This exquisitely informative article in the NY Times will help to lessen the shocking dose of reality that might otherwise paralyze the newly graduated twenty-somethings who’ve recently been unleashed on the job market. It sucks to have finally figured out the bureaucratic red tape that is student loans and financial aid, and now you’ve got a whole new mess of paperwork and money-related crap to wade through and comprehend.

The article explains quickly and simply what a newly-minted adult needs to know about retirement, health plans and taxes. These are good things to know about (and to avoid screwing up) sooner rather than later.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

This may have been particular only to my high school career, but from what I’ve seen, I think most kids leave high school with the feeling that they are destined to be amazing and have only to be unleashed on the world and this innate stupendousness will become apparent.

I grew up in a small, one-high-school town where the weekly paper was all of twelve pages and four of those were devoted to the kids in the community. Suffice it to say, it was almost impossible to be a nobody and most of us graduated feeling like awesomely special big fish in a small, safe pond where all adults thought we were wonderful.

You can imagine the shock we felt upon entering college and discovering an ocean of bigger and much more special fish. Leaving our small town and going to college was somewhat hard on our fragile egos, but graduating from college and moving into the real world was crushing, to say the least.

We had erroneously believed that high school was going to be the hardest four years of our lives; the real world, we were dismayed to discover, is harder. My ten-year high school reunion was a roomful of twenty-somethings who were bummed about admitting to everyone that they had not, as it turned out, blossomed into the superheroes we had all assumed was our due. I realize (now, as a far wiser thirty-something) that it would have been impossible for reality to live up to our skewed, hormone-fueled ideal future.

The party picked up once we all took a good look around and realized that not a single one of us was anything more than just plain old normal. Just getting through the week in the real world without caving in is heroic enough. I was a little sad for myself and for the now-adults I’d spent thirteen years of my childhood with—we’d all expected so much more from ourselves and from the world. We were all happy and healthy and were making our ways through the world just fine. But none of us were famous and the learning of crap was still occurring. Reality is one long, drawn-out learning process. It’s so disappointing! When does the learning stop?!

And there you have it: life is hard and is one sucky life-lesson after another. On the upside, almost everyone else on the planet is living some version of The Learning Life that you are. There’s an article in BusinessWeek about recent college grad Max Leiber who takes a temp job and learns about the harsh realities of outsourcing: How I Helped Move a Factory to Mexico. Every job, temporary, super, or otherwise, is a new learning opportunity and it’s interesting to read about Leiber’s experience.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Along the lines of volunteering to gain beneficial job experience, corporate employees are using volunteering for non-profits as a way to increase their job skills. Corporations have realized that it’s financially efficient to lend out their employees to non-profits so those employees can gain experience and increase their skill set while helping to improve the lives of others. After their stint learning lots in the non-profit sector, the corporate employees are more valuable to the company. I believe the technical term for this is symbiosis.

Further Reading:

Corporate Philanthropy 2.0
What Corporate Employees Can Learn From the Non-Profit World
Corporate Caring
No Experience? Volunteer. Even After Being Hired.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Catch-22 is safely ensconced in my top ten books list; it’s been there since I read it over a decade ago and I can’t imagine that it will ever be demoted. It’s such a perfect, perfect description of being caught in some bureaucratic, red-tape moment wherein the powers that be are unmoved by your pointing out of the obvious, utterly effed-up impossibility of your situation. You’re screwed because you’ve managed to find a special little corner of Rule Hell in which the guidelines contradict themselves and now there can be no forward or backward motion that might enable your extrication from the situation.

The job-hunting process can definitely be heavy on the Catch-22 nuances. This is especially true for the newly graduated. Your brain is packed full of (mostly) worthwhile information, but you lack any real job experience. Employers would prefer not to hire someone who has ridiculous amounts of knowledge but few real-world job skills. This realization usually makes the young job applicant scream (on the inside) something along the lines of How can I get any job experience if I can’t get an effing job, you freaks!

And there it is: you can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. Right out of college, you pretty much have a diploma and some summer job experience to bullet-point on your résumé.

And that is why god created the internship: the unpaid, coffee-fetching rite of passage that won’t make you much money but will teach you how to do the job you want so badly that you’re willingly to work for free to learn how to do it. Internships are also invaluable networking venues; connecting with pertinent individuals in your field will be beneficial to future job searches and career moments.

Searching for internship opportunities is pretty similar to the job search process: search for “internships” on any job search site and a list of possibilities will magically appear. Alternatively, you can apply for an actual job, and note on your résumé that you’d like to be considered for the little- to no-pay internship version of the available position. What fool employer would turn down someone who’s willing to work for free? (This may not work in the law, medical or air traffic control fields).

If you’re still in college and are financially fortunate (or are really good at being poor) you can use the summer to do an internship. It’ll give you an extra bullet point on the résumé and will give you a better idea of what a job in your chosen field entails and whether you actually want to continue pursuing this career. Colleges and universities always have some informed person (librarian, career advisor, department secretary, etc.) who can hook students up with internship links, info, ideas and lists.

Further reading:

Internships a ‘win-win’ to help get job

Resources:

The Benefits of Volunteer Work
Top Eight Tips for Finding an Internship
How to Become a Volunteer to Gain Work Experience
Idealist.org
Undergraduate Students: Gaining Work Experience

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Allie Osmar has a great post up on her blog listing the good and bad bits associated with her first year out of college and in the corporate world. She uses the same pain assessment graphic hospitals use when trying to get a straight answer out of little kids regarding the level of pain they’re experiencing (smiley face = no pain, crying face = lots of pain). Osmar does an excellent job of laying out an honest list of the painful and wonderful parts of that first post-college year.

It’s funny(ish) because it has to be—no one straight out of college is quite yet numb to the state of nature that is Being An Adult (nasty, brutish and not nearly as short or as sweet as your college days were). The real world has the potential to really, really suck. But it is what it is and we can make of it what we will. I think everyone has the capacity to do well and be happy (all at the same time is a nifty trick). Realizing that everyone else is having ten wretchedly real-life moments to every amazing one will really help you get through the day. We’re all in the same boat and it’ll all be okay, I promise. Do what you can do and for god’s sake don’t take everything so seriously.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I know this has been The Week of the Mommy, but here’s one more bit to ponder and then I promise to be done. This article lays out nicely how difficult it is to find work-life balance. It’s important for melting down parents to read about how everyone else is having an out-of-control moment/day/week/life. Because when you haven’t slept and your whole day is one peanut butter, cream of wheat or fuse bead disaster after another and you’re wondering how it can be possible to work this hard and to be in such an extreme state of constant motion and still not manage to get anything accomplished in a day, it’s necessary to have solid evidence that other parents are grappling as desperately as you.

Seriously, how hard is it to take a damn shower? There’s water, soap, more water, a towel, done. Not so with children running amok. There is no sneaking off and showering while leaving tiny people unsupervised. Their food-in and food-out needs must be met; all food must then be removed from the table so no one chokes to death while the parental unit is showering; and then–the deep dark secret of parents who claim to loathe television and maintain a high volume of literature input in the house–the television must be turned on so the little hellions won’t harm themselves or the property during the 180 seconds that mommy is in the shower.

And still, still, even with full access to the television crack pipe that my children are whores for, 60 seconds into my frantic Speed Shower of Doom, someone is banging on the bathroom door demanding to know where their mommy is and when she will be returning. This moment has three possible outcomes: (1) I turn on the ceiling fan and drown out their cries (sort of); (2) I yell something no non-parent will ever imagine they will utter some day when they become parents: “Every mommy has the right to shower alone!” or “GO AWAY!” or “You’re making me insane!” or, when I’ve given up, “Whatever, dude. Cry all you want. It’ll just make me shower longer.” and (3) the dumb mommy unlocks the bathroom door and stupidly gives in and lets the two-year-old in to have a shower/bath too. This is immediately regretted when the six-year-old shows up and suddenly mommy is trying to get clean while standing calf-deep in what she’s pretty sure is a kiddie pee party.

Okay, done with the mommy theme. I refuse to become a mommy blogger. As far as I can tell, the blogging populations with the highest numbers are mommies and convention geeks.

Further work-life balance reading:

Strategies for Work Life Balance

50 Useful Blogs for Work-at-Home Dads

Downsizing for Work-Life Balance

Working Moms Need Not Feel Guilty

Opting in: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself

Avoiding the Mommy Track: Returning to a Career After Maternity Leave

Home Jobs for Moms: A Guide to Choosing the Right Opportunity for Stay at Home Mothers

A Stay-At-Home Mom Re-Enters the Workforce: A Chance at a Second Career

Stay at Home Mom and Work at Home Mom

Balance is Bunk!

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I’m re-posting this as it goes along nicely with my previous article regarding moms and career decisions.

Examining the Trend of College-Educated Women Leaving the Workforce

I love research done by people who’ve heard a general, society-wide rumor and just have to know whether or not it’s based in fact. Sylvia Ann Hewlett (author of the 2002 book, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children) recently researched just how many college-educated women are ditching their careers to be at-home moms for a while. I’m a science girl at heart, so I’m always down with anyone who backs their thoughts up with cold, hard numbers.

Off-Ramping and On-Ramping
Hewlett refers to the leaving and the subsequent return to their careers as “off-ramping” and “on-ramping.” The main issues it brought up in my mind were the still-around, can’t-get-away-from-them discrepancies between what’s expected from a working mom vs. what’s expected from a working dad. Working moms are expected to make money and be stellar in their careers, then come home and be perfect, nurturing mommies with lots of time and energy left at the end of the day for their little ones. Working dads are expected to go to work and make money. Done.

The new trend seemed to be a mass exodus of college-educated, successful women ditching their careers, so they could be home and do the family thing for a while. It’s interesting that not as many women are “off-ramping” as everyone (society in general) had previously thought. (As a funny side note: it’s also hilarious that the career women who were staying in the rat race were irate at the bad rep these off-ramping bi***es were giving career women everywhere.)

Hewlett’s data showed that only 37% of career women are bailing out of the rat race, and then only for a short period of time. The bailing out isn’t ‘cause these ladies can’t hack it. The reasons listed include having kids, caring for aging parents, and “taking care of other life needs.” (Do you think potentially life-threatening illnesses fall into that category? I was just wondering.)

I’m guessing that these women were doing fine and kicking some corporate booty in their fields, obviously able to handle all of the thinking and the work load, the deadlines and the pressure of career plus normal life on top of that. Add in something life-altering, like, say, giving birth or having a new kid to care for 24/7 or perhaps an aging parent around who needs your help, or even maybe battling cancer, might throw a wrench in the ass-kicking works and could conceivably throw the perfectly balanced career / life juggling act off. Something has to give, and apparently 37% of those career gals are willing to give up the careers you know they busted their asses to succeed in. (more…)

Possibly it’s just the negative effects of the Seattle winter doldrums, but I’ve noticed a large number of female parental units freaking out about careers lately. The at-home moms think they should be working, and the career-having moms think they should be home making play dough from scratch. It seems as though no mom is content where she is and all moms feel like they could be doing more and doing it better.

Here’s my dime of advice: the health and well-being of the kiddos should be the top priority. The health, well-being and sanity of the parental units is an overlapping second on the list. And money-making is a farther-away third on the list. Screw the career and the money if the kids are being raised by preschool teachers and the whole family is stressed-out and miserable. Screw the perfect circle-shaped PB&Js with raisin smiley faces and volunteering in the classroom if mommy is one potty-training mishap away from shaving her head, taping down her rack and trying to join a monastery.

Everyone is impressed by tight-rope walkers because the ability to find balance and walk that fine line is effing hard to do gracefully. That being said, finding the middle ground and doing some variation of mommy-ness and career could be a viable compromise. Part-time doesn’t mean flipping burgers. And thanks to the Almighty Internet, working from home doesn’t mean telemarketing. Easy never works out, but aiming for simplification and sanity probably will.

Posted by Alexa Harrington