By D.C. Morrow

Some form of employment is probably a better option for “finding yourself”. No matter how resilient your ego, graduating without a job is painful. What can hurt more is when a person begins to internalize some of the advice from various self-help books. A person can always have prepared for interviews better, have fine-tuned one’s resume an additional time or two, and applied to a dozen more firms. Only the pathologically obsessive could think otherwise and by virtue of their malady even they don’t think so. Like many graduates, you should become employed with the most basic motive of sustaining your physical and emotional being.

If your job straight out of college doesn’t meet the criteria defined by your career counselor that’s immaterial. Your career counselor doesn’t pay your rent or put food on your table. You should avoid falling into the trap of believing that temporarily taking a low skill position is a deviation from a path leading to your ”dream job”.

Don’t rule out jobs that are in the service industry. Bartending and waiting tables can earn you a substantial income and still keep you in the social and employment mainstreams and could possibly provide contacts. The world of retail offers less money but does hold some benefit, providing that you find the right environment and people with whom to work. Jobs in these areas aren’t usually nine-to-five but if they are you may want to consider part-time. This kind of position, with staggered work shifts, ordinarily will grant you the time to prepare for, look for, and interview for the types of position you are genuinely seeking.

You probably don’t need this book to tell you many of the job choices to be avoided. The risks and long-term consequences of aerial acrobatics or of criminal activities are obvious. There are some more subtle employment traps worth mentioning. Almost any position advertised on fliers or on public bulletin boards has little to offer.

Positions that offer little base pay but big commissions are always available and for good reason. You’ll find yourself working behind a phone; reading scripts to people about a product for which you and they share a pronounced lack of interest. Pyramid schemes and other work from home gigs are seldom worth your consideration.

Beware of the entry-level management positions available in retail or fast food. You’ll recognize your mistake rather quickly the first time you’re expected as a management trainee to work off the clock and/or are told that your actual managerial training must take place on your days off. Working in a sales or service position at one of those establishments is often a better way to go but don’t let yourself get sucked in too deeply. Before you know it you’ll be spending your first Christmas and New Years days selling batteries or fast food to the ill prepared and restocking end caps for the Day-After sale.

Do what you can to avoid complete unemployment for any extended period. Being jobless is tough to explain to prospective employers. Further, if you’re not working, you lose the edge and enthusiasm you transmit with the demeanor of a new college graduate. You’ll find that your date book is only scheduled with television programs and dental appointments. Your debt becomes greater. Your level of self-worth drops.

Unemployment is more stressful than not working, even when the job is outside of your desired field. All the rest of God’s creatures would deteriorate and die if they decided to take time out to “find themselves”. The perfect career building job doesn’t need to be achieved your first years out of school. That’s something you’ll find once you’ve taken the opportunity to work and see what’s out there.

DC Morrow is the author of Survival After College available directly from Selfhelpbooks.com
(c) Copyright 2003 DC Morrow/Selfhelpbooks.com

By D.C. Morrow

No matter how precise you are and how careful you try to be, you are bound to screw up. You will lose the sale. Your customers are not satisfied with your performance. The deadline won’t be met. You’ll forget your blueprints at home ten minutes before the most important meeting of your life. You’ll let down your employees by not following through on your promises. Somewhere down the line, you will flat out do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

When that time comes, you have some options of what to do. You can think of who was at fault besides you and pass the buck on to them. You can think of reasons why your company set you up for failure given the ridiculous workload and amount of hours you put in. You can put yourself on the defensive and lash out at your critics who dare challenge the integrity of your job skills. Or you can do the right thing. Come clean with the truth.

Tell your boss or your coworkers or your clients that you messed up. Take responsibility even if it was not entirely your fault. Do your very best to help fix the damage done and move on. Keep in mind that you don’t need to tell your boss every little mistake or indiscretion you make. Just make sure that you don’t give anyone else the opportunity to point the finger at you first.

I have never had a situation where a boss or company punished me for doing this. If anything, you might win some admiration, not sympathy, for your honesty and your willingness to accept responsibility for your mistakes. If you have a boss who is vindictive or a firm that is focused on cutting back, there is the risk of your being reprimanded or even fired. It happens. Accept the outcome with professional dignity. It’s all you can do.

DC Morrow is the author of Survival After College available directly from Selfhelpbooks.com
(c) Copyright 2003 DC Morrow/Selfhelpbooks.com

By D.C. Morrow

Loyalty encompasses the mutual promises, contractual and implicit, between you and your employer. There is generally little doubt surrounding expectations tied to job descriptions and project guidelines. But there will be times that it will be in your best interest to be a model employee … the one goes the extra step or two, especially when it looks as if the firm is in desperate need of help. Its only when you begin to rely on that same employer to reciprocate that you’re setting yourself up to be burnt.

I learned a tough lesson about loyalty a few years after I graduated from college. I went to work for a well-meaning manager who recruited me for a position in an insurance company. Within just a few months, a larger insurance company contacted me with a job offer accompanied by a substantial pay increase. Foolishly, in retrospect, I turned down that offer out of loyalty to the manager who showed such confidence in my abilities by hiring me. Three months later 20% of my company’s workforce was laid off with LIFO (last in, first out) prevailing. In short I had turned down a better job only to be let go.

The sad truth is that businesses, large and small, are in danger of forfeiting altogether any right to command employee loyalty. Businesses began failing to deliver on every implicit expectation of their contracts with employees years ago. Whether the issue is restructuring, corporate takeover, mismanagement, or an act of God, job security is a rare commodity almost anywhere one works. Even in retirement, seemingly rock-solid pensions can vanish under the cloak of negligence or fraud. Trusting someone to do right by you may have been natural for you when that someone was a study partner, a roommate, or a teammate. Even though most businesses pay lip service to the importance of their “human assets”, their “human resources” or simply their “people”, the relationships are woefully impersonal.

So, am I saying that loyalty is an outmoded concept? Absolutely not! I’m saying that loyalty should be deserved. You should be loyal to yourself and generous with your loyalty to your family, dependents and otherwise, and to those friends who can be counted on to return such a gift in kind. Scrupulously honor all of the genuine commitments you have with your employers. Selectively go the extra mile. But do not enter into martyrdom. If other employers offer you career opportunities (not job moves for a few dollars) and your present employer doesn’t similarly recognize your abilities, they are not deserving of your loyalty.

DC Morrow is the author of Survival After College available directly from Selfhelpbooks.com
(c) Copyright 2003 DC Morrow/Selfhelpbooks.com

By Allen Johnson, Ph.D.

THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE jammed the smoke-filled ballroom. A country-western band banged out “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” It was Friday night in a logging town, and the cowboys were restless. A buckaroo with a string tie and a hefty paunch cascading over what must have been a rodeo belt buckle actually shouted, “YAAA-HOO!” It was clear the yelp was not meant to be satirical; there’s no mistaking an authentic yahoo.

It was my first professional job: 50 bucks, an absolute fortune. All I had to do was play my guitar and sing for 30 minutes. It didn’t seem that tough.

A short man with bushy eyebrows made my introduction. A few people applauded out of sheer boredom. I strapped on my guitar and walked to the microphone at the center of the dance floor. A pearl of sweat dropped from the end of my nose. Someone belched. I strummed a minor chord and sang the opening line from the “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet”; it was one of the few songs I knew by heart. A time for us Someday there’ll be . . .

Suddenly, someone in the back of the room shouted, “Take up tennis.” I’m not making this up; I can still hear him. His voice was so loud I could smell the beer on his breath. I knew I was losing them, but I didn’t know what to do. I tried to bleach them out by looking directly into the stage spotlight; it didn’t help. I stood there unprotected, the cold sweat trickling down my chest and irrigating all the creases.

I quickly finished and scrambled off to a small room behind the bandstand, my spirit snuffed out like a crumpled cigarette butt. Two people clapped, or maybe it was just the sound of a swat on someone’s rump-I’m not sure. I was packing up my guitar when suddenly the house erupted with laughter and applause. I poked my head out to see what had happened. The band was playing “The Stripper.” A man in his late 40’s was dressed up like a woman and doing a striptease. He got down to a flowered girdle and plastic falsies with tassels. He spun those tassels like two airplane props. And the crowd went crazy. They stomped and howled and cat-whistled. When it was over, he got a standing ovation.

That experience taught me a hard lesson. If you expect to make contact, it’s imperative to gain rapport. By that I mean you have to speak the native language. I did not speak cowboyese, and that is why I lost my audience. Knowing your audience does not only apply to saloon singers. In education, pretesting precedes a lesson plan. In medicine, symptom analysis precedes treatment. In law, understanding precedes legal action. In other words, always diagnose before prescribing.

So if you’re ever asked to sing at a cowboy honky-tonk, put a whine in your voice and a twang in your guitar; an aria from Madame Butterfly ain’t gonna cut it pilgrim.