The Martian – Andy Weir
Are You Ready for the Yes? – Audria Richmond
Cozy Minimalist Home – Myquillyn Smith
Overwhelmed – Brigid Schulte
Grit – Angela Duckworth
Crushing YouTube – Joseph Hogue
The Minimalist Home – Joshua Becker
The More of Less – Joshua Becker
Goodbye, Things – Fumi Sasaki (trans. Eriko Sugita)
Becoming – Michelle Obama
Filed under Books
Filed under Books
eBay Sales: 2 figurines, book, MLP accessory, Super 8 film, candle, Poochie item, 2 plush, 1 paperweight
#MilWordy Update: 133,086 words (5,938 words/day to complete)
I most certainly did not plan on missing so many days.
I had my first vaccine shot on Monday and I have to say that I did have a side effect — fatigue. The first day it was most obvious, but the next two days, I just felt… off. Like my head was filmy and I wasn’t getting much done. I tried, mind you, but I couldn’t concentrate in the way that I prefer. And I ended up taking naps. More than I’d planned on.
I talked with a recruiter today, helping her brainstorm how to find someone to fill one of her openings. And it was nice to talk to someone and give them some help. I enjoy that sort of thing. It also made me think about job titles and the fact that you cannot just rely on a job title to tell you if someone is the right fit for a job.
For example: One of the titles I held was “Administrative Specialist Senior.” What the everloving hell does that mean in the real world? Not what you’re thinking and I’m sure of that. I know that because I get calls about becoming a secretary (I use the old term specifically here) all the time. Like, no Bosco, please read what my job duties were because they were not being an Administrative Assistant. That’s a different skill set. For one, Administrative Assistants have to have a much higher threshold for bullshit than my job did.
As an Administrative Specialist, I did everything from purchasing, to space planning, to writing procedures, to database work. I had the same title from the day I stopped being a receptionist and started being the assistant to the assistant and everyone else on the team, to the day I left the position as a space planner running a nationwide project to consolidate IT functions. I sort of wish that I was kidding, but I was also an hourly employee and, as it turns out, not paid nearly what I was worth.
Still, when I was talking to this recruiter, I mentioned that I knew folks who had started as Janitors in order to get a foot in the door and then, after a year of that, were looking for other work. Her actual reaction was “you’re kidding.” I was not and I am not. The problem is, once Janitor is on your resume, you have to fight to get recognized as another type of professional. I’m hoping that I just helped someone change their mindset about who they’re searching for when they do their database mining and reaching out to people.
Job hunting exposes just how limiting job titles and database searches are. If I put in a search for a space planner, for instance, I get jobs ranging from the planning of the park system for the county to move coordination in an office. Those are completely different skills, but they have the same name.
Also, I am perfectly capable of managing engineers to get their jobs done without having to be an engineer. Why? Because managing means that I help get obstacles out of people’s way. I sit down with them and figure out what’s going on in their schedule. I take the time to realize when someone is overworked. And I don’t have to be an engineer to take a look at a drawing and say something like — you know you can’t actually read the information in this note because it’s overlapping right? Or — where does this piece of the design actually meet up with the other piece of the design. Or — the customer wanted a door opener on this door here. It’s in the requirements document, let’s make sure it happens. In fact, as a manager, there might even be a layer between me and that requirements document. This is a long way of saying “I have a Psychology degree. I know how to talk to people and gather information.” and “I can manipulate as well as anyone else if I need to.”
However, a lot of my skills fall between the cracks. I know just enough to be dangerous in a lot of different topics. I am what is usually called a Polymath. However, people don’t recognize that I have that information when they look at my resume because while I am always learning, I don’t have a piece of paper to say that I know that information. This is probably something I need to figure out how to document or change, but that’s a problem for future me. I don’t want to get derailed right now.
So, in summary. Job Hunting is difficult because trying to determine what a job actually entails from the title or the description is often iffy. And Hiring is difficult because HR systems want something quick to sort through resumes before they get to managers, and if the applicant doesn’t check a particular box, they get booted before a the hiring manager ever gets to see them.
This is why networking is so important in the traditional realm. The people who know you can recommend you to people if they know you’re looking for a job. And if you don’t burn your bridges, you can reach out to your past teams and shake the tree a little bit.
This has been a PSA and kvetch system about the current methods of finding a job and hiring.
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Filed under Life in Random
eBay Sales: paperweight, plush fish
#MilWordy Update: 130,633 words (5,757 words/day to complete)
Spent most of the day just reading. It was very relaxing and I highly recommend it.
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Filed under Life in Random
eBay Sales: none
#MilWordy Update: 128,939 words (5,731 words/day to complete)
I spent most of the day organizing for the auction pick-up that’s scheduled for Sunday. This is the second time we’re doing one of these and I hope that we’ve learned something from the first adventure. We’re setting up in the garage for this one. That way we don’t have to worry about people being able to get up and down the steps of the house. It was a little tense with a few of our customers last time and I don’t want any repeats of that. Next month’s auction is dolls and teddy bears, so that’s going to be quite the adventure too.
My actual plan for the day was to start filming for the two YouTube channels I’m planning to create. This is still in a nebulous phase, but I’ve gotten the first couple of clips done. My toes have touched the water. And it is freezing and scary and does not have nearly enough chlorine in it. I will do my best to write something up about it though. I mean, content is content when it comes to blogging right? *nervous laughter* Right? *crickets* Okay, so long as you aren’t the mutant Spaceship Troopers crickets that live in the basement, you can stay.
Trigger Warning for Arachnophobia Scare:
TRIGGER SPACE
TRIGGER SPACE
TRIGGER SPACE
I will say though, that courage is getting into the shower without your glasses, looking down at the dark dot on the floor which could be anything, have your hindbrain scream that it’s a spider (which you are disturbed by greatly), and still not just jump out of the water. I stared down at the blurry thing for a long moment, urging water towards it. It did not move. I used the edge of the shower curtain to touch it. It did not move. I stood there, frozen to the spot. Water still cold until I could work up the courage to grab my razor. I was not touching the thing. Not until I knew what it was. I poked it with the razor. It was hard. It did not move. Turns out: it was a magnet that had fallen out of the shower curtain liner. It still took awhile for my heartrate to calm down. And any reading of Stoic philosophy was right out the window after that. Fuck stoic. I just didn’t want nightmares. (I have had spider visualizations laying in bed so realistic that they have made me get up and go to my computer just to get rid of them.)
I survived the experience. I have drained it of a little bit of its terror. (My heart is racing thinking about it again.)
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Filed under Life in Random
eBay Sales: none
#MilWordy Update: 128,589 words (5,695 words/day to complete)
I truly wanted to do something interesting and clever today, but I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe next year I’ll be clever enough to do a little “history of April Fool’s” or something. Or maybe a collection of good jokes. Several of the YouTubers I follow managed to put out something fun, but the jokes really depend on you being long-term watchers of the channel to make sense, so I can’t recommend them to the general public.
I’ve been watching the climbing national trials on YouTube recently. I’ll do a post on that this week, I think. I like watching certain niche sports and I would like more people to watch them with me. I gobble up the Olympics in great gulps, even when it drives my family crazy.
Today was sort of chaotic. We spent the morning doing errands at the bank and getting some important paperwork filled out. Then, I had a quick phone discussion with a recruiter. Lunch was at IHOP. Then, I swear I did things this afternoon. Mostly, I think they involved resumes and things like that, but I really can’t remember anything in particular. I think I did put in a bid on some typist type work. I would be fine with that actually. I’m fairly quick at typing and I manage fairly clean copy when I do that. So, we’ll see.
I also saw a few interesting positions to apply for. Though, part of me wants to save some of them for the Unemployment hoops you need to jump through every week. I’m still waiting to find out if I’m even eligible for the stuff and for how long.
The downsizing auction we’ve been running completed tonight, even though pick-up is on Easter. It didn’t have the greatest turn-out, but I think the themed auctions that I’m planning for the rest of the year will do better. And they’ll make a significant difference for us.
Well, I suppose that’s it. Nothing really interesting. But it did get done today! Step by step, mes amis.
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Filed under Life in Random
BitterSuites 