The Benefits of Maturity
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Work, Writing
I’m an Older Woman. My 50th birthday is fast approaching. No matter what I do with my résumé, it is pretty obvious that I’m not a millennial. That is who is truly desired, it seems, by the tech startups that I prefer to work with.
Oh, the job postings don’t come out and say that they don’t want old people, but the keywords are there?. “Fast-paced,” “high energy,” and “dynamic!”? They all whisper, at least, that “we only want young people!”
This isn’t just my impression, but the consensus among various people I’ve spoken with. It probably isn’t intentional, but the bias is there and the ageism is felt. So I want to address some things that seem to be missed by the “we want young people!” folks.
First, there are plenty of mature workers who can keep up with that “fast pace” you describe. We know ourselves, our bodies and our other commitments. We have the experience it takes to judge whether or not we can commit to startup life. I’ll be honest: I don’t think many young people can match that level of self-knowledge. I know that when I first worked for a startup, back in 1995, I didn’t have any idea how much dedication it would require.
Second, older workers bring a lifetime of experience in many different areas, and that experience is brought to bear in our working lives in ways that younger workers simply cannot match. For instance, I don’t have the administrative work I did decades ago on my résumé, as it isn’t directly relevant now. However, that experience shaped me and gives me the ability to better relate to non-technical people as a support professional.Younger people don’t have that kind of added value.
The average older worker has been out of school and their parents’ homes for a long time, meaning that they have experience managing their own finances and households independently (or with life partners). That gives us a certain respect for the value of money and time that nothing else does. How much of that experience does someone right out of school have?
Most older workers are also post-parenting. Their kids are grown and reasonably independent (whether out of the house or not), so they aren’t going to be juggling pregnancies, soccer practices, and music lessons that will impact their work lives. Grandchildren? Yes, some of us have them. Being a grandparent is, however, a far less time-consuming commitment for most people than being a parent.
Finally, there’s nothing else that beats maturity for giving you a calm temperament. Some people are born with them, but on average, it’s easier for someone with 30 years of professional experience to put one bad day into perspective than it is for someone with a few months or years of working under their belts. (I know there are exceptions to this, as to every rule, but Donald Trump probably isn’t applying to work at your startup.)
The next time you get a résumé or application from a Baby Boomer or Gen X’er, then, please take these factors into account. Consider their technical skills, certainly? (and don’t assume that they’ll be outdated) ?but weigh their maturity on the positive side of the scale, for a change.
(Originally published at Medium)
Morning Pages Tool
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Writing
I’ve recently gotten back into the discipline of doing morning pages, something that’s a vital part of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. It’s a great way to clear your mental caches each morning and prepare to write something more meaningful. Traditionally, one writes three pages longhand.
Unfortunately, I have trouble with that. The arthritis in my hands causes terrible cramping, and I can’t read what I’ve written by the time I’m a sentence or two on. I get preoccupied by how terrible my handwriting is and so distracted that the whole point of the exercise is lost.
If I try to use a word processor, I end up writing too much. Blogging is no good, because I write too much and I worry about forgetting to mark the entries private.
750 Words is a wonderful alternative. It provides nothing but a blank screen and a notice when you hit 750 words (three pages at 250 words each equals 750 words). It’s a free service! And it will send you reminder messages.
I’m tickled pink!
Tags: Julia Cameron, morning pages, The Artist's Way
If I Could Be a Magazine Editor
Posted by Cyn | Filed under NaBloPoMo, Writing
Plinky asked, “If you could be an editor for any magazine, which would you choose?”
Oh, that’s a difficult question. There are magazines like Wired, that have enormous distribution within a certain demographic and cover fascinating subjects. Then there are lifestyle magazines that have the potential to be very influential among women, such as Real Simple (the only one I personally ever read). I’m afraid I’d be bored pretty quickly with their constraints, though. More seriously, there are magazines like Scientific American (and Scientific American Mind) or Skeptic. That would be challenging. Do you think National Geographic editors get to travel much? I haven’t even touched the online mags, like Salon, yet. They count, right? Then there are all the little niche publications, like the magazines for various sorts of collectors, or needleworkers, or crossword enthusiasts and so on. Is there a magazine about magazines, other than Writer’s Digest?
I keep coming back to the breadth of material Wired covers. Technology, books, music, sex — that sounds pretty good to me. If I got to play with the latest tech toys, it would be even better!
Tags: magazines, National Geographic, Plinky, Real Simple, Salon, Scientific American, Skeptic, Wired, Writer's Digest
Whether…
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Blogging, NaBloPoMo, Relationships, Writing
Such a word that is, indicative of choices big and small. I’ve faced more change than choice in the past 30 days or so, thanks to a major relationship change.1 But there have been choices, and there will be yet more choices in the future—choices that I will be making alone, for the first time in many years.
Choice, reflected in that word, is the NaBloPoMo theme for March. And I’m making a change, by making a choice to return to blogging.
I’ve been journaling privately these past weeks as a spiritual practice and have found it rewarding. I’m not quite doing writer’s pages à la Julia Cameron, but perhaps I’ll return to that discipline at some point. To be honest, my spiritual life has suffered greatly in the past six years, and my writing has suffered along with it (as well as my music, needlework, and everything else).
So, perhaps I’ll write about choices this month. Or about changes. Or about anything else that strikes my fancy. I’m just making a commitment to posting a bit each day, for now.
1 One not yet reflected everywhere on my web sites, because it takes a lot of time to track down all mentions of a 14-year partnership
Tags: Changes, Choices, Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
Writing Bug
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading, Writing
I’m more and more tempted to write some fiction again. It’s been years since I did that. I’m good with characters and environment, but not so good with plot. I don’t like to write about negative things, or nasty people, which is rather problematic when you need to have conflict.
I know part of it is reading books and thinking, “Damn, I could do better than that.” But to be realistic, anybody who has finished a book is doing better than I actually have done.
One thing that’s really getting to me is the number of anti-fat statements that get thrown in to so many stories. They have nothing to do with the story–they just happen because of the authors’ prejudice. Describing a minor character as fat is a cheap shortcut, because most readers will assume the person is lazy, sloppy, and not terribly intelligent (or a hyperfocused geek with no social skills if he is smart).
I know that starting out with a “message” is a crappy way to write fiction, though. Messages are better expressed in essays, not stories.
Still, I have this itch. Bah.
Tags: creativity, Size Acceptance, Writing
School Happy
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Geekery, Writing
I finally got the grades from the first technical writing assignment I turned in last week, and the peer reviews I did on two of my classmates’ rough drafts. I got full points for all of them!
I was worried about one of the peer reviews, because the person chose to do a set of instructions for starting to cross-stitch. I know too much about that topic to evaluate it well from a beginner’s point of view, and that was the intended audience. I actually approached the professor with some questions, and wondered if I should swap reviews with someone new to stitching. Happily, the professor said I provided a balanced review that reflected my experiences as a former beginner and currently experienced stitcher, and that I was respectful throughout. I was trying very, very hard to avoid any hint of condescension, and it appears that it worked!
My topic was “Creating Your First Podcast,” and that received full points, too. It had to be done with a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level less than 8th grade, which was not easy. I got it down to 7th grade, and couldn’t go any lower. The professor said that was due to the technical terms I had to use, and was perfectly acceptable.
Tags: grades, podcasting, school, Stitching, technical writing
Weekend and School Update
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Writing
The girl and Sam both had busy weekends. Katie went out Friday and Saturday, playing D&D with friends first, then going to a party with her sweetie during my and Sam’s date Saturday night. Sam had a computer to deliver Saturday morning, then ran around picking up some things. He went out again yesterday, to the library for me and to the grocery store and the farmer’s market and I’m not even sure where else. Then he did an intervew for his podcast last night.
This is the last week of my classes for the semester, so I did a paper for one class and created my slides for a group project presentation in the other, then had a couple of quizzes. Monday night we do our presentation online, and see the other groups’ presentations. That class doesn’t have a final, but I do have to take the final for the management class, then I’m done.
Next week I start a class everybody is apparently supposed to take around the beginning of their studies, since one of the assignments involves creating a “plan of study.” DeVry seems to have a lot of these “because we said so” classes, which is annoying. I’m also taking my first technical writing course at DeVry, though. It will involve more group projects, a bane of my existence.
It’s one thing to work together in a business setting, where people’s jobs depend on their performance. It’s quite another to be yoked with people who just can’t be arsed to pull their weight and apparently think Bs are high grades. I’m absolutely appalled by the number of people in the 400-level classes I had this semester who cannot create a coherent paragraph, much less write a paper.
I had the required “write a research paper” class over 20 years ago, at another school. Either the standards have fallen horribly, or Mercer had higher standards than I realized. (I won’t even bother comparing Agnes Scott’s standards to DeVry. It’s too painful.) Of course, if either of those schools had remedial courses of any sort, I was unaware of them. Those “teach you what you should have learned in middle school” classes are a fact of life in all the University system schools and DeVry. I know that there were some when I took classes at Georgia Perimeter so many years ago, but they seem to be more and more important now. I honestly don’t think they belong in any institution of “higher learning.” If you can’t read, write, and do basic math before you get to college, you have no business being there, because you do not have the essential tools required for success. I suppose that makes me an elitist.
It’s going to be odd going back to 100 and 200 level courses next week. By the time most students do get to the 400-level courses, the true dregs have dropped out or risen out of that status. Threaded discussions are such a huge part of online classes that you get far more exposure to your classmates writing than in a face-to-face class, and you quickly find out who can’t or won’t write and who has no clue about how to discuss issues without degenerating into total nonsense. That part of this semester hasn’t been as bad as others, at least. I did still run into nutcases insisting that this country was founded as a “Christian nation,” but that’s pretty much to be expected anymore.
Tags: Agnes Scott College, DeVry University, Georgia Perimeter College, group projects, Mercer University, online classes
Review: Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading, Writing
I haven’t actually finished Mary Pipher’s Writing to Change the World yet, so it’s probably weird for me to be doing a review. It’s a really meaty little book, though, and I haven’t finished it because I keep going back to re-read sections or copy some of the quotes scattered through the text.
The focus of the book is on persuasive writing. I like the fact that Pipher acknowledges the power of stories and fiction to inspire change.
I’ve got to return it to the library (it’s way late, because I didn’t want to let go of it), but I’m definitely going to find a copy of my own soon. As I really don’t buy that many books, preferring to read them from the library, buying a copy after I read the library’s copy is pretty high praise.
I’ve admired Pipher for years, since reading Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other, but something I learned today raises her even higher in my esteem. Last year, she returned an award she received from the American Psychological Association to protest the APA’s continuing support of torture by the U.S. government. The article includes her letter to the APA, and I encourage you to read it.
Tags: activism, advocacy, APA, inspiration, Mary Pipher, psychology, torture
Boo Sickness! Recipe, Word Geeking, Reviews
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading, Writing
This not-flu or whatever is exceedingly tiresome. I should think it would be enough to live with the day to day stuff, let alone put up with this. Then again, nobody has ever claimed in my hearing that the world is fair.
I haven’t succeeded in holding any thoughts in my head long, so you’re in for randomness again this entry.
I have no idea why the main article was linked from ZDNet, but doesn’t this cheddar and apple sandwich seem yummy? I wonder how it would be with ham? I used to have a really good recipe for a sausage and apples dish, but I know I haven’t cooked it in the last decade. Maybe I could dig it out of my ancient recipe box? There are few ways to go wrong with cooked apples, as far as I can tell.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Arkham, Boston, Elizabeth Bear, errors, food, Georgia, Google, Katie, Kyle Murchison Booth, logophilia, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, Massachusetts, New England, Pentecost, Reading, Rome, Sam, Samuel Mather Parrington Museum, Sarah Monette, sickness, usage
What do you want to read or hear?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Blogging, Needlework, RPGs, Writing
I recorded some more pieces, but need to wait for Sam to “produce” them (clean them up and add appropriate music). One of them isn’t something I would have chosen myself, but Todd, who created Live Readings, asked to hear others read it. It turned out better than I thought it would. And it was fun to do something that I wouldn’t have chosen.
So it’s request time! What would you like me to record, or write about?
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Tags: food, Gaming, readings, requests, Sam, sick, Todd, Writing