Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
Growing up, I never wanted to be the stereotypical firefighter, policeman, or astronaut. Instead, I dreamed of being:
English teacher. I had a doctor's kit, including a stethoscope, but instead of playing doctor, I would take the syringe and pretend it was pen and mark up invisible papers. I really wanted to teach people where to put commas, not save lives.
Read MoreBeing the youngest in the office means that you've got to build up your credibility and prove that you're more than just a kid fresh out of their starter job. Despite that your job may be to build out social media channels, which is a medium most don't value because social media is for millennials, it would be nice to get a bit of respect from your coworkers. Here's how to go about building that respect and credibility as one of the younger, but equally important, members of the team:
Read MoreI grew up on a computer. We'd play the lifesaver mini golf games after school, compete at typer shark during school and were given calculators by the time we hit middle school math. All this computer advancement makes anything less than advanced technology difficult to deal with. Here's five times within the last year alone I was too computer savvy for every day life:
Read MoreTruth be told, I like the process of finding a job. Playing within the strict limitations of a resume, while still being able to make it your own, is like a little puzzle that I can't wait to solve. Researching companies, and seeing the boundless amount of opportunities out there gets my blood pumping. And don't even get me started on interviews: LOVE THEM!
While it wasn't my goal to go through multiple jobs within a year and a half of graduating, I don't believe there is anything wrong with it. Knowing what you're worth and what you deserve should be able to guide you to the job of your dreams, just so long as you don't hunker down at the wrong one. So in the never-ending quest for a job that satisfies my need for challenges, encouragement and passion, I've done a lot of job hunting. I think I've found where I'd like to grow some roots, so now that I'm out of the job market, I feel content with giving up all my trade secrets for you job hunters (kidding, I don't have trade secrets):
Read MorePremiering this Wednesday night and lasting all through the holidays, brought to you by Your Family, the inevitable interrogation: “What are you doing with your life?” or the various other ways to phrase that prying query.
It’s open season for your relatives to find you at family dinners and ask about life. Oh, it seems so innocuous at first: “What classes are you taking?” “How’s that job?” And then: “So what do you want to do with that?” “Where are you going in life?”
Well, right now I’m headed for the eggnog – unless there’s some gin and tonic available, because I’m going to need something stronger to handle that question.
Since preschool we have been asked “What do you want to do?” And now that we’re twenty-somethings, the question still persists (*heavy sigh*) – and in so many other forms. People are no longer content to hear you want to be a fireman or a nurse – or, like I used to say, an Egyptologist. Sorry, guys, I don’t want to dust off pyramids anymore.
They want concrete, “realistic,” relevant answers. Like, what do you actually want to do? And not just what you want to do, but what are you doing. I imagine (read: hope) the inquiries will stop when I turn 30, but I think that’s false hope. The cross-examination only ceases once you fulfill first world society’s ideal of what is success: Steady job, permanent location, married, kids on the way. And if after achieving this, the variables fluctuate – say, you divorce or you quit your job to go do something else, God forbid – the grilling begins all over. I’ve seen it from afar: Suddenly your cousin is the condescending “So, Joe, now that you’re no longer as successful as me, what are you going to do about that?”
What Joe should say: “Sorry, my mouth is stuffed with turkey and sangria, so I can’t answer you.”
Senior year of college, the most contentious question to ask your peers was, “What are you doing after graduation?” Some people ask because they’re curious and have no judgment (ha! Everyone has judgment!), and some people want to know so they can compare life paths (“Mine puts me at $10K more than you”).
Millennials ducked that hurdle by assuring our collective selves that “it’s okay” not to know what you’re doing postgrad – until you’re a few years out. Like me now. But oh wait, I’m in grad school/have an internship/I must know what I’m doing.
WHERE DID THIS MYTH COME FROM?
Maybe, just maybe, I went to grad school to avoid answering the question of my life path. I got a BS in statistics, not in Life’s Purpose. And just because I’m in grad school for something super STEM-y does not mean I might not go become a New York columnist (which is better than a Minneapolis or LA columnist, obviously) or work with Ebola in Africa (which is what I would really love to do, do you hear that, Mom and Dad?). “So then why are you in grad school?” I don’t know!
But oh, if you don’t know about your career, we can change the subject. My aunt will ask if there’s anyone special in my life, and my mom will answer for me – and then she will add, “It’s because he doesn’t know how to compromise.” Well, eff you, too.
Finally, to shush everyone, I’ll admit, “I’m just working toward a place where one day I can make a pumpkin pie and not feel compelled to Instagram it to show that I’m an adult.”
However, I’m guessing they don’t make pumpkin pies in Africa. Sorry, everyone.
In college, lots of my professors warned about being cautious about what you post on social media. Despite your best efforts, employers can find anything they want about you online, including your social media pages. So how do you prepare your profile to be seen by people that potentially hold your future in their hands? The easiest way to to do that is friend your mom. If you don't want your mom to see it, you definitely don't want it on Facebook. That picture of you passed out after a long night of partying? Nope, momma won't want to see that. Don't put it on Facebook. That cuss-filled post sub-texting everyone on your feed? Mother won't be happy. Keep it to yourself.
I know when my mom first joined Facebook, I was nervous that she was going to be that mom who blows up the feed with "WHAT A CUTIE," and "WHO IS THAT IN THIS PICTURE," etc. But, it's actually really easy to avoid that. You know how?
You talk to her. I explained to my mom that everyone can see everything you do on Facebook, so comment sparingly. Please try not to "like" every photo in an album, especially if it's not even my album. If you have something disproving /inside joke-ish / mom-ish, please take it up with me in a private manner.
And my mom has been a Facebook gem. She comments on things, and it's always appropriate and probably only once or twice annoying. I say that now, though, and she'll probably read this and go HAM all over my wall just to be silly (hi, mom, still glad we're friends).
By Cazey Williams In my life outside blogging, I happen to be events chair for my local alumni chapter. That job entails planning football viewings, happy hours and promoting friend making.
So my event idea was to coerce people who regularly attend our meetings to meet people different than the ones they already know and/or came with. I originally called it “speed dating,” but then decided we weren't trying to market to lusty singles, so let’s go with “speed networking” – because that’s what we’re doing. Except not in the professional sense; or at least that wasn't the primary goal. When I wrote up the event blurb, I put, “Emphasis on social.”
Okay, in hindsight, every name for the event was doomed. Social networking conjures notions of Facebooking and tweeting. Speed dating…well, this isn’t for hapless Valentines. And speed networking – please, keep your business cards in your pocket.
To keep the event lite (misspelled on purpose), I made a bingo sheet for an ice breaker. Each square had something related to our alma mater. I printed out a list of questions stolen from websites meant for both speed dating and networking.
The first person to arrive for the event was in a tan suit and had silver hair. Me internally: Crap. Like, I’m wearing moccasins. I almost wore shorts. We shake hands.
“This is my first event in several years,” Mr. Businessman says.
“What brought you out?”
“The speed networking. I love networking. I’ve been in sales for 16 years.”
“Well,” I think fast, “we’re expecting a mixed crowd, so it’s gonna be a little social, a little professional (not at all, I’m in moccasins). Hopefully you’ll get something out of it.”
“Can’t wait to find out.”
Oh, I can.
People trickle in. The assortment is mixed only by contrast: Me and my moccasins, 23 and in grad school, and everyone else years older and employed – or formerly employed. Gosh, I invited you here to make friends, not get you a job. One of my worst self-critiques is underperforming, and I would say a list of questions that includes “Star Wars or Star Trek?” is underperforming for this crowd.
Of course, the pizza comes out late (yes, we’re hosting this at a pizza parlor; why were you expecting business networking?!). Some people mingle. Others wait for me to prompt this networking. Me: I only have it to make it through an hour before I can drink away this humiliation.
I narrate how this will work, mention “we were expecting a mixed crowd, so I prepared for social and professional networking (so I won’t ask ‘If you were an animal in the wild, what would you be?’),” and try to explain the bingo ice breaker – but some of the older men just don’t get it. Forget it; it’s an ice breaker. I need a megaphone. I’m sweating. No one can hear me. No one knows which way to rotate. People are repeating the opposite of what I said.
The first person I network with is Mr. Businessman. He says he’s been to many networking events. In fact, he specifies: “I teach group networking.” Great. Judge this failed spectacle.
“Well, I’d love to hear what advice you have,” I say. Should I be biting into this pizza while listening? Is that professional? Well, darn it, I’m hungry. “Like, what prompts I should use.” (Because I was going to ask “Who was your favorite superhero when you were little – and how does that relate to your profession?”)
Once I collected comment cards at the end, I assessed that the event was not as disastrous as I painted it. In fact, my biggest criticism was not starting on time (sorry, we waited until 7:05 PM; I guess there are no stragglers in the business world). However, I would not have worn moccasins.
By Cazey Williams So, not to name names, but my alma mater – an institution of higher learning, or so I thought – has recently taken up promoting a “recent student” of theirs for a reality show contest.
What does “recent student” mean? You would think alumni, right? No, earnest readers; it means a freshman who failed out. Are you even a freshman if you fail out? And it’s not like he failed this past May, so he could do a redo/have a second life/this isn't Mario Kart. No, no, he failed out two years ago (2013). But you know, we should give him a break; freshman year was hard, especially those keg stands.
To elaborate: There is a male of conventional standards - aka Caucasian, brown hair, attractive, dumb (is that a stretch of an assumption? But had to throw this in, or else I'd be describing myself *recoils*) – who attended my undergrad and is now on a competitive reality show (hint: singing, Gwen Stefani, etc.). I haven’t done much research because TV isn’t my thing, nor is fanboying, but I know he’s been on the show a couple of weeks. However, this child happens to have attended my old university for a year before he failed out. Or maybe he withdrew, but from what I know, his grades weren’t getting him car insurance deals.
How do I know? Well, I have my sources. And the facts are, he went to my university and never came back, and there’s a gap year between then and now. ~Suspicious~ Ain’t like he was in New York pursuing ~the dream~.
You would expect circumstances like that to be, I don’t know, embarrassing. However, either he or – I really hope not – my alma mater decided to acknowledge their past relations, and he is now hailed as “a recent student.”
Da fuxx is that.
If he wants to say he went to my alma mater, fine. But what pricks me the wrong way is my INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING (did you get that last part?) wants to uphold him as some student and representative of our university by Facebooking and Tweeting "Tune in tonight to watch our pillar of success fail-out perform" or "We're cheering for our recent student (who everyone should try to emulate), and here's how to vote." YO, DEANS AND PRESIDENT, he failed out (?!?!). What sort of message are you sending?
The Regina George within me is brimming with “You didn’t even go there!” (Okay, you did. For eight months. Hardly a degree. Hardly a student. That’s like another university endorsing a student by saying, “This dude hooked up with one of our coeds - vote for him!”)
Anyway, these are my thoughts, and here is a meme:
So I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m one of the youngest employees at work (I can no longer say youngest because we just hired someone younger than me). Sometimes being young means that you lack authority, or it means that no one listens to you, but on the bright side, it puts you in perfect position to have a work mom! And, let me tell you, work moms are great. I started on the same day as one work mom, who would give me advice (not limited to work advice), bring me snacks, remind me about mom-ish things and even bought me lunch or breakfast from time to time.
But what’s even better is having multiple work moms. Everyone chips in to make sure I feel taken care of. And they complement me on my outfits because I’m so in-style, which is actually hilarious because nothing I wear is in style, but I have them fooled because they figure that must be what the kids are wearing these days.
My work moms also understand when I bring in cheetohs or brownies to our monthly breakfast, because "at their age they weren’t cooking either". Off the hook! And yes – I really did bring in brownies and cheetohs before to our breakfast.
Balanced with the fact that my work moms do actually trust me to do my job, and respect me when I am doing my work, being mom-ed is actually endearing. When I was talking about it with another younger co-worker, she said she didn’t like it. I get that they don’t treat anyone else this way, but let’s be honest; my work moms took care of me on my birthday when we barely recognize anyone else’s birthday at all. I’ll take the special treatment.
Life is like the spaghetti test. You just throw a handful at a wall and see what sticks. Take applying to a job. You write a resume and then send it to anyone who may hopefully read it. Well -- maybe not anyone, but when I was applying pre-graduation, it actually felt like I applied everywhere. I wasn't sure where I wanted to live or what I wanted to do, so that essentially left me applying to anything to which I was somewhat qualified.
Then, one of the noodles stuck to the wall, and I ended up with a social media contracting job in Richmond. And just like a done piece of spaghetti, it eventually fell off the wall. Sadly, that job fell off way too early, but at least I had found a place to live.
It may be the least scientific method to solving problems, but it the spaghetti method works. While you're spraying options everywhere, you'll eventually figure out what it is that you're hoping actually sticks.