a great friend of mine wrote the other day "Is there any person in this great big, fucking world who is content with the life they’re living? Why do we always want more than what we have, or more interestingly, what we can not have? The things in our life that keep us breathing, living, smiling, dancing, these are the things that we don’t notice. They are second nature to us. Although our very existence depends on these small everyday wonders we fail to see them….until they’re gone."
this seemed like the perfect catalyst to get me started on something that i told scott i'd write about a week ago. (p.s. scott, if blogging was firefighting, there would be a lot of burned out building husks because i just don't do anything in a timely manner. sorry this is so late.)
in the last 2 years, i guess i've sort of become a go-to guy for advice about life after college. i know how important this is because i was looking for one for... a long time after i graduated. unfortunately, i didn't think about it before i graduated and so when i hit the real world, i was just about the most unprepared person ever. i "took a summer off" aka couldn't find a job for longer than i had anticipated. i worked some shitty temp jobs. but it wasn't all bad. i got a chance to do some things that i wouldn't have been able to do ordinarily:
i was in a play
i made some new friends
i picked up a girlfriend who, even though i bitched about her a lot after we broke up, was really a pretty good thing for me at the time and, if nothing else, an incredible learning experience who may eventually end up being a friend again in time.
i got the opportunity to volunteer in hurricane-stricken louisana.
then i realized something: i needed money. so i got a real job. well, that's not true. i got a long-term temp job. but the fact that i was going to keep needing money kept me looking for a real job until they hired me full-time where i was. i became A Working Stiff. And unfortunately, The Big American Work Machine has this terrible culture wherein once you hit about 22, you're supposed to give up having a real life (with dreams and wants) in lieu of joining the Big American Work Machine (stolen verbatim from scott). And this is true. Not only of working, but of life in general. When you graduate, there's this elation that you don't have to do homework. All-nighters are a thing of the past. Now, if you want to stay up all night you can, but you'll be reading or talking with friends or playing video games or going to the bar or having a ridiculous (ridiculously awesome) amount of smooching. Any way you look at it, you certainly aren't going to be cramming for finals or writing theses or slaving away in the lab, trying to get an oxidation/reduction reaction to ... do whatever it is that they do (sorry Hallie, I tried). Now, you just have to go in to work 9-5, five days a week. But something happens. And it's hard to explain, so i'm going to give it my best shot but some of the nuance may be lost.
The idea is that you'll need to trade your life for The Dollar. This is erroneous. As a matter of fact, it is erroneous on both counts. What you should remember is that you're trading that paycheck for 40 hours, nothing more. What the Machine does is insidious and invasive. What you need to keep in mind, always, is that in this story the role of the villain will be played by The Big American Work Machine. The protagonist is - and will always be - our hero, your own humble autobiographer. But here's what will happen: You know how, after a long day of classes, you get together with your friends a bullshit about the classes, professors, hot girl in the third row who always eats a banana every day, the smelly kid who sat himself at your lunch table, etc.? Well, it gets to be the same way with work. When you tell your friends about what you did, it was deadlines barely made, incompetent supervisors, seven different managers sending emails about TPS report cover sheets, etc. And the things that you used to be able to sympathize with your friends about become more isolated. When you used to remember the crazy prof who talked about wise witches and how you'd go to lunch at the same time every Tuesday because that same girl would always get a hot dog, now you don't know their ass-hat managers and you don't care about that deadline. And this sucks because instead of having someone commiserate, you have someone who thinks that their ass-hat boss is worse. All because they've never met your ass-hat boss. So you keep all this inside. And it just makes you angry. Or upset. Or sad. Whatever your default dealing emotion is. So you start looking for people who will know what you're talking about. And you know who knows most about what you're going through at work? The other people you work with. So you start hanging out with work people after hours... [I originally continued along this line for a while, but it's not important and it was keeping me from finishing, so I got rid of it. The main point is, don't hang out with people from work exclusively. It destroys any chance you have of maintaining your sanity and extracurricular function. - ed.]
Since this is going considerably slower than I had hoped, I'm going to skip the expounding and jump to my advice. So you want to maintain your sense of self even though you've got to work now. Here's what you do:
1.) Make a list of things you want to do someday. It can be long or short. No matter what you do with this list, make sure you see it often and add to it when necessary. My list currently (in no particular order) is:
a. Hang glide
b. Bungee Jump
c. Skydive
d. Pay of Student Loan
e. Work with the homeless
f. Write a full-length screenplay and attempt to get it produced.
g. Travel out of North America
h. Run for public office
i. Learn to Ride a Motorcycle
j. Be an extra in a Hollywood movie
k. Learn Italian
l. take a long backpacking trip
I know it's only 12, but seeing these things keeps me motivated. I think that's the main point here. You need to find ways to keep yourself motivated. If you're just going in to work every day to make a buck, that's fine. But if you're going in to work every day to finance your trip to the Bahamas, you'll have that to remember when the going gets rough and you just want to leave.
this is something I have up next to my desk too. it's my secret way of remembering my list.
2.) Stay hungry. Try to not pay a lot of attention to how much money you have in the bank. Once you get a job, you will start making money. And since you don't have to pay $600 for books every semester, you're going to realize you've got more cash than you know what to do with. The experts say you're supposed to keep some emergency money (I've heard between 3 and 6 months pay) as a backup in case you get hurt or your car breaks down or whatever and I'm not going to argue that. But you need to keep that money out of sight and out of mind. If you know that you've got enough money to take off half a year, then the temptation to do that will become overwhelming. One day you'll walk into the office and everything will hit you at once and you'll say, "I don't need to deal with this shit. I'm going to quit." and then the part of your brain that keeps you in check will say, "but what will I do for rent and groceries?", and then the part of you that doesn't want to be homeless on the streets will tell you, "crap. I guess I can put up with this for a little while longer." But, if when you get to the rent and groceries question and realize you have more money saved now than you had total through all your years of college, there's no stopping you. And that's where we hit the quarter-life crisis. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, the secret here is now that you're making money, spend it. If you realize that your job provides you things you want, you'll be much less likely to quit. And if you're not comfortable with spending that much money, put it in some sort of retirement account. I suggest a Roth IRA (because that's what everyone older than me told me when I was getting started). This way you subconsciously know you're pretty safe while not having to be reminded of it every time you write a check.
3.) While you're at work, compromise. I am not suggesting this as in, Compromise Yourself. I am merely saying that when you're at work, you're going to have to deal with people you don't want to and do things that you just aren't a big fan of. I'm sure that everyone who would read this will understand the concept of compromise. The closer of friends we are, the closer you probably are with it. I know this sounds like common sense, but it needs to be said. When you get into a new job, there are going to be a lot of people who are set in their ways, and no matter how roundabout or all-out wrong they are, they do not want to know how you'd do it. If this is a job you plan on keeping, the time will come when you can make suggestions. This is not it. If you plan on leaving, why do you care how these people do things? If you don't like their music, try to wear headphones. If you don't like the work, see if there's some way you can trade some of what you're doing for something that you would enjoy. Perfect segue way into...
4.) Find something about your job you enjoy. It could be a menial task you do once a week. It could be smiling at the cute girl who works down the hall from you when you walk out at night. As long as you have something that keeps you happy, you can come back to the promise of that happiness when things get rough. If whatever the rough thing is happens on a regular basis and you find it outweighs the thing that makes you happy, find a new thing to make you happy. Bring in a cd of music you really enjoy (assuming you can listen to music where you work.), whatever it takes to make it worthwhile to be there. Oops. I just realized I'm skipping ahead to ...
5.) Bring in something from the outside you enjoy. I already said music, but there's other things too. This sort of relates to #1 as well. If you can sustain yourself with the thought of what you're going to do when you get home, you're halfway there already.
6.) DO NOT TAKE WORK HOME WITH YOU! (if you can avoid it). When you clock out at 5 or 6 or whenever it is you leave, LEAVE! Don't even think about thinking about work when you're not in there. Whatever went wrong today is done. It's over with and you won't have to deal with it anymore. If it's not over and you'll have to deal with it tomorrow, don't worry about it. You'll waste enough of your time tomorrow on that. When you're not at work, you need to be enjoying your life.
If you have work that you absolutely must take home with you, do it like homework in middle school - as soon as you get home, make a snack and sit down and get it finished. before you have dinner. before you watch cartoons. before you go outside to play. This way work will take up as little of your outside life as possible.
7.) Be on the lookout. Always be ready to take the opportunity for something better. I realize this sounds a little cutthroat and loyalty-be-damned, but it's absolutely true. Odds are, the first job you get out of school won't be your dream job. If it is, please disregard what you've just read. But if it's not, then you need to think of it as a stepping stone. Always be ready for the next great thing to come along. Keep your resume updated because most of the things that will come up in life will happen when you don't expect/want them to. Apply and interview fairly often for jobs that you don't really want just to keep yourself in shape.
8.) Know what you're looking for. If you know what you want, then you'll have a better idea of where you'll be happy. For me, the list is mostly as follows, mostly in this order:
co-operative team environment
competent manager who will not sit over my shoulder all day
variety of work
opportunity to meet new people on a regular basis
frequent interaction with customer base
flexible schedule
ability to grow
i can listen to music there
clearly defined work expectations
good benefits
close to home
decent pay
Anywho, that's just what I think. What's important is that you have fun. Never underestimate your role in society. Make sure that you know somehow, everyday that what you're doing affects someone. And if you can't think of how you do that, you need to think harder. Anybody else out there with a real job that would like to throw out some tips? What gets you through the day? Is this totally wrong and I'm full of shit? let me know. Scott, does this answer your question or am I totally off base?
Peace,
~N