Category Archives: Career

Career

Our Mixtapes: Soundtracks for Getting Through the Work Day

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Whether you make money selling or buying, doing or saying, some days at the office (whatever shape that office is) are better than others. One day you might feel like the most productive employee ever and the next day the least competent. Though we don’t all have the same jobs, we all work day to day, pounding the pavement for better or for worse.

But that doesn’t mean that our time in the office has to be without inspiration. Some days we need a little help getting into the swing of work and to honor that, here are some of my favorite tunes to listen to at work:

Productivity Train

Let’s face it, there are some days when BuzzFeed is particularly entertaining and we don’t get as much work done as we should. When that happens I put on my blinders, plug in my headphones and turn on these tunes.

1)     “Elevate” – St. Lucia, When The Night

2)     “Arizona” – Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

3)     “Hollywood [Felix de Housecat Remix]” – RAC (feat. Penguin Prison)

4)     “Macchu Picchu” – The Strokes. Angles

5)     “Gotta Get Away” – The Black Keys, Turn Blue

Calm the Mind

There are just some days where work makes us want to pull our hair out in frustration, no matter how much we love it. For those days, I turn these songs on and take deep breaths before hunkering down again.

1)     “Welcome Home” – Radical Face, Ghost

2)     “Tumblin’ Dice” – Rolling Stones, Forty Licks

3)     “Momentary Thing” – Something Happens, Planet Fabulous

4)     “Take A Walk” – Passion Pit, Gossamer

5)     “We Are The Tide” – Blind Pilot, We Are The Tide

Kicking Ass

A power suit can get you into the zone when you need to kick ass at work, but why stop there? When I need to roundhouse-kick a project into fruition or a jerk coworker who keeps stealing my ideas, I turn to these songs to pump me up.

1)     “Fancy” – Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX, Fancy

2)     “She’s Electric” – Oasis, What’s the Story (Morning Glory)

3)     “Troublemaker” – Weezer, Weezer (Red Album)

4)     “Body Work” – Morgan Page feat. Tegan and Sara, Body Work

5)     “Movin’ Out” – Billy Joel, The Stranger

Hangover Cure

As any employed person will tell you, one of the benefits to having a salary and no homework is that you can go out on a Tuesday night. But we always have to pay dearly for it when Wednesday morning rolls around. For that, I listen to these songs and drink lots of water.

1)     “Tennis Court” – Lorde, Pure Heroine

2)     “Back to Black” – Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

3)     “See The Sun” – The Kooks, Konk

4)     “Fool to Cry” – Tegan and Sara, Girls, Vol. 1

5)     “Time Go” – Caught A Ghost

Photo by Rob Adams

Photo by Rob Adams

Career

My Journey To Behind the Chair

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The first time I cut off someone’s hair, I was 5 years old, unsupervised while the adults were watching the Super Bowl in the other room. I set the scene, making sure to have a towel to cover my younger, easily convinced friend, and placing a box on the floor to catch the hair, and then I went to town with my cuts-only-paper scissors. Her hair was fairly long, having never been cut before—and, needless to say, her very pregnant mom was not nearly as thrilled with her daughter’s hacked up pixie-esque haircut as I was. Scissors were generally kept away from me from that moment on, but when I could get my little hands on them I chopped off the hair from every Barbie possible.

Growing up, I always loved doing my own hair and makeup. In middle school and high school, I started researching special effects makeup programs and declared that that was what I was going to do. Alas, like many parents, mine felt that a traditional college path was what I needed, and off I went to the University of California Santa Barbara. After just over a year there, I knew it wasn’t for me: while I thrived in arts and humanities classes, I changed my major almost every month (much to the despair of my advisors) and I struggled to find my place. I moved back to San Jose and after trying my hand at college for another couple years while working in retail management, the best thing happened to me: I was laid off. I decided to take the plunge. Within three weeks, I dropped out of San Jose State and started attending cosmetology school.

I immediately felt like this was the learning environment I had been searching for. The first time I held real shears and cut hair, it just felt right. It came easily for me. In traditional college, my main struggle had always been taking classes I wasn’t interested in or that weren’t applicable to my major-du-jour. Why did I need to learn something I wasn’t actually going to use? Yes, I realized it creates a well-rounded person, but it just wasn’t for me. Now, everything I was learning applied directly to what I would be doing as a career. When I started cosmetology school at the age of 24, I was definitely a little older compared to my classmates—many of whom were fresh out of high school. I felt this gave me an edge, however, and I realized that a few years of college had endowed me with the skills to really study and readily absorb the information. I was hungry for the knowledge and, at this point, paying for school myself, which made me want to excel further.

Working with hair is much like sculpting, beginning with a block and carving out a shape. You use straight lines to create curves and softness, which translates into visual weight lines and forms. Adding color to the hair takes the shape further by adding shadow and light. Cutting hair is an equally terrifying and exciting thing all at once: you literally get to create a shape out of nothing… but as we all know, you can’t put back anything you take off. As an extremely visual, hands-on person (from playing piano and many other instruments to baking, knitting, and crafting), I love using my hands to help people feel beautiful and express themselves on a daily basis.

Cosmetology isn’t all creative, as there’s also the service part. Working with clients can be both challenging and rewarding, and often develops into a very personal experience for both the client and myself. It isn’t always an easy job. It is mentally and physically exhausting at times. Trusting someone, especially a stranger, to touch you isn’t something that comes easily for many people. Hair is an intimate part of us: it defines us and is one of the first things noticed about us. On the other side of the chair, the work I create is an extension of me and, like most creative jobs, my ego can be tightly tied with that. When a client is dissatisfied, it’s painful: I only ever want the best for my clients and I hold myself to the highest standards.

Throughout my career I’ve had some unhappy clients, either because of mistakes I’ve made or unrealistic expectations. Clients bring me pictures of celebrities or models as references, and I always do my best to explain that things like extensions, wind machines, lighting, and Photoshop contribute to the image, and that for the average person, most of those looks aren’t achievable. If a client isn’t happy with their cut or color, I always have them come back in so we can discuss and work together to reach a happier conclusion. I’ve had a handful of people cry in my chair. Nothing is worse. Those days I want to hang up my apron, lock my cabinet, and put my shears away forever. But I’ve learned to shake it off and get behind the chair again the next day, and work to learn from the experience.

My closest clients are like family. We talk about anything and everything—at times, very personal and privileged things. I’ve had many people tell me getting their hair done is better than visits to their therapist. It never ceases to amaze me how complete strangers feel comfortable telling me things they may only tell their closest friends. I feel fortunate to have a career that allows me to create tight, personal bonds with my clients.

I recently made the move from being an employee at an amazing team-based salon where I did all my assistant training to now renting my own chair and essentially running my own small business. This change in my career has given me new goals and hurdles to conquer. I’ve been able to expand the bridal side of my business, which has been quite exciting. It’s a whole different side of cosmetology for me: although I love cutting and coloring hair, I have a passion for styling because my freedom of artistic expression gets to shine the most in this area. It has allowed me to work with numerous brides, other creative types on photo shoots, theater productions, and even styling for The B-52s!

I definitely don’t have it all figured out yet. I’m growing as a stylist and trying to find my voice in this amazing industry. I feel fortunate to live in an area with many outlets for hair and makeup artists. It can be scary to follow your passion, especially in a society where we are pushed toward a traditional four-year college plan. I look forward to seeing my career evolve, traveling, meeting interesting people, and sharing in their journeys all through the simple commonality of hair.

Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

Career

Office Drama, or #WHATSHOULDWECALLTOXICJOB

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How many times do you need to come home from work in tears before you start considering a new job? My last job was terrible almost from the moment it started, but I stayed for nine months trying to make it work, and then trying to hoard enough cash to get out. Looking back on this past year, all I can see is the slow buildup of quiet-yet-demeaning incidents that made me question my worth, my abilities, and my general sense of why I am at all interested in do what I do.

Here is a list of the major red flags.

  1. When I started my job, there was no training. None! They actually said: “Here is your computer!” and then left me on my own.
  2. My supervisors act like they don’t trust me, and revise deadlines without telling me. Once, after seeing the timeline for the interviews that I manage, my supervisor approved and implemented it, and then scheduled all the interviews and emailed the schedule to me. She never addressed whether I had done them wrong or late, or any reason why she had done my job for me, even though it was a full week before we had agreed it needed to be done.
  3. There are three people whom I report to. Every time I ask for clarification on whom I go to for what (even things like time off and emergency situations), they tell me that I was hired because I could “work independently.”
  4. And then when I ask one of them for help with one of the other departments, they usually fail to answer the question because they get sidetracked, ranting about how pretentious the other department is.
  5. Once, in a committee meeting, I had an older co-worker stop mid-discussion, turn to me and say “who are you?” I responded with my name and title, and he said, “Oh! I thought you were a student spying on us. Are you even on this committee?” He checked on his phone, found I was, and said, “Oh, well, what can you do?” We had met multiple times.
  6. When I was introduced to one of the departments, which was formerly all-male, and I’m a young woman, several comments were made to the effect of “Well, now we can’t curse in meetings.”
  7. Recently, one of my supervisors has been asking me to help her with Excel spreadsheets, and when I turned in a draft (like she asked me to), she brought me into her office and pointed at a column without borders and yelled at me, “Where is the column?! Where is the COLUMN?!? There is no column there!” and then had me redo it.
  8. I am required to have an autoreply message on my email instructing students how to make appointments. I have gotten back multiple emails from coworkers who are outraged that I would send them appointment instructions. The first sentence is “This is an autoreply.”
  9. This year, one of my papers was accepted to a prestigious conference. When I asked that same supervisor if there was any funding I could apply for, she said “If you get funding, we might as well add a budget line for my cats.” That was about two months into the position.
  10. I am frequently asked when I am planning on having children. These are not subtle hints from people I am close with. Coworkers who I rarely interact with have come into my office specifically to ask me when I am planning on getting pregnant.
  11. After having congratulated me for improving our numbers so much that a particular department might not be at risk anymore, one supervisor came in and told me that the numbers should go up even more because “we haven’t worked that hard

What I’ve learned from this experience is that—surprise!—my happiness really is affected by being treated poorly by the people whom I spend the majority of my day with. I’m really not sure when the turning point was… when I knew I needed to GTFO. I wish I had known when to say something, because maybe things would have gotten better. But by the time I left, I trusted no one that I worked with or for, and I dreaded going to work. I worry I’ll run into coworkers around town and I feel like I’ve developed some really bad work habits (like hiding from my supervisors) that will affect me in the future. My job was affecting my relationships outside of work as well, I was so emotionally drained that I wasn’t myself.

The worst part was that this was supposed to be my dream job—working with exactly the right population in exactly the right role. But my coworkers and terrible supervision ruined it. I put in my two weeks’ notice despite not having something else lined up because not knowing what was coming next was better than being unhappy every day.

Much to my surprise though, leaving my toxic job felt just like a really bad breakup. It probably should have not been surprising, but ah well. My last two weeks were full of utter insanity, and all I could do was hold on to my end date, knowing that it would be over soon. A small sample: My two weeks’ notice was initially rejected so they could “think” (is this legal?). I had more than 12 meetings with all levels of my supervision, where the second question was always “but, your partner isn’t leaving too, is he?” driving home the point that in their minds I was only there because of him. They told me that I would have had a better time in the job if I were “friendlier.” On my last day, none of my supervisors even showed up, wrote an email or left a voice message saying goodbye. And then, as if to tie a big bow on the whole package, about a week after I left, one supervisor sent an email to my personal address about job searching in my field, and how to know if a job is a good fit.

I’ve been free of this job for three full weeks, and let me tell you, life is so much better. If any of the above sounds like your job, get out. ASAP. Don’t wait. If you don’t have a cushion that will let you bail, start sending your resumes faster, network more, do something. It’s not worth being unhappy every day. I also highly recommend just reading the entire archives of Ask a Manager: this helped me figure out the difference between what was simply strange and what actually crossed a boundary, so that I could work up the courage to leave.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Career

Finding My Way into Game Design: Education After Graduation

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Choosing a career path can be difficult for many students. You want to find something that will financially support you, while meeting your own personal goals, and doing something that fulfills and entertains you. My own search for a career has continued past my college education, and I found myself searching for other growth opportunities to really pinpoint what I want to do.

So where does game design fit into all of this? When I completed my Bachelor’s degree, it was in Pictorial Art with an emphasis on Studio Practice. It’s a pretty general degree for art students, where your specialty really comes down to what you choose to study. I had a fairly well-rounded education, jumping between animation, illustration, traditional art, digital art, and graphic design. My dilemma was, how do I put all of these skills to use in the real world?

My eventual decision was to further my education, so I began to research post-degree programs, such as certificates and two-year degrees. I also researched different career paths that would complement the skills I already had. I decided that any new education I pursued had to be something new that would build off of what I had already learned. The answer: game design!

I found a certificate program through Post University that would have a focus on the basics of game design, game programming, and some animation. Game design is still a relatively new subject with degree and certificate offerings, so it felt like a good opportunity to expand my skills in an emerging field of study. Probably the most important class I took was the Programming for Game Design course. It began with a basic intro to programming, focusing on C++, and led into the basics of game engines and how programming fits into graphics.

It was a fairly short program, but it gave me access to a lot of good resources that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. The most useful were the game engines we worked with: simple engines, such as the App Game Kit and the Dark Game Development Kit. These are both fairly cheap engines provided by TheGameCreators.com. They are beneficial for someone who is new to programming or game design, and serve to ease new designers into the game development world. Beyond the scope of our actual class projects, I was advised to look into the Unreal Development Kit to learn more professional game development. The UDK 3 is free to download and use for anyone (however, licensing fees apply if you want to sell something). Recently, I acquired the Unreal 4 beta, which drastically improves many of the Unreal features; however, it requires a monthly fee, unlike the UDK.

A lot of the learning process was self-driven, such as working on my own projects beyond the scope of the class. I spent most of my time playing around with building maps in UDK. Working in the UDK, you have a choice between hand-coding minor details, or designing in a more what-you-see-is-what-you-get mode, which makes it probably the most robust engine available, and the fourth edition builds on these principles further. Here is a video exploring a partial level I have been working on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Iq4CAgYFs

Finding an industry that I enjoy as a consumer as well as a professional helped drive my projects as well. Good game designers make great games because they enjoy playing great games themselves. Going behind the scenes and seeing the raw elements of game design is like getting the best cheat codes available, and I think this is the type of fascination that one should strive for in any industry. If you love what you do or make, it will be that much more exciting and meaningful to make it your career.

Whether you’re interested in getting into a particular industry or just want to learn new skills, there are always opportunities for further education. If a set program is out of your budget, community colleges offer a lot of similar classes as well, or you can check out Coursera or Codecademy to learn from videos at your own pace. At the end of the day, it’s more about the knowledge and skills you gain than the degree or certificate you might receive.

Always make it a goal to never stop educating yourself!

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Career

Let’s Ask an LPGA Golfer

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I’m primarily a runner and the thing that impresses me most about running is all the adult athletes I see around me. Sure you have the kids who ran in college, but I’m always impressed by the people who discovered professional sports later in life. One such person is my friend Caiti Klassovity. When Caiti told me she was leaving the film industry behind to pursue a professional golf career, I had no idea what that meant. I was happy for her, but didn’t understand what obstacles she had to conquer to do that. So, we went to dinner on weeknight in Los Feliz, caught up, and I asked the hard-hitting questions about life as a nearly professional athlete.

Liz: How did you discover golf? Why did you decide this was something that could be your career?

Caiti: Golf was the furthest thing from my mind, but one weekend my now-ex was out of town and I thought, “Hey, there is that par 3 down the street.” So I went and I did it and was addicted. I literally woke up at 6 am every day from there on out, up to today, to go play and practice this sport. It hit me like… whatever hits you and wakes you up.

What’s a typical day? What do you do to train for golf from an athletic perspective? Because all I know is that it’s a lot of walking

Yeah, it takes four and a half hours to play eighteen holes (laughs). I give about an hour a day to working out, which consists of running, core work (where all your power comes from), arms, and I guess your thighs, really. Beyond that I’ll go to the course in the morning for three to six hours, averaging five hours. If I have a lesson, I’ll have my lesson and play afterwards. If I don’t, I’ll warm up for about an hour, then go play for four hours. And then I have to go nanny after all that.

Can’t forget about that day job. How do most people get involved with golf?

Most people are born and bred for it. I obviously started super late. My brother was the golfer, he went to college on a scholarship, and he is pro level now. He shoots under par regularly; he’s like 69, which is crazy good. We grew up on a course so I was around it, but I played basketball, tennis and softball. I think most people start around ten or eleven, and go on scholarship for college. If they excel, they will get their pro card.

For the LPGA, you do what’s called Q school, and it’s a series of two tournaments. You have to qualify and make the cut for the first tourney, then the second. Only then will you have pro status. On top of that, you have to maintain it for that season so you have to hit certain scores in the tournaments you are in. There are not very many people with pro cards, maybe 200 women.

It is, of course, insanely hard to maintain that level of competition—to keep playing tournaments like that. But there are also less women that do that, compared to the PGA. It’s insane. Every young guy you see at the course wants to be on the tour and it’s not very likely it’s going to happen.

I’m older, in general, but that’s the great thing about golf. There are women who have been on the tour for twenty years who are still in the top five and then you have Lydia Ko who is 16. It’s a huge range: you can get into it at any age.

Do you feel like golf is more prevalent in certain parts of the country?

The hubs for golf are Southern California, Florida and Arizona—those are the biggest spots. But also there is a lot of golf where I grew up in the Northeast. Even though we have strong prevalent seasons, it’s very huge into golf culturally. I guess that makes it a coastal thing. But year-round warm weather helps: anywhere where you don’t have to spend part of the year inside.

What do you think your biggest challenge is right now (as a golfer)?

The biggest thing I lack is experience—playing competitively or just playing a lot at all. I have a membership now so I can play every day, but you have to develop a different persona to turn on during competition time. Even swinging in front of people and playing with people is different than when you just go out there by yourself.

For me, it’s about finding a good base of my game, which I have a good grasp of now. I have been working with my coach now for almost a year, so that is coming together. It’s the skeleton of my game. But I think getting into competition mode and performing at that level consistently will be my biggest challenge.

Can you explain where you are going? Why you are leaving LA?

I am leaving LA to move to Savannah, Georgia, in July. In LA, I have a great core group here in the golf world, including my coach—who coaches me for free simply because of our shared passion. But I have an opportunity where I can have golf and housing paid for by a sponsor that I can’t recreate here. I would like to not worry about rent, not worry about a job. So I’m going to take the opportunity to just quiet down and focus on this.

I wish I could remember the exact quote, but it’s like “you have to spend a little time creating the life you want now so you don’t spend all of your time living a life you don’t want later.” That is exactly what I’m doing. I’m not giving up time—I’m working towards what I want my future to look like.

How did you form your community out here?

Alicia is one of my best golf girlfriends here, actually my only one. The scene is completely male-dominated. When I first decided I wanted to play, I literally searched all the pros around my area and emailed them what I wanted to do. Asking for advice and positions. My now-coach Ben Krug answered and said let’s meet. Eventually I became a member of the club there and it’s a community once you are a member of a club.

Age wise, walk-of-life-wise—golf is an old white man’s sport. Let’s face it—Ben is 35, Alicia is 33. We’re all there because we love the game. But everyone can see themselves in golf one way or another other, playing or working in it.

I remember back in the day when you first started this, you were talking to a friend about women’s golf apparel and how it drove you nuts that all you could find was pink.

That has not changed. I was just talking to my friend about that and she wants to do a whole line and stuff.

Are you going to help with that?

I would. I would do that side of things. First I’m going to see where I can get my game and where I can compete. I will compete first, but as another avenue, absolutely. We want different styles, patterns, fabrics, and not pink, but we also want something that’s not $80 for a shirt. It’s super expensive.

The women golfer numbers are lower than before just because it’s expensive. At my course. it costs $90 to play a round of golf.

Speaking of all those costs, what generally are the startup costs of golf: like if I want to go out and play, what do I need? How much do you spend a week on golf?

Membership at my club is about $4200 a year, and they worked with me to make a payment plan when I started.

Just starting with golf, you don’t need the best clubs. Look for slightly used clubs—but even at Play It Again Sports, that will be $400. A jazzy new outfit will be $150 for gloves, shoes, and the rest. A lot of the courses for LA Parks are great and they are only $30; when you play twilight, you can even play some courses for $12.

If you want to get serious, you need to start to take lessons. It is a sport that you absolutely cannot teach yourself. Your natural habits in golf are going to be the opposite of what you should be doing. That’s why it’s a tireless game. You have to have the mentality and the physicality and spirituality—all cylinders have to be firing.

You’ll have the weekend warriors, guys who go play on the weekends and hit the ball around. I think it’s hilarious when people take golf up in retirement, because it’s one of the most stressful things! You have to be persistent and you have to practice. Most people go straight to the range, but you have to have a short game. You have to go to the putting green or else you’re not going to score. But that’s what people who are just beginning don’t know. They just go out and play and they are like, “Why can’t I hit the ball? Why is it going left? Why is it going right?” They try to self-correct and it doesn’t work… at all.

What would you say is the most fun part of the game? Is it the people, or a specific moment?

The most fun part is finding that sort of release where you relinquish control within the game but also within your life. It’s mind-altering and life-changing. If you go for a round, a four-hour round, and I’m playing with you, I will see every emotion I’ll ever have. It’s a picture of character really. The fun part for me is trying to maintain this game and realizing, every time, you are going to have shitty shots. You are going to mess up more than succeed but every hole is different. You always have another chance. You always have another round. You can be in a sand trap and only have one shot left and you can hole it. Or you can putt it in. You can always save yourself.

So figuring that out and being able to read the green—I love it. It’s always challenging, but it always brings you back because once you make that putt or nail that drive, you’re addicted.

It’s never repetitive and it never gets boring and I can see a future in it.

Is there always something to do? When I see golf it’s the most boring sport, but on the other hand I guess some people say running is boring too!

Take softball for example. If you go to a softball game, it’s a slow sport. I could be bored watching that, but the spectators aren’t thinking strategy like you are. They aren’t thinking, “Okay, if she hits it here, I’m going to throw it here. If she does this, I’m going to do that.” You know the mental aspect of the game and you are thinking ahead. With golf, it’s the same. You can have weekend warrior level where people just hit a ball, walk to it, hit a ball.

When you graduate to a higher level, you are using course management. You are able to control your ball flight, you are able to use a different swing for a different shot,  get this distance out of this club, put the ball here.

It’s hard and amazing. I can understand it seems boring, I thought it was boring for twenty-six years, but you know the diehard fans realize that these people are rock stars. She’s not alive anymore but Babe Zaharias is a legend. She was like back in the day during the founding the LPGA, but she was crazy good at everything: Javelin, golf, competitive sewer. And then today, I really admire Azahara Munoz. She’s from Spain. I saw her play a couple weekends ago at the Kraft-Nabisco tournament. I like the way she composes herself, and her swing is beautiful. She’s always on the cusp of greatness: she’s in the top five of every tourney but waiting to bust onto the scene. I like her style.

Final thoughts?

Play golf. Women reading, please play golf.

Liz Bohinc is a staff writer. Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Career

Yes, I Get Paid to Do That

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Someone (or many someones) once (or many times) told me that the hardest thing in the world is to turn your passion into a living—probably in an attempt convince me to attend law school instead of doing whatever it was I called daily life in my early 20s. But doing hard things is kind of my thing, so this sage wisdom only served to reinforce the borderline-masochistic work ethic I already had.

Writing was the only way I’d ever wanted to spend my life and, lucky for me, it also happened to be the only thing I was pretty decent at. When I graduated high school and went to college, the only logical choice for me was to enroll in a creative writing program. And when I graduated college and started forging my path into the belly of the beast known as The Real World, the only logical choice for me was to keep doing what I knew I was good at. To keep doing what I knew I cared about the most. I saw no reason to divert from the plan—the plan to write professionally, to pay my rent with words. I knew it would take some time and a boatload of dedication and that I’d probably have a succession of mind-numbing day jobs to pay the bills until then, but like a great many someones said: Turning your passion into a living is hard work.

By no means am I any kind of expert on this topic. I don’t think anyone is, because everyone’s journey towards gainful, fulfilling self-employment is 100% different. But I can say that I’ve learned a few really vital things about this whole process that probably do apply across the career spectrum, whether you’re busting your ass trying to get a tech startup off the ground or rousing your neighbors at 7 am with your vocal warm-ups in hopes of one day joining the Metropolitan Opera.

Make Time

First of all, there’s this: If you really care about it, you’ll make time for it. It’s so easy to say, “Ohhh, but I am le tired. I think I’ll have a beer and watch Top Chef instead.” It’s especially easy to say this if you’re working full-time in an arena that doesn’t relate to your ultimate goal. Trust me. I’ve been there. A beer and Top Chef sounds like the best thing most nights. And yes, you should treat yourself with a mental break now and then! But as soon as those credits roll, it might be time to turn off the TV and re-focus on your double life. If you care about your startup, your novel, or being prepped for your audition tomorrow—you will put in the hours.

By now, most people have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours thing. If it takes 10,000 hours of hard work and epic failings to turn a novice into an expert and you spent three hours watching House Hunters after work, you cheated your own damn self out of that valuable time. Three hours might not seem like a lot day-to-day, but it adds up over weeks, months, and years (you do the math—just be prepared for the subsequent existential freakout). But if you’re that guy or gal who makes a point to clock a fraction of your 10,000 hours every day, you’re not doing it because someone is making you do it: you’re doing it because there’s a little voice in the back of your head that keeps feeding you inspiration: ideas that you’ll continue to be excited by. You make time, because it’s easy to make time when you truly, deeply, give a shit about something.

Expand Your Definitions

Something else I figured out in my journey towards paying my rent with words is how important it is to challenge yourself and expand your range. This was a major revelation for me and is probably the #1 reason I can use words to keep a roof over my head.

I studied creative writing in college, with a focus on screenwriting and playwriting. I still do both of those things, and I still love both of those things with the same fervor as an 18-year-old college freshman. But it was only when I started blogging, editing, and writing creative prose as opposed to dialogue-driven drama that an actual need for my services began to crop up. People asked me to write blog posts and articles. They asked me to write jokes for their company’s Twitter feed to attract a certain type of audience. I was approached to contribute a short story to an anthology.

I realized that I didn’t need to sit behind a desk or wait tables or sling lattes all day while I cultivated my writing career. I could have a writing career right now, even if it wasn’t quite the type of writing I originally imagined myself doing. But I’m so psyched that I ventured away from my comfort zone and took on different types of projects. I can parlay the experiences I’ve had ghostwriting for other people and researching unfamiliar topics into my personal projects. It helps keep my ideas fresh and I’m constantly learning new things—not to mention I was able to pay my hefty electricity bill last month (woop woop).

There are so many other ways that people can use their talents and passions aside from the way they might have always imagined. That’s not to say you can’t and won’t ever use them the way you want most! It’s just a nice way to bridge the gap while you work towards your ultimate goal. It’s also a major confidence booster: nowadays, when people ask me what I do, I get to tell them what I do. I don’t get insecure anymore because I have to explain the origins of my totally mundane double life or fudge an answer that godawful question, “Do people ever pay you for that?” If I hadn’t forced myself to expand my range, there’s a good chance I’d still be awkwardly avoiding eye contact at family reunions whenever the subject of my “career” came up.

Move Forward

The final lesson I’ve learned since I joined this whole circus is an ongoing one: as long as I keep moving forward, I’ll always be improving. My most recent work is almost always my best work, which serves as near constant incentive to continue plugging ahead. I always tell people that the best idea I’ve ever had is something I haven’t even thought of yet. If I put a stopper in my pursuits, if I focus on something else, something easier… I might never have the best idea I’ve ever had. And that’s the thing that scares me more than anything else, even more than having what some people might call an “unstable” career path.

If you’re the type of person who can’t fall asleep at night unless you can assure yourself every day that you did something to further your own cause, then guess what: somehow or another, you’re going to make this thing work. You care about it too much. You know that there’s a difference between a job and a career. You might occasionally wonder what will cause you to stop trying—if there will come a day where the uphill battle finally makes you its bitch. But I personally wonder about that potential doomsday less and less as time goes by: I’m not sure if that means I’ve finally accepted the delusional veil I’ve been pulling over my eyes since I was 18, or if it’s a sign of actual progress. Either way, I feel good about where I’m at, even if most days are fraught with daunting rewrites and difficult clients and insecure inner monologues every time I hit “Send.” I’m doing my thing and I get to do it everyday. I’ve worked hard for my right to do my thing. If you have a thing, and if you truly care about it, you will make time to do it. And that’s how you do it for life, whether you’re a pro or a soon-to-be pro.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Career

Taking Your Workspace From Bleak to Chic on the Cheap

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Due to office reorganizations and cross-country moves, I’ve worked in seven different office spaces in the past four years. None of them had similar layouts or color schemes, and all of them had different sets of supplies. Through these moves, I’ve put together a few strategies to add a little personalization to a space that is built to be one-size-fits-all.

Personalizing my office has some serious benefits for me: I stay more committed to the job because I feel at home in the space. I am happier to be at work because I am surrounded by things that make me happy. People who come to my office get much more of a sense of my personality and probably remember me better, because I make my space bright, cheery, and inviting. Also, I am way more motivated to keep my desk clean when it is cute and cheery, rather than covered in piles of paper. I even dust when I feel a little ownership over my space.

For my current office, I took on a few simple projects that made a big impact on my space. My hope was to infuse some color, happiness and whimsy into the area that I look at for eight hours a day—but I wanted to keep things simple so that I didn’t use too much work time setting it up. Most importantly, I am a university advisor, and sensitive issues often come up when I am meeting with students. I always want my space to be as inviting as possible. I want people who come in my office to feel like they know me, at least a little, from the moment they sit down.

Before

Before

After

After

My before picture is blank, uninviting, uninspiring, and cluttered.

The after is much better. Glitter! Pink! Gold! Coordinated! Neat! More functional! Common theme! I actually enjoy working in my space more because it is so bright and fun. The office is still beige, and I can’t swap the furniture, but it feels great to have things be a little more personal.

Going through these projects, there were a few things that stood out to me as being really important to avoid frustration. First, choose a color scheme early. If I were really smart I would’ve used my school’s colors, but instead I just chose colors that I really like (side note, does glitter count as a color?). Second, make sure everything is temporary. I can rip all the washi tape off cords super easily, so if anyone gets a bee in their bonnet, I can take it all off. Third, make sure to stretch your materials: this will keep costs down, and is an easy way to keep things looking coordinated.

If there are any aspects of your office that actively bother you, change those first. For me, it was the stupid butterfly mouse pad left by the last person to use my office. Not only did it make me look like one of those women who is obsessed with butterflies, but it was also covered with ballpoint pen doodles, which I felt made me look unprofessional and sloppy. When I ditched that stupidity for my DIY, subtle, and in-theme mouse pad, I felt about a million times better. It might be superficial, but I no longer felt like I was projecting cat-lady whenever I met with someone.

Most importantly, consider both form and function. The washi tape on my cords is all about cord management, so that I don’t have a tangle of black cords on my desk. It was a huge plus that they came out so cute! If you don’t use a calendar, don’t hang one up. If you hate getting glitter all over everything, I suggest you choose materials accordingly. It’s worth noting that I hung glitter wrapping paper on my corkboard behind my monitors ten days ago, and I am still finding glitter in my purse, on my clothes, and sometimes in my hair. This doesn’t bother me, but it might bother you.

Don’t forget that implementation is critical. You definitely don’t want to spend a bunch of time at the office making these things, because then your boss might see you as less committed, rather than more. On the other hand, you don’t want to look like you are stealing office supplies, so you have to be a little strategic about how you prepare for your upgrades. I made the mason jar, bunting and mouse pad at home, and then spread the washi tape application and paper gem making over three or four lunch breaks. For the glitter background, I stayed about ten minutes late to take everything down from my corkboard, and the next day came in about 15 minutes early to hang the backing and put back my papers.

Here is the breakdown of what I did in my office, with links to tutorials:

Before and After

Before and After

I swapped the supply tower for a glitter pen jar, because I never use those supplies and that tower was just ugly. I covered my tape dispenser and stapler in washi tape, added a new calendar, took all the info off sticky notes and put it on cute stationary, and a hung glitter wrapping paper on my corkboard for a seriously sparkly background.

I controlled my cords, and added a little pop

I controlled my cords, and added a little pop

No more cat lady mouse pad!

No more cat lady mouse pad!

Hung some adorable glitter bunting and created a Paper Gem Garden.

Hung some adorable glitter bunting and created a Paper Gem Garden.

All in all, this cost me $35. Here is the budget breakdown (any repeated or free item marked with an asterisk):

Project Supply Source Cost
Bunting Glitter Wrapping Paper Michaels $3.00
Mod Podge Michaels $3.00 for a small bottle
2 File Folders * *
Ribbon Michaels $1.00 for 20 yds
Corkboard Background Glitter Wrapping Paper * *
Staples * *
Calendar Pre-made Target $1.50
Paper Gems Printer Paper * *
Mod Podge * *
Washi Tape Cords, Supplies Washi Tape, Three Rolls Target $9.00
Glitter Mason Jar Mason Jar Target $2.00
Modge Podge * *
Glitter Michaels $2.00
Washi Tape * *
Mousepad Basic Mousepad Target $1.50
Leather Piece Michaels $6.00
Mod Podge * *
Gold Paint Pen Target $1.00
Paper Pad Pre-made Local Stationary Store $5.00
TOTAL $35.00

 

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Career

Let’s Ask: What Does it Mean to “Make It”?

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Three UE writers, Sally, Jessica, and Emma, sat down to discuss what it means to “make it.” They were joined by Sally’s mom, Anne, who shared her perspective. They have asked that their names be changed for honesty.

Anne: I chose to take time off to raise my kids because I figured you can always get a career, but you can’t get kids’ lives back.

Jessica: Yeah, totally.

Anne: So I chose to do that and everybody said it was a mistake. And when I tried to go back to work, everybody wanted me to start all over again. They think if you take the time off to raise your family, you sit at home and lie on the couch.

Jessica: Obviously.

Sally: And you’ll forget everything.

Anne: I don’t know anybody who’s ever raised kids that has laid on a couch.

Everybody laughs.

Emma: Do you think that’s changing?

Anne: I honestly don’t know. I have a different perspective about people and their families now. It’s not necessarily a positive one. But I said, “Well, if I’m gonna start all over again, it sure as hell isn’t gonna be for some corporate asshole.”

Everybody laughs.

Anne: It’s gonna be for me. So that’s what I did.

Jessica: That’ll be the tagline.

Anne: I think it’s probably easier to go back at the same level. But, in my day, most people didn’t come back—they just never came back. They had their kids and they didn’t come back. But if you had any kind of position or potential, it was like by choosing to stop you’re kind of shortcutting yourself. It was very hard to get ahead and I was at the point where people said, “Well, you know, you have a lot of opportunities—you’re gonna have a lot of opportunity, you’re gonna go really go far,” and I was “throwing it all away.”

Emma: But it’s just so fascinating that in the generation before you, every woman who was working was basically hearing, “You’re a terrible mom,” or “How dare you work and screw up your family.”

Anne: Well, my mom raised seven kids and she never worked. I mean, that’s what you did.

Jessica: But that’s how that perception has changed. Now: if you do work, you’re a bad mom; if you don’t work, you’re a bad mom. How do you make that choice?

Emma: You find the balance that works for you and your family. Turning perceptions into expectations makes for a lot more bad than good. Following your instincts is way better than societal pressures.

Jessica: I think it all comes down to “self-worth.” I know far too many twenty-somethings, myself included, that tied—or are still tying—all their self-worth to their jobs.

Sally: I remember one of my co-workers telling me that when I first walked into my last job, I was my “best self” that I had this confident “sass.” But the pressures of trying to be perfect took that all away, and he said, “It was just so sad to see how your confidence completely diminished and to watch you second guess every single thing you did.” Because, by the end, I was so unhappy and I needed validation and approval every step of the way. And even though that’s in the past now, I still feel like I’m trying to find my own self-motivation and self-confidence.

Jessica: And when it’s what you’re used to—when it’s where you’ve found your value—that’s a very hard thing to do.

Sally: Yeah, when I left, he told me again, “You cannot tie all of your self-worth to your success at your job.”

Jessica: I did that for a very long time, you watched me do it.

Sally: Everybody does it.

Jessica: Not everybody.

Sally: A lot of people do it. People who confuse drive and ambition and trying to play the game.

Jessica: People do it in different ways. Some people do it to their jobs, some people do it to their relationships, some people do it to their families: it depends.

Sally: Well it all goes back to perfectionism—trying to change yourself to fit that perfect ideal.

Jessica: You’ve got the craziest role model here though. (Nodding towards Anne.) She quit, walked away from her career and raised your family.

Sally: Yeah.

Emma: And then was like, “I’m gonna come back and start my own business.”

Jessica: My mom left her career because she hated it but she’s never been able to forgive herself for not finding a way to like it—or find another job that made her happy. So she’s always felt like she did something wrong because she never found a way to be happy and earn money. I remember, growing up, she didn’t want to be called a stay-at-home mom. But she was an awesome stay-at-home mom, and a writer, and it’s just that she saw that as a failing instead of seeing it as this really cool thing she got to do.

Emma: Yeah, like she needed to both work and be a mom. To be only one is—

Jessica: —To fail. I think that was because it wasn’t an active choice she made, like she didn’t actively choose to be a stay-at-home mom. Rather it was a reaction to being so miserable in her career.

Emma: But that reaction is still a choice.

Jessica: Exactly. “I’m miserable and I’m choosing to do this so I won’t be miserable anymore.” And let’s be honest, life is just as much about our successes as it is about our failures. And how we react to those failures is probably even more important than how we react to success.

Emma: Amen.

Jessica: “Bravery isn’t a lack of fear, it’s doing something despite your fear”… That’s a quote I stole from UE writer, Lily Henderson. But, the first and only time I ever quit a job, it was one of the most terrifying and painful things I’d ever done. And, from the outside, it looked really brave, but from my perspective, it was fucking terrible. But once I realized that the world didn’t end, it was like, oh…

Sally: It’s all about how you define success. I mean it’s interesting because you compare and contrast: I have a friend who’s getting promoted at age 23 and I have other friends who are like 30.

Emma: But what are you measuring?

Jessica: What is happiness? And is it defined by age? Because I feel like that marking system goes back to this idea that you are only “making it” if you have a successful career. I had a very successful career at 23 but I was really unhappy. I thought I had “made it” but all I had was my career. If you don’t have anything else, or the time to find anything else, it won’t ever fill that void.

Sally: That’s the thing I’ve had to learn, to try and really let go of this idea that it’s not a race. It doesn’t matter. And that I don’t really know what I want to do and it’s all about trying to learn.

Jessica: I look at my life, I used to be able to go into rooms and be like, “I do this,” and people would be like, “Oh shit, I want talk to you, I want you to help me get me a job like that.” Now, people are like, “Wait, what do you do?” And it’s not that it comes from a place of judgement, but it’s confusion, because I have an unconventional, “un-famous” job now. But it’s the perfect job for me right now. Because even though it’s only tangentially related to my “career,” I’m way happier as a person, way happier in all the elements. So it’s that balance, those choices. But the point that I was gonna go back and make right after you were talking about how miserable you were at your job, was that we all sat around and told you this, and people sat around and told me this when I was unhappy, but—

Sally: It doesn’t matter until you realize it yourself.

Jessica: Yeah, you can’t learn that lesson until you learn it yourself.

Sally: I would hear it and I would understand it logically, but I still couldn’t emotionally accept it. You have to get to that part. And that can be very hard.

Jessica: Absolutely.

Sally: I remember when I got coffee with a friend and he was like, “Hey how are you?” I was like, “Oh I’m really great.” And he’s like, “How’s the new job? Wait! No I didn’t want that to be my first question!” The whole point was we were gonna meet for coffee and be friends and not talk about work. You’re changing your identity and who you are—as you see you and as others see you. I’m trying not to be defined by my work anymore. And it’s hard.

Jessica: So hard. That’s a huge shift. I had to leave this city and come back to do that. But I’m so glad I did.

 

Photo by Michael Cox

Career

The Time I Worked For The Devil at an NGO

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When I moved to India in February 2012, I reached out to a NGO that my family had supported, seeking employment opportunities. Within a few hours of sending out my earnest email, the anonymized “Dr. S” replied, immediately inviting me to his government hospital in a small village town in India. That weekend, he personally walked me through the hospital, school, and eco lodge he had set up to help tribal children gain access to education. This campus was the basis of his NGO, which employed over a thousand people and managed over twenty-five government hospitals in rural areas throughout India.

You see, Dr. S never used his medical degree to pursue a traditional for-profit practice. He never married, had children, or even opened a bank account—opting instead to devote his entire life to offering free healthcare to the poor and forgotten. He is the recipient of numerous awards, has campaigned for health and transparency initiatives in the Indian government, and is the winner of multiple prestigious grants.

Dr. S won me over with his work, lifestyle, and mission. I immediately accepted his job offer to manage family planning initiatives from his head office in Bangalore.

But my first day in the office already seemed… off. The other twelve employees were fluttering around stressed, mumbling under their breaths, barely acknowledging anything around them. Until Dr. S walked into the room and, like a military regime, his soldiers immediately straightened up, addressed him as “Sir,” and bowed their heads when his eyes met theirs.

Initially, I thought it was a bad day. But the day turned into weeks and the weeks into months without any change. He never acknowledged good work, but broadcasted any problems. In fact, he created problems just to gloat in his ability to scream at his employees. Coworkers who had PhDs and Masters were treated like toilet cleaners. Every detail, document, and phone call had to be approved by him, stripping other managers of any real power.

Oh, you want a pen drive? Better email him for approval. Oh, you want to print a legal agreement? First, ask if you can use the printer.

Then I began to observe the day-to-day office dynamics. When Dr. S entered, the entire office came to a standstill. No one so much as whispered. They just stood there and waited for him to bellow out names and commands. Except, he never called any of the employees by their actual names. Instead, he would use derogatory insults in the local language: “Hey Owl! You couldn’t even take notes properly? You might as well shred up your PhD because you can’t be any stupider than a second grader.” “Donkey, how long does it take to show up when I call your name? You better clean your ears out with your degree since it’s not good for anything else.”

I worked six days a week, Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm. The turnover rate was incredible.  In my three months, I saw six people (out of twelve) come and go.

Since Dr. S was the Chairman of the NGO, my direct boss was the executive director, Rekha. In the beginning, she seemed harmless—dare I say, even charming. We sat next to each other, telling jokes (only when Dr. S was out of the office, naturally) and discussing execution plans for our various initiatives. I figured if I just kept my head buried in my projects, I could slip in and out without attracting much attention.

The reality was, though, that I never really handled anything. The executive director would give me instructions, but when I presented the final result to Dr. S, he would shred it apart, yelling and screaming about how awful and horrible my work was. He would outwardly contradict any direction that Rekha had provided, and cut me off when I tried to point out this fallacy. With each outburst (and there were at least two a day), I started to realize that even Rekha was a nut case. Though she’d give me guidelines, she would stand smirking when Dr. S yelled opposing directions. When I spoke up Rekha would dismiss me by saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t you know how to follow instructions?”

Pretty quickly, I started to feel crazy. I would put together a budget just to have to redo it every other day depending on Dr. S’s moods. News flash: the mood was always horrible. Not only was I not contributing to anything (because Dr. S would halt any project or hinder any effort), the general abuse was starting to suffocate me.

I was not allowed to eat at my desk. I was not allowed to eat at any point except lunch. I was not allowed to leave for lunch. Bathroom breaks had to be approved by the doctor ahead of time. When I traveled for a week straight to different Indian villages, I was to sleep in a hospital bed to save money on hotels.  On one visit, I stayed up all night next to three cockroaches and two lizards, picking at my split ends, wondering if giving back to the community was meant to feel this shitty.

And yet, I still craved for those times I would get to travel to the hospitals, just to be out of the office. Honestly, I also secretly wished the Dr. would just get hospitalized in his own rural treatment center. Every time a funding partner would join us in a meeting, Dr. S and Rekha smiled, told jokes, and even served biscuits outside of lunch. I would also laugh uncomfortably, suppressing the urge to shout to the partners “HELP! RUN! DON’T FUND A DERANGED PSYCHO.”

One day, after a long week of yelling, retyping the same document fifteen times, and barely eating, I went to a friend’s goodbye party. By midnight, I received an insanely long email from Rekha, listing out each flaw in me as a human. My clothes needed to be baggier to hide my body, I slouched too much, my legs crossed funny when I was sitting, my walk could be improved, my left nipple was larger than my right. Okay, she didn’t really mention the nipple, but you get it.

After only three months, I felt entirely destroyed. But I was too scared to leave. It was like an abusive relationship. Maybe I was as stupid as Dr. S claimed. Maybe I was just being too fussy and not making an effort to work harder. If I left, would anyone else want me?

The following week, Dr. S called me in for a meeting with his infamous leer. He leaned over the table and finally looked into my eyes and said, “Everything I make, I donate back into the trust. Technically, you make 5000 rupees more a month, but I’ve taken the liberty of withholding that amount as donation. So, we will deposit all the money we’ve taken and you just need to write us a check in bulk, making the donation appear…you know… generous.”

I was flabbergasted at the deceit and fraud. I nodded, frozen in my own thoughts and spent all evening bouncing ideas off my mother who was adamant that I quit immediately. In India, the notice period is generally one month. But I had seen how heinously Dr. S treated those employees serving their last month: I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, the following Monday, my mother came with me to the office. I was the only one there. She had the getaway vehicle waiting while I snuck in to drop off my company laptop. I took the liberty of writing a goodbye email to the entire company stating:

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. However, I will not be a part of an organization whose leadership team strongly conflicts with the humanitarian mission of the NGO. This is my resignation, effective immediately.

Though I was burning bridges and quitting in an unprofessional manner, I couldn’t bear to work for an organization where the employees were treated like farm animals.

Within a few hours, my phone was blowing up with calls and texts from Rekha and Dr. S. I just pulled out the battery and went to sleep.

Clearly, not all NGOs or companies are run like North Korea. However, this three-month immersion in hell showed me exactly how not lead a company and how deceptive a company’s image and media can be. To this day, I have no idea how Dr. S functioned in the humanitarian space as an awful human and why Rekha stayed for over a year with his abuse. I’m just happy I moved onto a normal, functioning company where the CEO must take his meds daily.

More importantly, even on the really tough days at work, I’m grateful that I can always eat lunch.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Career, Health

We Don’t Know: What Does “Busy” Mean?

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“Busy is a way of organizing your priorities and we use being busy or thinking that we’re busy as a reason not to do something that we really want to do. If you’re not doing something that you really want to do then you really don’t want to do it. If you really want to do something, you will find the time to do it. Be honest with yourself. If you’re not doing something that you tell yourself that you want to be doing—it means that you don’t want to be doing it. Figure out either how to do it or what to do instead.” — Debbie Millman

In the following video, Debbie Millman gives a great talk for designers (but really it’s good advice for everyone) about “The Top 10 Things I wish I Knew When I Graduated College.”

2011/02 Debbie Millman from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Debbie’s argument is that using the phrase, “I’m busy” is an excuse. That being busy is a decision that we make and that we should stop apologizing, stop making excuses, and decided what we really want to be doing and actually do it. What do you think?

Editor’s Note: Also in her talk, Debbie talks about three ways of knowing things which are particularly pertinent to our UE mission (You don’t know everything. Neither do we.): “I know what I know. I know what I don’t know. But I don’t know what I don’t know. That’s the important stuff to know.  The only way to be able to find that out is to ask somebody.”

Thank you to Sara Hamling for submitting Debbie’s video & quote.

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White