The Career Clinic Blog

Nothing like a book called Living Well at One Hundred to make you think, "Better do some financial planning." Many of Dr. Darlene McCord's suggestions will ring familiar, and on a recent edition of The Career Clinic she said stress is contagious. "If you're a manager you set the mood for the whole office," she points out. "People look for cues about how to feel from you."

It reminded me how often that plays out. For better or worse, default settings or no, we catch moods from each other as easily as we do colds.

I first became aware of this in college. I was at a concert with my boyfriend, and couldn't believe Billy Joel was going to sing "Summer, Highland Falls." I almost burst into tears at the sudden delight, not realizing Steve was taking this in. I could feel his eyes on me, then. He smiled, so I smiled. Later he told me he wished he had a picture of my expression at that moment. "Priceless," he said. And then, "So innocent." Now I realize what the expression was. I wasn't about to decide it was a smile-worthy moment until he gave me the okay.

I aspire to what Dr. Alex Lickerman described as indestructible happiness, but I cop to what I've heard put this way: "You're only as happy as the least happy person you're living with." So you do the best you can by yourself--and your sweethearts--and keep a can of Lysol handy.

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The Happiness Project is getting a lot of play these days, and I couldn't be happier for author Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen invited readers to help her compile a list of happiness-boosting blogs, and mine made the cut. Okay granted, that's because I added it--but with Gretchen's encouragement. She apparently doesn’t relish asking friends to nominate her for things, either. It's enough to make you (or rather, me) want to stay anonymous.

When I first heard about Gretchen's blog I was enchanted by the title, by the paradox. Though with apologies to my agent, I wouldn't have attempted a project like this. I don't think happiness is the point. I think having a point is the point. Happiness is, to me, a byproduct.

The proof is in the way it just sort of sneaks up on you. You get up, you have your coffee, you try to make something happen. And suddenly you're brushing snow off your car windows and you think, "Oh! This is what happiness feels like!" Enjoy that while it lasts, because right around the bend there's a bus coming straight at you.

Good thing. Easy is boring. Isn't it?

Perhaps the writer EL Konigsburg said it best: "Happiness is excitement that has found a settling-down place, but there's always a little corner that keeps flapping around."

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Once upon a time I asked my boss for the raise he’d promised and we both knew I’d earned. Now he wasn’t sure. I was stunned, and told him so.

At which point he said: “You push too hard sometimes.”

He wasn’t used to being held to his word, from what I could tell, and managed mostly by intimidation. So I was delighted, and okay, relieved, when he laughed at my response: “When (insert his name here, in italics) tells you that you push too hard, it’s time to take a good long look at yourself.”

I used to be afraid of bullies. Then I heard how the wife of a friend looked at them: “Oh well, they get the life that goes with it.” Now I’m more playful with people who intimidate me.

Or I pretend I’m watching a movie. It makes it easier to stay detached.

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You owe it to yourself to find out as much as you can about the job you're going after before you go after it. One of the best ways to do that is to talk to someone in the same career.

Please don't think of yourself as an imposition. Take it from someone who's constantly interviewing people about their work. The more they love it, the more they love talking about it. Their families and friends have heard these stories before. You're a new audience. They'll appreciate the reminder of how much they've pulled off.

Remember to ask them what they don't like, as well. Brian Kurth of VocationVacations says you may decide to pick a new dream: "Isn't being an innkeeper just the most romantic-sounding thing...until you're scrubbing toilets? Being a winemaker is dreamy, too, until you're schlepping case after case of wine into a shipment truck. And owning a bakery? I hope you like getting up at three in the morning."

It's an acid test. Can you handle the drudgery that's part of even the most glamorous jobs? Will you do that happily, and consider it a small price, for your dreams?

Hired!

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"Smile!"

If someone reminds me to do that when I'm getting my picture taken, no problem. If someone breaks my concentration to suggest it, I just want to say, "You smile."

Curt Rosengren isn't surprised. The man who calls himself the Passion Catalyst says some of the happiest people he knows don't look that way on the outside. To the contrary: "You almost have to poke them to make sure they're still breathing. That's how absorbed they are in their work."

It reminds me of the guy who took issue with me as I perused the handouts on this table or that after a workshop session several years ago. "You have to relax, Maureen," he scolded. "Nine hours of day of this stuff is enough." How can he be so confident he knows better than I do, I wondered, what's fun for me? "I am relaxing!" I said brightly, not exactly rushing out of the room to snag a seat at his table for dinner.

I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I've felt badly for people, doing work I’d hate, only to find out they love it at least as much as I love mine. Happy people don’t necessarily whistle while they work, Curt points out. Sometimes they’re very, very quiet.

Unless you ask them to talk about it! I've yet to meet a person, in love with a job, who doesn't also love telling you the story. How that relates to your career, in the next post.

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I used to host a talk show on a cable-access station, and the manager of a local department store let me borrow outfits to wear on television. One of the gals who worked for him was nice, but she never smiled at me. I saw her two or three times a week, and I started wondering what the deal was. Did she hate her job? Or did she just not like some of her customers? Maybe she didn't like me. Maybe she thought my show was lame.

It wasn't that I needed her approval. But not getting that…registered.

Then one day I saw her smile at someone. She flashed a mouthful of teeth so crooked it was disorienting, because everything else about her appearance was flawless. It reminded me how little we know about each other’s stories. I vowed to be gentler, from that point forward, when sizing anyone up--myself included.

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If your resume sports typos, what's the potential employer going to think? That you're suddenly going to pay more attention to detail once you get the job? Probably not. So make sure you proofread everything you send out, electronic or otherwise.

I heard a great tip once, to proofread backwards. Start at the end of your document and look at each word on its own, working from right to left and bottom to top. This lessens the chance you’ll read for meaning and skip over mistakes. A spell checker won't flag the word "pear" for you, for example, when you meant to say "pare." But when you're proofreading backwards you're likely to exclaim, "Pear! What is the word 'pear' doing on my resume? I meant pare!"

I've proofread each of my three books backwards, and caught things I never would have otherwise. Not just typos, either. Any kid flopped upside down over a couch cushion will tell you how different the living room looks with furniture hanging from the ceiling. Get a fresh look at your material before you release it. You won't be sorry.

This is where I thank Darrell and Katie for their work on my blog! I have what I've heard is a typical husband who uh, loves to help. And a typical teenager who loves to point out my mistakes. Or did I get that reversed?

No matter what precautions you take, you probably won't catch every boo-boo until it's too late. That's when I hope you'll think of what I learned from an editor at the University of Minnesota Press: "Snowflakes aren't perfect, but they're still pretty cool."

If I were you, I'd still go for perfect when approaching potential employers. It would be a shame to take yourself out of the running for that dream job because you transposed a couple of digits in your phone number. Career consultants say you wouldn't believe how often that happens.

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"A resume is used to screen you out." Common knowledge, according to my sources. So why do we put all that effort into our resumes? We send so many copies out into the world in hopes that--with what? some fairy dust?--one of them will make it into the hands of our dream employer.

I once tested the advice given by What Color Is Your Parachute? author Dick Bolles, and saw how far I could get without a resume. I replied to an ad for a radio sales representative. The ad said, "Resume required." I sent a letter instead. I mentioned three or four things the position required, and the corresponding ways I’d proved--on other jobs--I had those skills. I got an interview and was hired.

I sucked at radio sales, but that's another story.

I didn't let a resume screen me out because I didn't send one. The interviewer seemed enchanted by my letter, and a little annoyed with himself for that! "Is this a resume," he asked, "or a resume substitute?"

But hey, it worked.

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Would you like some free advice about your resume? Then please send me your questions by Thursday, February 4th. Career consultant Vicki Brackett will be my guest on The Career Clinic soon after that, and she'll answer those questions during the program. We won't use your name, or anything else that would identify you, on the air.

Vicki's like so many other career consultants who say resumes are an overrated part of the job hunt. Then again, they're still widely used as calling cards--and you'll want yours to sparkle.

Hope we can help!

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How do you know when you've had a little too much screen time? When you take a break from one screen, where you're working, and turn your attention to another screen to watch a movie. You take a break from that screen to get more snacks, and when you return to the video a menu item says, "Resume." Which you read as REH-zoo-may.

A report in The Onion says we spend ninety percent of our waking hours staring at glowing rectangles.

Such a shame, when--even in the coldest swirl on the U.S. weather map, where I live--it's as beautiful outdoors as any Ansel Adams photograph. What d'ya say? Do you have time to build a snowman?

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