Slap In the Face

Slap In the Face" to a Young Job Seeker

I didn't read your letter closely (because I have thousands of unread messages in my in-box, as many people do nowadays, so always keep that in mind -- shorter is the most effective!), but I saw that you are looking for a job, and you asked for me to do the equivalent of pouring cold water on your head to get you moving in the right direction in your career.

I can do this, but please don't internalize any harshness in this letter -- or think that I'm trying to make you feel bad. (I hate doing that.) Instead, I'm going to tell you what many people will not bother because they don't want to get involved.And it's not personal. It's because we are all so slammed. Every single one of us. We think back on the days of college fondly. A test instead of 900 deadlines and meetings and new emails every hour? Where do I sign up?

Which isn't to say that many people (including me) don't absolutely love their jobs. But it is not always easy. Sometimes you will want to just curl up in your bed at the end of the day and consider moving to a remote island and seeing if there are any open positions in a rapidly expanding drug cartel as a low-level courier mule. Anything but the 9 to 5.

So know that you are not crazy if you think it seems hard. It is hard. It is lonely. It is humiliating. It is discouraging. It is harsh. But -- it is also an absolute thrill ride. And it makes the successes all that much more sweet.That's why it is all about framing. I had one friend who used to hang up her "bullets," or rejection letters on the wall as proud displays of where she had applied to and then gotten turned down from. Instead of holding that rejection shame inside and thinking she was a loser, she celebrated the hilarity of it and her audacity of trying.

She went for it! And 50 organizations turned her down until she found the right one. She went on to work for some of the top companies in the United States. Because she had a terrific attitude, and she saw her rejections as badges of honor.The thing to keep in mind -- that many people are probably too demoralized or burnt out or discouraged to tell you -- is that the reality of the working world today is that there are a lot less people doing a lot more work. This goes across every industry and in every city. Sure, there are some jobs that are still cush and relaxing and absolutely 9 to 5 in their nature, but I certainly don't know anyone who has one of those.

What does it mean to be a part of that? It means you need to be a hustler yourself rather than be an Entitled Young Person Who Expects the World to Be Handed to Her and Doesn't Recognize How Shit Works and Doesn't Anticipate and Doesn't Think Ahead and Doesn't Show Initiative and is an Overly Delicate Needy Flower and Displays Zero Deference to People Who Have Worked Their Asses Off and Has a Lousy Attitude to Boot.

The first question is a question that I always try to remind myself because it is a question that allows you to STFU when you are tempted to fall prey to your lesser qualities (of which I have many): bratty, bitchy, entitled, greedy, grubby, angry, bitter, resentful, self-pitying, arrogant, and so forth.

For me: I want to use writing and comedy to express truths about the human condition and to live a life filled with joy, passion, kindness, abundance, humor, honesty and love. That's my actual mission statement. That is what I want. So when someone pisses me off, when I am tempted to go down a K-hole of distraction, I can ask myself: Will this benefit what I actually want? Usually, no. That short-term reactivity often derails you from the bigger goal at hand.

The second question is the harder one. Are you demonstrating value in your interactions? Most of the time with young people, it is no.I had a young man the other day who I had given countless introductions regarding potential jobs and then I asked him if he would read an article to let me know if it could be useful to other young people. His response? "I'm a little busy right now."

Every day, at least once a day, tell someone how much you appreciate something about them or what they have done or what they are doing. Show willingness. Show positivity. Show gratitude. Know your place in the power structure of things. Don't play stupid mind games. Be authentic (but appropriate according to the scenario). Brighten people's day. Give them a genuine compliment. Because it is these genuine demonstrations of goodness that will show people that you are not a fairweather friend user opportunist nightmare.

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Humans tend to be such miserable, beaten-down creatures by virtue of the increasing amount of work that every person is expected to take on in the professional world today (and even if you love your job, it's still a helluva lot more than it ever was decades ago), that giving someone a genuine pat on the back or telling them a kind word can make a world of difference.

And when that person then IS in a position to help (sidenote: you'll be surprised at the people you know now who will later blow up; I have several friends who were buds with Ed Helms when he started in the industry, and very few thought he would be the A-lister later on, which is not a slag, but seriously, you really never know), you will have been the person who was there all along.

Look at your day. If you spend the majority of it shitting on other people -- in a nonconstructive way -- and complaining and bemoaning and focusing on what is going wrong and G-chatting things like "Sigh" to your friends in a pity-party-loop and generally focusing on all that is wrong and how hard life is, then guess what: You are addicted to your misery.

And so on. Yeah, I know I am annoying and aggressive and boasting and maybe you'd rather do any profession as long as it didn't lead you to seeming like the narcissistic self-congratulatory workaholic I am presenting myself as here. But you don't need to be AS aggro as me. Think about how it might relate to YOU.The next time you are tempted to write someone like me to ask them for advice, sure, do it if you like, but also think about this. You live in the age of Google and social media. Literally anything is available at your fingertips.

It's funny because a lot of people think I have some secret to reporting skills because I would uncover things at The Post that others would not find. Most of the time I did not possess some great secret. I was just like a dog with a bone in knowing that it had to be out there. I kept looking and looking and looking. All I did was Google. I would think the way that something might exist and then I would find it.

Do you want to connect with other members of your alma mater? Here's how I would do that. I would Google (if you were me, since this is where I went to school) things like "during my time at Northwestern," "loved Northwestern," "undergrad at Northwestern," or if I wanted to be a blogger and find other ones, "successful blogger" and "Northwestern."

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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