Letters to the Editor
firefly82
Published Letters: 288 Editor's Choice: 30
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I've had some bad jobs, too.
[Read the article: The bosses used to monitor us on video from home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It sounds like you may have been discouraged in the past from trusting your own instincts. I battled what, at the time, I and everybody else assumed was depression. (It was not but that's another long story.) I went to a couple therapists, who more or less told me that my instincts were wrong. That I was mentally ill, so I shouldn't trust my own perceptions.
That was bullshit.
Of course everybody has right instincts and wrong instincts, and the trick is keeping track of which is which. Did you have bad feelings about the job interviews? And the jobs turned out badly? Start keeping track of what you felt at the interview and ignored that ultimately turned out to be true.
I've had some horrible, miserable jobs that it took me too long to leave because I was so scared of not having a job at all, or because I had no idea what my actual skills were. But in none of those cases could I look back at the job interview and honestly say there were no signs of what was to come. There was *something* that set me on edge, something I felt wasn't right in the way I was spoken to, or in the way things were explained. I knew. I just didn't want to listen because I wanted to succeed and I thought I could make everything right.
I learned better.
As for actual job advice...I've done temp work for a while to fill in gaps in freelancing, and it's been great. Most of the work--receptionist or typist for a couple of days--is incredibly easy, you get a peek into a variety of workplaces and industries, you figure out fast what kind of mundane/survival/office skills you never knew you had or can learn quickly, and which you don't. Ask around in your area for a temp agency that's friendly to people who are figuring out what they want to do.
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Work and fun--not mutually exclusive
[Read the article: The bosses used to monitor us on video from home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Normally I like Laurel's letters a lot, but I gotta disagree vociferously with this:
"LW, be glad you have a job. It's normal to hate your job. That's why they call it "work". If it was a constant daily delight, they would call it "fun"."
I think it's this kind of fear--that one is lucky to have a job at all and should just be grateful--that keeps too many people in abusive jobs.
It's certainly too common to hate one's job; that's not the same as 'normal.' (Though since I've never been 'normal' either, I might not be in much of a position to judge.) I've got a semi-long-term day job right now through a temp agency. I like it okay. It's not that hard, but not just anyone could do it, either. Sometimes it is fun--it's the kind of work that I actually find relaxing. Sometimes it's tedious and maddening. But I don't hate doing it--and more importantly, I don't hate myself *for* doing it.
My "real" career-oriented freelance production work is a *lot* of fun. It's exciting, collaborative, creative problem-solving, which I actually believe makes the world a better place. But a lot of it would strike others as repetitive and mundane, and thankless. It's hard, and not that many people do it. It is in fact work, and I get paid for it.
So, LW, don't resign yourself to work that you hate. Yes, be thankful you have a job--and use it to save up some money so you can leave it. Don't just leave--take some time, make a plan, have something lined up or at least enough savings so you won't be out on the street. You might have to tolerate work you don't love for a while. But you do not have to hate your work.
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Par for the course
[Read the article: Ladies, fight rape with ankle bracelets]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't this the same country where a judge once ruled that a woman wearing tight jeans was not able to be raped?
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Yep.
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd guess that 20-25% is a pretty high ratio to shoot for in the tech/computer fields. Don't be so hard on her. And from personal experience, I'd say that things get a little out of balance when the gender ratio goes too far in the other direction as well. Some of the most pleasant work environments I've ever experienced were in majority-female situations...but the *absolute* worst ones were as well. Even so, I think the bigger factor is whether everyone in a workplace is emotionally mature enough to treat all their co-workers as capable adults.
I remember when I was in high school, sometime during my junior or senior year, our local paper printed an op-ed about the shameful lack of girls taking computer science classes, and the measures to which schools should be going to change that. I actually found it pretty offensive. "I'm EVER SO SORRY," I thought, "that I'm too busy taking AP physics, chemistry, and biology--on top of journalism, creative writing, and calculus--to be enough of a feminist to take computer science."
For Google to hire 50% women, there would have to be that many women whose personal educational priority was computer science. And I just have my doubts that the main thing keeping girls out of computer science programs is the boy culture. I'm sure it happens, but I tend to think that people who really, really want to pursue a career field will do so in spite of sex ratios and cultural preconceptions. And not that many girls really, really want to be Google engineers.
I don't know how we can make them, or if we should.