The Career Clinic Blog

Ever get caught in the teeniest, tiniest little fib? I did, once. By a form!

Katie had what we thought was asthma for a while--I’m hedging, because she grew in and out of it so quickly--and needed permission to have an inhaler at school. One of the forms had this question near the bottom: “Do you have a peak flow meter”--I think that’s what it was--“at home?” I guessed we did. Wasn’t that part of the inhaler she used at night? I checked yes.

The next question was, “Do you know what a peak flow meter is?” Well, yeah. The part of the inhaler I just mentioned. Right? I checked yes again.

And finally, “What is it?”

“Okay, fine,” I thought. “Busted.”

I went back and scratched out where I’d said yes to the first two questions. But I was enchanted. What kind of person packs a little surprise into an otherwise boring pile of paperwork?

Whoever it was, I wanted to meet. Heck, I want to be more like that.

Life’s too short to bore each other to death, eh?

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A decorator once told me every room needs a focal point. Wire art above the fireplace, a view of the mountains, your baby grand.

Darrell and I threw a surprise party last week that was better than anything I’ve seen in a movie. The magical setting, the swarm of close friends and family, the look on the guest of honor’s face when she arrived and burst into tears. It was, as they say, one enchanted evening.

What people are still talking about is the other guest of honor, the one I invited on a whim because of his special relationship with the woman whose achievements--and life--we were celebrating.

It didn’t occur to me he wouldn’t join us. I didn’t know what everyone else supposedly did, that he never accepts invitations like this. Another guest--watching me wait for him--promised he would never show. Never, ever, ever. At which point he walked in. That look she gave me! I’ve never seen a look quite like that.

The rest of the evening was a happy blur of hugs and tears and more hugs and laughs--just so much laughter. All of it punctuated by still another person eager to tell us we really put the surprise in surprise party.

The biggest surprise to me was how much the guest of honor had always longed for a soirée like this. It isn’t the kind of thing you can ask for, she explained, without spoiling it. She had trouble falling asleep that night because she was replaying every moment, which made me wonder if I’ve felt better about anything in my life.

The party was our way of thanking her for being in the world. She is that special. What we got out of it? A lovely reminder you can make someone’s life…just by showing up.

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Why do some ideas catch fire? Odes to double rainbows, songs about Friday, looped-animation cats? It’s Kevin Allocca’s job to follow the trends on YouTube--I know, that’s a job--and he has some theories.

My favorite? Surprise. Couldn’t we all use a little more of that in our lives?

I loved the look on Darrell’s face when he glanced at the clock this morning and--after only having been gone a few minutes--realized more than an hour had supposedly gone by. “How did I not know we set the clocks ahead today?” he asked. I shrugged. “You’re not on Twitter,” I told him.

At The Career Clinic we’re fond of saying one person can change the world. Until I watched this video, I’m not sure I believed it.

Now I do!

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If you had all the money in the world, what would you do for fun?

A lot of you, from what you tell me, would host a radio talk show. The biggest surprise in the three or four years of having that on my resume is how many people want it on theirs.

Surprising only because they live in big homes next to movie stars or make the rounds of morning television shows or speak to audiences of thousands for more money--at one gig--than I used to make in a whole year. And when we finish recording interviews for The Career Clinic and I ask if I can return the favor their answers are often some variation of, “Yes. Please tell me how to get your job.”

I laugh. And I answer with some variation of, “I’ll tell you as soon as we figure it out ourselves.” Because The Career Clinic, while every bit the blast I imagined it would be when I dreamed it up twenty years ago, is a startup.

Read into that whatever you want!

It’s glamorous for two hours a week while we’re recording. The other one hundred and sixty-six hours of the week? I should turn it over to Darrell at this point, because it isn’t even glamorous for him for the two hours we spend recording.

And yet, and yet…this morning we had a little sunlight burst through sixteen years of mostly fog. His name is Mike, and not since Skip--who helped us find Mike, by the way--have we looked at each other and thought we might get to put North Shore Productions in the win column after all.

I love the scene in Rocky where he’s telling some kid if you hang out with bums, you’ll become a bum. You hang out with winners, however he worded it, and you’ve given yourself a chance at a good life.

I’ve never really thought of myself as a winner except in terms of the people I’m lucky enough to rub shoulders with. Darrell, Katie, Skip, Mike, Chris--to give you a few examples--what an embarrassment of (aspirational) riches!

All I want out of life is to have earned the privilege of having them in mine.

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A friend of mine once met John Denver. She was at a party, if memory serves, and there he was. She composed herself, walked up to him, and told him how much his music meant to her. He looked her in the eyes and told her how glad he was to hear it. “As if,” she reported, “he was almost surprised. As if he couldn’t quite believe it.”

Can you imagine?

Doesn’t that make you want to tell more people how much you appreciate them?

It makes me want to tell you about my favorite work song. Yeah, I know. Normal people have favorite love songs. But this is a career blog and a post about John Denver, so let’s wind down with some lyrics from “This Old Guitar.”

“This old guitar gave me my life, my living. All the things you know I love to do. To serenade the stars that shine from a sunny mountainside. Most of all, to sing my songs for you. I love to sing these songs for you…”

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“How can you work construction and be afraid of bugs?” That’s what my college boyfriend’s brother wanted to know, seeming more amused than bemused.

I used to buy the biggest cans of bug killer I could find. When I spotted anything crawly in my apartment, I’d bend down and crawl alongside it--dousing it until it collapsed under the weight of the foam.

Rather than swat a wasp away from behind a dresser, I taped newspapers from the dresser to the wall and from the dresser to the floor. I used a lot of newspapers, and a lot of tape. I thought the wasp was trapped, and I was surprised to find him on the floor beside by my bed when I woke up the next morning. “He probably wanted to read the other side of the newspaper,” I think someone said.

So yeah. Most construction workers I knew took most critters--or at least, insects--more in stride.

You can be strong, and soft. You can be gentle, and determined. You can be a good kid and have people not like you. Sometimes people won’t like you because you’re a good kid.

Think about that the next time someone you uh, don’t admire at all gives you the brushoff. What used to sting will feel like a home run. That happened to me just the other day.

I mean, it registered--the brushoff. So maybe it isn’t fair to call it a home run.

Let’s call it a triple with the bases loaded, when you’re down by two runs in the bottom of the ninth.

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Would you walk up to a farmer and ask if you could pick some strawberries, without also asking how much a basket of those would be?

Doubt it.

Then why do so many people think nothing of asking to pick someone’s brain--for nothing? Your brain’s worth at least as much as a strawberry patch, isn’t it?

Mine is.

Not everyone agrees. A former friend thought I should donate hours and hours of training for a class she was getting paid to teach. I was a little surprised, but since I was too busy to work it in at the moment--for any reason--I passed. I was nice about it, too. She was a friend.

The requests kept coming, and I kept passing.

I started avoiding her in social situations, and one day she called me on that. Literally called me. She was right, I told her. I’d wimped out. She deserved better.

So I gave it to her. And she didn’t like that, either!

I’ll explain in my next post.

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“What’s your favorite kitchen gadget?”

I was asked that question on the radio recently, by someone interviewing me for once. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The host was also a chef who runs a restaurant.

My answer surprised him: “The phone.”

You know, to call for takeout.

No wonder one of my most prized possessions--not that I can put my hands on it at the moment!--is a soup mug adorned with this sentiment: “Mmm, good. Just like the kind Mom used to buy and heat up!”

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"You know what you're really good at? Bugging people!"

No, I wasn't told that. Had I been, I wouldn't have taken it as a compliment--and certainly not as an idea for a business. Rachel Cornell did, though. She was on her way to making a living as an artist when she decided to become a professional nagger. Do you believe it?

I think of her as a midwife. "My clients are making their dreams come true with my help," she says. "What could be better than that?"

Rachel joined us on The Career Clinic Saturday and her husband surprised her by calling in. He says it's been fun to watch her turn nagging into a business, to create--as he put it--something out of nothing.

Kind of like art!

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I know a woman whose fiancé surprised her with quite the pronouncement shortly before they were married. “I’ll forgive you anything,” he said. “Even an affair.”

She felt sick. No. Angry! She couldn’t return the favor--to her, being faithful was the definition of marriage--and now she felt like someone who wasn’t…as forgiving.

But everything had been planned, and she was in love. So she kind of forgot about this.

Emphasis on “kind of.”

After they got divorced--you saw that one coming, I bet--the woman remembered what her soon-to-be husband had said. It suddenly hit her, what she wishes she would’ve told him: “I don’t want to be forgiven for that!” She was filled with regret for not reading the signs, returning the ring, and staying on the lookout for someone whose idea of marriage was in the same galaxy as hers.

I hope she’s forgiven herself. I think paying attention to the little voice inside--the one that knows you’re about to make a really bad move--is a life skill. How do you hone it? Accidentally, of course. You don’t pay attention, you pay for it, repeat. Eventually you realize, as research now shows, there’s a whole lot of wisdom in your stomach pains.

Colleen Wainwright calls herself the communicatrix, but in my opinion she’s a walking billboard for listening to your gut. She knew it was time to leave a job when her boss admitted to encouraging another employee to live beyond his means. That way he’ll be trapped, the boss explained. No wonder they call them the trappings of success, I can imagine Colleen thinking.

Colleen got the heck out of that job and into a life that, from the outside looking in at least, is nothing if not...hers. Telling more of her story here seems like a waste of keystrokes, when she tells it so beautifully herself.

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