Selling Yourself

I don’t have a character flaw that causes me to still see the good in most people.  This vision commonly stems from knowing when I can help someone help themselves.  I can wash your car for you a million times, but if I can help you learn just once – or if just doing it right once myself takes care of the situation – I will.  My charitable goodwill is not a handout: I donate the time and effort if I think it will be the extra oomph someone will need to get out the gate. The time I spend is measured and biased.  Being that it’s my time, if you have a problem with this, you can jog off.

So, let me give some of this time.  I worked retail management for nine years.  I saw some crazy applications – I mean, downright batshit-insane.  So, I knew (and now, know,) finding a new job is a complete pain in the ass, regardless of the economy. There are, literally, more jobs than there are people to fill them, depending on what you’re looking for.  I mean, there can only be one president at a time, and I know at least 230 Million people that say they’re more than qualified for the job.

These advertise for you.  They want programmers, engineers, burger time specialists, and masters of macchiato.  Commonly, the only ones available to work these spots are retail sales associates, bankers, astrophysicists, and car detailing technicians.  The employment that is available isn’t always what you can do.

So, you may be saying to yourself, “No shit, Cletus: this is nothing that I don’t know.  I have wasted my precious time spamming classifieds on Craisglist for this buttnugget of wisdom, you dick.”

Simmer, friends.  I do actually have some straight-forward advice.

Let’s start with the most basic: advertise yourself.  Look, you did do something before you did what you’re doing now.  Sit down and think about how what you’ve done can be used for where you’re going.  There’s the basic stuff, such as a cashier being, “fiscally accountable as cash handler of sales operations.”  Did you just talk to customers, or were you, “engaging customers with open-ended questions designed to promote multi-unit sales?”  Then there are the more obfuscated ones.  If you met such-and-such a sales goal, don’t just say that on a resume.  Just because I can fart ‘Ode to Joy’ is no indication of the amount of skill and expertise that went into, “Learning and performing alternative musical performances publicly.”  Just because you’ve learned this lovely jargon at one job, doesn’t mean that it’s universally applicable.  Write down your achievements as if relating them to someone that has no clue what you’re talking about.  Or, as it has been related to me: like you’re talking to a senile septuagenarian.  What does being the number one seller of Alex’s Lemonade stickers entail?  Did you create a sales technique to engage customers?  Did you establish a sales quota?  Were there little micro-meetings where you would share what works best with your team?  Did you threaten to punch everyone in the neck if they didn’t buy, or did you favor a soft-close sales technique?

Don’t sell yourself short.  You are trying to promote, in three pages or less (with a resume), how awesome you are.  Not how awesome you think you are.  Don’t use hyperbole or misleading information – the last thing you want is to start an interview backing out of a lie.  Use actual examples, goals, dreams, and personality traits to your advantage.  Sure, the last job might have made you feel stressed and worn out, but why?  Did you just throw yourself that strongly into your work?  By doing this, did you learn a few things about being a self-motivated person?  Did you learn about building a better work environment for your team?   Was through things that you did or did not hear?  - morale and support that was not offered?

Don’t oversell yourself.  Seriously, don’t state your time as a burger flipper was food safety and health inspector, as well as loss prevention specialist for your location.  If you can tell me enough about you, then reading what you’ve done is just an icing.  Too much icing and the cake is ruined.

When you interview, you have as much right to ask questions as they do.  This is a funny one that a lot of people don’t think about it.  Research where you’re going for an interview beforehand: if you can’t be comfortable being attached to a product or company, don’t be.  It will just wear you down, and it’s an insulting disservice to the company to continue working like that.  I refused to even interview with companies that I thought were complete nonsense, or, that had ethically averse standards.  Equally, it’s impressive as all hell if you can spout back some of what the company is all about.  Bonus points if they have a philanthropic initiative that you are aware enough of to be deemed ‘knowledgeable’

Most interviews start and stop at the resume – don’t let them.  If you’re going to introduce yourself with a sheet of paper, make sure it’s the best damn piece that’s ever been in someone’s hands.  Keeping in mind, they’ve had a few delightful pieces before you.  Don’t go gimmicky or cheap – colored paper, perfume, singing telegram, etc.  If you can be as awesome as I know you all are, then you’ll do just fine getting out the gate.  You might have a boot print in your ass, though.

Entropy

It’s not that I haven’t updated.  I mean, yes – it is, fuck you for being so literal and all.  All of my energy this weekend has been poured so thoroughly into packing the house for a major move (and Pinterest), that I am just beat by the time eleven rolls around.  Friday’s draft never made Saturday’s edit, as I was representing at the animal shelter I volunteer for.  We were having an open house, in hopes of generating some additional donations.

Packing the house has actually left a lot of thoughts rolling around inside my head.  This has been quite nice as they aren’t math related.  Also, they are not ways to extrapolate my history into some boring tirade about tea in Indonesia.

One key I’ve pulled away is that no matter how much I improve myself, I always fall back on my cynicism.  These lessons in elocution have done more for improving the efficacy of my venomous wit, than in relaxing my rage on humanity.  I’m at a happy place with humanity, but I still have troubles suffering the daft.  I mean, if you act like a poo-flinging monkey, you shouldn’t be insulted when I treat you like a damn poo-flinging monkey.  Personal issues aside, it’s just a matter of reciprocity, and, my desire to not want to figure out why someone is a damn moron. 

Another thought, is why aren’t there more cynical motivational speakers?  You know, for the disenfranchised self-entitled generation.  We need fewer people to hold their hands, and more to smack them in the mouth while holding a mirror, so that they can better understand who failed them in life.

Seeing the house in disarray is also digging into my cerebral cortex.  I run outside for my workouts (we’ve covered that).  I’m still fairly demotivated, so this is about it.  I don’t really do crunches or sit-ups; I gave up on the Army workout ages ago.  I like to stay below a target weight, though, so I do what I can to keep off extra ass…ets.  I started running after going through a ton of therapy for my feet and legs, and I tell ya – it feels freaking amazing to know that my gimpy feet can go for two or more miles. 

What I hate, is the way this community completely saps my desire to run around.  Throughout spring of 2011, I would reflect on the how our little rental complex – while a little aged and lived in – was rather aesthetically pleasing.  Hell, I even bought a 35mm camera and went to town on this place.  Over time, the chance for good photos diminished, as the rough spots weren’t smoothed out.  In fact, it was getting worse.  Among many issues, there were dents in vinyl siding, gutters falling from rooftops, trash emanating up to a ten-foot radius from the dumpsters, and a rough smattering of children’s toys stretching up to fifteen feet from a unit’s patio. 

The road through the complex is – at most – ten feet from a unit, so you can see how that last one used to irritate the hell out of me.  I’d go to work in a retail store that was cleaned and fully restored the night prior, just to see it torn apart by noon the next day.  I wanted to smack the face of every little child that couldn’t understand why “P” does not come immediately after “B.”  Without proper outer-order, it is impossible to find inner-order, and I was surrounding myself with chaos.

Now, the natural progression of life towards a state of entropy, chaos, and destruction means life as we know it is against you from the first smack of the ass.  No matter your state of positivity throughout the day, you may still look this fact in the face while smacking a snooze button in the morning.  It creeps up during cellphone call drops.  When you’re missing a sock after running a pair through the dryer.  Worse, when your favorite hoodie goes through the drier.  Before The Great Severing, I had no perspective for this.

By being alive, life in general is out to kill you.  Your presence as a creature that can fight with tools, breed by combining traits that make you more resistant to bacteria and viruses, and oppose every natural order of things, makes you the largest threat alive today.  Think of this and your greatness within the natural order, the next time you feel ashamed for hiding in your car wolfing down only the sauce from a big mac.  I mean, it’s my favorite part, too, but I at least climb on the hood and get all Coyote Ugly with it.  Rubbing that special sauce on my chest while blasting Ke$ha is the best part.

The Spartan’s understood the crudest concept of the natural order.  Hell, they helped it along: child born weak? - Crush it against rocks.  In a way, every possible modern influence is still trying to toss us over the gorge.  From carcinogens, to natural viruses, ceiling collapses, PTSD - even to conventions of modern times, society, cultures, and populations.  One caveat, though: this process is one that goes for as long as people let it.

Since it’s a force that can be allowed to continue by people, you have the power to stop it.  No, you can’t stop death, but you can restrict how the chaos influences you.  I can’t stop the neighbors from leaving their kid’s toys all over the place, nor can I reasonably crush it under the wheels of my lovely car. 

Oh good lord how I would laugh at the looks on their young, innocent faces as those toys were destroyed beyond disrepair.  The conflict is: how does that make me better than the predecessors that contributed to what I am now?  How does that subtract from the influence of chaos?  Sadly, it doesn’t.  But at least it gives me perspective.

Perspective is a hell of a thing.  It is unique and all-encompassing, or it can be small, and singularly influential.  Perspective allows me to realize that any force can only hold the power to bring you down if you let it.  A religion can’t make you religious; talking about crime doesn’t make you criminal.  Whatever you do with the circumstance is on you.

That is why, after four bouts of insanity (see: ceiling collapse one, water main explosion 1, water main explosion 2, and ceiling collapse 2), Rae and I are just taking our lumps and moving on.  Literally 0 we move in out of here in less than six days.  Perspective allowed me to see what our bargaining chips were, and bring that power to the table in terms of relocating.  I had the wherewithal to create a legal debacle that would have been in our favor.  Yet, sometimes, the strongest thing someone can do is the subtlest.

Take the worst mistake I could have made in the past nine years – this turned into the best road for me.  Well, there was that Foo-Manchu mustache, but that’s not what I mean here.  The mistake found me bored out of my mind, out of a full-time job, and did not navigate itself to my advantage – hell, if left to its own devices I’d probably be taking offers for gay porn at $120 a film.  Every situation has every outcome – it all depends on what you want that outcome to be.  Do you want an excuse?  Do you want to be yourself?  Do you want to be proud of your actions?

I do.  I’m exhausted of living a life filled with biased news and fake smiles; half-assed excuses and political positions based on happenstance and conflicting emotions; a religion that is a default for the overly judgmental, as well as the socially introverted.  I don’t want to see a world of all things moving towards a state of absolute finality - all I can see is absolute possibility.  My perspective can only ever affect me the way that I allow it, but I wish more people could see the shape of the world from my eyes.

Trees [might] Hate You

I had a good run today.  My time is still horrible – 24 minutes for a little over two miles.  Still, it was nice to get up and at it again.  It was an afternoon run; I did cramp up again.  I think with a few more of these, I could get a good pacing down for when these searing stabs of cramping pains take over.  Ladies: I’ve had a glimmer of your monthly agony; you are the strong and fearsome creatures indeed to withstand that.

I had Murs’ last album playing as I ran.  I like his work, and went so far as to join his Kickstarter.  He’s a unique artist, in that he does rap but isn’t “gangster” about it.  He has that background, and he could just as easily go to the darker side with all of his writing, but he has this really subtle way of being a positive influence.  I found myself mulling over the handful of lyrics which got stuck in my head.

I run past all sorts of trees.  They really aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing in terms of foliage and symmetry.  That’s the reason I love them- they’re scattered and random, tall and short, as varied as all the little humans around them.  I also like running outside.  If man was meant to run in place indoors, then why is there so much “outside” to explore? 

Know why trees grow faster than humans?  They grow to their purpose: to be cut and harvested.  Know what happens when you don’t cut it down?  It has to find a new purpose, as it grows taller, eventually becoming the grandfather of the forest.

I was driven to climb one – just take a step to the right, and keep running up to the top.  I was reminded of two things, though.  One, I’d look like fucking Pattinson in “Twilight.”  Acting, script, and concept aside, whoever did that musical score had me laughing so hard, I was nearly ejected from the theater.  I mean, as the guy’s going on about eating humans, some dingus is pounding away on a glockenspiel for heaven’s sake.  Nothing strikes fear of death into your heart like the soft flutter of a glockenspiel…

The second is that I don’t like heights.  I used to be petrified of them.  Then, I did the basic training and had a CO plant their boot firmly in my chest to force me over a wall while rappelling.  You learn fast that it’s not the height you’re afraid – it’s the fear of not knowing how to resolve that situation.  Alright – it’s a fear of landing.  I wasn’t really afraid to be a hundred feet up – I was afraid that I didn’t know how to get down.  When I got through screaming like a schoolgirl, which, I will admit did happen for all of five seconds, I remembered my shit, grabbed the lines, and landed softly.  Well, almost.

Around the time I had this thought, my music player is belting a rhyming line every second, and a few took hold in my brain meats.  I rethreaded the concept, and thought, “How can anyone reach for their goals, when they’re afraid of heights?”  Our plans – in our head – are lofty.  They are so far above where us, that they should have a fog lamp on them.  But so many people are content to just kick at the base of that radio antenna, staring skyward at their flashing desires, and be content that those dreams are there- untouched, untainted, unexplored, but safe at that height.

Nothing is safe – but you can’t try to protect anything if you don’t have a hand on it, first.  Leaving your goals out of reach intentionally is just waiting for something to knock it off that skyscraper.  Maybe they’ll knock it down to you; maybe halfway – it’s still never going to be in your hands, undamaged or remotely intact, and the exact why you envisioned it unless you grow the stones and plan how to get it.  Pre-emptive planning for how to land with that goal once you’ve achieved it might be good, as well.

Don’t let anything cut you down.  Be the tall tree, surrounded by the forest you create.

It's This Thing of, Like, When...

I went for a run for the first time in ages yesterday.  Nothing long – both in distance and in time.  I made it nearly two miles.  Don’t ask about the time – seriously, it was rough.  I haven’t done anything that exerting since late February.  Last summer, I was a running mad man – three to five times a week.  I burned through a pair of shoes in less than three months.  I’m finding all of my bones becoming stiff and less bendy from working at a desk; I intend to change this.

I’d justified the lack of a regimented exercise routine over the past few weeks quite rationally.  My hour I’d normally spend alone with my thoughts running, I was now spending with my computer writing.  I wasn’t around mall food, so there wasn’t an urgent need to stay in shape.  My stress was considerably lower, so I had less need of the exertion.

There were drawbacks, though.  I like to curl my legs underneath me while I sit on the couch.  Doing this had been leaving me so sore that I stopped trying.  I also have horrible posture, and like balling myself into as small a shape as my six-foot-four self can muster.  The lower back stiffness from sitting in a chair had not favored this.  Strangest of all to me, is that my legs and ankles had started hurting more since I stopped working on them every day.

Well, I had a “fuck-this-shit-o’clock” moment upon leaving work yesterday.  If I’m going to be in pain anyway, god dammit, I’m going to put myself there.  So, I ran in the evening.  I’m normally a morning runner, and the searing cramp that hit my intestines halfway through reminded me of why.  Bet your ass I kept pace for the remainder.

The running gave me some perspective, too.  I see Rae doing her workouts damn near daily, and it hadn’t really clicked that she’s busting her ass.  She’s found her plateau – what, five? Maybe, six times? –Yet, she just steps it up every time. 

The run also reminded me I was working on this insane prime number theory.  In order to keep my pace, I like breaking numbers.  I’m not a mathematician by any stretch, but I do find calculus fun and exciting.  I only had to fail the basic stuff, what, three times?  So, yeah… I’m a dork.  I watched a special about a scientist working out the necessary force for achieving escape velocity from an event horizon while jogging.  I’ll give you a hint: there’s a LOT of zeroes.  Dude must have had the same side cramps I had.

To bring this all around, I couldn’t put my thumb on what to write about today.  I was going to write about people changing.  See, I was raised around drug users.  Some were even addicts.  For the longest time, this left one impression firmly on me: People don’t change, they just become better liars. 

But, living is changing.  It’s growing, evolving, adapting; to be alive is to change.  There is only ever one thing certain, and that’s nothing stays the same. 

I have created a mighty vessel here.  She’s a fine beast – easily eighty feet long, aged oak, and tarred for worthiness.  There are two tall masts filling to the brim with the most brilliant, multi-colored sails you’ve ever seen.  I would have gone with canvas, but, well – if you know me, you know what I’ve already done to my canvas.  I love colors; monochromatic-my-ass.  If I go by the ideology that forced this ship to sea, I’d be crying off-shore, huddled in a corner of her fine poop deck.  No – to hell with that: I want to see blue oceans, dolphins, giant turtles, hurricanes, and tropical adventures.

So where does that leave my previous notion?  It’s an easy one for anyone to pick up, and you can see why:

It’s so broadly applicable.

This mantra should be handed out to the people who live to it so dearly.  I could paint this a hundred times over on a hundred neon nametags, handing out them out in a calm suburb, while school is in session.  By the end of an hour, I would have been out forty five minutes ago.

It all boils down to dedication.  You can recreate yourself from the ground up, anytime you want.  Realizing the positive influences, and striving to maintain them in your life, can often cast brilliant halogens on everything that’s not so stellar.  This may mean not eating as much chocolate, alcohol, or red meat, and it may mean doing it with a modicum of snark or animosity.  Maybe it means just trying to run twice a week, no matter what.  Playing games that actually make you think, like Blokus, chess, or PortaI.  Reading books as much as you read comics.  Kicking a soccer ball as hard as possible when a gaggle of children are in a heated match (either because you wanted to, or, because you’re playing with them; doesn’t matter to me.  Ten points for Slytherin if you did it because you’re a honey badger).

This evolution may cost the people you’ve had around for ages.  When you’re moving ahead of where they are in life, they can only follow you.  If they don’t want to follow you, they’ll disappear from your radar over time.  That’s not a bad thing; your perception of self can be critically influenced by how you perceive yourself.  If you don’t know who you are, the only alternative is to know what your friends think you are.  After a few minutes running, without a television, without music, and nothing else but your own voice rolling around inside your head, you might find out – at first – it’s not your voice talking back.  That will change over time, I promise. 

I was envious of those cadets three years ago.  They were living a life that was defined by the people around them, but they all had such a positive focus.  Well, most of them.  In retrospect, they were all trying to make themselves better, and they were helping along anyone who wanted to go with them.  Their goal was a group effort, made stronger by the individuals furthering their own efforts.

What’s that say about the other end of the spectrum?  If you aren’t going to change, but you want people to think you are, then you dedicate yourself to lying about it.  If you are, then just simply do.  What does this do for the mantra? – know what? – I don’t care.  It makes the whole concept moot. 

Gone.  Poof. End of story. Goodbye.

If you want to move towards a new goal in life, you can’t do it surrounded by people who are standing still.  That’s all that matters in the end.

Supplemental 2

I wrote a short something or other last night.  Turns out, it's not necessarily garbage, but it was very much writing because I demanded it of myself.  There’s really no point in editing such a scattered train wreck – that’s something I learned two weeks ago.  If a piece can’t be saved, don’t.  Rewriting it will take less time than piecing it together in any way that would make it coherent, let alone, suck less.  As such, that post is getting scrapped.

My intention was to just let matters lie.  I would go home, pack some more, make dinner, pack more, then write before going to bed, leaving the editing for the following morning if I was particularly tired.  However, after nearly causing a car accident on my way to work, I thought a supplemental might be in order once more.  

Most folks – me included – are horrible drivers.  Even if you think you’re great, you’re horrible.  Know why? – Because we all like driving our way.  We go along, tap our fingers on the wheel, doing what we want; we are safe in our happy bubble.  As it is, driving a car has become a very personalized ritual.  From the way you hold the wheel, to the bumper stickers you apply; it is less “a vehicle” and more “my vehicle.”  They are a living space, complete with libraries, telephones, internet, and commodes – all this, before you even consider people who live inside of their cars.   The empowerment of the driver is not inherently a bad thing - until you have several hundred people navigating their castles like the kings and queens they believe to be, while driving at least one short ton of aluminum bonded to steel, and at speeds in excess of sixty-five miles an hour.  To hell with a single terrorist on a single plane – look at a highway. 

Alright, fine, that may be a little extreme, but the notion is the same - mass chaos all stemming from a single-minded goal: superiority.  Every driver feels they are the ones doing it right; everyone else needs to bend to their whims and get the hell out of the way.

There’s always this fine rhythm to it.  I noticed this today as I simply tapped my hand to a comfortable rhythm – about 100 beats per minute.  I had news on the AM frequency, and as a new segment began, another car – no turn signal – flipped me the bird because I had cut him off.  I was in a right lane turning right; he was in opposing traffic, turning left down the same road.  I’m not a mind reader, and I have no desires to let this mary rustle my feathers.  I keep driving while he’s behind me, and on every other beat he was slamming his finger forward into the windshield.  His mouth moved in a syncopated pattern, and the radio cut from interview to interview.  It was a visual symphony.

Once in our lovely parking lot, the symphony grew.  In his desire to look me in the eye while flipping me off, Ahab ran his runty little Honda full boar into a brilliant white Escalade.  The brief overture moved into a sonorous rumbling of car horns and doors; slams and swearing, finger shoving and death threats. Yet, the pacing remained the same throughout all of it.

Seasons are a natural pacing in which the world flows from order into chaos and entropy, and back again.  This is a mass chaos not built out of a singular superiority, but of a global necessity.  There is evenness to it - a flow that keeps those moving along beside it, from falling out of sync with it.  Maybe, it is only as natural to bloom tall as a tree, as it is for the tree to crash like a force of wooden lightning upon a home, destroying its walls and roof, just to be utilized in rebuilding that same home.  Maybe, a little chaos and destruction is good for creating a better order.

Kind of makes you wonder how much good a lot of chaos and destruction could do.