The Career Clinic Blog

“What, again?”

That’s what Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side, reportedly told his mother on the second day of kindergarten.

I can relate at least a dozen times a day, whether making beds or washing dishes or working out: “What, again?”

Matthew Sanford in his book, Waking, calls this a quiet death. The day we realize, for example, adult life is deeply repetitive.

Maybe that’s why they call it the grind.

The grind is a series of decisions, and the most important decision you’ll make is your attitude about what you’re doing right now.

When I remember to approach making a bed the way an artist approaches a canvas--to really get into it for the sake of that and nothing else--my brain goes out to play. What’s fun for my brain is solving problems, apparently. Because by the time I’m finished I have the answer to something I’ve been wrestling with. Maybe it’s the subtitle for a new book. Maybe it’s what to make--er, assemble--for dinner.

Whatever it is, it reminds me housework is as much meditation as anything else. It’s a lovely frame for the rest of life--disguised as a mindless, boring task that was always anything but.

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When I was fresh out of college, supervising a dozen or so telephone company technicians, I held a weekly meeting.

Why?

Someone told me to do it, so I did it.

I can’t remember what the focus was. Something about safety, if memory serves. Maybe the latest change to our escalation policy--which was a fancy term for deciding which squeaky wheel got greased first. When there was a snag getting a circuit installed, a technician appealed to his bosses--who appealed to their bosses--to appeal to the managers at the other end of the problem circuit to get their technicians to fix it.

It’s been many years, so I don’t know if I characterized anything correctly in the last paragraph. I do know that as those meetings were happening I couldn’t have imagined a bigger waste of time, whether we were talking about a safety issue or a policy change.

Though just in typing that last sentence I changed my mind.

Can you imagine how entertaining it must have been for my technicians to watch a naïve young woman try to hold court for a half hour or so once a week? Even people who love their work--and some of them did--need breaks for comic relief.

In that respect I was perfect.

The techs came around. I had one thing over so many others who’d come before me. I hadn’t pretended to add a single thing of value to the group. I’d won them over by admitting I was a waste of space.

I’ll probably always wonder why I didn’t challenge the manager who insisted I hold those weekly meetings. My guess is that it would’ve been quite the project. A culture shift. Was I really up for that? Apparently not. At some level I was going through the motions. I took the job out of college that paid the most and gave me the most number of windows on the world. I wasn’t ready to plant myself in one office for the rest of my life and devote that life to solving problems that didn’t hold any meaning for me.

After a year I got promoted. I’ll never forget one of the brightest technicians, whom I respected above all others, howling with laughter at the news. I laughed along with him, because I knew I hadn’t made enough of a difference in this department to get promoted to another one. I had a good gig and I was going to enjoy where it took me. But I’d also stayed humble, worked hard--at what, I don’t remember--and according to the techs, made it more fun for them to come to work every day for a year.

I don’t know how much I’d helped, but I certainly hadn’t hurt.

For a fresh-faced young thing with the capacity to demoralize just from the unfairness of it all, I’m filing this in the win column.

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When I interned at the Minnesota News Network to get into radio, I took classified ads at the Star Tribune to help me pay the rent. The job was mind-numbingly boring, as you might expect--but the boredom was punctuated with terror, if it’s fair to be so dramatic about work that wasn’t life or death. It looked easy from the outside--and impossible, at least at first, from my perspective. There were so many rules: typesetting rules, alphabetizing rules, classifying rules, advertising and scheduling rules…and those weren’t even all of them.

Once I felt confident in that role, I daydreamed to keep the boredom at bay. I pretended I was the host of a late-night radio talk show, but all the callers wanted to talk about advertising.

Now I am the host of a radio talk show. So far we’ve been able to keep up with the callers who want to talk about advertising on the program--!--but we were prepared for the slow build.

When I was in college and babysitting for my aunt and uncle, I imagined living in a house like theirs someday. In those daydreams I’d get up early to review a manuscript while my husband and our baby were still asleep. I saw myself turning the pages over, one by one, marking the things I wanted to change. I saw myself happy.

One day many years later, while Darrell and Katie were still asleep, I was at my computer screen at five on a Saturday morning--five! on purpose!--writing my first book. You couldn’t have paid me to think of something else I wanted, then. I had it all, and I knew it. I was happy.

When I started at MNN the goal was to go from intern to anchor without paying my dues at a small radio station somewhere. I came close, and I’ll tell you that story in my new book. But had I gotten what I thought I wanted, I would’ve missed out not only the fun I had at KDLM--but also Darrell and Kate.

Thank heavens I’m not the only one writing my life story.

You probably won’t get everything you want, or think you want. But if you want good health, a good job, and (in my case) a baby grand (get it?) there’s something you can do that’ll help steer your decisions.

Keep your internal radio tuned to the frequency you want, and inch ever closer to it.

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I have a theory about why some of us get frustrated when others get upset.

We don’t know what to do.

I stumbled on something that works wonders in those situations.

Ask.

“What can I do?” is a magic question, really. It tells someone you’re not only ready to help, but eager to know what would constitute help.

Some people think when the suffering is intense you shouldn’t ask how to help--you should just do it. Show up with a pan of lasagna, for example. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do when I’m feeling down is to eat lasagna--or to add “return baking pan” to my to-do list.

The other night I felt crushed by the weight of several to-do lists. When I admitted that to Darrell and Katie they both said it: “What can I do?” Much of the weight disappeared immediately. My sweethearts were mobilized, and I wasn’t in it alone. Turns out the answer to their question was, “Nothing at the moment. But I’ll get back to you if that changes.”

No judgments. Only support.

Magic.

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If someone tells you how he’s feeling, say “I understand” at your own risk.

How can you possibly understand what someone else is going through? Even if you’ve had the same problem, you haven’t brought his life experience to it--so you’re still in the dark.

If that person is suffering, saying “I’m sorry” is almost never a bad move. Unless you’ve contributed to that suffering! In that case “I’m sorry”--if offered too soon--might feel like, “Can we get this over with? I messed up, I’m sorry, why can’t you move on?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not on a mission to collect apologies. A lot of problems can’t be solved. What I want most is the feeling that I’m not alone in my grief.

And when I’m getting grief from someone? I try to tell myself criticism is a gift. It isn’t good news or bad news.

It’s just information.

Use it or don’t use it--but thank your lucky stars you’re surrounded by people who tell you the truth.

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You want people to know you care about them, right? So why do you tell them to calm down when they’re upset?

Rich Gallagher joined us on the show recently to talk about customer service. His new book is The Customer Service Survival Kit, and if you can demonstrate to a potential employer your ability to soothe irate customers, he dares you to be unemployed for long.

And once again, advice for work--advice for life.

Rich and I both wonder if anything good has ever come from the suggestion to calm down. I haven’t met the person who likes being told how to feel. His reaction might feel appropriate to him. Even if you could prove it isn’t, why would you?

Better, Rich says, to try to identify with his feelings. “Of course you’re upset!” you could respond. “Who wouldn’t be?” Forget for a moment you wouldn’t be. Then you can continue the conversation honestly with something along the lines of, “Let’s figure out a way to fix this…”

Argue with someone’s feelings, and you’ll have a different problem. I promise.

Oh, and by the way, Rich says you can practice empathy with people you don’t feel much empathy for. Just try it. They might respond in a way that inspires your empathy after all.

Next up, when “I understand” and “I’m sorry” backfires--and why criticism isn’t what you think.

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How do you want it to have mattered, that you were here?

Figure it out, and the rest is just...logistics.

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What do you do when you have a bad day and you’ve sworn off drugs (not that I ever got started), alcohol (though I don’t miss what little I indulged), and even donuts (I could’ve inhaled Darrell’s pastry just now, that’s how badly I wanted it)?

You feel like hell, that’s what.

Which is better, I think, than feeling like hell about one thing--and feeling like hell as a result of whatever distracted you from it for a few minutes.

It reminds me of those TV commercials for allergy medications or whatever. It takes longer to rattle off the side effects than it does to explain the benefits.

I’ll take the original problem, please.

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There was something about the hostess at our favorite Mexican restaurant that kept me from taking my eyes off her. And no, it wasn’t wondering whether she was the right person to ask about the TV. We wanted to enjoy a Final Four game with our chips and salsa--to enjoy the culmination of what some people say is the most exciting sporting event all year--but the big screen was on…hockey?

Never mind that. Let me draw your attention back to the woman I just mentioned.

Her posture was impeccable. She wasn’t walking through the restaurant. She was floating. She looked regal.

She reminded me of Diane Kruger, the actress, who glided into the Prada store in Manhattan a few years ago just as we were leaving. Katie held the door open for her, but she didn’t seem to see Kate--or anyone else in her path, for that matter. Which didn’t strike me as rude so much as otherworldly.

What would it be like, I wondered, to carry yourself in a way that inspires such respect? And if both a famous actress and a waitress in Fargo can pull it off, why couldn’t I?

What would it hurt to try?

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When I was home recuperating from a bad car accident the summer before my junior year in college, my dad took a picture of me.

I looked hideous. Until then I’d been a pretty college coed. Now, when I had the nerve to venture even as far as the grocery store--not often--little kids started crying and hiding behind their mothers.

I am not kidding.

What strikes me about the photograph isn’t so much the scar as the posture of the person bearing it. I was slumped over, with an expression on my face that seemed to apologize for my very existence.

I’d seen that look in other photographs of me, many times, before and after the accident. That’s why, when Darrell noticed my suddenly regal posture the summer I got an agent, we marked the moment. Was I not going to straighten my shoulders until I’d earned my own respect?

Dr. Nick Morgan thought that was plausible when I talked with him about it on the show recently. It’s possible to change the way you feel about yourself by changing your posture, he says, but it’s difficult. Much better to address why you feel the way you do. The posture, and everything else about your body language, will follow.

Body language is one of Nick’s passions--and lucky for all of us, in my opinion, that’s the subject of his next book.

Nick congratulated me on consulting my gut, literally consulting my gut, about a supposed upgrade to not only the ceilings but also the walls of our house. I’d stood quietly in the center of the first room where the ceiling had been treated with a beautiful texture--and I asked myself how I’d feel if it was on the walls, too. A current of fear ran through me. Nightmare averted. Our drywallers reassured me leaving the walls alone was the right move, and were relieved I’d arrived at the answer by myself.

Nick didn’t tell me to take more breaths, to pause more, when talking with him. He showed me, by doing it himself. Having him on the program is a great reminder we always have only now, and if we try to cram too much into any particular moment we’ll just waste everyone’s breath.

I want to stop here because I’d rather have you listen to the podcast than keep reading. It’s fascinating. Nick, that is--not me. The only part of my contribution that’s fascinating is how often I used the word fascinating.

That’s why I listen to every word of every show after we record these interviews. It reminds me to keep the nervous laughter in check--yeah, I still get nervous, which Nick would say is great because it shows I care--and to make sure I don’t fall back on the same reaction to my guest’s observations.

There’s a word for that. Annoying!

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