Confidence

As the economy continues to remain in the toilet, I continue to receive, with increasingly frequency, invitations to job fairs. If you know me--or feel that you know me, or are just reading this blog for the smutty parts--you know that I am not a fan of job fairs. I dislike job fairs because they tend to ruin the single most vital tool every unemployed person needs: self-confidence.
Let's face it, when you're unemployed in the US, everything's against you. People assume you're stupid, lazy, uneducated, that you lost your job for good reason, since talented people are never fired blah blah blah. You can fill in the rest of the inane horsesh*t people spout later. Not to mention, despite all of the "follow your bliss" crap sold to us on t-shirts and bumper stickers and political campaigns, we as Americans tend to rate one's success by one's career. So, for example, when someone says they're leaving their six-figure job to "spend more time with their family," we know that they got the axe. We also know that they are going to spend one carefully-staged photo shoot with said family... and then they will be frantically job-hunting to get away from their lovely family. Which brings me back to job fairs. (See what I did there?)
In my opinion, there are two good decent reasons to attend a job fair:
1. You want to practice the fine art of pitching yourself, your talents and your experience to strangers;
2. You'd like better information on which companies in certain industries are hiring, so that you can then research these companies, see what types of people they're looking for, and most importantly, whom you might know who is employed by one of these companies and thus start networking.
If neither of those options apply to you, if you were seriously thinking of going because oh, you know, you might get a job...I'm going to be forced to say to you what my beloved father, Mr. Zimmerman, used to say to me when I was an obnoxious teenager (#redundant): "I'm not angry Carlota, I'm just disappointed." Which was so much worse! I used to beg him to be angry, since anger eventually passes...guilt remains forever. 
Because, see, the problem with job fairs is not only are you unlikely to get a job, you are instead very likely to lose your self-confidence and to become depressed, as you waste your time standing in line to "interview" for a "job" as a telemarketer. And once you start losing your self-confidence...forget it. When your self-confidence is gone, you are doomed. No matter how great your education, or your previous experience, no matter how awesome you used to be, when you lose your self-confidence, you'll start deciding that you'll never get a good job again, that you're stupid, that you'll never be a success, that it all was a fluke, that the Teabaggers are the last resort of American patriotism, and that Kim Khardashian really must be a talented and lovely girl if Kanye is into her. And when you believe that noise, then it's true. You make it true.
You give up on yourself, you stop thinking creatively, you stop being reasonable, you stop networking...and you make your worst fears come true. Because what's the difference between someone who says, "I'd love to write a book," but never does it, and the sad, oh so sad people authors who wrote, for god's sake, a book called, Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics? Self-confidence. The authors believed they had something valuable to say, and trees should be killed for their vision.
Listen, I'm a crazy cat lady: you know this. Right now, as I type, there's an irritable, senior citizen cat sleeping in one of my kitchen cabinets, thus blocking my access to my tea cups. There's another one sleeping at my feet, who bites my toes, with an indignant expression, whenever I move. I talk to bodega cats. Two of the cats have cat passports fer Chrissake. (They had passports before former President George W. Bush had a passport!) But even I, if I were friends with the authors of Why Cats Paint, would have said, "No. This is a bad idea, like taking that mother-daughter break-dancing class was a bad idea. Stop it." Unfortunately, I was not there.
So you see, confidence is everything! Confidence is why you decide you can take charge of your life, instead of remaining stuck. Confidence is why you eventually succeed or fail.
And so if you go to these job fairs, and experience the fun, the joy of waiting in endless lines to spend a whopping 5 minutes "engaging" with someone who can barely bother to make eye contact; if you go to a career fair and end up putting in applications to be a security guard or work at a national chain of dollar stores....yeah, your confidence is really going to be off-the-charts after that.

If you want some constructive alternatives to wasting your time at a job fair or writing a cat book, email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com!

"Hell, there are no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something!"-Edison

I'm going to do my best to ignore the fact that today is September 1st (*shifty eyes*) and that Monday is Labor Day (*extremely shifty eyes*), and that the summer is over (*rage rising*) and stay on some kind of message. To wit: yesterday, sports fans, I wrote about the need to follow your dream, no matter how insane the haters may say it is, if your dream makes you happy. I mean, yes, you need to temper your dream with some reality, but: life is hard. Maybe you've heard that before? It is true; the cats and I can verify. Life is very hard, not only in Queens, and if  this is your dream, whether it's of writing the great Jewyorican novel or meeting a fun man who is sexy, smart and will win the approval of the cats (If the Kitten was awake, that would make him chortle.)...you have to fight for it. That's not a suggestion, son. It's far too early for me to be kidding.

Because if you don't, if you let people frighten you otherwise, you don't just lose that dream...you lose your confidence and that is a very serious loss. Because, let's face it: in life, in art, in business, there are no rules: no one knows what the hell they're doing. You think other people know what they're doing, when they do crazy things that lead to great things? Ha. Don't believe the hype. Later on, if they're honest, these people will sort of chuckle bitterly and admit they were just sort of messing about and praying that it worked before they got evicted, and now, if you don't mind, they're going to do infomercials and reap the intellectual rewards (translation: "date" their yoga instructors and be as naked as possible).

Business, like art, like love, is about whatever works at the time. Think about how many things, throughout history, were, at the time, expected to fail miserably. And then, for whatever reason, that "mistake" caught on and suddenly, the inventors went from zero to hero. (It's 5:30am, so the best my brain can come up with right now is the film Alien. A film which would eventually spawn a franchise, and make obscene amounts of money around the world but which, at the time, the studio was convinced would be a horrendous bomb: weird sets, weird music, and a female lead?? Mwah hah hah.)

So, I need you to take whatever frightened gibberish people have chanted to you about rules, or being nice, or fitting in, or listening to your elders...and hit the (mental) delete key. I need you to block that sh*t. I need you to think: "F**k that noise," as a former boytoy of mine used to say, in his great nasal, Chicagoan accent. Because the people who harp on the rules...they're the people who never got it. Whatever the "it" is/was. Remember: they. Never. Got. It! They're the ones anxiously trying to research why some people succeed and others fail, instead of just succeeding. They're the ones who, sadly enough, never experienced what the masterful Russian poet Osip Mandelstam spoke of, when he was truly at the height of his extraordinary powers and he described the knowledge of his powers as "feeling [his] wingspan." He was murdered by Stalin's thugs, and died in the Russian gulags, his body thrown into an unmarked mass grave...but while Stalin lies, pox-marked and blood-stained on the dust-heap of history, Mandelstam's clear voice rings on. Reading Mandelstam's poems today, one can witness his tremendous spirit and gift because... he knew he was right. 

In business, in art, in life, you're "right" when you make it happen, and you animate your vision, when you feel your wingspan...so tell me, please: what could rules ever have to do with being right?

Just a brief thought today on the importance of self-confidence. This is particularly aimed at those who are going through a rough time, say unemployment, a painful professional or personal transition...I know I've blogged a great deal about the crucial part of seeking employment, for example, is to demonstrate your value. But I also know that when you're unemployed, particularly if it's a long-term situation, the immediate effect is to make you lose all sense of self-worth. Which is a very dangerous, self-defeating prophecy. How can you muster the self-confidence, the necessary arrogance to convince an employer that you're hawt sh*t, if you're feeling like a loser, right?
Take a deep breath, and remember that you are more than just a job. Remember all of the other things you have achieved, the lives you have changed. The people who love you, love you no matter what...if they don't, I need you to tell them to suck it, asap! You must re-assign yourself  value immediately. If not, I promise: it's just going to get worse. Your mind starts playing tricks with you...and those tricks can be very destructive.
I know of what I speak. When I first graduated law school, I felt pretty beat up. (BTW: this has nothing to do with IUB and everything to do with me. IUB deserves a lot of praise and cash for putting up with my crap for 3 years.) I was pretty toxic with misery, and fear. It really did feel like all my best years were behind me. (Melodramatic...but true.) Then, out of the blue, I got an email, from a former agent, asking if I would agree to put my first play on tour of Brazil. I won't go into details here, but the idea that I had had, previous to law school, written something that years later was still thought to have the power to influence a national dialogue...that notion saved my life. It gave me the self-confidence and belief I needed to stop kvetching and to be grateful for all I had learned and done along the way.
(Ugh: I've become one of those people who are "grateful for the journey"...oy. On the other hand, I've also become someone who can always find a relevant "South Park" quote so...tomato, tomato?)
So when I say to people who are going through a rough time and feeling in a dark place, that you must focus on all you have achieved, and all you WILL achieve...I'm not some idiot politician telling you to keep a stiff upper lip, as I slash your social services and give myself a pay raise. (Grrr...) I'm someone who s-l-o-w-l-y, step-by-step, started turning things around by being true to myself..and re-assigning myself value. And you can too...
(Thank you, IUB! How could I have anything but mad love for a place where you can get hammered for twenty dollars?? Come on!)

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the importance of self-confidence, and how damaging the lack of self-confidence can be on ones’s ability to make and sustain the hard choices necessary to success…and that formed a link in my mind with the phenomenon of the “scambloggers:” some (understandably) pissed-off men and women who blog about the truth behind law schools and their inflated numbers and (largely) empty promises of easy employment; the destructive debt load students are encouraged to shoulder despite the shrinking pool of jobs; the changing nature of the legal profession which students are not prepared for…all excellent points.  I don’t blame the bloggers for being enraged; I graduated in 2007 from my law school and it wasn’t until 2010 that I could take any pride in it. The fault was 100% mine; I was the moron who was burnt out on TV news, but didn’t have the balls to admit that my life had become unrecognizable. I was the coward unable to admit that I was bored to death by my boyfriend, hated my job, was frustrated in my life…so, I know: I’ll go to law school and maybe magically someone else will break up with my boyfriend, and someone else figure out what the f**k I’m supposed to be doing with my life, la la la! 

Some of you are reading this thinking, “Okay, Carlota, but that’s not why most people go…right?” Well… you’d think, right…but I know a number of people who are intent on going to law school and not one of them is interested in the practice of law. Interested in avoiding the deeper issues of their lives yes; the law…meh, not so much.

This is why I don’t blame my quite lovely law school; wasn’t my law school's fault that I was an idiot who didn’t understand I would never again have a perfect credit score.  And I’m honestly not expecting that anyone will read this post and say, “Oh snap, I get it: I need to figure out my life!” Nah. If you want to go to law school, go, mazel tov…because now, four years after graduating, I’m grateful beyond measure for the experience, for what it taught me about the dire necessity of being true to me, of having to figure myself out…and what can happen when I choose to be a coward. So sure, my law school diploma is framed and hanging above my desk…why not? We should all be proud of battles fought well and won…even when sometimes, the hardest battle is with ourselves.

Here’s a list of some of my fave blawgs: http://rosecoloredglassesjd.blogspot.com, http://firsttiertoilet.blogspot.com/, http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/, http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/