Go Over Here Now

I'd like to point y'all toward two very interesting comment-based discussions going on elsewhere on the internet: Feministe guest blogger Habladora takes on the work/family pressure cooker. At the same site Allison Martell takes on the pay gap. Dang, Feministe has some good guest bloggers this summer. Jill should take the bar exam more often!

The Good News, The Bad News, And The Funny News

The good news is that I got the job. The bad news is that my new paycheck will be 65% of my current one. This is actually a little better than I first feared, because I was bracing for a 50% paycut. The funny news is that my monthly takehome pay will actually be about the same as in my current job.

How does a 35% reduction become no loss at all? It's not fuzzy math, I promise. Right now, I max out my 401(k) and save just under $2,000 a month. Not counting these two deductions, which I never see or touch for living expenses, my annual after-tax income is about $49,000. In my new job I am not eligible to contribute to a 401(k), and I will not be saving any of my salary--Shiner and I plan to live off my salary and save his after we get married. Ta da! Annual income of $48,270--that's not counting the $5,000 I'll put toward a Roth IRA. And just like that, the pay cut disappears.

Well, not really. My retirement savings will feel the hit. Our savings won't grow as fast as they could if I weren't seizing this professional opportunity. But it makes me more comfortable with the pay cut to know that it won't affect our standard of living any more than we want it too, and I won't feel like a mooch like I was afraid I would.

Homefront Updates

Some quick hits of the personal variety:

1) In the nick of time Shiner and I bought airline tickets for a honeymoon using frequent flyer miles. I'm glad I never jumped on the frequent flyer credit card bandwagon. Pretty soon you're going to have to pay to redeem them. Oh wait...

2) I have an interview for that job with the big old pay cut I've been hoping for. Gooooooo pay cut! Still need to print out a fresh copy of my resume and writing sample, skim a couple recent publications for topical talking points, finish up a draft of an unrelated project that has to by done tomorrow morning, shave my legs and/or find my sole pair of nylons that are not in a disgraceful condition, and get a good night's sleep. That's kind of a lot yet to accomplish tonight. Eep.

3) I wish people would stop asking me if I'm going anywhere over the Fourth of July. I'm not. I'm working. Shiner's working. It's going to be a truly delightful celebration of our overthrow of monarchical tyranny in favor of market tyranny. Except with firecrackers.

How Not To Lose A Job Before You Have It: Notes For Interns

This is a post that seems like it shouldn't need to be written. Alternatively titled, "Don't Piss Off Your Boss," it catalogues a set of minimum behaviors that any intern should be aware of--if not a priori, then through some aggressive childhood or early adult socialization. As I said, this post really should not be necessary, but evidently it is.

Some internships will not lead to offers of employment after graduation because that is not what they are designed to do. For example, most small and mid-sized nonprofits don't have the luxury of hiring new staff every year, so the summer interns those offices take on get some experience, an entry on their resumes, and maybe a reference, but they're backto job hunting come fall. Other positions will not lead to permanent employment because the intern sucks at their job, or are so unpersonable that their demeanors overshadow any competency they may demonstrate. I offer the following as a last ditch effort to keep you out of the latter category (although if you need this concise list it is perhaps to late for me to help you).

You do not have to like your job to act like you like your job. Yes, you will be given some boring or otherwise not compelling assignments. Your workplace will have idiosyncracies and quirks and norms all its own, some of which may seem inane to you. Your coworkers may not be people you would choose to hang out with socially. These considerations are relevant when evaluating whether you would like to work here, but they should be irrelevant to the quality of work you produce and to the attitude you present. By all means, refrain from outright disdain. You're insulting those who do choose to work here, you're nuking your likelihood of getting positive evaluations or references, and moreover you're shooting yourself in the foot--you won't be getting interesting, challenging assignments once you've made it clear that you think you're above working here.

Don't be late. Don't show up late to the office, to meetings, to lunches or presentations. If you routinely force your colleagues to wait for you, you're telling them your time is more valuable than theirs. I assure you this is not true, and you will come to be deeply resented. I am not a babysitter, I should not need to check in on you to make sure you are where you ought to be. Likewise, complete assignments in the time allotted for them. If you expect to be late, or that your work will be delayed, check in with your supervisor well in advance. They will either tell you it's not a problem, or will decide on another course of action--giving the assigment to someone else, doing the work themselves, modifying the scope of the assignment so it can be completed on time, etc. Oh, and don't ask for an extension for stupid reasons. "I have a three-hour lunch at Chez Fancypants and then an afternoon outing to a major league baseball game" will not ingratiate you to a supervisor who is working on a deadline and who has been counting on your timely delivery of a project to meet it.

Be polite, even kind. To everyone. To your supervisors, to your fellow interns, to your support staff, to the folks in the mail room, to the strangers in the elevator. In the best of all possible worlds, rudeness is unacceptable. Even if you are working in a craven environment in which rudeness is tolerated, you have not been here long enough to know who you can safely alienate without repercussions. Hint: if you piss of your secretary, you have probably also pissed off her boss, and this bodes poorly for you.

Ask questions. I greatly prefer the periodic interruption of questions about an assignment I've made to a work product that has nothing to do with what I asked for. If you're not sure what you're supposed to be doing, or if you suspect your research is going off on a tangent, check in with your supervisor to make sure you're still on the right track.

Personality is at least as important as competency. Not everyone agrees with me, but unless someone is grossly incompetent, I will be more generous in my evaluation of a pleasant person with average work than of an unpleasant person with good work. I can teach work skills to someone I enjoy being around and who seems to want to improve. I cannot teach social skills to someone who makes me want to gouge my eyeballs with spoons. Don't think your work product will excuse your temperment. First, relatively few interns produce work that is as good as they think it is. That's only natural, because an intern is by definition just starting to gain experience in a given field. But this means it's a bit risky to assume that your work product is on its own enough to warrant a job offer--you're much more attractive as a prospective hire if people are actually interested in spending time teaching and mentoring you. Second, if you're irritating enough, a good work product ain't gonna help.

I must be getting old and crotchety, as my tolerance for whippersnappery has plummeted in the last year. I've had to write bad work evaluations for a couple of interns already, and it sucks. I know I may be costing those people job offers, so I am in the unpleasant position of lying about their performance and thereby dooming myself to have to work with them in the future, or sending them back to school unemployed in the worst economic situation of recent years. Hopefully (for them) they've done good work for other people and those positive evaluations will counterbalance my negative ones and they'll be hired to work in an office that is far away from mine. But that's not my responsibility to un-screw up their screw ups. There is no blasted reason I should have to write bad evaluations. It's not actually that hard to be a mediocre intern--it's not even difficult to be a really great one.

What To Do When You Screw Up At Work

I know, I know, you're a shiny happy employee who gets in before everyone else, goes home after everyone else, and gets shit done in between. But even Mary Poppins has an off day. What do you do when you screw something up?

I did that today. Or rather, I did that a while ago, and only realized it today. It's not a screw up that's my fault, fundamentally, but it's one that if I had been asking the right questions of the right people at the right time (instead of the right questions of the wrong people at the wrong time) would have been caught a lot earlier. So I am the one taking the brunt of it at work, at least in terms of righting the ship. On the up side, it's been a while since I've done something that made me feel totally stupid, so that's... good-ish. Go team competence. But it also means I needed a refresher course in what to do when I screw up at work.

Step 1: Does it really matter?
The first thing you've got to do is assess the importance of your screw up. And honestly, it's probably doesn't matter that much. Lots of things feel embarassing when you're the one who screwed up, but if someone else had done the same thing you might not even notice. If you circulate a memo that uses the wrong form of "their" the grammar fascists (me included) will think less of you for a brief moment, but we're petty. It won't make your memo unintelligible. If your screwup falls into this category, learn your lesson and let it go. Don't go to the rest of the steps, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. You'll only draw attention to your mistake and annoy your coworkers with your drama.

But even if your screwup matters it's still important to get a sense of the magnitude. Maybe it matters, but not in a life-or-death sense. For example, maybe your project can go forward, but only on a slightly delayed schedule, or only after you call in some favors to keep the schedule on track (this is where you want to have a well-stocked Pay It Forward bank account from which you can readily make withdrawals). In a case like this, you may be able to fix it without anyone else--at least not the boss--having to know. On the other hand, maybe you screwed up. Like, real bad. Lose the case, piss off the client, and crash the company car type of bad. OK, have you taken honest stock of just where your screwup falls on the Seriousness Scale? Good for you, it's not easy.

Step 2: How can this get fixed?
Think creatively about this. Is there something you can do to make it better? Someone whose assistance you can ask? If you are going to be unable to meet a deadline, can you rush a step down the line to make up the time? Whatever it is, figure out what the course of action is that can mitigate whatever screwup has just occurred, and figure out how you fit into it.

Step 3: Own up to it.
If something's really wrong, don't pretend like nothing is wrong. Get it out there. Usually at this point it will mean talking to a supervisor. State what the problem is as objectively as you can, apologize if appropriate, and then say what you're going to do to fix it. Prepare to have people be less than happy with you. This is not the end of the world. It looks a lot like being human and therefore fallible.

Step 4: Be sensitive to psychology (and not just your own).
Who are you breaking the news to, and what do they need from you in order to deal with it in a quasi-professional way? Insofar as you can without damaging your own psyche, try to give it to them. Remember, no one is at their best when they are receiving bad news. In my case, my supervisor needed to get snappy at me to vent some steam before deciding that I was handling the situation pretty well. That's his modus operandi. It's not my favorite part of the job, but it's not actually that bad (or that frequent, thankfully). I know I'm doing the best I can with a crappy situation, and it's up to him to react however he chooses to react.* In the larger scheme of things, those are his issues to deal with and not mine. He can vent if he needs to vent, that need doesn't reflect on me.

Step 5: Fix it as best you can Remember Step 2? Do whatever it is you decided to do there. Then take yourself out for a beer.

Everyone screws up. Everyone. Not everyone fixes their screw ups well. In my observation ,if you're generally conscientious and competent, and you deal with it responsibly on those few occasions when you do screw up, that is what people will remember about you. And if you deal with it poorly that is what people will remember about you. In neither event will their memory of the screw up be nearly as clear as their memory of how you handled it.** Developing this skill is maybe the most important thing I can think of in terms of building a good professional reputation.

Me, I'm in the middle of Step 5, and I will be for a couple of days. See you on the flip side.

* That realization is huge, and comes in handy in more areas of my life than just this one.

**Except in politics, where everyone has videocameras and blogs. Goddamn those bloggers, they can make everyone look like an idiot. But if you want to go into politics, you are reading the wrong corner of the internet. In a few years time, just knowing this website exists will be enough to get labeled a pinko.

More On The Pay Cut: Planning For A Long-Term Job Change

We all know people, or at least stories about people, who leave their lucrative jobs to follow their hearts, making less money but being far happier in the long run. In my last post, I talked about the fact that I was considering applying for a job that would involve taking a pay cut for a couple of years, but that would give me more flexibility down the road. No big updates on that job yet. I applied, and I have already been contacted by the person doing the hiring, who told me he was glad I'd reapplied and that he'd be in touch in July when he's ready to start scheduling interviews. So that's a good sign. I got so excited thinking about this job, and what it could mean for me, that I decided I should apply for a few more similar positions, just in case this one didn't come through. Eggs in multiple baskets, etc.

But what is the long-term game plan? It's my career, I should be thinking about this over the long haul, not just the couple of years this job would last. In talking to one of my recommenders for this job, my dirty little secret came out. I want to be a law professor. Eep! I said it. Low(er) pay, long hours, constant pressure to publish, those few horrid and overly entitled law students who can't be bothered to show up to your class but have time to bitch during your office hours when their grades are too low. What's not to love about that? Lots, honestly, but for me those aspects are outweighed by the facts that I love to read and write about legal theory, I love teaching students who are engaged with the material, and I love (and miss) the intellectual stimulation of a college campus. I think about my life as a lawyer and I think, "this will be worth it when I can retire early." I think about life as a post-tenure professor and I think, "so long as I am in good health, why would I want to retire?" That's a good sign about the direction I'd be happiest with in my career.

PF advice tends to assume that unless she screws it up or the economy goes to hell, a person's income will trend upward over her working life. That right out of school, you won't be making very much, but that economic growth and promotions and salary negotiations will gradually improve your situation. I'm looking at the opposite situation, in which my salary just out of school is really high, but falls sharply a few years out as my career path shifts. By the numbers, this choice is idiotic. As a human being with an emotional life not denominated by dollars, it's a wrinkle, but one that has workarounds.

So as I am thinking about this job change, and the job changes I hope to make down the road, two questions are at the top of my mind. First, what can I do to give myself the best possible set of credentials to go on the teaching market in three years? And second, what can I do now, as a high income earner, to improve my financial situation and ease the transition to a permanently lower paying job for which I may need to be geographically flexible?

Embracing The Pay Cut?

A job opportunity has come up that is giving me no small amount of heartburn. The pros are numerous; the cons, less so. I am trying to decide whether to submit an application or not. I've got a very good shot at it, though it's by no means a sure thing. One thing I think is worth mulling over here is whether I am comfortable with such a steep pay cut--potentially 50%. Yeaaaaaah. It would be a temporary move, and I would be welcome back where I am now when it is all over. I would also have a lot of new paths available to me if I choose to follow them. So less money now for more flexibility later and great fun in the meantime, basically.

Here's the thing. We could swing the pay cut, Shiner and I. But I am having a hard time with the knowledge that I, individually, could not swing it. Right now, my paycheck can pay for all my expenses--mortgage, homes equity loan, student loan, groceries, utilities, retirement, other necessary stuff, some splurgey stuff. If I took this job, I would have to rely on Shiner to pay some portion of my "keep." I may not be eligible to contribute to an employer-sponsored retirement account in this new job, either, which is another serious con.

We would be fine, but I would be dependent on his salary in a way I have not had to be dependent on anyone since my parents. Part of me says that since we're a team, this would be perfectly reasonable. But I feel like maybe it's not really a fair thing to ask of him. He, for the record, seems totally fine with it, but welcome to my headcake. Just another symptom of being more comfortable giving than receiving, I suppose.

I have a lot of pride and independence issues associated with my finances, and those are proving hard to sort out. I am proud of having been able to support myself and the choices I have made in my life. A big part of my identity--bigger than I thought before faced with this--ties into that feeling of financial independence, and some amount of silly pride in the fact that we don't fit the stereotypical gender roles of man as provider and woman as provided for. This is all stuff that would probably come up for me in marriage eventually, but I thought I'd be able to ease into it a bit more and process it all a little more gradually. This job opportunity has put it into high relief, and much faster than I expected. On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that without Shiner, I couldn't even consider applying for this job. The fact that I can depend on him for that kind of support, both financial and emotional, is overwhelmingly awesome. But on the other hand, it is really scary to feel so far outside my zone and like such a big part of my self-image is up for grabs. This job decision is a decision that will have to be measured in more than just financials, even though I'm much more comfortable making a decision based on math. Numbers are straightforward-ish. Self-knowledge is more complicated and messy.

Resume Rules For Job Hunting Fools

I've now had three very different jobs where part of my responsibilities have involved reviewing resumes and giving input in hiring decisions. Since we're coming up on graduation season, I wanted to share my (by now very strong) opinions about resume structure and content in the inconceivable event that a prospective employer has not already snatched you up and offered to pay you gazillions of dollars and excellent health insurance for being the fabulously talented individual your doting grandmother believes you to be. I'll start out with a caveat that this is all pretty subjective, but please consider it food for thought because if your resume ever happens across my desk, this is what I want to see.

1) Keep it to one page. Academic CVs are obviously a different beast. But for traditional resumes, for the love of gobstoppers, please keep it to one side of one sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. Edit judiciously. Play with margins, spacing, font, and font size if you must. When I see a resume that goes for two pages I assume most of it is fluff. I expect to see French club--excuse me, le cercle français. I impute arrogance and verbosity. None of these are good things.

2) Be specific. Compare: "Led volunteer group." With: "Trained and supervised group of 15 junior high girls in entrepreneurial after-school program." Or compare: "Interests include the arts." With: "Interests include screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s." In each of these cases, the first phrasing makes the job seeker sound like a boring robot, or someone who created their resume with a set of web-generated checkboxes. And I, as the potential interviewer, have to work far too hard to come up with a question about these entries that doesn't make me sound like Ralph Wiggum. Do you... like... stuff? Don't do that to me. I won't like you very much. On the other hand, people who are specific on their resumes are memorable. They make it really easy for me to ask questions and learn more about them, and easy is good because I honestly have not spent the past hour googling you, studying your resume and otherwise preparing for your interview. I scanned it when I got it, and maybe again five minutes before you walked in the door if we both are lucky. I want your resume to read like it was written by an actual person, not a robot zombie cubicle dweller. There's no shame in being a cubicle dweller, but no prospective employer wants to feel like their shop is a bunch of veal-fattening pens.

3) Leave out the "duh" entries. I cannot think of an office-based job where knowledge of Word is not a minimum skill set. I will assume you are proficient in Word. If you are not proficient in Word (or Excel, or HTML, or Project, or whatever the minimum knowledge base for your field is), get some training. From a friend, an adult ed course, a job training program, DIY by fooling around with a book and a computer, whatever. Pedigree doesn't matter here. Your local public library should be able to hook you up with these resources. Learn it, know it, love it: those programs will let you do your job well. And then don't put it on your resume. Putting "duh" entries on your resume makes me think you are either filling space because you don't have much else to say in the way of relevant experience, or that you think Word is some special skill that gives you a leg up on other applicants, which means you may seriously misunderstand the nature of the job. For lawyers and law students, yes, "Westlaw-certified" is a "duh" entry. What the hell does that even mean? It sounds like a USDA grade for clueless people.

4) Fonts with stupid-sounding names do not belong anywhere on your resume. If its name includes any of the following words, I prohibit you from using this font: comic, Gothic, -bats, -dings, or the name of any symphonic composer. Nothing that purports to look like script. Unless you have to use Arial Light for spacing reasons even after you have ruthlessly edited, use a serif font, and make it big enough that a reviewer with poor eyesight can read it easily. Seriously, be kind with your font choices. I hate being reminded that my eyesight sucks, it makes me feel old and curmudgeonly. You do not want these feelings associated with your resume. You cannot go wrong with Times New Roman, especially if you are applying for a job with yuppies.

5) Edit. EDIT!!! For the love of all that is holy and not, make sure you don't look like an idiot. Or worse, like a pompous idiot. I am too good (or guilt-ridden) a person to do this but someone out there will submit your most egregious mistakes to some web-based list, and then even I am not too good or guilt-ridden to snicker at your grammatical misfortune.

6) Leave the "controversial" entries in. This is a non-caveat to rule number 2. First, a personal anecdote: I did some work with a "controversial" (read: media-savvy, politically progressive) organization when I was in school, and when interviewers saw this on my resume they either loved it or hated it. It was a great self-selection tool for me, because I knew I wouldn't end up anywhere I couldn't be myself. Now that I'm on the other side of things, it actually provides me some useful information about the candidate, and no, not as a litmus test for whether they agree with me. I do love seeing resumes with a liberal, pro-choice, pro-human rights, green, etc. bent because I want to interview that person and hear about the work they've done. But I also know that the choice to include that information was probably a considered one, and one that I respect a lot. For that same reason I also appreciate the resumes that include things that show a conservative bent, because I remember how my law school career counselor tried to dissuade me from tipping my political hand, and I like people who have the sisu to not take their career counselor's advice in this respect. And while I wouldn't necessarily want to take a Federalist out for a pint, I know I work with people who would, so it all evens out in the end. Everyone has someone they want to buy a round for.

Obviously this rule does not hold if you are applying with a nonprofit or policy group whose work is antithetical to your beliefs. Unless you've recently had a seriously convincing come to Jesus experience you are an idiot to apply for such a job, much less worry about your resume for it. But if you're looking for regular old office work in a non-policy, non-lobbying office, please go out on a limb and show some opinion. Yes, it will lose you some jobs with assholes. But so will having gone to a state school, or being in the top quarter of your class rather than the top 10%, or being on a second career, or not being on a second career. Assholes are picky like that. And trust me, if it can be at all avoided you do not want to work for an asshole. So screen 'em out.