Free Career and Job Search Advice

yanna · Expert Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 102 Career Advice: +0/-0

This forum is quite interesting, I sure hope I'll find some nice people around. My name is Yanna and I'm 25. I'm just curious about how young job seekers or students manage failure in life.
With me, it really depends. When it comes to failure regarding my college results, I usually get on my feet right away, grow in ambition and manage to get to the result I'm looking for. But when it comes to work (I'm working for 5 months now, my first job...not quite satisfactory) I seem to get so frustrated and all, even if I wouldn't describe failure as professional mistakes.
What about you guys....how do you manage this issue?

lilo · Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject:

cute question....

Ok, I tend to divide my failures into three categories, like this:
- college failures, which I handle quite well, with optimism, because most of the times I can repair what's to be repaired....However, not too many of this type

- job related failures - I have never had a, let's say, 100% failure related to work, because I know and feel when I'm starting to get tired and manage to correct possible mistakes. Besides, I work with a newspaper and we have have the "Erata" collumn Smile

) so I'm into recognizing and correcting my mistakes, failures...

- personal life/sentimental failures - which, irronically, seem to be the most difficult to handle...But this is the subject of another topic and another forum Razz

I"m joking...

I consider myself a happy case, meaning that I'm trying to keep these three plans as separated as possible, that is not letting the failures in one of them interfere and mess the others. A thing everybody should consider doing, right?

julian · Expert Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 255 Career Advice: +2/-0

Failure? What's failure?

I'm only joking, but the truth is that in my job it's really difficult to keep on managing failure...In fact, there are two types of failures...professional mistakes (which I have not experiences, Thank God) and natural failures, meaning failure caused by external factors. I'm a doctor. I consider the death of a patient a failure, but not a personal one. AT least this is what we have been taught, to get as detached as possible, because the truth is we cannot blame us for the loss of an individual who is doomed to perdition. A sad truth, but...

How I handle this type of failure? Well I feel sorry for not being able to help him/her more, but I realize I did everything we could possibly do to make it right and it's not our fault. Us doctors withdraw into passions like photography or painting or music and we try to forget and to improve, to remain focused all the time on doing our job.

Randy · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:19 am Post subject: Re: How do YOU manage failure?

But when it comes to work (I'm working for 5 months now, my first job...not quite satisfactory) I seem to get so frustrated and all....

Well, let's see: There's college with it's rather "structured" environment, specific classes, studies, and assignments. The "authority figures" (teachers) let you know in no uncertain terms what's expected of you.

Then there's working. Company politics, gossip, lousy pay, constantly changing and conflicting demands and priorities, all brought to by one boss who's trying to please another and on and on, all of whom, of course, insist it's all part of "customer service" or some such. Then there are the sycophants who stroll merrily through the day, doing what they do best, and those who still believe the quantity and quality of one's work should speak for itself and, of course, it doesn't.

And let's not forget the people whose years and years of loyalty, hard-work, and experience mean nothing when there's an opening in managment simply because, as we all know, managers need a college degree. So you'll have to contend with a great deal of jealousy, bitterness, and resentment in the work-place.

And those plans you had for Saturday? Forget it because Friday afternoon, just before you walk out the door, you'll be told you HAVE to work Saturday.

And on and on.

I.E., it's cool as hell that just FIVE MONTHS of working at your FIRST job already has you asking how to deal with the "frustrations"! At least you're going through life with eyes and ears wide open, right?

How to deal with it very simple. It involves a choice, and then a commitment to that choice.

Your employer or your life. What's it gonna be?

If you work for yourself first, meaning you put your personal life ahead of the needs and demands of your employer, all those other "problems" will vanish. They really will. Put conversely: To the degree that the demands and needs of your employer do not seriously interfere with your very "life," then you have a good business relationship.

Focus on your employer first, however, dedicate yourself to his needs and demands, and this is just the beginning of your frustrations.

Sound cynical and bitter? Think of it this way: You're asking this question with only five-months experience with one employer, right? In 41 years I've had 50 employers.

And I'm telling you: To the degree that you place your employer ahead of your own life, now and for the rest of your life, you WILL see nothing but the "dark side" of working.

This is very much like the doctor's post regarding "detachment." Do the work, go home, period, end of story. You do too much "thinking outside the box" at an employer's and he'll be the first one to tell you "I don't pay you to think." Fine. And employers wonder why employees recite the mantra of "That's not my job"? Workplace attitudes always, always, always start and the top and come down.

Another hint? You will always demand and expect more of yourself than any employer will ever ask. Contrary to what they say, they do not want your "best," that "one-hundred and ten per-cent." They want you to compromise, capitulate, and conform. After that, mediocrity rules.

Adhere to a "work ethic" and you're doomed simply because these days there are no "ethics" in business.

lexa10881 · Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:30 pm Post subject:

It sounds like you have a more positive outlook on life than most people. I am a bit of a pessimist, so I don't recover from life events as easily as others.

These short articles offer tips on dealing with stress:

http://www.cvtips.com/tackling_stress.html
http://www.cvtips.com/avoiding_stress.html

It sounds like you are not in need of much assistance, though...you have a positive attitude.

cv

Here are a few good tips on how to manage the pressures of looking for a job.

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