Tag Archives: work

Continuing What Works and Discarding What Doesn’t

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Right now I am currently in one of those long periods of stability bordering on normalcy.  Probably why I’ve gotten so much work on this blog done over the last couple weeks.  I’m currently on a hot streak.  To paraphrase Kevin Costner from ‘Bull Durham’, “when you’re on a winning streak, you don’t do anything to mess with it.  Respect the win streak.  They don’t come along very often.”

This overall ability to get things done and not be really phased by what problems arise is no doubt due to more than one factor.  For starters, spring has always been one of my better times.  Even before I had mental health problems I did my best school work, read the most, wrote the most, was the most physically active, and the most socially outgoing in the spring to early summer.  Too bad I can’t bottle this positive mojo juice to carry me though tough spots and darker days.

I don’t have access to ‘hot streak on demand.’  No one does.  Yet with the benefit of several years of accumulated self knowledge and experience, I can have the next best thing.  I have learned how to do great deals of work during good times.  I have learned how to do damage control during bad times.  I have learned how to make winning streaks last longer, feel better, and more productive.  I have learned things that lessen the darkness of bad spells.

The first step to sustainable productivity and happiness is knowing yourself.  Knowing yourself is not knowing what you think you should be.  It is knowing what you do well naturally, accepting it, and acting on it.  I’ve held enough jobs to know that a happy worker isn’t always productive or an irritable one isn’t always unproductive. Vice versa is true.  Some people are productive because they are Pollyanna types and some are productive because they are hard cases.  One is not necessarily better than another.

What is not good is thinking you always have to be one thing at all times, especially when that one thing goes against your core nature.  For myself, I know I am not naturally Mr. Social Hour.  I do better at a job, or any undertaking, when I’m not chatting with others and making small talk every ten minutes.  I can’t stand small talk at all.  Yet because I keep silent when I work and get engrossed in problems, I am have been condemned as anti-social and a poor team player since childhood.  Should it matter if I don’t comment on the weather or don’t know when my coworker’s wife is giving him a hard time?  If I’m doing a good job and providing some value, it really shouldn’t matter.  Likewise, I don’t take offence should a coworker or friend be too busy to talk as long as they are professional and courteous.  I don’t need my ego stroked at all times.  I don’t need to hold hands and play nice at all times to get my work done.  I know myself well enough that I know that is not how I become productive.  My core nature would rather ‘kick ass and take names’ instead of ‘kiss ass and drop names.’

Unfortunately I haven’t found many environments outside of blogging and working alone that allow me the freedom to play to my strengths.  It is far easier for me to research for this blog and my own enlightenment for ten hours straight than do twenty minutes of messaging the egos of others.  Most of these egos wouldn’t need messaged if these people felt free to play to their strengths more and discard what doesn’t work for them.  Kind of crazy how people are usually more productive and happy when they are free to use their individual strengths.  Sure there are social pressures to conform to fit certain types.  Yet we aren’t happier with ourselves and others when we do and compromise our strengths and integrity.

For example, I get annoyed every time I go to my bank to buy quarters for laundry or chat with a banker and the poor clerk or personal banker has to feign interest in my day or chat me up because it’s ‘part of the job’ or it’s ‘being part of the community.’  Who cares how good or bad my weekend was?  Even I don’t care sometimes.  I have a hard time imagining somebody like J.P. Morgan talking about the weather with Thomas Edison or making idle chit chat with an Andrew Carnegie type when he wanted to borrow money to build a new blast furnace.

And it’s not just my bank that does this faking interest because some boss thinks it adds a personal touch.  I get this practically every time I go shopping, especially at the large bookstore I shop at.  Every time I go through a check out line the poor clerk is forced to take interest and comment on what I’m buying and reading.  Just once I should have said, “Thank goodness I’m not buying ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook’ or ‘Best of Letters to Penthouse.’ ”  I totally know why online retailers like amazon and eBay are doing so well.  Heaven help us when AI is figured out and my computer is forced to fake interest in my activities.  Hopefully the computer will be intelligent enough to not fake interest because it is illogical and pointless.  Having faux interest and playing nice at all times doesn’t always work and thus should be discarded.

College, The World of Work, and The New Reality

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I’m taking a detour from my usual posts about mental illness and related issues. Yet this is still a serious topic I’m writing about. It’s about college, the world of work, and the new career and economic realities of life in the early 21st century. Even though I’ve been out of college and in the dreaded ‘real world’ for the last ten years, I still have yet to find the proverbial ‘well paying, well respected’ job that we were told that a college degree would lead to. I know that we’re living in tough economic times and that we’re transitioning to a service based economy from a manufacturing one. But I can’t help but feel like I was sold a bill of goods. It’s as if the old rules of go to college, get a good job, save your money for retirement, and live the American Dream of a house, a spouse, 2.3 kids, etc. no longer apply.

I am convinced we, as Americans, been living the high life for too long. Our expectations are out of whack. There very likely is a limit to how much of ‘the good life’ that we can expect before our standing of living goes down. And I think that we in America have hit it. I suppose this simply couldn’t last forever.

I wonder if those who are now entering college are aware of what’s going on in the world. Lord knows that I, and most of my classmates, had no clue as to what was coming. I still would have gone to college. But I wouldn’t have deluded myself into thinking that I was going straight from college to the good life. I suppose it’s what they call ‘paying your dues.’

Anyway, the rules have changed. College by itself will no longer guarentee you much. So my advise anyone who wants to go to college straight out of high school is this: Don’t go in with your eyes closed. Know that college alone will not guarantee you the easy life and happiness. Buyer beware. If you are still determined to go to college, at least study something that can specifically transfer over in a career. I’m talking about majors in any field of engineering, computer informations systems, accounting, teacher education, computer science, anything in the medical fields, and law. I would especially highly recommend trades like plumbing, welding, electrician, auto mechanics, information technology, anything to do with transportation, mining/extraction, renewable energy, and construction. It seemed that many teachers I knew ran down the skilled trades until they needed their cars fixed or carpentry work done on their houses. Most people I know with liberal arts degrees like english, history, etc. are either working low paying jobs, are becoming college instructors, or went on to law school or business school. Now, I love english and history as much as anyone I’ve ever met. I also didn’t want to teach in a traditional classroom setting. So I read as many history, classic literature, and philosophy books as I could on my own time during my five years in college. The school library was my second home. I may not have had much of a social life but with mental health issues, I didn’t have much of a social life anyway.

I’ve been out in the world outside of school for ten years now. I made some mistakes in the course of my college years. Had I the ability to do over again, I’d have probably studied Computer Science or Information Technology in addition to my business training. I use computers all the time just in my blogging and researching. I have a basic business background, but I don’t have anything specific like accounting. I still would have read a great deal of history, classic literature, and philosophy on my own. I am, however, grateful I never majored in such subjects. My basic business background taught me how to manage my personal finances, which is not required learning in American high schools. When I was questioned ‘why business’ after my foray into Pre-Med failed, I answered something like ‘I don’t have any knowledge of how businesses, banks, money, investments, sales, and economics work. I can learn this and perhaps make myself employable once I get a bachelor’s.’ While I haven’t landed the high paying job, I definitely learned how to budget and get as much out of money as I can. These skills made adapting to life on disability insurance and part time work much easier.

The ideas of how an individual has to budget all their expenses, know where their limited money is going, how compounding interest on credit cards and bank loans work, etc. are not exactly mysteries of the universe. But I had to study business in college to learn these things that, in a truly good education system, would have been addressed to kids in high school and even middle school. The level of financial knowledge in my country is truly sad. This lack of knowledge is why we’re having record numbers of people and businesses going bankrupt. Many marriages are strained and fail because of poor money management. Strained families cause stress and anxiety on everyone involved, especially children. It is why most city, state, and federal governments have such atrocious amounts of debt. Most of this could have been avoided had we been taught how money really works. I would liken this lack of instruction of the primary driver of our modern civilization to an ancient farming society not teaching their kids how to plant, raise, and harvest crops or how to care for livestock.

Many devoutly religious people may counter with the ‘love of money is the root of all kinds of evil’ from the Bible and other religious teachings. This has nothing to do with lust for money and power. Teaching money management to kids would tell them how the basic tool of survival in our post industrial age society, money, really works and give them a healthy respect for it. Surely it isn’t so bad to teach kids something in middle and high school that would truly benefit them in their adult lives? Any school that doesn’t teach it’s kids basic survival skills in their given society nor gives those kids the ability to learn on their own after the formal education is done, in short, isn’t justifying it’s own existence. I was fortunate to have studied business in college for my own sake. And I had to learn it in college because it wasn’t taught in a safer environment like a local high school or middle school. I am so grateful I didn’t have to learn about it on the mean streets or the ‘school of hard knocks.’

Washing Out of Graduate School, Having Mental Health Issues, and Chains of Events (Or The Story of My Adult Life)

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If I were to meet anyone who has been diagnosed with mental health problems and he/she were looking for advice as to what to do from the diagnosis onward, it would be 1) Don’t Give Up,  2) Look for what you are naturally good at despite your problems, and 3) Get Really Creative. 

In this entry, I’m going to tell some of my personal story from the last several years. It’s a short autobiography of sorts. In February of 2006, after having washed out of the MBA program at a small state university, I decided to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance.  I had recently lost my graduate assistantship due to my grades.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like my classes or hate my work with the university.  Far from it.  I absolutely loved the work of being a research assistant, tutor, seminar presenter, and occasional substitute teacher.  Yet my mental health issues were flaring up during this time.  I would have been allowed to stay in school in hopes that I could raise my grades and get back on track.  But the prospect of going to school without a job and no way but loans to pay for it while taking on my mental health issues just didn’t appeal to me.  I was able to get through undergraduate college without any debt thanks to academic scholarships, working full time during the summers, and the much appreciated assistance of my family.  I was afraid that taking on the burden of continuing graduate school with no guarantee of getting my grades back up, having to go deep into debt to continue said studies, all the while combating mental health problems and being a financial drag on my family (who were already paying through the nose for the high risk health insurance I was on for meds that otherwise would have cost almost $2,000 monthly); all of it would have been major problems that simply were not worth it.

Looking back on it, I believe I could have completed the MBA program had it not been for the mental health burdens.  But, like almost everyone, I simply didn’t have the unlimited funds to cover medications, health insurance, and retaking the two classes I didn’t do well at all in.  Yet, knowing myself better now at age 33 than I did at age 25, I know I would have been unhappy with being another cubicle bum jockeying for dollars.  Even though I appreciate money as much as anyone I know, I also know it isn’t my only motivator or even one of my primary motivators.  I have found, over the last several years of experience and looking for tendencies in my life going back to before I even started elementary school, that I really enjoyed sharing what I learned with others and giving advice.  If I did complete the MBA program and then become something like a financial analyst, I wouldn’t have been meeting my need to share what I learn to others and helping others avoid problems.  I love explaining things to people, assisting people, and looking up things I don’t know.  I always have.   Had I been able to stay on the ‘traditional’ path, I would be miserable at a cubicle job but would still have my personality slants I mentioned above.  I would have probably then gone on to attempt to get a PhD just so I could teach at even a junior college. I probably would have been doing what I loved, but would have had a rough road to get there.  But to quote Eric Church, “Thank God I ain’t what I almost was.”

Instead, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to become competent in areas besides business and economics.  While I am not an expert on treating mental health problems and issues in others, I have over the years become quite knowledgeable on how to survive with mental health problems and issues.  In the process, I was able to work a part time job for over four years.  I have, thanks to being on Social Security and having the earnings limitations that come with being on Social Security, become knowledgeable on how to survive on what most people in the Western world would consider below poverty level existence.  I have learned how to ‘stretch a dollar’ far further than one could learn in any business school.  Thanks to following my natural love of telling stories, explaining things to people, and reading, I am also a self taught writer.  I have been writing seriously for only ten years as it wasn’t something I acted on until I was almost out of undergraduate college.  Because of my mental health issues, my natural empathy for other people, and my natural desire to share what I learned, I eventually came to write about my experiences with mental health problems and issues.  Many of these writings have found their way onto this blog, The Writing of Life.  I may not have a string of letters behind my last name that ‘qualifies’ me as a trusted expert, at least not in the traditional academic sense.  But with my experiences with my own mental health problems combined with my writing skills and the power of the internet in the Information Age, I can fulfill my natural talents and perhaps help some people in the process.

I have no idea where my life’s journey will go from here.  But this blog will be part of it regardless.  In only seven months of having a definite focus in my blog, I have had over 1,500 visits already.  Though there are bloggers that get that even on a bad day, this is already more than I would have expected when I started. And that’s with sometimes infrequent posts.  Being somewhat risk adverse by nature, I never would have started the process of becoming a mental health advice blogger had I never been forced to change directions.  Yet “Thank God I ain’t what I almost was.”

Goals, Past Regrets, Looking Back on 2013 and Looking Ahead to 2014

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2013 has come and gone.  We have recently celebrated the beginning of a new year.  With new years come, for many people, resolutions.  I personally have never been big on setting new year resolutions as most people I know never follow through.  Yet I feel different about this year, the year 2014.

The reason I feel different about setting goals, rather than calling them resolutions, is that I have been essentially drifting with whatever way the winds of my mental illness toss me ever since I left a good job over a year and a half ago.  The job I had, while hardly high paying or even full time, gave me a sense of purpose and a reason for leaving the apartment every day.  Leaving that job was one of the dumbest decisions I ever made.  I may have not made much money from it, the job may have been simple and low prestige, but it gave me a reason for getting out and mingling with people.  In fact I was doing more creative writing while I was working than when I left.  Having all the time in the world free often leads to not doing anything with that time, or having a lack of direction or purpose.  

I trace many of my problems with depression in 2013 directly to not having much direction in my life.  While there are many people out there, mentally ill or not, who don’t need a job or volunteer work to have direction in their lives I’m not one of them.  I know now I need something outside of myself to allow for some sort of structure in my day to day life.  Otherwise I’ll just rot from the inside out, physically and mentally.

My first goal for 2014 is to find a part time job.  I would prefer something where I could work in a small group or even alone without much interaction with the public.  I never did very well at customer service jobs, fast food jobs, etc.  After a dozen plus years of working with a mental illness I have figured out what kind of work I’m not good at.  I would like to find a job by the end of February, but with my checkered work history this may be pressing it.

My second goal for 2014 is get to the gym more often.  Sure I go once or twice a week as it is now, but I want to go more often.  I always feel good after going.  I don’t know why I don’t go more often.

Finally, I want to write more in 2014 than I did in 2013.  I didn’t get much finished last year.  I want to change that this year.  I am going to change that.  The only way to make any goals stick is to go after it whole heartedly and without regret.

Struggles at Work with a Mental Illness

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            When I first came out of college and entered into the world of work, I was all gung-ho and thought I could do it all.  I didn’t think that even schizophrenia was going to slow me down, let alone be a major hurdle to holding full-time employment.  I was wrong.

            I quickly found out that I couldn’t do all that I thought I could do.  I couldn’t work the forty-hour weeks that full time demands.  I couldn’t concentrate for long periods of time, at least not for the first few years out of college.  I would freeze up and have panic attacks around large crowds of people, especially people I didn’t really know.  So reality came crashing back down on me.

            I drifted from one job to another for the first two or three years I was out of college before I decided that I needed to take some time off and do some serious soul searching.  I needed to reevaluate my job strategy and why I wasn’t able to hold my jobs for longer than a few months at a time.  I needed to figure out why I was alienating myself from my coworkers and my supervisors.  Then one day in the fall of 2007 it finally dawned in me; I was not being honest about my illness to my employers.

            Let me state that again, I was not being honest about my illness to my employers.  Thanks to such laws as the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and such third party go betweens as Goodwill and Vocational Rehab, workers with disabilities have a much easier time in the work place than they did in the past.  But I was not taking advantage of these programs.  These programs will not do you any good either if you refuse to acknowledge your need for help.  These programs are there for you to use; use them.

            I found out the very hard way the best thing an employee could ever be is not intelligent, skilled at their job, or even have good people skills.  No, by far more important is honesty and integrity.  And I was not doing myself any service by telling my supervisors I could do jobs without accommodations that, according to the ADA I was within my rights to request if it was made known I had a disability, in all reality I could not.  I was not helping myself. 

            In short, because of my pride and being in denial as to how bad my mental illness really was, I was lying to my supervisors as to my work ability.  I was also lying to my coworkers.  I was lying to myself.  All because I refused to acknowledge that I needed help.  I was too proud to ask for it. 

            It took me three years of failed jobs and a lot of heartache to figure out that the best thing a person with mental illness that wants to work can do is be completely honest about their illness.  Tell the truth.  If you cannot perform a duty, let it be known right up front.  According to the ADA, an employer has to make “reasonable” accommodations for a job to allow someone with a disability to perform that job.  Employers cannot refuse to hire someone simply because of a mental illness; that is hiring discrimination and that’s illegal. 

            In my paranoid state, before I stabled out and had some good work experience, I was afraid my mental illness would be held against me in a work place.  Paranoia that comes with schizophrenia can be tricky like that sometimes.  Fortunately I had a third party in Goodwill as a go between for me to help me find my last job.  This job I held over four years.  As a result I have seen that my previous paranoia about my illness being held against me was just paranoia; it never materialized into anything real.

            If anything I have found my employers willing to work with me and help me out during the rough times that I have had.  I still have flare ups occasionally where I have to miss work for a day every now and then.  But my supervisors are more than willing to work with me because I have been honest and up front with them about my illness.  It also helps that I’m a good worker who shows up on time and doesn’t leave until it’s quitting time and makes an effort to be friendly with my coworkers even on my bad days.

            In closing, my struggles at work were largely due to my not being honest with my supervisors as to the extent of my illness.  Once I broke that trust, it was only a matter of time before I was looking for another job.  If you are mentally ill and looking for work, be totally honest with your supervisors.  It will pay off in the long run.  And they will often be accommodating.