Tag: how to adult

In the midst of all these “Humans will packbond with anything” posts, I’m going to pause and give you some actual, real-world career advice

figmentforms-the-human:

jumpingjacktrash:

roachpatrol:

rainaramsay:

Ready? 

Humans are packbondy creatures.  I mean, there’s just no arguing it.  They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly.  Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.  

There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned.  It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded.  It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings. 

If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.

“Yeah? So?”
So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career.  No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.  

Not to mention the big things.  They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects.  It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?  

Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with.  They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss).  They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.  

“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –” 
Listen to me. 
Listen.

You may be right.  You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization. 

It
does
not
matter

Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it.  No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do.

All you can do is work with it. 

If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.

“Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –”
Hey, my pal, I feel you.  I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.  

For you, I have good news:
Humans will packbond with anything.  

Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.  

If you can talk with them, that speeds things up.  But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go

You: boy, sure is hot out!
Human: Man oh man, can you believe it?
You: Wow, yeah
Human: Totally
You: ….
Human: ….

This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

  • You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with
  • Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such
  • That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers

Tips

  • Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected.  In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.
  • Keep some packbonding-time questions handy.  My go-to list is:
    • (If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?
    • (If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?
    • (If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?
    • How’s your day been?
  • You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions.  Therefore questions are your friend.  If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking
  • Learn to disengage from packbonding.  You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural.  I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”

I know it feels overwhelming, but a few minutes of packbonding, once a week, is all you need.  Once you build it into your habits it can be no more annoying than doing dishes or showering.  

additional crucial packhack: humans will like you more IF you ask them to do you a small favor AND THEN express gratitude and indebtedness. it seems counter intuitive to ASK for favors instead of DOING favors but that’s the key! they will keep tabs on your welfare if they think you owe them; they will want to keep you around if you establish yourself as someone who appreciates their efforts. humans thrive on mutual caretaking. invite them to caretake you and then show you are eager to caretake back and you will have a solid workplace alliance started.

small favor examples: can you pass me that tool item? may i try some of your snack? could you remind me of a fact? can you give me some advice?

most humans feel safe when they feel valued. it is this crucial emotional drive that underlies many human interactions. it is especially important in the workplace, where those that are not valued are ruthlessly cut out and discarded from the pack. so assure your humans that you appreciate them and they will come to you for the comfort of it.

super shortcut pack hack: share food.

i have a tendency to go nonverbal in workplaces. this is an absolute dealbreaker for most employers. in theory they’re not allowed to fire you for being autistic, but in practice, if you randomly lose the ability to words, they will find a way to get rid of you. i usually ended up being the one cast out because of that. but there’s a funny loophole i discovered: in workplaces where people bring lunches and eat at their workstations, i was not a pariah. 

i realized pretty quickly that it had to do with my tendency to bring lots of food and share it freely. i enjoy cooking and i like to feed people. so instead of just bringing a sandwich and an apple, i’d bring like, a huge box of vegetable maki, and offer them to everyone.

it turns out that the guy who gives you cucumber rolls is pack, even if he sometimes bluescreens while you’re talking.

so if you’re having trouble bonding with your coworkers, try sharing food.

I’m seeking employment so and this has been incredibly useful.

the-wolfbats:

dispatchrabbi:

copperbadge:

revyspite:

queendread:

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

  • ‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.
  • Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.
  • Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV – media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.
  • USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.
  • I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.
  • Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.
  • Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.
  • I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.
  • “I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.
  • For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments – it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

Very good post thanks for this.

Excellent advice for building and submitting job application documents.

This is the first good resume advice post I’ve seen on this site. Much better advice than the “lists of active verbs to use” and “here are resume templates”. Follow this advice.

Sound advice. the hoops americans have to jump through for less than a living wage. I love it.