jenk

[A] woman came up to me after a panel [at a con] and screamed at me for ten minutes, calling me every single name in the book. [...S]he believed she was a better writer than I was, and she deserved “fame” more than I did.

Finally one of the convention security people pulled her out of the room. My other panelists were shaken. I was surprised that the screaming had nothing to do with my editorship (as it had other times, mostly because I rejected someone’s story), but with my writing.

I had never met this woman before, although I’ve seen her since.

When I was twenty and still in college, I met a man who wrote part-time for the same organization I wrote for. He was also a nonfiction freelancer. He paid for his apartment, his food, his car, and his clothing out of his nonfiction income. I saw his product at work. He had a great voice and a lot of talent, but he couldn’t spell his own name and his manuscripts were almost unreadably sloppy.

I figured if he could succeed in the cutthroat nonfiction world with those messy manuscripts, then I could with my clean manuscripts. I wasn’t the wordsmith he was, but I was more professional.

My analysis of his work got me started. I wrote for some of the same places he did, and began to wonder how he funded his lifestyle. I wasn’t getting paid enough per article to pay for my apartment and my expenses. Eventually, I moved to larger and larger publications, publications that paid me a month’s worth of expenses per article. It wasn’t until later that I found out that he had supplemented his income writing term papers for students, and (ahem) dealing cocaine. (It was 1980, after all.)

I didn’t take the negative view—that you can never make a living at writing; that you need to deal drugs to make any money at all. Instead, I saw that he was succeeding as a freelancer, getting work published even when he wasn’t trying hard. And that inspired me even more.

Because I hadn’t been trying at all.

• 09:45 Today I have rust-colored sweater, black pants, and "moon" pendant.
• 09:46 Thanks to Jen W we have a bowl full of candy in the "Jen Team" seating area.
• 09:51 (I went for "seasonal" not "costume")
• 13:40 So far two little pink care bears, a pumpkin, and a caterpillar have dropped by my desk....
• 14:31 iGoogle's weather forecast shows nothing but rain.
• 17:07 Lord Peter group starts new read-through of all books/stories tomorrow :) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LordPeter/
• 17:08 First book is online - http://tinyurl.com/5nh5hq

Week of 9/29 - 10/3

Pack up contents of cube and tech library; answer questions for others in software group.

Week of 10/6 - 10/10

Join most of the rest of the office in working remotely while our furniture is moved to the new office in the next building over.

Morning, Monday, 10/13

First day in new office. Brought in new cleaning wipes to scrub down new desk; made sure I had Benadryl to supplement my normal Claritin to deal with new carpet, paint, etc. Have unpacked my stuff, will be bringing in a plant and maybe an old Microsoft poster from home. Wifi's down so I convinced my machine to talk to the net via an old-style cord. Oh, and it's raining.

Afternoon, Monday, 10/13

Work? Or unpack the tech library?

• 16:43 Downloading yet another IE 6 VHD. Bonus: IE 8 beta VHD.
• 16:52 Fyi - IE VHDs - tinyurl.com/y64upm

To my mind, the most illuminating comments in [the] book come from James Patterson, a former advertising mogul who now writes best-selling mystery fiction. Ms. DiSesa reports that Mr. Patterson urged her to think of life as a game in which we juggle five balls labeled Work, Family, Health, Friends and Integrity.

“One day you understand Work is a rubber ball. You drop it and it bounces back,” Mr. Patterson is quoted as saying. “The other four balls are made of glass. Drop one of those, and it will be irrevocably marked, scuffed, nicked and maybe even shattered.”
- from The New York Times

You probably overestimate your emotional intelligence. Most of us do. You could get into real trouble when your EQ is extremely low — like posting naked photos of yourself [...] Most of us are not doing insanely stupid things. We are just doing a series of smaller EQ mistakes day after day.

At some point, if your EQ is too low, you will hit a wall. Most people notice the wall when they can’t get a job, because today, the job hunts that are most successful are based on networking skills — in other words, EQ. But here are other areas of the workplace that are becoming more and more important. And success in each of these three areas depends heavily on EQ.

Think hard about how you approach a group. Do you hope that the group conforms to you or do you conform to the group? As long as you respect the people in the group, conforming to them enough to form a bond is not a bad idea. [...] But you can find pieces of yourself that match up with just about everyone, if you are in-tune with yourself and other people.

1. Don’t try to change or resist company culture including dress, communication styles and office hours. Being different does not work.
   
2. Practice self-awareness. This is a life-long task and every day you can become a little bit more aware of how people perceive you. Just doing your job is not enough. You need to do it in a way that makes a positive impression on everyone else.
   
3. Manage your stress levels so you can avoid emotional displays of inconsistent behavior and inconsistent messages. Most emotional outbursts come from unmanaged stress.
   
4. Be approachable all the time – in your cube, in the hallway, even in the bathroom.
   
5. Network before you need to network. Being good at politics means that you are good at relationship building, and you can count on a wide range of people when you need them.

Most of us have to work at being likeable. Fortunately, [research] shows that the biggest impediment to likeability is not caring. So if you “just decide you want to do better,” you probably will.

[P]eople judge your work skills as incompetent if you are not likeable — no matter what your work skills are. It may not be fair, but it’s what people do.

When Persona Aces Person
How much of yourself is appropriate for your office?

Managing the Self
Self-control can be tiring.

The Poker Face
"The successful candidate will mask his true feelings, negative and positive, in the name of professionalism."