's still the kind of job I hope to find. The interesting question, of course, is "what happens if I don't find it?"

I've already written a little about the idea of "fit" and how I can already tell whether or not I would fit well into a particular company. Here's the kicker: about a week ago I learned that one of my staffing agencies had submitted my resume for an entry-level editing position at a law firm. When I learned that I might be interviewing for that job (and that the interview would include an editing test), my heart quite literally leapt.

I also started "pre-working" for the job; taking editing tests online, getting books about proofreaders' marks, learning how legal documents were different from other kinds of documents, etc. All of this "work" was way-super-fun-awesome.

The law firm, unfortunately, told the staffing agency that they would only interview candidates with previous legal editing experience, so I didn't get my chance to meet them or take the editing test. Still, it was an example of a job description that felt right; that used my strengths and abilities to their best effort and that, for me, was less work than play.

So, Mr. Bronson and Mr. Mishra, there you have it. I know where I fit! I know what I want!

Now someone just help me figure out a way to get there!

Smart

I follow the whole Brazen Careerist saga the way some people follow Paris Hilton. It's so outrageously pompous it's ridiculous, and at the same time... delicious.

Today, blogger Adam Miller writes that one can achieve primo decision-making skills (and career success) by reframing all queries around a single "yardstick" word:

Each time you find yourself trying to make a larger decision, this can serve as the yardstick by which you measure it’s alignment with how you’d like to live your life. For example, if you were thinking that your yardstick would be “balance”, each time you’re setting a goal in your life, you can refer back and ask yourself, “Does this improve my balance?” For each project you might be starting, ask, ‘Does this project help me work towards my yardstick?”

The funny thing is, as soon as I read that post, I knew what my "yardstick" was.

Smart.

Smart people, smart job, smart clothing. (Sorry, am appearance-obsessed. There's this suit I saw at Macy's that I literally dream about at night.)

When I was in Minneapolis, stuffing envelopes for the insurance company, I got invited to a party. It was being given by one of my students in a continuing education class (I was teaching an Intro to Acting course at MCTC). The young man hosting the party was my age, but he had gone into journalism and was now working an entry-level job at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Most of the other people at that party were his (entry-level) colleagues; but unlike the people I saw daily at the envelope-stuffing job, these people were smart. Clever. Entertaining. And they also had smart clothing.

I left the party wondering what would have happened had I gone into journalism, instead of theatre.

There are plenty of "smart" jobs in DC, and loads of smart people. I need-want-hope-desperately-wish to find them.

The hard part is that I see them, every day. We've had a week of beautiful sunny afternoons, and so every day on my lunch break, I go and walk around the parks scattered within the DC business district.

And every day I see, scattered on the lawns of these parks, smart young people in smart clothing eating smartly-packed lunches and enjoying (no doubt) smart conversation.

The job I'm temping at right now has a "come-as-you-are" dress code, and so I slink around the edges of the parks in the same old things I wore as a graduate student.

The job I'm temping at right now will not get me where I want to be.

I don't know how to get myself into that job/that suit/that park bench/that conversation.

Adam Miller would tell me to frame everything around the query "does this get me closer towards smart?"

I would tell Adam Miller that the first step is figuring out how to find a question that will equal the answer yes.

Broke Dinner

I am officially out of cash.

Since I'm temping now, I'll get paid next Friday... but I've heard stories of how in "real cities" when you take a check to the bank, either

A. they won't cash it

or

B. even if you use the check to open an account, they'll put a hold on your money for, like, two weeks or something.

So for all intents and purposes, I am broke and will continue to be so for... a while.

Dinner tonight was (frozen) potatoes cooked with (frozen) spinach and (canned) black beans, in the usual round of spices: mustardseed, cumin, chili pepper, ginger, and garlic.

Not bad, though not particularly great, and the black beans seemed to turn everything gray-colored.

Definitely a broke person's dinner. ^__^

On the super-plus side, I'm shortlisted for another job I really want. I get to go next week and take an editing test, which means it's time to dust off the old proofreaders' marks. Unless they're going to have me take it on a computer with Track Changes. Has anyone taken an editing test in the past year or so?


(Now I'm going to sit and agonize about whether it should be "proofreader's marks," e.g. the marks used by a proofreader," or "proofreaders' marks," e.g. "the marks used by all proofreaders." ^__^ Google says both choices are valid.)

Fit

I've been on a handful of interviews since I started my job search; some on the phone, and some in person. One of the key points I mention in these interviews (about the time the interviewer asks something like "why theatre? and why are you looking for a job that isn't in the theatre?") is this:

"I grew up in a Midwestern town with 2,500 people. Growing up, there were four job choices: you could farm, you could teach, you could work at the bank, or you could work at the local Dollar General or gas station. But my hometown also had a community theatre. That was my favorite place to be, and that's what prompted me to study theatre directing.

While I was in school, of course, I started taking on administrative jobs to help pay the bills. What I found was that I was very good at this work, and in fact was more successful at it than I was at being an artistic blah-blah theatre director. The clincher came when I began working at the XYZ position for X organization, and realized that I was more interested in that work, and was spending much more time on that work, than I was on my theatre productions."

Because of my background, I find myself coming to this job search with what feels like limited information. When a staffing agent asked me "do you feel most comfortable in a small, mid-sized, or large company," I could only respond "Where I come from, everything was small! So I'm eager to try them all, and explore whatever opportunities you have for me."

In other words, the idea of "fit" was less of a concern than the idea of "getting my foot in a door."

But I've gone on a handful of interviews since I started my job search (some over the phone, some in-person) and what I've found out is that there are places where the fit feels "right," and places where the fit feels uncomfortable.

One place I interviewed with felt absolutely right; opportunities to use my skill sets, plenty of exciting challenges, interesting colleagues, etc. (I'm really-really-really hoping they hire me.)

Another place I interviewed with was such a strange fit that the HR manager said, at one point, "you know, you're coming off as extremely qualified and professional and you're giving great responses to all of these questions, but I don't feel like the person I'm talking to is really who you are."

Which is true. I spent most of the interview thinking please don't hire me, because I would be very unhappy here and then I'd have to leave the job after a year which wouldn't do your company any good.

Which is weird. I'm still in the mindset of "I should be grateful to get any job," and so realizing that I wouldn't be happy at a particular place makes me feel a little guilty.

The crux of the matter is this: I got second-round interviews at both the place I really really like (and really really really hope they hire me), and the place where I know I would be unhappy. I declined the second-round interview at the latter company, explaining that I didn't want to waste their time.

And now I'm all "OMG, what if that was the only place who would ever hire me ever and I just said no???"

That's, really, the crux of this post. ^__^

(Also: how do you get a company you really really like to be 100% sure to hire you?)

Blue Rates Bunko: Manga, Millennials, and Daniel Pink's Six Career Lessons

Today I read The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need. I sincerely hoped it was the only career guide I would ever need, because being able to rely on a tiny manga that takes only 15 minutes to read would be a huge timesaver.

Johnny Bunko is the latest offering by Daniel Pink, previous author of A Whole New Mind, which posited that creativity would soon be the new workplace currency and that MFAs would soon be more valuable than MBAs. (Hey, I have a MFA!)

Johnny Bunko is the story of a young man who once dreamed of being a graphic artist (well, either that or a video game designer), but who got bullied into an accounting major by his father. When the book begins, Johnny is stuck in some kind of entry-level accounting job, but he's so bad at what he does that all mistakes made throughout the office have been nicknamed "Bunkos."

Johnny's also miserable. He doesn't want his life to be like this. Then he opens a magical pair of chopsticks and Belldandy pops out! No, wait. Diana. Sorry about that.

Diana gives Johnny and his friends six magical pieces of career advice which helps Johnny (but not his friends) advance in 30 days from his entry-level grunt job to a mid-level creative position in the marketing department (with promise of exciting travel around the world!). However, the real reason Johnny lands this plum position isn't because of the career advice (he is a bit of an idiot, and screws up every piece of advice until Diana patiently corrects him), but because Diana hacks the corporation's computer system and inserts Johnny's name into the marketing position.

Which only goes to prove that the true career lesson from this book is It's not how good you are; it's who you know.

What are the six pieces of career advice? (They're already all over the internet, so I don't feel guilty about sharing.)

1. There is no plan.

That's pretty obvious, or should be, although Diana's take on it is a little more interesting: she tells Johnny that since all careers are equally likely to leave you burnt out and/or laid off, might as well stack the deck by following your passions!

2. Think strengths, not weaknesses.

This one was the most interesting and is probably the biggest takeaway from the book. The idea is that you should focus all your energy on developing your strengths, since that's what will become your brand and get you promoted. It's an interesting perspective.

Johnny, on the other hand, spends way too much time trying to understand spreadsheets (which seems to be his biggest weakness) and Diana has to smack him. What's his biggest talent? Drawing. So that's what he has to focus on!

3. It's not about you.

And then Johnny goes and presents a typical young-male drawing of a half-naked babe with a flaming sword to his brand-new marketing manager. Why? 'Cause that's what he draws the best.

This lesson seems to have been written directly for Millennials. I learned that it wasn't about me at my first summer job (which involved a lot of lugging around giant sacks of birdseed, and pouring said birdseed into individually-priced jugs). But "kids these days" don't get jobs like that, or at least not the ones with Johnny's issues.

4. Persistence trumps talent.

Pink throws a nod to the "MFAs are better than MBAs" theory by having Diana state that musicians and athletes are nearly always successful at whatever career they choose because they have learned the value of practice and persistence.

I'll buy that. ^__^

5. Make excellent mistakes.

It's impossible for me to think of this lesson without invoking Bill and/or Ted, so I'll leave it at that.

Oh, and Johnny learns an important lesson about screwing over your supervisor: don't.

6. Leave an imprint.

This one's interesting. Johnny has the opportunity to relocate overseas with his supervisor Lakshmi, and his instinct is to stay where he is because he likes it here and it's where all his friends are. Then Diana shows up and lays the smacketh down: go, Johnny, go, Johnny, go go go to the place where you can do the most good!

I suppose the implication is that "it's not about you" extends into your personal life, or that Johnny is an idiot for passing up the chance to travel and share his talents globally.

We don't find out what Johnny chooses. I'm sure we're meant to think that he packs up and follows Lakshmi to places unknown. (I'd probably make that choice too.) But part of me really wants him to say "You know what, Diana? Part of what helps me be successful at work is the fact that I like where I live. So bug off!"