What Will You Do With That?

When I was in college, I was asked this question more times than I can count. I majored in comparative religion, and believe it or not, it has been a practical major for every job I have had since then.

I got my first newspaper reporter job out of college because I had a religion degree. The newspaper's consumer base became wildly diverse in the span of a few years because the meat-packing plants with decent salaries and the low price of housing attracted immigrants to the area. They wanted to expand their religion page from a listing of church events to something that would appeal to the Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and other religious people now part of the community.

In exchange for my knowledge base, they trained me in crime reporting, copy editing, feature writing... It was a dream job!

But liberal arts is taking a hit lately from all directions, even the President.

So, what do you do with a liberal arts degree these days?

Compete in the Winter Olympics. This small school has 23 athletes in Sochi right now!

Don't wait until senior year to go to your university career center. Learn career skills early. Interviewing, networking, resume development and cover letter writing are all skills you can start learning the moment you enter college. If you need help with these skills, there's still hope! I specialize in helping liberal arts majors with this.

Work for this company. I love the idea of liberal arts folks marketing themselves as positive and curious.

And if people keep bugging you about your salary out of school, send them this article. Research shows you'll earn more money in your peak earning years than other types of students.

If you're a liberal arts major interested in working with me, I'm offering a 50 percent off discount this month. Contact me at meredithtseu@gmail.com.

Back to the Mall

Every morning this week when I woke, I saw the red sweater hanging on the closet door. It was too big, and the easiest way to get my money back was to head to my local mall, except my local mall is the Columbia, Md. mall where the fatal shooting occurred last Saturday.

Let me start by saying how sorry I am for the families involved. I think somehow our society has failed all of them, and that's all I can think of saying about that for now.

That day I'd considered returning the sweater that day, but I didn't, mostly because I was lazy and my son wanted to read some train books, and I wanted another cup of coffee, and like many people I know who could have been there but weren't, I'm terribly relieved.

All week I debated when to go back to the mall, if at all. Maybe I would just use UPS. Suddenly a decision that normally was a half-second of my time became something I ruminated about all week. If I went to the mall, would something else happen? If I didn't, would that make me a coward? I dithered, struggled, and it was exhausting. I finally went back this weekend and returned the damn shirt, but I still felt like a coward. I browsed the watch section of a department store (I don't often wear watches!), then fled out the door.

If violence makes small decisions like whether to go to the mall or not seem like a huge deal, what becomes of the decisions that are a huge deal: decisions about work, marriage, real estate, cars. Those decisions can paralyze us in a world where our small decisions can carry such weight.

So many people I work with feel like they should be able to make their career decisions quickly, act on them, and always be progressing toward a goal, but it's normal to hesitate in our world. Frankly, I think it's the most human reaction we can have.

Winter Blues Roundup

Sometimes I feel like I was a bear in past life. Come January, I just want to hibernate. It doesn't help that Downton Abbey and Sherlock were on last night, with three straight hours of British TV goodness. Somehow, my boss, my kids, and the rest of society don't really allow me to check out for the next few months.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed, put on my warmest thermal underwear, and got a short run in. It really did help to see the sunrise, somehow, and exercise always helps my mood. I'm going to try to stay away from the chocolate chip cookies today, and eat more protein.

The best advice may be to not expect too much of ourselves, however. It may not be the best time to write your novel, for instance, according to Norman Rosenthal, who literally wrote the book on Seasonal Affective Disorder. Recent research by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison shows that award winning writers have productive cycles that follow the seasons, with spring and fall being most productive. The darkest months of winter are not one of them.

Interesting, then, that we sometimes charge ourselves with huge life changes at this time of year, with New Years resolutions to lose weight, change jobs, and improve.

A few more spots to visit:

How to fight the winter blahs when working from home.

Some symptoms to check, in case you need a visit to your physician.

I think there's something to the idea that yoga can help us through the winter.

Where the Jobs Will Be: A Dose of Optimism

If I were starting out again and I wanted to choose my career by the numbers, I'd consider computers, and I'd head south.

The Daytona Beach area, 24 percent of companies plan to hire (compared to 13 percent nation-wide), according to a recent Manpower survey. Austin Texas and other areas of Florida and Texas are also looking good.

What types of jobs to consider? Computer work, health care work, and even a job in the gambling industry could be on the table. The Department of Labor and Statistics has released its 2016 projections for job growth in industries, and some of the numbers are enough to warm this career coach's heart

Although there are lists compiled for this year, we need years usually to train for a career. That's why I like to look at the Department of Labor projections for two years out.

All these numbers require a dose of reality. The numbers can be, well, weird, as The Atlantic does a good job pointing out.

While I don't think we should just abandon our interests and talents to follow whatever economic trends crop up, I do think we need a dose of realism to go with it. A job search without knowledge of these trends can quickly lead a job seeker to blame himself when the search drags on. If you know the reality in your area, you can avoid blaming yourself and redouble your efforts, or you can even consider keeping your human resources career afloat by targeting a computer services company on the rise.

To talk more about your career challenges, you can reach me at meredithtseu@gmail.com.

Ways for At-Home Parents to Keep Skills Current

Being ambitious about working part-time and fitting another life (in my case, raising a family) is not easy, but I think technology is a key way of staying current and creating that life for ourselves.

Explore Online Training. I've got continuing ed credits to do each year to maintain my national certification as a counselor, and online training has become an easy way to tackle it. Common sources are your career's national and state associations, and private vendors recommended by those associations. Last year I did more than half of my credits online in evenings. But even if you don't have a continuing ed requirement, parents can keep a log and do the trainings on their own, so when they're headed back to work, they have documented proof of their up-to-date skills.

Can Skype serve you? I've mentioned a number of times that Skype is a way I fit work in to my days without dealing with a long commute. Now there are fitness classes by Skype. Lifehacker has more great tips on remote work and Skype.

Be a Groupie. I get mildly obsessed with certain leaders in my field who I believe are on the right track. It's my version of my own career advice to never forget your heroes. My longtime hero, John Krumboltz out of Stanford, recently released a book about failing, and I'm plowing through it during snack times. Set up Google to search automatically for your heroes in the news. Read what they have to say, and who they recommend. Follow them on Twitter, if they Tweet.

Protect Your Brain from Tech Overload. I think one of the biggest benefits of being home with my kids is all the free bandwidth my brain has. Yes, the early months of parenthood are tough, and I didn't do a lot of quality thinking on four hours of sleep a night. But if you're past that stage, a parent's day with small children can leave a lot of room for thought, room that working people don't have. The key, though, is avoiding the time-sinks of Facebook and other Web surfing. A journal is your friend here. One of those Moleskin books does it for me. The key is to capture your idea before it is drowned out by a screaming toddler, and then pursue it in the evening, when the kids are asleep. Don't worry about spacing out, it's proven to be good for your creativity!

By taking control of my career development, the panic about skill atrophy is easing up for me. I can plan for ways to develop my ideas, and who knows, I may end up someplace, professionally, I never thought I'd go.

Who Said I Wanted It All?

As I write this post, the Today Show is airing a piece on having it all, based on the Shriver Report on the subject. Balancing work and family is something we need to talk more about as a nation, so I'm looking forward to the conversation.

But I have to say this: I never wanted it all. I am not the most ambitious person, and it feels risky saying this, because I'm a career coach and I supposed to be tweeting and blogging all the time, giving inspiring speeches, wearing suits everyday. But that's not me and it never has been. I grew up suspicious of that life. I mostly work from home, through the tech miracle of Skype. My mom worked full time when I was growing up, and she was an amazing role model, but she was so..... tired. And she didn't look happy. Now she's retired and she's like a different person. It shouldn't be that way.

So like many Gen Xers, I decided to do something different when I had children, and now I'm mucking around, trying to do just that. I'm not into Leaning In. I'm not opting out. I'm just wandering around here in the middle, armed with a jogging stroller, a laptop, my to-go mug of coffee and some weird-tasting energy bars.

Here's where I think things get confused in the workplace. Ambition equals intelligence and ability for many people. If you work part time, or even if you work full-time but have to leave at 5:30 p.m. to get to the daycare center, you're seen as not quite as smart and worthy of kudos.

Primal scream, anyone? Yes? All together now (Mine has a Charlie Brown-just-missed-the-football flavor). AAAaaarrrrrrrghhhh.

And if one more person tells me to put my oxygen mask on first, I'm going to find one and strangle them with it. Single moms working full time are not avoiding self-care. They don't have a single minute to do anything but put out fires sometimes. Can we just reject the plunging plane scenario altogether? I want to be on a plane to Maui. I've got a fruity drink, and my kids have sippy cups of pineapple juice.

Okay, I'm getting off track. Bottom line? I dream of a day when there are tons of part-time jobs with benefits in every field that PAY WELL, and the people in those jobs are there for all kinds of reasons: someone likes to go heli-skiing in the winter, someone else has an aging parent they care for, a person down that row of cubicles over there is training for an Iron Man. Etc.

How do we get there? It's not going to be handed to us. We're going to need to be very ambitious about not being ambitious, if that makes any sense. Here are some people who have said all this better than me, like this and this.

The people who aren't CEOs need to start speaking up, and telling lawmakers what we need. We need reasonable maternity leave, we need more types of work options, we need on-ramps and off-ramps. We need to stop saying it's all about women, too. It's a human issue.

End rant. Hope you have a good Monday, and you're able to catch some of the conversation on this!

Getting Personal

I've been thinking about what I want this blog to be this year. Last year, I used it to track my thoughts and resources on career transition. I love finding the best resources for my clients, and blogging is a good way to force myself to be more structured with my reading.

But this year I'd like to try something different. I've been playing with the idea of getting more specific, and talking more about the career problems I'm tackling for myself personally. I hate getting personal on blogs, but lately my reading has drifted toward memoir, either in book form or on blogs, and I find I get so much from it personally. I'd like to experiment with that kind of writing myself.

So, I hope my 2.5 readers (hi guys!) can bear with me while I try something new.

I just finished Stacy London's The Truth About Style. I love this book, and recommend it completely. I picked it up because I've been reading fashion blogs in my spare time. It's a guilty pleasure, and I was curious about what drew me to it.  I've always been a What Not to Wear fan. I loved Stacy's look, but more importantly, I love her combination of toughness and caring.

London put into words what I was struggling to figure out. "Style is there for you to use, to constantly reevaluate: to see yourself differently and to feel differently. It isn't superficial and it is never just about the clothes... It represents how to gain a sense of control. With style, you can see change quickly and feel it viscerally and the belief in your own power translates into other areas of your life."

Taking control of my image is something I struggle with. I made the choice to have children, then I decided to stay home with my kids as babies, and now I've reentering the workforce part-time while my kids are still young, and people have all kinds of things to say about that. I especially struggled when I was home full-time. It truly was the most intense time of my life.

Now I contract with a firm that allows me to use Skype to work with clients, which is amazing, perfect for this stage of my life, but sometimes it's lonely too.

Recently we moved to a suburb and I've been having trouble settling in. It has been hard making friends here. I've been shut out of a clique of moms who always wear the right casual, but not too casual, sporty but not too sporty clothes. I show up at the bus stop in sweats, but not the right kind of sweats. 

Ugh, I feel so high school just admitting that. But there it is. I shouldn't care, but I do.

I recently hit an after-Christmas sale and bought a green top in a jewel tone that practically glows, and when I wear it I feel like I'm a stronger version of myself. I'm kind of fascinated by that. After all, how can I ask my clients to go into the world and take risks if I'm cowering at the bus stop while the cool parents talk about how they hang out at each others' house. 

I sometimes feel adrift. And while I don't recommend trying to shop your way to happiness, I do think that, since we have to get dressed anyway, for work, for home, we can use it as a way to strengthen ourselves when we aren't feeling all that courageous. Sometimes I want to feel emerald green.

Speaking of feeling adrift.... Another amazing read, about a fisherman who fell off his boat in the night and how he survived. Ironically, he was saved in part because his boots were not the kind of boots all the other fishermen wear. A fashion decision saved his life!

So there's my first experiment. Feel free to leave comments here, my 2.5 readers! I'd love to hear your thoughts, get conversations going in the new year.

How Not to Reflect on Your Career

At the end of the year, we naturally reflect on our lives, which is a wonderful impulse, but when the sun goes down so early and stress levels are high, it can be tough to think clearly.

A few tips:

Don't do it alone. Reflection can be a conversation. Talk it out with your spouse, your best friend, your dog. Someone you can trust who gets you talking out loud (which is different than ruminating alone, spinning your wheels). Choose someone who has a different view of the world than you. Or a different flavor of personality. Just make sure that person won't criticize you into the ground.

Don't do it online. Take a break from media, from the phone and tablet and laptop. Go low tech on this one. Grab a pencil and paper and write your thoughts out. Or try meditation to calm the nerves.

Don't be too harsh. I hear so many people berate themselves for not starting sooner, or not achieving X, Y, Z by a certain point. The end of the year doesn't have to be about tallying achievements. Go deeper.

Identify how you solve problems. Warning: it involves emotions. What emotion are you feeling? When have you felt like this before? Was it when you were trying to find that first job? Were you trying to figure out your major in college? How did you figure it out? What strengths did you naturally tap into?

I've been trained as a writer, so I can journal my way out of a lot of problems, but maybe you're visual. Can you Pinterest your way out of the problem (okay, I know I said to stay offline, but this could be an exception)? Can you cobble together a picture of what you want instead of your current career life? 

Don't think big moves, think lateral, or organic. You're in a job and you feel stuck. Don't abandon the whole career. How can you make a lateral move in the company? How can you acquire new skills on the company dime? What can this job evolve into?

How can you get more autonomy and feel more skilled in your career? Research shows those two things can make a worker feel satisfied. Can you take a class, ask for a month off for a rewarding trip, gather a pile of books that will take you in a new direction?

Just some questions for the end of the year. Happy holidays, and here's to a wonderful 2014!

Jobs I Covet

I love my job, I really do. But sometimes the eye wanders, you know? Here are some jobs I'd apply to this week if I weren't a career coach:

I've always wanted to try being a window dresser, especially at this time of year...

Never wanted to be in marketing, but I think I could do unmarketing.

If I owned an RV, I would try this.

Why, yes, I do want to be a hero. How kind of you to ask.

If I were slightly more insane, I'd totally do this. And usually I have a policy of getting advanced degrees only if you need them, but I'd definitely get the snow science degree to do it.

Hope you have a good week!

Required Reading before Grad School

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against graduate school marketing departments. The brochures, the photos of smiling grads tossing things, people in suits going off to work that they've secured because of their amazing degrees.

But graduate degrees are expensive, especially if you aren't sure what you want to do. And it turns out they may be a bad move if you do know what you want to do.

If you're looking to change the world, for instance, public policy programs may not be the place for you, according to yesterday's Washington Post. Public policy school graduates aren't making a dent in the world problems, and worse, and no one in positions of power is reading their research,
according to the piece. Definitely an article worth reading if you're considering a policy degree.

Graduate schools increasingly are producing dissatisfied customers, especially in the humanities. A NY Times piece last month details the process of repackaging a PhD, and clues us in on how some graduate schools are trying to make their students more marketable outside of the Ivory Tower, since tenure track has become so unlikely for so many humanities PhDs. Another must-read for potential graduate students.

An attorney is even offering $1,000 to whomever comes up with the best reason not to attend law school, because times are so tough for many law school grads. Eesh. Got an ulcer yet?

The answer may be to get excited about STEM careers, the science and math-track positions that may go unfilled if we don't increase numbers of students heading in that career direction. 

But I majored in religion in college, and I'm not ready to give up on the humanities. I like this solution: make the humanities majors who don't write the next Harry Potter blockbuster series into superstar public school teachers. And fund the arts like we do football stadiums, so there are actual jobs for musicians and artists, not just a cuthroat race to the top (and nothing for those in the middle of the talent heap). Yes!

Bottom line, think hard before you apply to graduate school, and be prepared for the tough job hunt if you go.

On Gifts for Job Seekers

This is the time of year when career coaches list gifts for job seekers, things like nice pen sets for the interview, a Metro card for heading to interviews, or even one month's payment of their electric bill. It's a nice gesture, but sometimes I think it's like getting someone on a diet rice cakes and nonfat, sugar free coffee creamer. Who wants to be reminded of their jobless status again and again?

Of course, if someone you know is really hurting, then an offer of help is appropriate, and you know your friends better than me. This is just my approach, but I usually get the person the gift I'd give them if they were employed. A book about their favorite hobby, a necklace they've admired. All gift-giving approaches stay the same.

What I also try to give them:

My complete confidence in them. I've seen it time and again. Family members or friends worry aloud in the job seeker's presence about the economy, or the job seeker's industry, or the job seeker's own background as it relates to the job their targeting. Or friends might not say anything, but they get a pitying look in their eyes. When I work with people struggling with their career, many get stuck under the sheer weight of other people's anxiety. It can be hard enough searching for work or trying to make a change in your career while burdened with everyone's worry.  I don't bypass their situation. I just say something like, "I heard you were looking. I'm sure someone with your skills will be snapped up soon. If there's anything I can do..." Yeah, it could come off as condescending, but I hope not. I just say it and move on with the conversation.

"How 'bout those Steelers?" I divert conversation should too much focus suddenly fall to the job seeker. Then I get them their favorite beverage.

I'm on LinkedIn. Sounds like a selfish thing, but it's an easy, discrete way for all of us to offer up our contacts to someone without the person having to ask us. So, I ask the job seeker if I can link to them, and then let them take it from there. They can include my network in searches for companies they're targeting, and then if they want an introduction they can request one by email.

If you're the job seeker, well, I'm sure someone with your skills will be snatched up soon! Some things I've done in your position:

I've dragged myself to more parties than I wanted to. I'm an introvert, so my tendency is to hunker down at home and read a good job-related book and tell myself I'm furthering my career. This is my fallback position and I know it, so I try to stretch myselfbeyond this. This had a few benefits. One, I dress in something other than sweats, my unemployed uniform of choice, always good for the self-esteem. Two, I get out and let people know I'm interested in a certain position, and did they know anyone with an opening?

I didn't worry about gifts that year. Instead, I got my closest family members something small and personal and then let the rest go.

I kept job hunting through the holiday. There's no reason to stop, and sometimes you can get your resume in front of people when they have down time at work. Why not go for it?

I read through professional kudos. One thing I try to do at any job is save a file of thank you notes and other proof that other people think I did a good job. Then when I go through a rough patch, I pull up that folder. Sometimes it's the smallest things that give me a lift. A friend did a spoof front page of a publication I used to edit on my last day of work. I have it framed by my desk, and it always makes smile. If you don't do this, start! Even if it's just a thank you note for some gesture you did that's not career-related. Likewise, send other people those notes. Write your stylist a thank you card for Christmas and get specific about how their work affected your life. Create good career karma!

Just a few suggestions. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Hanukkah!

My Movies for Career Inspiration

It's Thanksgiving week already. Hopefully you have time to sit down with a good movie after the tryptophan kicks in. If you do, here are a few of my favorite movies for career inspiration.

Pirates of the Caribbean, the first one. It's all about the point where the British stop calling him the worst pirate they've ever seen and start calling him the best. Sometimes we just have to believe in ourselves until people see us for the pirate that we really are.

The Hobbit. Get out of your comfort zone. When the wizard comes knocking and the dwarves raid your pantry, just relax and go after some treasure already.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles. A classic with Steve Martin and John Candy. Good for those coping with insane coworkers or bosses. Sometimes the insane people have good reason for being annoying.

Die Hard. Young Bruce Willis, and Alan Rickman in something other than Love Actually during the holidays. A double win! Saving the day doesn't necessarily mean being the most popular person at the office Christmas party. Sometimes it's the guy behind the scenes. Like, way behind the scenes.

Edward Scissorhands. One more with Johnny Depp. Diane Wiest is the queen of transferable skills. Meet a frankenstein creature on the job? Break out the pancake foundation. Also, Edward himself is a classic example of turning your most freakish quality into a job.

World War Z. I love Brad, I really do. Feel like your job changes by the minute? Here's some inspiration for adapting at work. Also, it's never bad to count to ten, for whatever reason.

Just a few I love. More ideas here and here. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Mini-Guide to Fiction for Your Career

Career reading doesn't always have to be nonfiction. Settle back with some good literary fiction to improve your career, because research shows you'll do better on interviews with a little Alice Munro.

Loved this piece about which novel to read before your interview!

Know your Myers-Briggs type? Match yourself to the lead character in literature with this piece. I'm Anne of Green Gables.

When you're feeling like telling your boss off, nothing beats a little Bartleby.

Or, for a more modern take on a career slump, I like the surreal and funny Kings of Infinite Space, by James Hynes.

Happy reading!

Passion Then Career? Or the Other Way Around?

So you're sitting at your desk, wondering if this is all there is. You've been at your job for a few years and it's lost its novelty. Or you thought you were majoring in the right subject, but now you're not so sure.

Sometimes we treat passion for our work as a resource that slowly (or not so slowly) runs dry. Stamped out by idiot bosses, cruel multinational corporations, the vagaries of a crap economy. But what if it doesn't? What if passion could grow over time as you gain in competence?

I dug up an old Cal Newport post on this. Newport teaches computer science at Georgetown, but also writes about ways students can succeed and be happy. Based on his reading of recent research, he believes passion follows hard work and mastery of a skill. I believe it too. It's why I don't go crazy giving people a billion assessments, or get hung up on their Myers-Briggs type. There's so much more to choosing a career.

In a sense you have to earn passion for something. You start with a hunch that you might like a type of work, might be good at it, and then you set out to learn how to do it.  As you advance in your career, you can trade your skill for more autonomy and quality peers. These are the makings of a satisfying life.

Sounds simple, but careers can derail on several fronts. Maybe you chose the wrong skill to try to master. Maybe everyone is trying to master it too, and you're beginning to resent the competition. Maybe you decide to trade mastery for salary but didn't pay so much attention to finding autonomy. Maybe prestigious titles trumped finding the right situation for you.

And what gets lost in the whole "follow your passion" approach to careers is the fact that there are things that we are better at than other people. It's hard to see your own talent clearly in a world where everyone gets first place trophies, and grades are inflated, and we're all encouraged to have good self-esteem. Failure is hard to detect. A lot of failure isn't loud and embarrassing, it's quiet and polite. No one tells anyone they stink anymore. (And I think that stinks, but that's another matter).

I see so many people dabbling in so many things. They have too many interests, and no dedication to any one pursuit. They're afraid to make a decision, so they double and triple major and burn out on academia altogether. Add to that the trouble we have focusing on any one thing while we text, tweet, and YouTube our way through the day, and we have a mess on our hands.

We need to have the courage to commit to something and give ourselves a chance to love it. A scary proposition. The risk!

But I thought this recent post at Harvard Business Review is right on about making decisions. We need to focus less on the moment of decision-making and instead see a decision as something we can make a success. We don't just decide on a career and then sit back and watch it magically materialize around us. We need to work for it.

Persisting In Spite of Rejection and Failure

Any career change, job hunt, or career decision requires one thing: persistence. Persistence in the face of rejection from your top choice of employer, from the one person you think could help you decide between consulting and art school, from the professor you thought would write you a recommendation. It's tough to keep going.

Rejection is failure, plain and simple. And failure can be a skill that you can get good at. Successful failure, if you will. And if you get good at failure, you will persist.

One of my favorite takes on failure.

One of my favorite failure stories: Climber Alan Hinkes, one of a select few mountaineers who have reached the top of the world's highest peaks, once sneezed so hard he slipped a disk and had to abort a climb. That and more interesting  failures here.

Finally, some tips on what to ask yourself after rejection during your job hunt.

Have a good one!

Halloween Costume Career-killers and Other Links.

Good Morning! Ah, Monday. Time for that eighth cup of coffee. Here are some links as you sip.

Beware echo chambers when making career decisions.

Want a middle class job? Try heading south.

My fashion dream come true. Hopefully, they will put "business casual" in a can.

A person with not one but two cool jobs.

And of course, a Halloween link. How costumes can be a career killer.

Have a good one!

On Being Nonessential

I've never been an essential worker, so I have to talk about the other side of the equation. The government shutdown, now thankfully behind us, divided the workforce into people we can't do without, and people we can. I like Joel's Stein's take in Time. We all know who's essential in this world: doctors, farmers and the like. He owns his nonessential status, lumps it in with the arts, but points out that nonessential workers can make life beautiful.

I hear from a lot of people about what they want in their future careers, and so many people want to be essential. They want to influence large groups of people. It's a criteria that comes even before "working with animals" or "finding exciting work." They list careers like the law and banking as possibilities, things that have status.

But this need for status, to at least appear important to the world, really screws up our chances at career happiness, and it gets us stuck in a boring way of looking at the world.

I once attended a career counselor conference session about finding meaning in work. The presenter relayed an account of a hospital janitor who had once been a doctor in the country she had emigrated from. Many people saw that as a huge drop in status, but the janitor found that she was sometimes the only person alone with someone if they died in the night. When she heard someone in need, she could be there for them, if not in the same way.

Is she nonessential? If a family couldn't make it to the bedside of a loved one, but the janitor could assure the son or daughter that their mom wasn't alone when she died, isn't that essential? Our views of careers need to allow for this scenario, and scenarios like it. Can we view each other with curiosity and imagination?

And what do we learn from the colossal fail of government to pass a budget? I think it's part of the same problem. We're quick to judge each others' usefulness. It's like we can't get out of consumer mode when we view our fellow human beings. What can they do for me? Our lawmakers are just trying to deliver the goods. They've perfected their "brands" and they go into the government to get what their constituents and donors bought from them, either with money or a vote. There's no room for logic anymore, for compromise.

So if we're going to move forward from this fiasco with some dignity, we need to allow for some mystery in the world. Could there be a scenario where the janitor is more important than the heart surgeon? Could we imagine dedicating ourselves to something nonessential, with the idea that maybe we would end up essential in a different way?

I saw the Gravity this weekend, and I loved the objects floating in space stations: the Buddha, the statue of a saint, or even a Marvin the Martian toy. I like to knit, and sometimes I make these toys for people. They're not nearly as useful as hand knit hats, but sometimes they're something to hang on to in a different way. It's the kind of uselessness that I pride myself on.

I'm not essential as a career coach. I believe people can get on in life without me. But I can make the experience better. So can other people in our lives who can listen with an open mind. Being essential isn't, well, essential. It's enough that we're alive, that we treat each other well while we're on this planet (or orbiting it). And maybe some of us are here to be the George Clooney in the movie, to point to the sunrise and say, "Look."

That can be its own kind of essential.

Some nonessential links for your Monday:

A resume app, so you're never without your credentials.

A checklist for "engaging" with information.

The November issue of Real Simple magazine has a great article on how people in different professions stay in the moment.

Have a good one!

Living Frugally, and Other Links

I was hoping this Monday would be all about recovering from the shutdown, but it's dragging on. Lordy. With that in mind, I'm liking these tips for living frugally.

Speaking of money, here are some ideas on learning to love negotiating... inspired by kids.

Mastering business casual (for women) can be tricky. Here are a few tips.

Need a nook for working on your career dreams? Here's an interesting way to squeeze one in.

Cool job: Running Concierge. 

Hang in there!

Why I Started My Business, and Other Monday Links

It's a rainy Monday here in the great state of Maryland, and many of my neighbors are off work, furloughed. If you find yourself with some time this a.m., here are a few career related links for you. And let's hope everyone is back to work soon.

How to sell your sports experience in an interview. 

Some thoughts on building a career that I think are right on.

Why I started my business, and why the Mommy Wars reporting misses the point. Go here.

Don't know where to start with career exploration? Consider a Pinterest fieldtrip. Go here for some tips...

Have a good Monday!

When Time Is Up

I’ve cooked a few Thanksgiving dinners, and the turkey usually turn out dry and stringy. I start out with high hopes. I go organic, free-range, and I use some crazy brining bag. By the time the thing is ready to come out of the oven, though, I’m in a political argument with my dad and my kids have created a fort out of the dining table.

I finally had  a decent turkey one year because I bought the Butterball with the thingy that pops up when its done. What I really need is a turkey that walks itself out of the oven when its done. The thingy worked, I got the bird out, and it was juicy, tender and actually tasty.

The thing about our careers is, they can bake for years while we do other things. But suddenly, time is up, and our work demands our attention. If we don't tend to it, it can end up like a dried out organic turkey, full of good intentions, but low on taste. I may carve out time for everything I need to do, but is it enjoyable? Is it juicy?

Recently my own Butterball thingy went gone off. My oldest started kindergarten , and suddenly I feel the passage of time. Soon it will be Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, summer, 2014, 2015. I want to be with my family when I’m with my family, present, creating memories and then I want to sit down and do really good work. Juicy work, not overcooked. 

I think lots of people might have a Butterball thingy. Maybe it’s not kindergarten, maybe it’s turning 25, 30, 40. You know something must change but you’re not sure if it’s something big or small. That’s my favorite career coach conversation, because it can save you so much money, time and heartache to give that question the full weight and consideration it deserves. You can’t be arguing proverbial politics while you’re doing it. And that’s the kind of work I want to do for people. Give them the time and space for the questions they need to tackle. 

I don't claim to have all the answers. I'm still stumbling along like everyone else. But I trust the process, the value of a juicy conversation. Then maybe we can all sit down to some delicious work.