Just learn to Tell a Joke

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Spain defaulting, Greece unstable, and we can’t agree on how to solve our own debit problems. Obama says things will get better but does anyone believe it? No wonder people seem angry all the time and drinking more all the time. I think drinking is a good indicator of your level of happiness: the more you drink, the less happy you are and usually the meaner you are to those around you. Drinking doesn’t just affect you in the moment but it also affects your behavior the following day in short tempered hangover spurts.

Drinkers make me nervous as I am more comfortable with consistency and people who are the same every time you see them. I am a drink counter and can tell you at any given dinner party how many glasses of wine each guest has consumed. This is not a great habit but I find myself unable to stop doing it. I also notice that as soon as I see one person is drinking a lot I become less interested in listening to what they have to say. I remember my children’s pediatrician talking about the difference between smoking (I was trying to quit) and drinking. He said, “Lucinda, smoking only destroys one life while drinking kills an entire family”.

Recently I moved into a wonderful house right next to a church where they hold AA meetings in the evening. I like to listen to the people chatting as they come out of the church sounding so happy and grateful to be with their friends and supported by them. I guess if you are an alcoholic it’s really hard to stop drinking as it is anesthesia for your life. If your life feels stressful most people don’t have the will power or knowledge to try meditation or exercise: a drink is easier, faster and more accessible to most.

Growing up, everyone around us drank too much from our parents to our household help to all the parents of our friends. No one thought anything about getting into a car and driving children anywhere they needed to go after a drink or two. To us kids, drinking adults weren’t usually frightening, just louder and less interested in us than usual. My parent’s generation was not really interested in kids at all most of the time as they found their own lives more entertaining. I don’t blame them and actually this was a good thing in a way.

One of my parent’s friends had a “baby” party one weekend. All the guests had to dress as babies and were given bottles of Vodka upon entering the house which was done by climbing up a slide placed inside the front door and sliding down it into the front hall. My parents thought this was one of the best parties they had ever been to. In order to outdo the hostess my mother planned her next party with care. It would be a “designing “party. The guests were divided into couples by having the men draw a woman’s name out of a hat. Each couple was given a paper bag filled with items from the five and ten cents store: a length of fabric, scissors, pins, sequins, glue and feathers. The couples were told they had one hour for the man to design a costume on the lady and sent out into the house to find places where they could be “creative”.

The next morning our butler quit and told my mother he couldn’t work in a house where shocking and immoral behavior happened. When my mother asked what that behavior was he stated,”Mrs. Watson! I heard Mr. Dewart tell Mrs. Ewald that she had to take off all of her clothes or he couldn’t be creative!”

My parent’s generation loved games and entertainment and dressing up in costumes. My father dressed up in a bear’s costume every Halloween. He found this infinitely entertaining: much more so than his real job. I think the good thing about that generation was the fact that they didn’t take much seriously including themselves. This is a different attitude from people today. Everyone takes themselves very seriously all the time and very few people take time to laugh.

Your life can get a lot better really quickly if you learn a few techniques to make other people laugh. Yesterday I was trying to learn my login name to register for some classed at a local university as I couldn’t log in without it. As it was, on this first day of registration there was a long wait on the phone and once I reached the person who could help me I was told me there was a very long line in the office as well. I asked her how I could retrieve my log in name and she said I would have to give her some information and with patience might receive it later that night. I laughed at the way she said this as it was in a very resigned manner. I said I thought she might make those lines into a very good country western song. She started laughing and so did I and she thanked me for making her laugh.

I hung up the phone and got an email less than three minutes later with all the information I needed.

The whole point of life is to love people and to enjoy yourself. I think we forget this most of the time. When we remember we are rewarded in many different ways.

Jobless in the bay area: Interviewing skills

Jobless in the bay area

Today I was lucky enough to be visited by an old friend who I hadn’t seen for 10 years or so.

She came because she wanted some interviewing advice and that is what I used to teach: how to sell yourself, how to work a room, how to get the job of your dreams. I stopped teaching because it was incredibly tiring and I had run out of hope to give people.

I found that today I really enjoyed doing my old job again and was helpful to my friend which is what it is all about to me. We spoke of her past employment and what she wanted now and then we spoke of how weird it is to be older and unemployed and having interviews with people 10 or more years younger than you.

I found this point the most interesting one as it is true for so many people today. You work hard, make a good living, advance up the ladder of corporate success and then lose your job. You have to begin a long search, learn to sell yourself all over again, and face the fear of never finding a job.

I find the younger generation hard to deal with as they seem to have no sense of humor. I often find myself out with a group of people younger than me and I notice they are really not having that much fun. Often they drink a lot, the men talk sports, and the women talk about schools for their kids. In this regard nothing has changed from my generation.

The one different thing is that my generation knows how to have fun! We had great music for fun. Anyone who grew up in the sixties and danced to the Beach Boys, kissed to the Beatles, and went to a Rolling Stones concert knows about fun. Fun is just good old sweet fun. Like spending an entire afternoon in a grassy field making out with your boyfriend.

My friend who is on a job hunt interviews with mostly young men and she isn’t having much luck. I think she isn’t having luck because it is really hard to establish rapport with a guy in his late thirties or earl forties. They don’t know the art of small talk the way we do. Small talk makes the big talk which comes after so much easier. These guys may also be threatened by a woman who is older and infinitely more qualified that they are. In any case they do not feel comfortable establishing a rapport and go right into hard core interview questions.

You know what I told her to do? Wear a pretty dress rather than the black suit she always wore to interviews.  Well, that’s not all I told her to do but I did recommend that she do that. I think wearing a dress at our age to a job interview shows you have a good sense of self and that you are comfortable in your own skin. I think the old days of dark suit interviews should be swept out the door.

My friend did tell me that once she was 40 she vowed to wear all the pink she wanted to the office. So now she needs to remember that. We all do. It’s so hard to face fear and act as if you have none. People get hired who seem confident and competent. Acting fearful is a bad thing in an interview. It’s not so much the pretty dress as the attitude that says I am comfortable with myself and I get along with people.

After she left my sweet dog disappeared for a couple of hours. I felt terrible fear and was crying most of the time. I convinced myself she would never return and that I would never find another dog like her. I would be forever sad about losing her. She had been carried off by an enormous eagle that had eaten her piece by piece.  Can you imagine anyone thinking like this? Crazy, right?

Fear is crazy. It paralyses us. It makes us unable to live our lives with freedom and joy. It is the worst possible emotion I feel yet is is always simmering under the edge of our lives. As the book says we have to “Feel the Fear, and Do it Anyway”.