Posts

Who cares?

 Once in college I took a weight training course. On the first day my coach had me squat 350lbs three sets ten reps each. I had never done a squat before, but i completed all three sets and felt great! I walked back to my dorm, took a hot shower to relax my muscles, and set down to work on something till my next class. Forty minutes later I got up to walk across campus to class, and my legs instantly collapsed under me sending me face first to the floor. I had no idea what was wrong, but i had to get to class. I pulled myself up on my bed, got my legs under me, and began hobbling on shaky, aching legs. I pulled myself up two flights of stairs, relying heavily on my upper body, staggered a hundred yards, then carefully descended two flights of stairs to arrive at the hallway off of which my classroom sat. I was twenty yards from ym goal, but my legs came out from under me again, and I slumped against a wall. Try as i might I could not get up again. a friend tried to help, but they c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Knowing what you are worth

  So, you are a resource. It is miserable, yes? Well, what can be done about it? You cannot change the way a company sees you, changing that perspective is going to cost more than replacing you with a less pretentious resource. No, you need to accept that you have a certain value to your employer. Try to be very pragmatic on this. How much to do you contribute to their end goals? What would really take to replace you? Knowing precisely what your value is to the people you work for will help you navigate your work life with less frustration, you will have more realistic expectations.             The other thing to know is what you are actually worth. There is a lot of you that your company simply has no need of. I have a decade of experience in ministry, and advanced theological training. Some of the experience translates to the retail world I currently work it, but some of the experience and nearly all of the training has n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Humanity at work and at large

You are a resource to be used up and discarded. The companies like to think they can make you believe otherwise, but no amount of cheap amusement, petty gifts, or token examples can cover over the plain fact that they do not care about you as a person. If they cared they would pay you as a person and not as resource.  The only way you ever be treated with real dignity is to become such a valuable resource that the people who would hire you have no choice but to comply with that demand. Very few of us will ever be so valuable. It is possible that none of us will have any value at all someday. Are psychical ability replaced by machines, our intellects replaced by computers, and our souls discarded as useless waste. All that is left to us is our capacity to consume. That is the one indispensable value which has no alternative in the economy. Yet even as a consumer we are only a resource to be used-up. We are made to consume what is offered, not offered what we want to consume. The man...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mining Talent in Untapped Fields

 There are a lot of ways to learn a lot of skills. There are a lot of ways of gaining a lot of knowledge. consequently there are a lot of people who can do a lot of work. It just isn't obvious. That means finding this untapped talents takes time and effort. I believe this kind of talent is invisible to AI, as it does not appear in key words or phrases. As a pastor trying to find qualified volunteers to perform important work for our organization I had mine unconventional backgrounds. In my experience the work done by these self-taught, self-motivated individuals was equal to or better than the work of mainstreams professional we hired out for. These people did the work because they were naturally inclined to it, and enjoyed it. Having someone who would do the job even if you weren't paying them changes the whole atmosphere of the office.  The other observation I made was that when I was willing to take unconventional experiences, i could recruit for quality character. Characte...
Post a Comment
Read more

The unhappy endings

 Yesterday I was in an interview, where some very astute question were asked. I found myself answer twice with stories that did not end well. I half-apologized after the section, and assured the interviewer i could tell other stories that ended much better. So, why didn't i just share those stories to start with? Because they do not tell you as much. Unhappy endings are more difficult to live with. Yet, here I am still alive and still striving forward in my career. I did not give-up, I did not stop trying, and that resilience is worth a lot in any position. No job is perfect. No work goes to plan every single time. If you can tell those stories you have overcome the setbacks, and you have a confidence to accept failure, process it, learn from it, and see the value of it all.   Honesty ought to be refreshing. No one really believed in a candidate who always wins: as much as we might want to believe. Hiding the other side of story doesn't make me a better job seeker, it mak...
Post a Comment
Read more

That language problem

 Every field has its own unique terminology, a language that marks the tribe. If you do not speak it doesn't matter much what else you can do. So, learn the language, translate, and doors once shut should open right? Maybe... There is more to language than words, there is also grammar when writing and pronunciation when speaking. You have to know the right words, and how to use them correctly if you are going to appear as someone who should be here. A cursory scroll down the first few pages of google search will be enough to fill your pocket with terms, but knowing what to do with them is going to take a much more serious investment.  That investment may, or may not pay off. You see for the native speaker learning the lingo does seem all that hard. These people speak it everyday, and do not stop to consider what they are saying. So, for someone to show-up speaking the language is nothing too special in their sight. Knowing is only half the battle, and sometimes the cost of win...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pondering at the fork

              How do you prove your past experience is relevant to the new role you want to apply for?   How do you prove you have done the same kind of work in a different environment, and have learned the skills needed to learn more and perform adequately? It is one of the biggest questions on the road of work we all travel.             A few of us have been fortunate enough to do the same thing from the start, and have never felt the need or wish to shift into a different career path. A lot of have felt we should make some kind of move outside the field we start in, and it is not easy.             Unless you have worked as a pastor of a small church you won’t appreciate how much goes into that job. Unless you have been around a farm you won’t really grasp the kind of work ethic it takes to succeed there. T...
Post a Comment
Read more