Last night, while I was having dinner with my family, I
was struck by a revelation. This particular piece of information that just came
to me right out of the blue made me at first feel excited that I was FINALLY
AWARE of this Very Important Piece of information that solves a mystery I have
been struggling with, then I internally groaned when I realized just how much
damage NOT knowing this information has done for my attempts to get a job.
See, I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with this
huge GAP on my resumẻ. Ever since I lost my last gig (ghostwriting), I have
been trying to get a new gig. Or a new job – either from home or outside of
home (despite my limited availability outside of home). But I have had no luck
and it’s been very frustrating. I have recently had a job interview, and while
the interview went well, something tugged at me. I was never asked about the
gap in employment. I DID mention that I write books and articles, but I was
never asked why I haven’t been doing anything in between the jobs I HAVE had.
Well, it’s not like I haven’t been doing anything. I have
written books, written articles and short stories, and collaborated with
another writer on a major book project. I have gotten caught up on things I
missed out on when I was so OBSESSED with the writing. And I have worked on
dealing with my drinking problem (still sober so far! Woot!) and getting
healthy again.
But prospective employers don’t care about any of that.
All they see is the GAP. That emptiness where nothing really job-related or
work-related happened.
My last gig ended in 2015. And what do I have to show for
it since then? Nothing. Nada. Zip.
And last night I realized, WHOA. I should have been spending ALL of that time since then
VOLUNTEERING!!!!
Because, you know, volunteering DOES count on a resumẻ.
And it would look good. And, hey! Volunteering somewhere just MIGHT have gotten
me a new job! Recently, one of my high school friends shared on Facebook about
how he volunteered at this place that eventually hired him. After two years of
volunteering there, he was HIRED! He landed a JOB through volunteering!
It’s been a little over two years since my gig ended. I
could be employed by now! But I didn’t realize that volunteering was something
I should have been doing All This Time. It never occurred to me until now.
Sure, I WANTED to volunteer, because I think it’s important to give back, but I
always thought one thing: JOB. FIRST. Our situation is pretty bad right now so
of course I put more of a priority on trying to earn money with books or
getting a job that PAYS. But I write books that don’t sell. And I haven’t YET
gotten a job that pays! (Nice plan, right???)
So, yeah, I was pretty disheartened that I didn’t realize
this sooner. Once again, I made writing a priority, and I shouldn’t have. Once
again, I chose the WRONG thing to rely on to solve our problems.
I just wish that someone had told me this sooner. That
maybe, you know, someone would have suggested I volunteer because it would look
good on the resumẻ. I know one of my sisters suggested it, but I said “Oh, no!
I need a JOB!” and that’s where the conversation ended. (I am not mad at her
for not telling me it would look GOOD on my resume to volunteer. Really. I don’t
think it occurred to her to mention that. But, nevertheless, she planted that
seed in my head.)
And this made me remember about how this is so often the
case with people. They don’t TELL me things. There have been SO many times that
I said or did something wrong, and after I was given a dirty look and that
person stormed off (and out of my life), I never knew what my mistake was. I
never realized what I had said or did wrong. I was pretty much left in the
dark. They just ASSUMED that I knew, that I intentionally did this Very Bad
Thing, and that I am a Horrible Evil Person who does or says these horrible,
evil things so they don’t want anything to do with me anymore. Or first they
stomp on me THEN they don’t want anything to do with me anymore.
I know what it’s like for people to talk shit about you
behind your back. And that’s one of the reasons why I am not so trusting of
people I don’t know. (Then again, people I knew did have done this too.)
This made me recall one particular unfortunate experience
in which I became ostracized from a message board. I used to be a part of the
community of writers at the Absolute Write. For years, I participated in chats
and posted on message boards. I considered some people there to be dear
friends. Eventually, I became a mod for one of the boards, and I even got to
have my own board too (it was based on one of my books). But, later, that board
was deleted due to inactivity. Still, I felt there was still a need for that
particular topic, so I decided to create my own board elsewhere featuring that
topic. There wasn’t much activity on THAT board so, yeah, I saw personally that
there REALLY wasn’t much of a need for that topic on the Internet. (I am
horrible at predicting trends. Sigh!) So I deleted that one because it was just
a waste of time. Then eventually, I lost my modship of a board on the AW site.
And soon after that, some of the mods I used to communicate with started
treating me unkindly. Some of them were nasty to me. I even received a particularly
unflattering email from one of them that dripped with snarkiness. For this
reason, I left that site because I no longer felt welcome there. I eventually
unfriended two of those people on Facebook because I no longer felt comfortable
allowing them to see ALL of these private details about my life because I didn’t
trust them anymore. And after all that went down, to this day, I don’t know why
they all of a sudden hated me. I don’t know what I did wrong. NOBODY TOLD ME
ANYTHING!
And that’s just it. Sometimes, people don’t tell me if I
screw up. I guess they just assume I meant to do something bad? Or that I am a
Horrible Evil Person? I don’t know. I may NEVER know! People like to assume
things and people like to believe their own lies! Hell, some of them LIKE
playing the victim, this person that Evil Dawn hurt, and soak up all the
sentiment from everybody else.
I hate to break it to the world at large, but I wasn’t
exactly raised with decent morals. I’m sorry, but it’s true. There was a lot of
lying, cheating, manipulation, betrayal, stealing and, well, violence in my
family. I didn’t exactly have a charmed, loving life before entering adulthood.
And all of us kids had to learn EVERYTHING about being decent people the hard
way. We had to make mistakes. We had to screw up. Some of us NEVER tried to be
better people after leaving home, but some of us WANTED to be decent and
upstanding citizens. And we tried. We fell down so many times but we got back
up and tried again!
And I just don’t know ALL of the rules about the right
way to communicate with people or interact with others in society. I look at
what other people do and copy THAT because it seems to be the right thing to
do. Or I just saw things differently – even the things that were WRONG! (I had
to learn later that wrong is still wrong, no matter HOW I saw it!) So, I had to
learn the right things the hard way. I am still learning, apparently. I just
wish people would TELL me when I screw up. They don’t, and that just holds
everything back.
It would be NICE if people tell me when I screw up. And,
I have had the good fortune of having such people in my life. Thankfully, there
ARE people who actually took the initiative to tell me if I did something wrong
or I said something wrong. One person even read me the Riot Act and, after I
apologized profusely, we eventually made up. We are still friends to this day!
This also happened with another friend. Even if it takes blowing up at me over
a mistake or being rude in an email, I STILL appreciate it that I am being told
that I screwed up and WHAT that mistake was. (You guys know who I am talking
about. I love you guys!) I am very, very grateful to them for telling me what
went wrong AND for forgiving me AND still being friends with me. And, even
better, that they don’t hold that mistake against me for the rest of my natural
life. I realized I screwed up, apologized, made amends, and didn’t do that Bad
Thing again. They know this. They understand this. And I value them all the
more because of it. They are in my circle.
I especially value them because I know how very
frustrating it is NOT to be told what I did wrong. Some people just cut me off
or they hated on me first THEN cut me off because they didn’t want to discuss
this mistake or they assumed I INTENTIONALLY meant to hurt them or do them
wrong and decided to just hate me forever.
I am also grateful that I was told about what I did wrong
or what I was not doing right or why what I had said was bad. You know, it’s
good to know these things. Knowing these things helps me to REALIZE that, Oh, that was not cool. That was a Bad Thing.
Don’t do that again! That’s how we learn and that’s how we grow. There is
no manual or instruction book for this journey called Life. We’re pretty much
thrown into the woods and expected to figure shit out on our own! Nobody is
perfect! And we ALL make mistakes – even the people who decide they don’t want
anything to do with someone who makes mistakes. So it’s a good idea to TELL
people they have screwed up, why they screwed up, what they did, and how they
can fix things! Let. People. Know. Just SAY something! Instead of assuming
shit.
Or maybe they feel better about assuming shit. I don’t
know. I guess they need more drama or excitement in their lives.
Meanwhile, I am pretty much left on my own to figure
things out, when they DON’T say anything. And it may take me a Very Long Time
to figure shit out. It may take me years before I get that “bolt of knowledge”
and realize, Ohh. That is what I did
wrong. Or I may never know. And it’ll just be this unresolved issue in my
past that survives into the future and the other person or people affected will
forever remember me with that mark on my name. They’ll be the ones who will be
stewing over the mistake and being angry about it, though. Not me, because I
won’t even know what it was.
