Week 5
More wisdom from the Oliver Burkeman book. I have been struggling with how to plan my days. How much time is enough for job hunting each day? How much can be spent on other things without feeling like I’m not spending enough time securing my next job? Last week, I was wondering if I should even be doing anything other than looking, even as unfeasible as that is. It’s a sure way to burn out and lose hope.
Burkeman’s book recommends focusing on whatever your task is—a book, a job hunt, a particular project—about three focused hours per day. I will try to do that for job hunting and that for three hours for other projects, from this to other writing to building out my design portfolio more. Unlikely I’ll get to plan my time like this on a job, but maybe it’ll be a reminder to task shift or take a quick break before settling back in.
I’m finding some usefulness in this book, but I do also see the privilege leaking from it at times, too. Sometimes Burkeman seems too attached to his own perspective, but if that perspective is close enough to yours, or to the perspective you aspire to, it is often effective.
Still trying to track down my unemployment benefits. I know my former employer needs to be interviewed for them, and I doubt I meant enough to make this purposely harder, but money’s money and I need money. Again, don’t give me any of that shit about taking advantage of The System or whatever. It all moves at an infuriatingly slow speed, slow enough, I’m sure, for people to run out of money and options. But missiles and jingoism aren’t cheap. I understand. We need to bring about armageddon. Well, Bad Religion said, “Fuck armageddon, this is hell.”
My kids are here this week, and I decided it was better to tell them than keep it from them. I kept it positive, because I didn’t want them to worry about it, but they are old enough to know what’s going on. They took it well. Deciding what to tell them and how much is going to be complicated until they are adults, and maybe even longer than that.
Recently, I read a LinkedIn post from someone I used to work with dealing how he finally likes lobster bisque because it was served to him on a business trip to Amsterdam. Bear in mind that this company just let go tons of long-time employees recently; they actually more or less closed the office near me.
What might one do when encountering a soup they don’t usually like in a champagne flute? It’s a real dilemma. We have all been there.
What should he do? Drink it? Sip it? The possibilities were not exactly limitless.
The suspense built was just agonizing. I broke out in a sweat, thinking, “Jeez, if I was in a fancy restaurant on a business trip in Europe, what would I do?!?!” So relatable.
You’re also likely on the edge of your seat, so I won’t make you wait—he sipped it…and liked it!
The profound post-bisque insight from this thought(less) leader:
That simple shift of serving his lobster bisque in a champagne flute changed his experience! Wow! He needs to try new things all the time. Congratulations, grown-ass man, for learning something most of us pick up on a few decades earlier.
I bet some of the people he used to lead who are now out of work are thrilled to read his tales of living the high life and sharing common knowledge as insight. I can scarcely think of anything that’s more gauche.
He posted this on LinkedIn, so he too likely skimmed past a plethora of posts about people losing jobs, telling despairing stories of being out of money, occasionally sharing that they finally found another job. With a belly full of bisque, it’s hard to see the suffering out there, I guess.