Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

Career Thoughts on the Post-PC/CorpTechPocalypse Era

Yesterday I discussed that I felt the decline of the PC was related strongly to the decline of Corporate IT.  But what does it mean for your career, my fellow progeek?  I figured I'd collect my random thoughts to see if it gave you ideas, or caused panic.  Or something.

Beyond The Loading Screen: December

There’s a quote by Douglas Adams that goes, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”  I undertook this project to get a number of things done; namely, publish my book, make my cartoon show, and revive my company.  However, behind all those tasks was one big giant goal, and that was to get my life started.

Burn Your Box

Is your career in a rut?  Is your business in a rut?  Are you in a rut?

If you're in this situation, you've probably been told "think outside the box," which basically means "get outside your current assumptions" to see new opportunities and solutions.

This is wrong.  You should not think outside the box career-wise.

You should get out of the box, set it on fire, and jump up and down on the ashes before sweeping them into the river to be washed out to sea forever.  You then need electroshock therapy to forget your box.  By the time "the box" has imprisoned you it's not something to get out of a little bit - it is something to DESTROY.

In fact, here's a guilty secrets for us geeky, neo-literati, otaku fan-types.  We are just as capable as anyone of being able to straightjacket our minds.  In fact, we're probably very good at it since we're use to using our imaginations, and we can dream up an amazing amount of ways to shackle ourselves.

The Painless Cover Letter

Following our last survey, I saw how many of us hate writing cover letters.  However, there is a relatively painless way to get the words out onto the page.  If you follow these seven steps, you can write a cover letter that will stand out (and won’t fling you into the depths of writer’s block).

If it’s a cold mailing, then you can start writing right away.  Alternately, if you’re responding to a job ad, start by perusing the ad and highlighting all the things they’re looking for.  This could be certain qualities they want in an employee (so make sure you emphasize those that apply to you) or it could be requests (such as “please indicate hours of availability”).  Generally, these answers will fit into the second paragraph.

Okay, deep breath.  Let’s get started.

Gimme My Carrot!

“You have to study hard so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job so you can retire and not have to worry about living in a box and being eaten alive by sewer rats.”
-many people’s parents



Something frustrates me when people refer to the carrot-and-stick approach to motivation.  Certainly, the original tale* about the boy who cleverly gets a stubborn donkey to walk was told by geeks.  It applauds coming up with a creative solution to a stubborn problem.  However, the hero and subject of the story are the boy and his idea, not the donkey and the problem it posed.  So why then are we, as students and employees, cast as the donkey in modern carrot-and-stick allegory?

Surely, people learn best when they learn gradually.  Large projects are completed little by little.  I only hope that it’s just the “little by little” part that people are picking up on when they compare those that work under them to the donkey.  Of course, this somewhat misses the mark, as the point wasn’t that the donkey had too far to walk.  It was that it wouldn’t walk at all.

How To Not Suck At Non-Verbal Communication

“Petrification is not ignoring; it is actually a state of not noticing.”
-”Kuragehime,” regarding a freakout so severe it makes the main characters go BSOD.

Job interviews, networking, and basically every social interaction includes non-verbal communication.  I suppose that nice little habits like proper eye contact and not fidgeting are supposed to come naturally, but they sure didn’t come naturally to me.  Therefore, I have devised a series of techniques that can help.

Use Your Job In Your Hobby

We're here to encourage professional geekery, of taking your fantoms and making them your profession.  But I'd like to take a moment to encourage the reverse.

Yes, I'd like to encourage you to think about how you can do your regular job in your hobbies (assuming there's enough of a difference).

Now we'd love to drag our hobbies into our jobs, so encouraging the reverse may seem different.  Aren't we trying to encourage you to take your hobbies and make them into jobs?

So here's what I'm thinking . . .

I Don't Have The Time

I’ve recently run into a little problem in my job search.  It’s a worrying trend, akin to refusing to hire someone unless they already have a job.  There are a number of places I’ve applied where they want me to make a commitment to them, regardless of whether the job is being offered or not.  Now, objectively, if I’m not working for them (yet), then how I spend my time is none of their business.  If I need to spend my time working at another job, or looking for another job, they’ve got to understand that.  Especially in the case where they are only offering minimum wage or commissions-based part-time work, they can’t expect that I’m not going to keep looking for something supplemental.

Beyond The Loading Screen: October

This past month was absorbed by illness and job search issues, so I didn’t complete everything I meant to (namely, the art, navigation system, and minigames for the computer game I am making).  The art itself is finished, although there needs to be more animations added to enhance it.  The navigation is up and running, although there will be later alterations because there are areas that need to be redone.  Finally, the minigames, I haven’t even started.

And I see myself slipping into my old pattern again.  I find that something is taking too long to show a result, and I want to bog it down by adding something new to the list of things to which I dedicate my time.  If nothing else, doing this monthly analysis has been helpful.  There is still, however, a larger problem to solve.

The problem is not a lack of focus, per se.  It’s a lack of faith.  I don’t trust that it’s “safe” to dedicate so much time to just one project.  Granted, I know I’m better off working on one great thing than several mediocre things.  The problem is, I need a guarantee that the time spent on this one project will be worth it.  “There is no guarantee, ” someone more worldly than me would say.  And I know this.  I just don’t like to get so deep into something that is essentially a gamble.
 
I will keep working at this game until it’s done.  If it helps me promote my series, then great.  If it helps me promote my personal brand, then even better.  If nothing comes of it, then at least I know I did something.  It’s not that I don’t want to make a game - come on, I’m making a game - how cool is that?  It’s just that I wish my passion would be directed into something that I know will pay off.  I wish I knew of anything that is guaranteed to pay off.

The lesson learned this month is that I need more information.  I do indeed believe that there is a viable way to build a life if I work hard enough.  I just need to find out what it is I should be working on.

For November, my goal is to find that out (or at least investigate it).  With NaNoWriMo coming up (yay!) I will have regular opportunities to socialize with geeks from all walks of life.  Maybe some of them will have some insights.

My other goal, of course, will be to finish up the animations and navigation system.  I’m not going to give myself the minigames too until December, because I’ll be writing a novel and looking for a job.  It’s probably better to take on fewer goals and do more with them than to overextend my resources.

-Tamara Hecht

Tales from the Ashcan: Someone Else's Words

I actually had planned to write something here today, but got tied up with other stuff, yay, go rest of life.  In any case, I recently came across something I had to share from Erin Ptah, the creator of the webcomic And Shine Heaven Now.  While I don't agree with all of it, I found it interesting enough to share with readers.  Each creator's experience is their own, so take what she reads at face value and remember that not everyone has the same experience.  Lastly, while this obviously pertains to webcomics, it can in many ways apply to other media.

So read on after the jump, and I'll see you next month, hopefully with an interview!