Dear boss. I want to be an astronaut. Make it happen.
"Leaving Kickstarter was so much harder than leaving Harvard,"
That's why you need a GoFundMe to leave Kickstarter.
Advice premised on "step 1, figure out what you want" is so common and it makes me twitch with rage.
3:
See also advice given when you can't find your keys: "where did you last have them?"
I always tell people that retractable key chains that clip to your belt look good on everyone.
A surge of empathic frustration coursed through me on reading 4, it was so strong I actually kicked my file cabinet hard enough that my officemate turned around and asked if everything was ok.
3,7 Have you considered a career in mixed martial arts? The twitching won't be much help, but it sounds like you might be a good kicker. You are wlcome!
When you give yourself permission to say no to everything that doesn't truly appeal to you on a gut level for an experimental trial period, you can start to recognize patterns.
I was going to say this doesn't work very well once you're a parent, but I guess it's my coparent's MO except the part where you recognize patterns and learn.
Five years ago, I had thought I wasn't ambitious at all. But my previous job proved to me that there's a level of boredom and rutstuckness that is too low even for me. (Five years ago I had already been at that job longer than any previous. By the time I left it two months ago, I had been at it longer than my father ever held any job in his entire career.) A big part of why I left my previous job was just the fact that it was dead-end. I was making enough money and could handle the work just fine, but I wasn't learning anything new and had no reasonable path to advancement. That wasn't a problem for a while but it became one eventually, even for me.
Something else annoying about the article: the formatting. Two paragraphs, a list (but it's formatted it like separate blockquotes), a paragraph with a bolded clause and two hyperlinks, a subheading, a paragraph with a hyperlink, bolded this time, and another bolded clause, a plain text paragraph, a pull quote... and I'm less than a quarter of the way through the article. My first thought was that it reminded me of how a junior-high textbook makes it really, really clear what you're supposed to remember. But on second thought, that's unfair to junior-high textbook writers. It looks like they put more time into making a work of art of the formatting than they put into writing the actual article.
The linked article is right at the intersection of "who gives a fuck" and "fuck you."
"At Microsoft (where she started her career), I would get migraines all the time because I knew things were suboptimal and needed to change," says Chisa.
What a charmingly deranged etiology; I may use it to explain my own migraines.
Getting a migraine when things are suboptimal sounds like it could be a useful form of synesthesia for an applied mathematician.
I can't really improve on 11.
What did the constipated Microsoft employee do?
Tried to work it out with Clippy.
The idea that people should be more open to trying new jobs more often is good advice, assuming the economy is good and you're vastly overqualified/well-connected. The idea that listening to your gut feelings after a few weeks is a good pathway to job satisfaction, happiness, or long-term security is just so incredibly, painfully, millennially wrong, it makes me feel like I'm 100 years old.
I'm afraid of 10. I am basically very lazy and scared of change, so could happen very easily.
17: I don't think it's fair to blame millennials for this. They (We? Not sure what the line is) have infamously low job security.
Can we blame millenials for naming a travel agent app "Lola"?
20 Ohhhhh I read the whole thing (work is slow) assuming it was this uber but for tampons which gmail addressable advertising really wants me to get into.
21.last is not, to the best of my knowledge, how tampons work. FYI.
i really walked right into that one didn't i
Work is slow here too, at least for the moment.
And I considered posting 24 but decided to be nice. Hooray as usual for Moby!
19
You really can't. First, young people do and always have job-hopped more than older people. Second, due to the proliferation of start-ups and small businesses, long-term employment has become more precarious, and it's a very, very good idea to jump ship before it sinks rather than after because HR departments don't like unemployed people.
I read the first couple paragraphs. It appears to be written in what has recently been described to me as corporate whitepaper* or "success story" style.
*I always thought whitepapers were detailed and substantive but I guess there's another meaning in the world of marketing.
Not aiming high and working a tolerable job has worked out all right for me, though I doubt I'm much of an inspiration in that regard.
21 cont and I can tell her job is nonsense because realizing she was working for a travel app rather than a tampon company did not change the meaning of the article at. all.
On the topic of tampons, I'm participating in a clinical trial and have to keep a Bleeding Diary but they make it cheerful rather than metal and don't lead with that in their advertising even though it might do well in certain demographics. I do have to use specific products, but not ones that drive me around or ones that show up at my door. My carrying four boxes in a plastic grocery bag did probably impress the people who were in the elevator with me on the way out.
I can't with this article. I know we're all tired of that locution but I cannot, verily, therewith. "This is how Chisa's brain works -- in systems and lists." Golly, how neat.
What I also cannot is keep my name on my comments.
Add to the list: hear this Adele song any more times.
I keep hoping this will turn into upward mobility through quilting. I still haven't finished a quilt, though, so no hope there.
30: For the price of your adorable new house you could get a tiny 2-room apartment in Roc North. Your approach definitely has virtues.
38: Yeah, that's the general idea. I'm not implying living here is bad, either! Just living a sort of smaller (but I guess bigger square footage-wise) life gives me different options. Including having more than one serious interest besides work. I don't think I could handle that sort of limitation!
Although I'd be feeling a lot better if they'd give me a date and time for closing. The loan stuff all went through last night and that's supposed to mean I can close Friday, which I hope is the case since I can't take any time off to move.
An advantage of my furnished-room abode is that moving is not a thing. I could probably clear out in under an hour.
Having less than three children maybe helps with that too.
It's not their job to respond to your discomfort.
I hope no one ever files a lawsuit claiming that Kickstarter is a hostile work environment, asshole.
10.very, very, very last: Your point being? That's how I've always thought one creates world-class output, certainly since 2nd grade.
10.very, very, very last: Your point being? That's how I've always thought one creates world-class output, certainly since 2nd grade.
36 - my 8-yr-old's grade did a performance of Adele's "Hello" for their end of the year concert, and it was great because they seemed to sing it with real aggression and anger, like they were saying "Hello" from the other side of a prison wall.
It wasn't my son's grade, but a different grade at the school concert did "Blurry Face." It sounded decent with little kid voices.
44, 45: Also, repetition (Tell 'em what you're going to say, say it, tell 'em what you said).
HELLO FROM THE THIRD GRADE
I WANT TO KILL YOU WITH A SPADE
What I would like is some upward mobility from quitting but then sitting on my ass all day. I did try scouring the job boards for "wastrel heir to a large real estate fortune" but I couldn't find anything.
I'd settle for being the non-wastrel heir to a large fortune.
For a long time I thought "wastrel" was similar in meaning to "rascal" or "miscreant" - only a few years ago did I make the connection to "waste" (maybe in the context of Piketty).
54: In Victorian novels, the wastrels are usually also rascals and/or miscreants, so you weren't too far off.
I'm not blaming millennials for having poor job security. I'm blaming millennials for believing in the "perfect job" that will just spontaneously fall into your lap without any career planning if you just try enough different things.
I sense a wack of wespect for youw eldews.
I don't know how young people are supposed to have the persistence to make it to middle age without believing all kinds of stupid stuff.
Five years ago, I had thought I wasn't ambitious at all. But my previous job proved to me that there's a level of boredom and rutstuckness that is too low even for me.
I read articles like the linked one with the feeling that it's an interesting but generally alien mindset from my point of view. I'm just not ambitious (or, rather, what ambition I do have is not restless -- I get ambitious to do well at specific tasks in front of me).
I occasionally think about a job that I almost applied for right out of college -- I saw the ad a couple days too late, and it was already filled -- and feel very lucky that I didn't. Because I think if I had I would have worked there for a while, and would have taken satisfaction from it, but ultimately wouldn't have had much room to grow.
I'm not quite sure how it is that things worked out for me, but I got very lucky to end up in a job which did lead in interesting directions (even though I've never thought of it as a "career" path)
I feel like advice consisting of "quit your job, then find a different and better one" is aimed at such a privileged group of people that it's almost by definition a waste of time to give them any advice at all.
I mean, 57 absolutely describes my plan, but I have the grace and decency not to say so under my real name.
my 8-yr-old's grade did a performance of Adele's "Hello" for their end of the year concert
I adore age-inappropriate shit like that. I have spent hours scouring YouTube for high school productions of plays that high schoolers objectively cannot pull off. There are wonderful excerpts from Company and (oh my dear god) Follies and at least briefly there was a divine Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf scene.
On the OP topic sort of: are there really people who like their jobs? I wish I could find the wonderful several sentences by someone reputable about how most jobs serve no purpose except fulfilling our obligation to be employed. I mean yes I know there are really people who like their jobs but are there really?
Comment 63 reminds me of something I have recently brought up in discussion elsewhere: when did "I mean" become the new thing every sentence begins with? I do it ALL the time, myself, but I was just suddenly aware of it a year or so ago. I hate to mention it and make anyone self conscious about it. Filler words are in their way as much a part of language as articles and prepositions.
65 I've been doing it for as long as I can remember people telling me I do it, but I'm also a demon uptalker.
Re 19c fiction child is reading Middlemarch & lo does it take care of dinner table convos. Ask a simple question re characters (who more foolish, Lydgate or Rosamond?) and terse teenager is off to the races with all kinds of opinions! He is very impatient with Fred.
He is very impatient with Fred.
I have a soft spot for Fred, but
(SPOILER ALERT!)
every time I read Middlemarch, I keep hoping against hope that Mary Garth will choose Farebrother. Even though (SPOILER!) I always already know that it's Fred Vincy.
He read me the scenes with Fred & Farebrother, and then Farebrother & Mary, yesterday. Heartbreaking.
Heartbreaking.
I know! I love Farebrother, so: my heart always breaks.
(dairy queen, this isn't the first time that you and I have revealed some similar literary preferences. What are you reading nowadays? besides Middlemarch, I mean. I'm currently looking for some summer reading that fits under a rubric that I like to think of as "quality trash." It can't be total crap, there has to be some literary (or otherwise) merit. But it has to a novel that you could imagine being made into a Sunday-night movie, IYKWIM).
65: I was wondering the very same thing a couple of years ago, and then I read a Wodehouse novel where Bertie says it several times in exactly the same way we use the phrase today.
I keep reading the title of the OP as "Upward Mobility Through Quilting". Which frankly sounds more interesting.
37->72. Just make the quilt really big and put a furnace under it to generate hot air. You should probably also put the furnace and yourself in a small basket, for the bootstraps effect.
I'm just off to the library this evening to pick up Red Water by Judith Freeman but have never read anything by her before.
Have you ripped through Penelope Fitzgerald yet? And the good Barbara Pym - have to be careful bc some clearly subpar stuff was released after her death but Jane and Prudence, An Unsuitable Attachment, Excellent Women are all super, and I adore Some Tame Gazelle for, if nothing else, that absolutely wonderful scene re that tricky bit when you do the triple decrease in knitting a vneck. Terrific. Less Than Angels has one of fiction's greatest deaths, I think.
For pure fluff nothing beats Feed Vargas I think but I don't know if the English translations are any good if you don't read French for pleasure?
Have you ripped through Penelope Fitzgerald yet?
O, God, I cried, I mean openly sobbed and ugly-cried, when I read that she had died. Yeah, ripped through Penelope Fitzgerald, and then re-read a couple of titles (The Blue Flower, for example) again.
Have been resisting Barbara Pym for ages, but am going to take you up on your suggestions.
Speaking of job insecurity, guess who lost his job today?
At least they're paying me through the end of August, which is pretty generous considering I'd only been there 6.5 weeks.
Oh, Chopper, I'm sorry.
Those f*ckers.
Thanks guys. Working on processing. Will bounce back.
You will bounce back, but it still sucks. So sorry.
That sucks, Chopper. I have no doubt you will come up with an excellent plan.
are there really people who like their jobs?
Totally, but a lot of people on both sides of the aisle seem bent on ruining it. Still fun to be had though. I got to point a gun at someone this afternoon (relax, he was white). I might put in for school resource next time there's an opening to get a change of pace and deal with some people who aren't yet hopeless. There was a recent opening in SVU but I didn't apply for it. Not sure I'm up for that.
I'd only been there 6.5 weeks
Gah! Good luck man, reminds me of getting laid off during the tech meltdown in 2001 a whopping 90 days after we bought a house.
I got to point a gun at someone this afternoon (relax, he was white)
Wait is this like a perk of the job or are you trolling us?
I'm sorry Chopper. That's just whiplash-y.
85: This guy didn't even bother with the pointing.
To be fair, mall security guards are hardly at the same level of competence as actual cops.
92: to be fairer both the sheer number and competence level of many people whose job description includes carrying a gun is pretty clearly insane.
92: Most people making meth have better records for competence than that guy.
Western cicilization has a mixed record.
And he's wasn't supposed to (or allowed) to carry a gun for his job.
95: I don't know, I doubt he's started any forest fires, which is a not-uncommon outcome of making meth in certain areas.
Probably true in strict terms, though.
96 - I think it would be a very good idea
102: Hm, maybe it should. I'll defer to the people who actually pay serious attention to basketball for a judgment.
I gave up a 90% scholarship for a master's at an Ivy League uni for a full ride to do a master's in two universities in Europe. I'll regret it 'til the day I die.
Wait is this like a perk of the job or are you trolling us?
He really was white, in a stolen Acura MDX. (don't leave your keys in your SUV while you go into the 7-11 in a shitty area or maybe a meth head drives off in it)
1 Ivy League degree = 1000x, x=degree from non-oxbridge/LSE european university.
The "as soon as you realize you're getting too comfortable, walk away" rule also sounds like a good way to avoid painful break-ups. Also to grow old with your cat and only your cat.
He really was white, in a stolen Acura MDX. (don't leave your keys in your SUV while you go into the 7-11 in a shitty area or maybe a meth head drives off in it)
Aren't meth-heads stereotypically white? (Yes, with some exceptions of which you know I am very well aware.)
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After a year I'm scheduling another exam for my driver's license here. At least this place isn't as crowded and seems competently run.
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Idly wondering if there are any Pokemon in this waiting room.
Just don't swerve to hit them.
Unless you team up with the examiner, obvs.
Oh, Chopper. I'm really sorry. Try to get some support from live people as well as imaginary Internet friends. It's too easy to withdraw when looking for a job. I repeat my recommendation that you consider temping for your local hospital system while you figure things out. A little income, regular contact with people and it could lead to a permanent gig.
Am I the only one prepared to admit the occasional yearning for a job where you get to point a gun at someone from time to time?
Or at least an interaction with the customer service of a mobile phone company where you get to point a gun? I spent ten minutes earlier this week dealing with some halfwit in Ireland who was trying to persuade me that the UK was not in the EU so it was OK to charge a pound a minute to phone Sweden from here even though the contract promised free calls in the EU.
I hear the Lisbon Treaty is quite a tough read.
I keep reading the title as "Upward Mobility Through Quilting".
121: You too?
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Are we going to get another installment of the Cave of White Water at any point? Please don't leave poor Hannay stuck in that Himalayan valley forever.
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Let you be the first to say.
I mean yes I know there are really people who like their jobs but are there really?
It's like the curate's egg: There are parts of my job I really like. I can't imagine a job existing that one could like all aspects of, all the time. Same for life itself.
122: up now. Thanks for the reminder. I've slowed down because I was publishing chapters a lot fast than I was writing them!
Have you considered meth? It's good for more than just stealing cars.
And then, of course, the temptation even harder to resist, to use as a headline on the discovery of a novel antibiotic in snot "Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
no no no no no
And then, of course, the temptation even harder to resist, to use as a headline on the discovery of a novel antibiotic in snot "Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
no no no no no
clearly twice as hard to resist as most temptations
I swear it didn't even occur to me that there would be a different airport shuttle for the fucking Hilton Garden Inn than the big white one that said 'Hilton' on the side. Turns out thats a whole other hotel.
Interesting choice of thread. Just couldn't quit?
Huh. I guess this was the thread that was up last time I was killing time on my phone. Where is this stupid shuttle?
Except the guy who drives the shuttle.
Well maybe it's the appropriate thread to ask whether anyone thinks it's a good idea to write my (outgoing) boss and cc his boss about this messed up situation. Just to let them know, politely, that I know it's arbitrary and to ask for a justification and let them know I am concerned about it affecting my relationship with my incoming boss. I'm inclined to do it but this is the morning I would have to do it.
Because who doesnt like standing outsid the airport in blue jeans in August in Miami?
135: You are damned if you do and damned if you dont.
135 Because I'm expected to sit down with my outgoing boss today and agree (!) on what areas I should be downgraded on to get the targeted overall needs improvement rating. At first I was inclined to say I'd better keep the exceeds expectations rating for collection development because I know no one had a better year than I did for that. Then I thought, how about insisting I get a needs improvement there just to show my cynicism and contempt for this arbitrary process. Now having thought more about it I'm inclined to want to keep it. This fucking place.
137 Probably. Better to do then.
Seriously what the fuck shuttle? Ive been traveling all day I cant handlebthis shit.
What kind of airport doesnt have taxis?
135/138: Wow, I missed that the first time. What a mess. I don't know that I have any useful advice, but I'd say to not shoot yourself in the foot out of cynicism if these are ratings that anyone is going to base decisions on in the future.
143: Yeah, where is this "Miami" place anyway?
143 is actually not even true IME, except for the really really small airports that don't even have terminals or anything.
Well, at least the taxi driver had the decency to rip me off.
Poor guy. Both his taxi meter and his credit card machine were out of order.
I also missed 135/138 the first time. Jesus, Barry, what an utter stinking cluster.
148 I hope at least he knew where he was going.
138: It's such a fucked up situation, I don't think I have any useful advice. I guess don't downgrade anything you definitely plan on pointing to when you apply for future positions? Also don't downgrade anything where you did so well that you might not do as well every year. You don't want an exceptionally good year to be considered a baseline for the future.
Alternatively, fuck them. It's not your job to downgrade yourself. Refuse to participate and put some protest/appeal document on file.
It really says something about the management of Barry's employer that they appear to think it's literally impossible for all of the employees in a given division to be competent at their jobs.
I'm including to 154 as politely as I can manage.
It's like a limnic eruption* at Lake Wobegon.
*I had to look up the technical term. Lake inversion wasn't strong enough.
Upward mobility through quitting, Barry. Or at least through saying "fuck you" as politely as you can manage.
How powerful is the supervisor who's leaving? Is there any chance he can put in a word for you elsewhere/spread the word this place sucks? Because you prob should be thinking "what are my other options."
And that same logic inclines me towards a polite 54 as your best move. Really your only option for staying is to try and act with some dignity and see if they respond well. Or act with some dignity, they respond badly, and you leave. ISTM the worst case scenario is playing along, they continie to treat you like shit, it drags out for another few years and then you either quit demoralized or get fired demoralized. Better to give them and yourself the option of giving you a decent career there.
I recently find out that there is a clause in my contract that says if I resign I get enough money to get resettled back home, but if I get canned, I get that plus $48,000. So I'm trying to figure out how to get canned.
He's no longer very powerful but I will need and rely on him for a reference for future jobs. And I like him too (though I don't think he will be happy about my pushing back on this).
Wrote something short and sent it to my American former coworker here for comment. We met yesterday for lunch and he thought it was a good idea to put something in writing.
It's probably the best job I can get right now but I have begun to look more deeply in the past week. The salary is pretty good (though it could be better and I am unhappy with my grade cosidering my qualifications) and the leave policy can't be best. But I have to be happy here though it is better to be unhappy and employed than unhappy and unemployed.
Sucks Barry. IMverylimitedE, get stuff in writing but don't burn bridges, and second 153.
My (outgoing) director just came to me and dmsaid he's doing it in a way to keep my strongest points and to make sure I'm just below the cutoff. I'm better with that than participating in this charade. And I do trust him. I told him I was writing something which he said he was ok with.
My (outgoing) director just came to me and dmsaid he's doing it in a way to keep my strongest points and to make sure I'm just below the cutoff. I'm better with that than participating in this charade. And I do trust him. I told him I was writing something which he said he was ok with.
Weeding is an important part of librarianship.
Now that that's settled, I have a somewhat similar issue.
First, I want to apologize for my terrible comment in the thread about Ryan Lochte. I swear I have an irrational hatred of all people who develop huge Twitter followings through snarky political quips, not just the feminist ones. Even so, the comment added nothing.
Second, my wife is being fired because of a similar irrational hatred from her boss toward her. She might need something to do for the next 9 months until we are scheduled to move to somewhere else where other jobs exist. How can she use this time to become a software coding expert who makes lots of money, like Ogged? She currently has a PhD in molecular/cellular/cancer biology if that helps.
How much experience does she already have with coding? I know some people in that sort of field do a lot of it but I don't know how widespread that is.
Also, since I was one of the people who criticized your comment in the Lochte thread, I should say that I appreciate your apology. I'm not on Twitter myself and it seems generally awful despite the occasional insightful and/or hilarious observations it produces.
twitter and old media, together at last, in the form of a Today show clip.
This is admittedly an awesome use of Twitter, though. Via several people at the other place.
For the first time in 8+ years at current job I felt like I was ambushed by someone else last week. He's a new guy and after a month there asked to present on stuff related to what my group supports, but didn't talk to me at all beforehand about anything he was concerned about. Then he gets to the meeting and basically says everything my group is responsible for sucks. Many of the things he complained about we're already working on but will take another 4 months. I should note I was given this group after they reduced the size of it from 12 to 2 even while expanding other groups so it went from making new functionality to trying to maintain and patch everything using outside contractors. Our boss asked if we could speed up delivery and I said no matter how many contractors you hire we don't have enough internal people to supervise them if the group is only two people, only one of which is senior enough to supervise contractors. I don't think he liked that answer either.
Complicating things is I'm already discussing with our boss getting out of that situation, that I was willing to be transitional leader but didn't want it long term. A new leader of another department is coming in who I've worked with well before, and ideally I'd just move entirely out of current department and into his, but current boss wants it to be some kind of joint thing and the new leader doesn't want to get into a conflict immediately by just taking me entirely. I also have outside interest from an entirely different company which at this point is most attractive and what other connections who have left previously say I should do, but that would upset the new leader coming in after he's been specially carving out a new position for me based on exactly what I told him I'd like to work on. That would be a very bad bridge to burn as he's a superstar in the field.
Sorry to hear that HHH New guy is a dick. I'm sure yours are not the only toes he's stepped on.
Ned, I'm happy to answer questions here or via email. I will say that it's not as great a plan if you might land in NY or SF, as the bootcamp grads there are having a much tougher time finding jobs. But elsewhere people have done quite well.
171: No experience with coding, but she's a lot better than most people (and me) at computers, defined here as putting together computers from their constituent parts, and figuring out how to use software.
178: Do you see attending a bootcamp as essential? What about all the online resources and certification for, e.g. Python? Also I need t o figure out what a bootcamp is.
Not essential. What kind of work would she like to be doing? Does she want to stay in science? I'd think her PhD and any stats knowledge could be assets in looking for a data science-y job. If she's good at independent learning (and I think you guys don't have kids) then it's totally possible to get up to speed in nine months. But if she procrastinates, or works on one thing, then another, without much focus, a bootcamp can be a big help.
There are specifically data science bootcamps. Things might be more saturated now but for a while -- especially with a PhD and some stats knowledge -- data science jobs paid like 30% more than dev jobs and you didn't have to work nearly as hard or be nearly as competent.
Data science makes sense. Half of the science jobs out there seem to be from a department that has more lab scientists than it can pay for already, but needs someone to be their "computational biologist" or "big data person".
Ned, i have some familiarity with the kinds of positions she's considering. Facility with computersand stat knowledge is a promising start, might be enough for some of the positions advertised. However, for very large datasets, knowledge of algorithms and especially data structures is helpful.
Positions vary in how reasonable expectations are--
You don't want to be in the position of being the junior person with slightly shaky analysis to suggest the data is incommensurate with the desired publication. If the data:expectations ratio is good, then The positions are nice, but IME you don't usually find that out until you've done most of the work.
Feel free to email if you or she would like to discuss.