Take one VW Beetle and call me in the morning

I had a bad day at work today. I had a headache between my eyes by 9:30 am and by 2:30 pm it was throbbing and making things look slightly wiggly around the edges. Not that I minded. Wiggly seemed more appealing than reality today.

We are in the full throws of our annual pre-September panic as we try to ready things for when the students arrive back on campus in a couple of weeks. Many of us were grumpy again today, which is never pleasant, but not all that unusual in many workplaces unfortunately. However, given what we do for a living -- that is, inspire people to go after their career dreams -- it feels disingenuous and surreal to be advising people about career happiness while simultaneously wandering around muttering under our breath and compulsively checking our lottery tickets.

Everyone has bad days of course, even people who are doing work they generally like. Still, when I left the office today, I could feel the cloud of the day hanging over me. I felt gloomy and despite the ibuprofen I'd ingested every four hours all day long, my head was still pounding.

Cue my ride home. A few years ago, my husband persuaded me to buy a totally unecessary, self-indulgent and possibly environmentally irresponsible 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. It's at the top of a list of cars I've wanted my whole life and although I hadn't had my driver's license for 15 years due to a fainting problem, I was finally healthy and able to drive again. Even though it's been six years since we bought that car and I drive it nearly every day from April to October, it still works its magic.

I don't know if the soothing comes from the distinctive burble of the VW engine or the cheery yellow colour or the way people spontaneously smile when we drive by. I notice that no matter what my mood, within minutes of starting the car, my heart feels as if it's going to burst out of my chest and I don't know whether to laugh or cry (and I frequently do both). Mostly, I find myself grinning like an idiot with the sheer joy of the experience. Maybe it's the years without the driver's license and the thrill of independence that never gets old for me or maybe I'm just easily entertained. I just know that seriously, my cheeks hurt because I'm grinning so much! I no longer come busting in the door at home ranting about the latest tax hike, world injustice or inconsiderate driver. As corny as it sounds, when I get in that car, the bad stuff about the world seems to melt away and my only option seems to be happiness. My "Daizybug" is some of the best medicine for whatever ails me.

We all have bad days - in work and in life. Do you have a place, activity, or person to be with where giddy joy is abundant? Spending some time there can do wonders to help you rejuvenate so you have energy to appreciate your progress and keep acting on your dreams.

Wishing you your very own "Daizybug".

Do You Look Career Desperate?

You know the saying in dating that advises, “Once you stop looking for a great guy, he’ll land in your lap”? Well, the same may be true for finding your true love career. Sure, preparation is important. Knowing yourself and thinking specifically about what you’re going after are key steps that will help you increase your chances of making a great career match. But I would be misleading you if I didn’t admit that there’s also some timing and serendipity involved.

Do you look desperate? You know how when you WANT to meet someone, you can’t seem to get a second glance, but then as soon as you’re off the market, you suddenly appear to be the most desirable woman in the world? That same cosmic mess-with-your-head principle may apply to career dating as well. Somehow, employers and contacts sense the beseeching plea that seems to emanate from your every pore (and you thought it was just the Love’s Baby Soft you’ve worn since you were 12). No matter how calm and composed you think you’re being, if your body language is saying, “HELP me…I hate my job and I want one like yours”, you may find yourself having great meetings with people that never seem to go to a second date. Your desperation is making them feel trapped, nervous and possibly even that you have ulterior motives.

Whether it’s tantric hot yoga or retail therapy that calms you down, find a way to tap into your inner Zen…or you will end up alone with your internet favourites permanently stuck on monster.com. And I wouldn’t wish that on you. You seem like such a lovely woman.

Christine Fader is a career counsellor and author of "Career Cupid: Your Guide to Landing and Loving Your Dream Job". Visit her at www.careercupid.com

That Job Stinks. Or Does It?

The end to the recent garbage strike in Toronto got me thinking about the limitations of a university degree. Take a whiff of a city with no garbage pick up for 6 weeks and the value of waste disposal professionals is pretty clear. Everyone - including those with those oh-so-necessary-nowadays university degrees - suffered due to the lack of bodies coming to clear away that which we have consumed, ripped open and thrown out. Yep, it's a valuable service these people provide and a career worth respecting because without people doing that good work, we would be in a real mess.

And yet, how many of us would encourage a person who aspired to that career? It's interesting that we don't have the same sarcastic or negative reaction when someone tells us they want to be a doctor. Yet, that aspiring doctor could end up being a gastroenterologist - the garbage collector of that field. Sure, there's a pay difference but those city garbage collectors have a much better union than doctors and they also make a good living. They don't work nearly the same hours per week as a gastroenterologist and I'm guessing that they probably don't have the same high rate of suicide as doctors do. And if the last 6 weeks showed the people of Toronto and the rest of us anything, it should have highlighted the incredible value that municipal trash collectors have in our world.

Yet when it comes to career respect, we treat that job, and by extension, the people who do it, as less than. Oh sure, it's fine for someone else's kid/sister/father to do that job but we have a sort of "NIMBY" mentality towards career choice. Yes, we need garbage collectors but there's no way my kid/sister/father is going to do a job like that.

Why do we do that? I work at a university (admittedly, a skewed sample) and see this type of career hierarchy in play every day. Prestige is often a big part of why students choose the work they do, especially when they have continuously been told that university is the "top" of the academic food chain. Yet is it really? Isn't university just one of many education and training options available? No better or worse than other options - just different? Still, I see parents and students every week who choose against a job or education program they want because it's perceived to be beneath a "smart person".

What would happen if the college goers, apprentices and people who earn an honest living by asking, "do you want fries with that?" were acknowledged as just as needed and respected just as highly as (and by) those who came out of university? Career and education choice could be about differences, instead of "better than" and "less than".

I'm not just spouting Pollyanna optimism and equality here. As we continually tell our current and future generations of children that university is the only "smart people's" option, we not only diminish the immense value of the training and contributions the rest of the workforce makes, we are ending up with a world where fewer and fewer people will actually take a job taking out the garbage. Jobs where college, apprenticeship or experience is the path to get there are so de-valued, they are seen as the failing choice, instead of something to which someone could aspire. Soon, and it's already happening in some places, we will live in a world where everyone is too "qualified" to pick up the garbage.

And that, to me, is a world that stinks. Literally.

Your Cheatin' Heart

You're not actually cheating...yet, but you've lost that loving feeling at work. Your body is at work but your soul and mind are off riding horses with a guy who looks remarkably like Brad Pitt. In this case, the guy who looks remarkably like Brad Pitt is "that job over there that looks so much cooler/better/easier than mine." You're having an emotional affair with the job down the hall. Oh sure, you haven't slept with it yet, but it looks awfully cute and you're spending all your free time lusting after it and text messaging about it and planning what you'd do if you got it. You're ignoring your current job which suddenly looks full of flaws and incredibly demanding to boot. The way the photocopier jams up on you on Fridays used to be cute but now it's just plain irritating. Job down the hall's photocopier never jams.

While you're not guilty of outright cheating, you are having an emotional affair. Your heart has turned a corner away from your current job, leaving it swinging in the wind, wondering what it did wrong. The question is, are you having an incredibly cow-like "the grass is always greener" episode, which could be cured by a good old-fashioned Career One-night Stand or is this something more serious?

Try the Career One-night Stand as a level-one cure. In career terminology, the One-night Stand is known as "job shadowing". I know -- it sounds kind of dull or even a bit creepy, which is why I gave it a more exciting label. The Career One-night Stand is every bit as fun and interesting as the romantic one-night stand, except without most of the risks to your safety and schoolgirl reputation.

The idea is to try on different types of work without having to commit to them. You could interview or even follow around for part of a day, say, a tax lawyer (hey, that's some people's idea of a dream job--don't make fun!) or maybe an architect or a fashion magazine editor. See if the work is really as great as you dreamed. You might find that looking from over there back down the hall at your job, you suddenly remember why it seemed so cute when you took it on all those eons ago. Or, you might find the new career love of your life.

When Good Women Go Baggy

You used to be the one coming up with the great ideas. You contributed in meetings, you wrote proposals, you innovated products or practices in ways that made the employer and you look good. But just like the Neil Diamond/Barbara Streisand song goes, “You don’t bring me flowers”, perhaps you have become bored or uninspired with your work. Maybe you’re overtired with other life obligations and you just don’t have the energy for career romance anymore. Whatever the reason, you have started resting comfortably in a place where you feel that you don’t really need to be the star – after all, why not let the up-and-comers dazzle with their flash?

Just like in romance, you will settle into a less intense phase of your work after the initial heady days of courting and honeymoon are over. The trick is to find the balance before you end up looking as if you don’t care enough to put any effort in at all anymore. While you’re probably not staying up late six nights a week coming up with your next amazing idea, it’s important not to give up innovating altogether. Every career needs a little romantic gesture thrown in on a regular basis.

Ways to keep the career romance alive

• Collaborate with other people on projects – because you’re sharing the load, you often get to choose the bits that you find most fun and are skilled at. People may even call you “sparkly” in an awed sort of voice!

• Take time off – sometimes we forget to give ourselves permission to take holiday time or even short unpaid leaves to recharge. You’re fabulous but you’re not irreplaceable and being away for a while may allow you to return with fresh enthusiasm. Just remember to clean your stuff out of the lunchroom fridge before you go…it will look scary by the time you get back.

• Get some rest – it can be difficult with all that you have going on but maybe you need to scale back a bit in some areas so that work can be approached with energy. p.s. energy doesn’t come from a mug, can, bottle or the vending machine. Hint: exercise and more sleep will help you figure out two of the main places energy comes from!

• Recommit to the work – sometimes work slides down our priority list with other things keeping us busy. Revisit your priorities and shuffle things if needed. Approach work with the same enthusiasm as a second honeymoon.

Are you a good woman going a little baggy? Re-commit to yourself and your work. Don’t force your employer to sing, ‘You don’t bring me flowers’. It makes you look bad and will probably be painful to your ears. They are, after all, mostly tone deaf despite playing “background singer no. 2” in the community theatre production of Mamma Mia.

Would you rather clean than read a career book?

My friends and I always seem to gravitate back to two main topics in our conversations: relationships and careers. How can we get one (hunky hearthrob, great career)? Is it time to leave one (dumpy dingbat, crummy career)? And, how, exactly can we get one of those lives that are portrayed in the movies? You know the ones.

There you are, all young and beautiful and newly despondent because your love has left you for a long-legged protégé but you console yourself by somehow having enough money to travel to a romantic, sunny European country on holiday where you marvel at how wonderful your hair looks in the non-humid, seaside air and you spontaneously buy a vineyard and live out your lifelong fantasy of writing cookbooks. Sigh…if only real-life dream careers tended to work like that.

As a career counsellor, I know there are some great (and, admittedly not-so-great) books out there on how to work towards a great career. The problem is many women would rather clean under their kitchen sinks, than read a book about career management.

I don’t blame them. A glass of red wine (or indeed, tackling the scary, greeblies hidden under the kitchen sink) seems so much more appealing after a hard day at a job you’re not really crazy about. It can be difficult to feel energetic enough to turn to a career book full of self-assessment quizzes and assignments on finding your “passion”.

Here’s a tip I use to make the process of figuring out your career a little less dry: finding a great career is a lot like finding a great romantic relationship. Start by thinking about what’s on your wish list.

Just like in romance, once you might have been happy if you found a cute butt. And while “cute butt” job might have cut it a few years ago, maybe it’s just not enough any more. Allow yourself to dream the dream, even if you can’t pursue it right this minute.

Also, here are some other (admittedly superficial) but fun ways to inspire your career journey:

1) Try picturing your dream job as (fill in Hollywood Heart Throb’s name here). It’s hard to feel uninspired about working towards your career goals if it’s aligned with Hollywood Heart Throb (HHT) isn’t it?

2) Even if a career move isn’t in the cards for you right now, picture your current job as (lesser but still amazingly sexy Hollywood Heart Throb). Pick an even more attractive HHT to symbolize your dream career.

3) Try to re-commit to what’s great about your current job while still taking small, frequent actions to help you work towards your dream job.

4) Stay focused on the fabulousness that is your current or dream career by creating a screensaver, clipping a photo from a magazine or chanting your HTT’s name under your breath while you’re doing the least-favourite part of your present job.

Of course, women think and talk about more than careers and relationships. But approaching your career like a romantic relationship might help you stop sitting on the side of the road to your dream career and start taking some action. All that action leads to great career prospects on the horizon.

And that’s a lot more fun than cleaning under the kitchen sink.

Christine Fader works as a career counsellor and is the author of the new book, Career Cupid: Your Guide to Landing and Loving Your Dream Job (Writing on Stone Press, 2009). Contact her through www.careercupid.com

Interviewing like a REAL Dummy

You’ve probably heard of the Dummies” series of books: “Windows Vista for Dummies”, for example. (I’m still waiting for new ones in the series that might be useful for me including: “Sushi for dummies”, “Recycling for dummies” and “Mother-daughter communication for dummies”… )

Last week, I had an interview and it felt as if I was Exhibit A in a book called, “Interviewing Like A Dummy” (not a real dummies book, by the way!) Have you ever have those moments where your native language suddenly feels as if it’s your first day with new words?

I was at the national conference for the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers (CACEE) last week in Vancouver, promoting my book, Career Cupid – Your Guide to Landing and Loving Your Dream Job and doing a conference presentation. On Tuesday, my colleague Cathy Keates (author of, Not for Sale! Why We Need a New Job Search Mindset) and I got a call to interview with a radio station in Kingston during their morning show.

That meant that last Wednesday morning, at the evil hour of 5:15 am we were huddled in our respective pjs in my hotel room, waiting for “the call”. Groggy, we spent a couple of minutes conversing with each other in our gravelly morning voices, then the phone rang and we switched from pjs into professional mode as the radio station morning show interview got underway.

The hosts, Brian and Shauna from FLY-FM were amazingly bubbly and articulate (admittedly, they had been awake much longer and no doubt had a few lattes under their belts), making us feel right at home as we answered questions about our respective books and career advice. A few, short minutes later, we were finished and hung up, relieved. But as we had a short re-cap of how things went, I seemed to recall only the the bad stuff--the places where I knew I hadn't done a great job of actually answering a question. For example, in my head, the re-cap sounded something like this:

Radio show hosts: “So, Christine, what kind of things can a person do who is unhappy in his/her job and trying to find a new career?”

Me: (a.k.a. Obi-inarticulate-Wan) “Well, really, there are just so many things a person can do…and um…my advice is for people to do those many things…um…as soon as possible because…um…many things are what are most useful for most people to…um…do.”

Yep. I felt as if I was completely inarticulate and not specific at all! Somehow, all the great, vivid information and examples I knew so well, just…evaporated into the Vancouver sunrise.

In my work with clients, we talk a lot about how to navigate these sometimes stressful work conversations. What I was reminded today is that no matter how prepared you think you are, interview questions can leave you feeling as this is your first day speaking a new language. And no matter how experienced you are, interviewing can sometimes feel very unsettling, even to a career coach! Brian and Shauna at the FLY-FM morning show were the consummate professionals, making interviewing (and their interviewees) look incredibly graceful.

Then again, I have a feeling neither of them was wearing pajamas…

Have you had interview moments in which you wish you could press “rewind” and start over? Are you remembering things accurately or just being hard on yourself? Do you have a great strategy for overcoming inopportune brain vacations and nervous jitters? I’d love to hear your stories.

Wishing you “happily ever after” at work,


Christine

(also known as Career Cupid)