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agonyaunt2019-12-03 01:24 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2019-12-03 01:24 pm
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: update: is my parents’ advice destroying my job search?
“My parents offered lots of advice for what I should do, and I have done none of it”
Back in 2011, I answered a letter from someone who worried her parents’ advice was ruining her job search. They were recommending things like visiting managers in-person every day to check on her applications, and to call when managers seemed annoyed by the in-person visits. Here’s the update.
Sometimes when work is slow, I like to hit “Surprise Me” on your website, and I was truly surprised when I came across a question I had sent in over eight years ago. I remembered that I had emailed you, exasperated with my parents’ advice, and you had responded. I felt so validated and reassured by what you said.
At the time, I was 18 and this was the summer between my first and second year of college. I didn’t explain this in the original email, but I suffered from severe social and generalized anxiety and this entire experience was mortifying for me. Whenever I’m back home and drive by that coffee shop, I cringe. I’ve gone through years of therapy and am a completely different animal now but I don’t think I can ever bring myself to go back inside that building. What if they remember me?
(I did, funnily enough, become a barista later on. But I was a liberal arts major and that was my fate.)
A few years after the incident I had emailed about, my parents relocated for my father’s work. My mother then got to experience, firsthand, the “joys” of modern job hunting. I had to show her how to make a resume, how to turn it into a PDF, and how to upload it, and reassure her that yes, even though you just uploaded that PDF you now have to retype all of that information again. She had relocated to the other side of the country, and had no network or any modern tools one uses to get a job nowadays. She didn’t even bother to check to see what the process was to transfer her nursing licenses, and spent months unemployed while that was getting figured out. I think she just thought she could walk into a hospital and get a job, just like she had in the 90s. Experiencing their bad advice firsthand ended most of their vintage notions.
I’m now newly 27. Your advice was to trust my instincts, and I have. I worked a myriad of odd jobs during and after college, and kind of flitted around trying to figure myself out. My parents offered lots of advice for what I should do, and I have done none of it.
After settling into an office job a few years ago, I just accepted a position as an office manager, which will come with a 25% raise. A great thing to get right before my wedding this winter! I read up your posts on negotiating salary and vacation time, and interviewing. You’ve been a resource for me for almost a decade now.
Thank you for the validation you gave my younger self. She was new and deeply insecure, and you allowed her a moment where she could print out a blog post and yell “SEE? YOU’RE THE WRONG ONE!” at her poor, misguided mother. I think I may have even hung your response on our fridge.
Hopefully, I’ll never have to write for your advice again. :)
Back in 2011, I answered a letter from someone who worried her parents’ advice was ruining her job search. They were recommending things like visiting managers in-person every day to check on her applications, and to call when managers seemed annoyed by the in-person visits. Here’s the update.
Sometimes when work is slow, I like to hit “Surprise Me” on your website, and I was truly surprised when I came across a question I had sent in over eight years ago. I remembered that I had emailed you, exasperated with my parents’ advice, and you had responded. I felt so validated and reassured by what you said.
At the time, I was 18 and this was the summer between my first and second year of college. I didn’t explain this in the original email, but I suffered from severe social and generalized anxiety and this entire experience was mortifying for me. Whenever I’m back home and drive by that coffee shop, I cringe. I’ve gone through years of therapy and am a completely different animal now but I don’t think I can ever bring myself to go back inside that building. What if they remember me?
(I did, funnily enough, become a barista later on. But I was a liberal arts major and that was my fate.)
A few years after the incident I had emailed about, my parents relocated for my father’s work. My mother then got to experience, firsthand, the “joys” of modern job hunting. I had to show her how to make a resume, how to turn it into a PDF, and how to upload it, and reassure her that yes, even though you just uploaded that PDF you now have to retype all of that information again. She had relocated to the other side of the country, and had no network or any modern tools one uses to get a job nowadays. She didn’t even bother to check to see what the process was to transfer her nursing licenses, and spent months unemployed while that was getting figured out. I think she just thought she could walk into a hospital and get a job, just like she had in the 90s. Experiencing their bad advice firsthand ended most of their vintage notions.
I’m now newly 27. Your advice was to trust my instincts, and I have. I worked a myriad of odd jobs during and after college, and kind of flitted around trying to figure myself out. My parents offered lots of advice for what I should do, and I have done none of it.
After settling into an office job a few years ago, I just accepted a position as an office manager, which will come with a 25% raise. A great thing to get right before my wedding this winter! I read up your posts on negotiating salary and vacation time, and interviewing. You’ve been a resource for me for almost a decade now.
Thank you for the validation you gave my younger self. She was new and deeply insecure, and you allowed her a moment where she could print out a blog post and yell “SEE? YOU’RE THE WRONG ONE!” at her poor, misguided mother. I think I may have even hung your response on our fridge.
Hopefully, I’ll never have to write for your advice again. :)
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