Train of Thought: Assessing an Assessment

I am currently stuck in the briar thicket of looking for a job.  This is my third career assessment in two weeks, and it certainly will not be the last.  You know, those tests where you answer what seem to be pointless questions with "agree, disagree" or sometimes "slightly agree, strongly agree" etc.  I was getting a little fed up.  So now, I give you a running commentary on a career assessment.

• First question is “Low pay can cause honest people to steal.”  Huh?  You really want to start out with that one, guys?  Okay.  Well, I disagree.  I think low pay causes honest people to look for another job…
• No one is never in a bad mood.
• “There are seven days in a week.”  What the hell kind of people fill these things out?
• “You like to look beyond the facts of a situation to see the underlying cause.”  Um, what.  This does not make sense to me.  The facts of a situation will lead you to the cause.  You can’t look beyond them.
• People should not have to understand that you can’t do all you said you would.  If you said it, then do it.
• I guess it’s true that there’s no point in trying to anticipate things before they happen, but damn is it fun.
• Doesn’t everyone make decisions sometimes that they later regret?
• I really hate these because they tend to state things in absolutes.  “Never”, “everyone” and “always” are all over the place.  No, I can’t say that “everyone” I know likes me, but then if I put “disagree” to that, it looks like nobody likes me.
• “Criticism never bothers you.”  Criticism bothers everyone, even if they are able to put it aside later.  Who writes these things, and for what kind of people?
• “At work, many people are up to no good.”  This makes me laugh.  Up to no good?  What are we, marauders?
• I think the writers of this thing are determined to catch the bitter, cynical people in the world before they come for an interview.  “Everyone lies.”  “Everyone is up to no good.”  “The world sucks.”  Well, that last one wasn’t in there, but I’m assuming it’s implied.
• They’re also trying to catch the arrogant.  “Everyone likes me.”  “All of my decisions were the right ones.”
• Hmm, do I err on the side of perfectionism, or carelessness?  Again, there seems to be no room for middle ground.
• I kinda wish there were a little meter in the corner that says “We’ll call you in ten minutes” on one side and on the other “Go back under your rock, scum of the earth.”  It would be nice to have an idea about how I’m doing.
• Welp, now they know I’m an introvert.  Inching over towards “scum of the earth” there.
• And no, folks, there are not fifty hours in a day.  Unless you’re speaking metaphorically, as in “I get so much done in a day that it feels like there are fifty hours”?  Well either way, it’s “disagree.”
• You know, listening to Train during this is deeply comforting.  “You make everything all right.”  Thank you, Train.  I’m glad to know that I do something right.
• Being nice to people is a sign of weakness?  Talk about ultimate paranoia.
• NO ONE NEVER LOSES STUFF.  NO ONE.
• They don’t expect me to know the number of days in a month, either.  Oy.
• Yes, seventeen years of education and I can count to ten.
• I agreed with “People who always follow the rules do not advance their careers” when I remembered the well-loved Hollins quote, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”  Of course, I would much rather make history than advance my career.
• These things tend to repeat themselves, too, with different wording.  I see what you’re trying to do there, guys, and I promise my answer hasn’t changed.  I still don’t really care what people think of me.  Well, I do a little.  But you don’t allow “a little”, do you?  DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY.
• Oh, excuse me, I have to rock out to “If It’s Love.”  Okay, now I’m back.
• Why do people assume that emotions “get in the way” of important decisions?  To me, emotions are a big part of every decision I make.
• MORE “NEVER” RAHHHHHRRRRRRR.
• “You can read well enough to complete this survey.”  If I couldn’t, think I would have made it to question 88?
• Now this one is interesting.  I think I am indeed the type of person who makes others feel like talking.  Maybe I just put out a “listener” kind of vibe.  I like that; I like to listen for people.
• No, I do not take the time to check my work, because usually I am confident in the quality of my first effort.  But do you have a “fill-in-the-blank” section where I can explain that?  Noooo.
• Hahaha.  “How do you feel about a job where you will be asked to develop an extensive knowledge of wine so you can educate our guests?”  Why, I “would do it and enjoy it.”  Most honest response I’ve given all through this thing.
• Ooh, role play, this is interesting.  Okay, a group of guests say they had bad service.  Should I tattle on their server, run for the manager, ask them to fill out a survey (SURVEYS ARE FUN), or ask them to give the place another chance, despite the reams of restaurants in the area?  Tough choice.
• Next question: on a busy day, should I be obnoxious, point out the obvious, cause confusion, or be helpful?  Again, tough choice.
• Apparently, “smile and have great eye contact” is not a request, thank you.

Whew, that was rough.  But in its own way, amusing.  Making fun of something frustrating is cleansing, somehow.  I suppose I have a little bit of cynicism in myself, too.  Maybe a little.  Stay tuned, sports fans, to find out whether or not I am the scum of the earth.

Everyone Takes Something for Granted

I am sick this week.  My head is stuffed up, and today I’ve left my sore throat behind for a dry, gritty cough.  It’s not serious, just enough to be irritating.  But then, I don’t usually get sick.  My immune system is one of those expensive programs that downloads updates all the time and can catch almost anything before it causes trouble.  So when I get sick, I tend to notice it.  A lot.

I’ve actually been running at less than one hundred percent for a while now.  Last week, before I became infected with viral plague, I was recovering from the removal of my wisdom teeth.  I’m told by my dentist mother that I healed very quickly and cleanly, but it didn’t entirely feel like that to me.  It didn’t help, I suppose, that usually I believe that medicine is for the weak, so once I was taking pain pills and antibiotics three times a day, my body was thrown off its normal rhythms.

I was complaining about this to a very good friend of mine last week.  She has a long-term illness that makes it hard for her to function sometimes, a fact I had forgotten in my need to whine.  When I remembered, I felt bad about it, but she waved it off.  “Everyone takes something for granted,” she said.

It was a simple statement, but it caught at me.  Everyone takes something for granted.  We’re human, and we don’t always focus on the important things.  Even when we do, sometimes something else important slips through the cracks.  Obviously, one of the things I take for granted is good health.  I expect it from myself, and when I do get sick I resent it and complain about it, probably more than I deserve to.  Whereas my friend, who is currently in the hospital, takes serious illness like this in stride and appreciates the days when she can be up and walking around.  Who has the greater level of grace?

Now I know I’m only thinking along these lines because I am currently sick.  Once I’m healthy again, I will probably go on my merry way without even remembering this post.  I’m human.  But for now, I will do what I can to not take my health for granted.  I will let this little head cold—and the memory of my friend’s wisdom—remind me that hey, it could be a whole hell of a lot worse, and I will be grateful that it isn’t.

PS--this was the first link on my dashboard, and was too providential a coincidence for me not to include it.  Read here for someone else who exaggerates the anguish of a bad cold.

A Slacker's Confession

Well, here I am.  The young writer slinking back to her keyboard in shame.  Excuse me while I blow off the dust.  That’s a metaphor—my keyboard has been used more than once in the past month, but not in a way that makes me any less guilty.  I’ll explain that in a moment, but first I have to confess a truth about myself that I haven’t wanted to admit:

I, Eileen Michelle O’Connor, am lazy.

I’ve been very good at rationalizing this.  I’m an excellent worker, I tell myself.  Once I’ve made the decision to do something, I do it, and do it well.  For example, when I moved into my apartment, I decided that Saturday would be my cleaning day.  Having made the decision, I held to it.  Saturday I woke up early, unpacked some of my boxes, cleaned my kitchen and my living room, and put things where they belonged.  It took me a couple hours, but I did it.  Now, however, there is more to be done—I have new furniture now and more places to put things.  But Saturday is my cleaning day, and so I’ve decided that I don’t have to clean now.

Continue rationalization, aka making excuses.  But in school, I protest, I never ever sent in an assignment late, and most of the time it was longer than the requirement.  Yeah, whatever.  So maybe some of the time it was longer than the requirement.  I was a college student, and yes, I did that thing where the five-to-eight-page requirement has me writing a five-page paper.  We’ve all done it.  And my assignments in college were different from my own writing.  Those, I had to do.  I did them not for myself, but for others, so it was easier to get my butt in gear and get down to work.

Now, however, there is no one to tell me what to do.  There’s only myself, and as I sit here thinking about what I’ve done in the past ten days since moving here, I have to concede defeat.  I haven’t done what I should be doing.  I haven’t worked on the writing projects I should, only on the ones I feel like working on, the ones that are easy to write.  I haven’t worked as hard as I should on finding a job (though trust me, the pressure on that one is building).  And let’s not go into how long it’s been since I touched this blog.  What I have done is tool around on Facebook or on Stumbleupon or on Pinterest, all virtual tourist traps if I ever saw them.  Oh, and I'm three seasons into an old sci-fi show I used to love.  Not exactly accomplishments of which to be proud.

Self-discipline is hard.  It’s really hard.  Whenever I don’t really want to do something, I’m really good at coming up with excuses to put it off.  Some of it is fear—I’m uncomfortable with strangers, and just the idea of looking for a job is frightening.  But some of it is just plain old laziness.  Let’s see, I could work on some music, or write my blog, or edit my novel…or I could watch videos online.  ‘Stargate SG-1’ it is.  I’m sure many of you have been in the same position.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten to know myself over the past few years.  There are some things that will help.  For me, the most difficult thing is getting started.  Therefore, if I plan something in advance, I’m much more likely to do it.  Saturday is cleaning; Monday is laundry; Wednesday is errands.  I also find that if you space work with play, the former is less mentally draining, and the latter is less guilt-inducing.  I’ll spend an hour writing this morning while a video loads up online.  Then I’ll watch it, and probably at the same time I’ll flip through my recipe book to decide what I’m going to make on Sunday: multitasking is great, too. 

These tricks are useful, but in the end it comes down to knowing what has to be done and just doing it.  To borrow from the endless wisdom of the internet, I have to “quit slackin’ and make shit happen.”  Because after all, I’m on my own now, almost entirely.  Who’s going to make my day if not me?