Definition of Unemployment

Photo Credit: Jaboney @ Flickr

If it were up to you – would you really work for a living? That’s a funny phrase. Working for a living. What’s that mean nowadays when so many people are living to work to survive?

Right now, I’m marginally attached to the workforce. I work weird hours (when I want to) and participate in volunteer projects at my leisure. No, I’m not independently wealthy. But, I don’t consider myself to be unemployed. Instead, maybe I’m “semi-retired.” While most of my out of work colleagues won’t feel the same way about unemployment like I do, I feel that semi-retiredness is out of necessity, not out of choice.

Presently, I can spend a lot of my time looking for jobs I truly want.  I’m not beholden to my 45 minute “lunch hour.” I can be flexible with people I want to connect (and network) with. It’s not ideal. I won’t say that some days aren’t especially tough for me. And, when you spend months and years being productive (for someone else), it’s hard to have it come to an abrupt stop or (for you lucky few) have it become cut in half.

There are lots of questions behind how to fill your unemployed hours of the day. I think the simple stigma of unemployment is that you will run out of money. And, since you are not working, it feels you aren’t doing something meaningful, productive and responsible.

You, nonetheless, never run out responsibilities. You have rent, mortgage, kids, spouses, sicknesses, habits to supply and misdeeds to fund – anything, everything. But, even if you had a job, those responsibilities won’t disappear. You still have student debt to pay and groceries to buy. Money only makes handling that stuff easier.

It doesn’t necessarily make anything any better. Yet, people sometimes insist on narrowly placing meaning on the activities they do for 8 hours a day in an office. But, meaningfulness is not merely created in a cube or a vacuum or a job or a work title.

It’s more alive than that. It’s 3-dimensional and fluid. It requires 3 million bits of ideas and all of them breathe from the life you live. So, the time you spend being productive while not working demonstrates just as much (if not more) about meaningfulness than the time you spend being productive on the job (for someone else).

As a semi-retiree, I like to think that my professional “pauses” are my respites. Whether I needed them or not. Whether I wanted them or not. I can’t do much about the state of the economy and the job losses except complain. And, I don’t get paid to complain. But, I do get paid to be productive regardless of the financial value or if I’m employed.

Therefore, I’ll continue my volunteer work, my job searching and my networking.  I’ll continue being semi-retired. I’ll continue doing the things that get me in tune with others.  Being unemployed doesn’t mean you become disconnected from being productive. And, it doesn’t mean you are being irresponsible or losing meaning.

It means I can continue being thankful. I can continue to do all those other things that fill up the hours of my day. I can remain feeling meaningful and valuable. I can continue being connected and feeling worthwhile.

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Overrating Ratings

Photo Credit: Nep @ Flickr

Ratings are odd. Why bother? They’re fuzzy, aggregated opinions. It means someone, somewhere came to a conclusion about something else. So, if you are beholden to ratings, you’re putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

You’re dumbing down your strengths. You’re also limiting your ability to become interesting.

Using ratings pressures you to reside in the conventional and the ordinary. They insist on a static, linear definition. There’s no real risk in ratings because they rely on what already exists.

Things that are new and bold don’t have comparisons. They’re provocative. But, they’re risky because they don’t have definitions.

Ordinary stuff is rated because it’s comparable. It uses the same old definitions. Think of the thresholds and limits that ratings carry.

Therefore, what’s the point of limits when you are trying to envision yourself as something else? 

What’s the purpose of reinvention when you are relying on ratings?  

After all, the limits are there for those that want to be compared. The definitions are for people who aren’t looking to create new meaning.

So, don’t rate yourself. Embolden yourself to become something else. Something beyond comparison.

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Stretching Yourself

There’s loads of talk about having a personal brand, specializing and niches. But, why just have a brand? What’s the point of a niche when the blogosphere is teeming with others talking about the exact same thing you are talking about?

Stretching yourself means reshaping your topic. I means connecting the unexpected and making something unheard of out it. It’s not as intriguing to talk about marketing to Gen Y when all you’re doing is talking about what that marketing means to other marketers. Reshape your topic to the point that it’s unrecognizable. Marketing doesn’t look like marketing anymore because you managed to link sex in movies to Gen Y women buying more clothes. It’s a stretch, but the real creativity is finding the points that link such a concept.

You don’t need to know what links you’ll create when you’re stretching because that’s the whole idea. The stretching creates the points. The point is the new ideas you come up with.

So, be a stretch. Why be an engineer who only talks about engineering when you can talk about the comedy of engineering mistakes? That’s a stretch because most engineers aren’t funny (with the exception of my boyfriend). Make something not normally humorous funny. Provide information to your readers that requires you to be engaging.

Why have a blog about career advice when you can advise people on how not to work instead? That’s a stretch because career advice doesn’t advocate that you don’t try to work. Being a stretch forces you to think about your topic in new ways that are not readily apparent to the average eye.

And if you are careful, you’ll learn something. You’ll bring your readers to more than just the edge of an topic. You’ll have stretched it into something new altogether.

What an enlightening idea, indeed.

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The Best Advice I Never Took

Photo Credit: Marius!!! @Flickr

“Jump out of the window!” may seem like irrelevant instruction when you hear it. After all, why jump out the window when you can walk out of the door? 

Nonetheless, when you are up several floors in a burning building and a crowd of fire fighters outside below you are holding a safety net, jumping out of the window can seem like the best advice yet.

After I graduated from college, I was still in the process of finding myself. I wanted to make a ton of money, but have a fulfilling career as well.

In reality, that didn’t leave me a lot of options. I did one smart thing though, I contacted a bunch of college alumni and grilled them about their current careers. I met a filmmaker, a real estate guru and some other random, interesting people.

However, I remember meeting with one particular alum that (should have) changed my life forever.

I told him I wanted to try my luck at consulting. Never mind what kind of consulting or what consulting actually means – I decided I should pursue it.

Also, I didn’t want to seem directionless. Consulting sounded sexy (or whatever word people use to make their professions sound cool) and they made scads of money for doling out information whether anybody listened to them or not.

It sounded like a suitable venture. In hindsight, considering my personality type, it was probably just as well I didn’t go into consulting after all.

Mr. Peacock (uncanny connection, don’t you think?) told me two things. “Consulting is hard on marriages – they get divorced a lot,” and “You need to start a blog.”

Both pieces of advice seemed totally irrelevant to me. As a very young twenty something, marriage was the furthest thing from my mind (not really, but it was not nearly as close to my mind as it is now).

Secondly, what was this blogging stuff? It didn’t sound like anything a freshly minted political science major did straight out of college. All the job choruses sang that liberal arts majors went into professions teaching, becoming lawyers or consulting.

Truthfully, I didn’t know a thing about blogging. I dismissed it as a labor of love for computer geeks or an adventuresome outlet for alternative journalists. Oh, what little did I know.

The trouble with good advice is that it always seems irrelevant when you initially hear it. That’s the good thing. If you only listen to what you want to hear you won’t learn anything . Or, if you follow the same tried-and-true counsel, it won’t work for you. Why? Because great advice leads you to undiscovered pathways. 

When you get weird, seemingly irrelevant guidance: pay attention. It will challenge you to do things you may not otherwise try. Whereas old, staid, been-there-and-do-it-again advice won’t get you much of anywhere.

Good advice is not meant to be comfortable or make you feel great about what you are currently doing.

It’s meant to confront you and change your mind.

That’s the other wonderful thing about good counsel. It’s more about action than pondering. It won’t encourage you to think more about your predicament. It will inspire you to do something about it.

It provides options not questions. If you are seeking the help, you’re already asking the questions, aren’t you?

Unfortunately, I ignored Mr. Peacock. I never contacted him again.  I figured that maybe he didn’t really understand me. How could he? We’d only met for cookies and coffee. Yet, that shouldn’t have mattered, good advice can come from someone even if they’ve only known you for five minutes. 

That’s the dark side of such a process.  People sometimes mistake that only those who know them can give valuable words of wisdom. Yet, the underlying current of all advice giving is to exchange ideas. 

Understand and trust that taking and giving advice is risky at both ends. It has little to do with how well someone gets you.

When people don’t understand that, they indubitably screw up the whole point of getting advice in the first place.

And, that’s terrible. After all, Mr. Peacock was only trying to help. Yet, I’m thankful. Sometimes, you can’t recognize good help when you ask for it (or, get it) because you don’t know what it is. And, you won’t know what good advice is because you don’t know what it will sound like in the first place.

But, great advice is still good advice. It doesn’t expire. It won’t disappear. Instead, it’s timeless, universal and requires little change. So, even though I met Mr. Peacock several years ago in a River North cafe, I can’t say my idea of starting a blog was my own great idea. It wasn’t. It was Mr. Peacock’s idea. 

Therefore, taking good advice  is just as much a matter of when you do as it is what you do. What if I had not met Mr. Peacock? What if I didn’t have the blogging seed planted in my head?  Maybe, several years later, I would have never thought to blog in the first place. 

Timing is just as important when you act upon anything (good advice included).

The nicks and scratches I suffered along my professional journey to get here probably have made my posts more relevant to readers now.  Relevancy is a good thing.

Except maybe when it comes to good advice.

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Appearing Unique Amongst the Masses

Wear a bright coat

As a native Midwesterner, I know all about purchasing the practical brown or black down coat for the winter. But, it still doesn’t explain why countless numbers of women insist on blending into the huddled masses of dully colored jackets in the calmer times of cold weather.

With the wintry doldrums upon everyone, a bright coat is the best thing to see in a crowd of neutral, uninspiring outdoor gear.

Change your name

Even though there are a dozen Raven Moores inhabiting Chicago, and possibly the world, I still get “the interesting name” speech from people I meet. But, if you like being Jane Smith, then keep on being so.

But, you’ll become Buck Tooth Jane or Cubs Fan Jane when people need to distinguish you.

Surprise people

Despite being an engineer who is currently pursuing his masters degree, my boyfriend likes to don his father’s old work uniform shirts and jeans when we’re out and about. He looks like a blue collar worker, in spite of his very white collar background. And, if you start talking to him, you end up finding out more than you bargained for – and that intrigues people.

People like being surprised, and in a way, they like being fooled (only sometimes). You’ll become interesting because they’ll want to see what other surprises you can come up with next.

Have an unexpected hobby or interest

This goes back to the previous suggestion of surprising people, but is a tad more specific. It’s human nature to size people up, no matter how they try to convince you otherwise.

So, when I say I read graphic novels or play video games (and read Game Informer), people are usually surprised, because after all – it’s unexpected.

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