It started as just another letter in the pile that Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean gets every week. Like a lot of us lately, the letter-writer was coping with unemployment and asked E. Jean for help:
I’m currently homeless and living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m educated, I have never done drugs, and I am not mentally ill. I have a strong employment history and am a career executive assistant. The instability sucks, but I’m rocking it as best as I can.
The rest of the letter recounted the story of the homeless young woman applying for a job and bombing the interview. Here’s what E. Jean had to say, after two paragraphs of useful and inspirational job search advice:
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Continue reading ‘hero of the week: e. jean’
When you get laid off, it’s really tempting to lie around on the couch, watch Law and Order reruns, and feel sorry for yourself. I think it’s fine to do that for a little while, but at some point you’re going to have to get off the recliner. Whether you’re looking for a job right away or have decided to enjoy some funemployment for awhile, there are a couple of things you should consider doing in order to a) keep yourself active and alert, and b) have some stuff to talk about when interviewers ask you about that gap on your resume.
- Volunteer. I know it sounds crazy to encourage you to work for free while you’re struggling to find a new paying gig, but volunteering even a couple of hours a week – whether at an animal shelter, a nature preserve, or a soup kitchen – will give you something to think about every time you start wallowing in self-pity. Plus, it’s a good way to meet new people and possibly consider a different career path.
- Consider temping or doing an internship in another field. If you’ve always secretly dreamed about pursuing that career in the music industry but never had the guts to do it, now’s your chance. You might learn that it’s not the gig for you but have some fun in the meantime, or you might figure out a way to leverage the skills you already have into your new dream job.
- Bond with other unemployed people. The last thing you need to do is sit around the house all day being depressed. If you have other unemployed friends, try to meet up once or twice a week. You can serve as each others’ support systems during new job searches or just catch cheap afternoon matinees or scour the town for a good happy hour.
Continue reading ‘how to stay active while unemployed’
The first time I had to write a professional work email and sign my boss’ name to it instead of my own, I was totally flummoxed. There was this particular art to that “corporatespeak” voice, and I couldn’t quite get it right. For those of you in similar situations, here are a couple of useful tips:
- Talk in the royal “we.” It helps you to think about the company being one large voice/brain and reminds you not to be personal.
- Use initials for everyone, no matter what. Why say that Joe Green and Frank Myers are having lunch tomorrow when you can say that JG and FM are having lunch tomorrow? Using any kind of code or shorthand is a good way to make people feel like they’re ‘in the know,’ plus you sound more efficient.
- Use at least two cliches for each short email and more for longer emails. Good, common ones include “at the end of the day,” “all hands on deck,” “team player(s),” and “outside of the box.”
Remember in college how there were those services where you could pay someone money to write your paper for you or just purchase a prewritten paper on the topic of your choice? Well, now plagiarism exists on a whole new level. Now you can fake job references. That’s right – even though you’ll get fired if someone finds out, the website Career Excuse will provide phony references for you, even going so far as to set up a dummy company URL and phone number in the case an intrepid HR person decides to research your former place of ‘employment.’ If you’re switching industries or a newbie trying to get a heads up, you can create fake references with specific details about what you did, what responsibilities you had, and even how much you earned – for a nice fee, of course.
I’d advise against it, but if your inner James Frey is just bursting to get out you might want to check here.
You may find this information positively shocking, but as the economy continues to suffer and companies find ways to cut costs – and jobs – asskissing at work is on the rise. That seems entirely logical to me, since when people are worried about losing their jobs they’ll do things in order to prevent that from happening, and one time-tested way of keeping your job is getting your boss to like you.
According to the same survey, backstabbing and office politics are also up 40 percent. I have no idea where these numbers came from. I mean, it’s one thing to be able to say “backstabbing is on the rise” because you’ve noticed more people doing it in order to preserve their job security, but that can only ever be a casual observation at best. How can you possibly quantify the amount of backstabbing that is going on? Even if you did a survey of workers, you could come up with something like “40 percent of people say backstabbing is on the rise,” or “40 percent of workers admit they’re more backstabby now,” (which seems to be what the surveyors did, since the rest of the piece is about a worker poll) but that would still be a little bit of a stretch.
Anyhow, you can find the entire study here.
It never ceases to make me laugh when newspapers or magazines ’suddenly’ catch on to the ‘trend’ of working remotely. Still, as the economy sucks and people are taking pay cuts or working multiple part time jobs, these trend pieces are not going anywhere. Now, the Washington Post has coined the term ‘digital nomad‘ to identify and describe people who – like yours truly! – can do their jobs from anyplace they want (provided it has wifi, of course). Here are some of the reasons/benefits the article gives:
- You can wear whatever you want.
- No one makes you get up at 7 AM.
- You can avoid traffic or crowded public transit.
- You are able to work flexible hours, which is particularly awesome if you have kids or are working multiple gigs.
- “Meetings” can be conducted from your living room, a Starbucks, a library, or basically anywhere else.
- Buying an iPhone is a “work expense.’
- You can meet other digital nomads at your coffee shop of choice.
- If you want to go on vacation, you don’t have to request time off – you just have to make sure your laptop will work from the beach or hotel or airport or wherever.
In other words, your company needs to get with the times and let you be a digital nomad already.
As much as this website is about calling out bosses who suck, it’s only fair to turn the focus back on ourselves sometimes. I know that by the end of my nightmare assistant job, I was not a fun person to work with. I’d mentally checked out of the job and could not have cared less about hitting any deadline except my last workday. While I disagree with some of them (you are TOTALLY allowed to complain about having too much work to do, and you are also not required to agree with every single thing your company says/does or be accused of disloyalty, for example), a couple of them are spot-on. Here are a couple of red flags that might indicate you’re not the awesomest person to work with:
- Everyone in the office knows about your personal life. Don’t get me wrong – I advocate all the time for being friends with your coworkers when you can. It’s one thing to tell your best work friend all about your recent breakup, but it’s another to overshare to everyone in the office if you don’t know them that well.
Continue reading ‘do you suck as a coworker?’
Heather again. My friend Dan was an assistant in Hollywood and is now a writer and improv comic in New York. He made the most of his assistant job and moved up quickly. Here are some of his tips for your first assistant job in Hollywood.
I wasn’t an assistant for long before I got moved up to the development department where I was a much better fit. But I was for several months an assistant to a fairly well known producer, in Hollywood no less. Here are my tips.
- Be Lucky. My boss and I never really got along well on a personal level. There was no animosity, he just didn’t like my personality. He was still professional and I did the best work I could, for peanuts. When I moved back to NY and worked for his partner (in development), it was a much better match.
- Schmooze. I got to hang out with some really cool and somewhat famous people. You’re young. They all want to mentor you. You’re not a threat yet and if they help early on, you’ll love them forever. A well known director shaped my view of what writing should be as we ate lunch at the coffee shop in my boss’s hotel, waiting for him. An aspiring actress who’s now a movie star was happy to talk to me, in part because we were the only ones there under 30 (we were both 19). These are good people and as the assistant, you’re not in competition with them yet. Ask questions. Ask them to try new things and for advice. People love giving advice to young people.
- Work damn hard. Produce good work. I work slowly and methodically, which wasn’t always right for the task. But I produce damn fine work and I was moved to a department that was a better fit.
- Presentation matters. I don’t care how good your spreadsheet of my daily activities is, I want it to pop and look nice enough to be in my office. Production values should be as good as can be for everything. Simple is always better.
- Work for peanuts. This is a chance to learn and jumpstart a career, a glorified internship, not a fat cash job. That’s the difference between a secretary and an assistant. Bring your own laptop.
- Always say yes. Can you do this? I can figure it out. That’s how I got to write coverage for the first time and got started on the path to being a writer.
- Flirt. I flirted with a studio head’s female protegé at a premiere and spoke passionately about the project during such time. She put in a good word for our company and they upped our marketing budget. You are a spokesman for your company and should believe in it. As long as you care about the projects, it’s fine to mix it into your personal life.
- Care about the projects. You may have to work your ass off doing this meaningful thing, but it’s a component of releasing this FUCKING AWESOME MOVIE.
The now-former Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, whose comments about gay marriage and internet feud with Perez Hilton made her way more famous than the actual Miss USA winner (who is from my home state of North Carolina – go NC!), has finally lost her crown. The official reason stated by the pageant was that Prejean violated her contract by doing appearances without clearing them/getting them approved by the state pageant board. Obviously they are really pissed at her, because they leaked (or allowed to leak) an email exchange between her and California pageant director Keith Lewis. Here is one of the emails Prejean sent (you can see the whole exchange on Jezebel):
I expect you to be forwarding me ALL email requests and interview requests to me. I know how you are and its not right if you are selecting things for me. Thanks for your cooperation And fyi I am a presenter of medals at the special olympics in a few weeks for the summer games. So now u know I am doing this and I expect your full support. Also I was asked to fill in for a dj on a local radio show.. Ill be reading from a show biz script monday. I am doing this
Continue reading ‘miss california and email etiquette’
We’ve gone all week without a Tip of the Week, so here goes (with a hat tip to techrepublic.com):
- Awesome
- Dude!
- Jesus
- Basically any mention of religion, really. Unless you’re applying to work at the Vatican or something.
- “I have a chronic illness”
- Profanity (even if you did go to Asshole State University)
- What year you graduated from college (hello, age discrimination!)
- Kickass
- Degrees/Certificates: BS, Business, University of Florida; Promises Rehab Center, Malibu, CA
- “I left my last job because my boss was a total douche” (even though it’s true)
- DUDE.
- Aliases you’re wanted under in other states
- “I plan to get pregnant immediately after you hire me and I have health insurance” (see also: Hasselbeck Technique)
