Career Coach at a Bar — Part III — VFW

The bar was in the basement of the VFW building, lit by florescent lights.  Apparently, smoking was not only allowed but encouraged. Most people looked to be in their late forties to early sixties.  I had expected mostly men and was surprised to see that it was about 50/50.  As it turned out, most people there were friends and family of veterans.

The bar was U-shaped and there were about twenty seats around it.  To my dismay, all of them were taken.  I guess I would have to be the sole person standing around then…  In the instant I was hesitating about where to station myself, a guy at the bar said hi and introduced himself.  Just as we started chit chatting, his female companion returned from the bathroom.  She gave me one unfriendly look and started hugging and kissing him.  Maybe she thought I was hitting on her husband/boyfriend. I wish I could have told her what I was really there for.  In that awkward moment, two people at the other side of the bar got up to leave and one of them motioned me to sit down.  Phew!  At least I had a seat now.

After I ordered a Bud, I started talking to Bill, an older guy who was a Vietnam vet.

“Are you Vietnamese?”  That’s the first thing he wanted to know.  After I re-assured him that I’m Chinese, we started chatting.  I quietly wondered what he would have said if I was Vietnamese…  Anyway, he had enlisted when he was eighteen and spent the majority of his time there in the jungle.  At some point, he stressed that he killed no babies and had never seen that happen during his time there.

There was no fan fare in 1969 when he survived the jungle and finally came home.  He did remember though that on his flight home, the pilot had let him hang out in the cockpit.  And later when he landed, the waitress at the local restaurant gave him a free apple pie.  He recalled each of these episodes with vivid details.  The fact that those small acts of kindness had left such strong impressions spoke to how devoid of kindness his experience must have been.  Even the WWII veterans didn’t initially welcome him with open arms.  I asked about his transition back into civilian life.  He told me it wasn’t smooth but he made the best of it.  He had bounced around between several jobs but eventually took the civil service exam and became a policeman.  He was in the force for 32 years and just retired recently.  Bill is a practical man who took things in stride.

After that, he introduced me to his son James, who was sitting near by.  James looked to be in his late twenties/early thirties, fit, lean and clean cut.  He was in the marine corps.  Not only that, he was MOS 0317, a scout sniper.  My breath stopped for a second when he said that.

Over a beer, James confided that he wished he had thought more about the connection between military jobs and civilian careers when he enlisted, because unless you count hitman, there aren’t exactly a lot of jobs out there that call for scout sniper skills.  Apparently, there are hundreds of different jobs in the military that one could choose from.  They are detailed in the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) list.  In contrast to what most civilians think of military careers — army soldiers or fighter pilots, the reality is that the military covers every type of job under the sun.  When you think about it, that’s really no surprise since it is an extremely complex operation with over two million people.  When you go to a military recruitment office, the recruiter asks you what types of jobs you are interested in and tries to match you up with the military equivalent.  You like to draw?  No problem, how about 25M Multi-Media Illustrator?  You enjoy reading Psychology Today?  How about 37F Psychological Operations Specialist?

Of course, an interest alone is not enough.  You will also have to demonstrate aptitude.  That’s where the ASVAB comes in, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, designed to measure aptitude in a variety of areas, from general science to mechanical comprehension.  Talk about career testing, the U.S. Military practically invented the field.  During WWII, there was a massive mobilization effort and the military needed an efficient way to sort everyone into jobs.  A team of the brightest psychologists of their day was assembled to create these personnel assessment tests.

Back to James, I asked “What about taking a job in the swat team or the regular police force like your father?”

He shook his head.  “I’m not going to lie.  I’m all kinds of fucked up now.  Since I got out, I’ve been arrested 25 times and been cycling through jail, rehab, and the psych ward.  I was always a bit of a troublemaker but I was never in jail before I went to Iraq.  Now I’m addicted to drugs, mostly opiates, and I’m struggling to stay clean.”

The strains of the military service had pulled his first marriage apart.  Later, he met his current wife, who was also in the military.  Now they have a three-month-old daughter.  His desire to be there for his daughter is pulling him out of the mess he found himself in.  He has been clean for almost two months now.  He said he is lucky to have a supportive family with his wife and his Dad by his side.

I wished I could help in some way but the situation he faced was beyond the scope of my expertise.  I felt it would be disrespectful to offer half-assed advice.  So, I offered what I could — a sympathetic ear.

During the drive home, the song Dust in the Wind somehow got stuck in my head.  I imagined how some of the veterans must have felt coming back from war.  Walking on the street, looking at the people going about their daily business, blissfully unaware of what’s happening.  They must have felt distant and unable to relate.  To some extent, I think we have all felt that way at some point, when we just broke up with that someone special, or when someone close to us passed away.  In response to emotional injury, our instinct is to hide.  Whether it’s shutting people out of our lives, or burying ourselves in work.  That instinct might have served our ancestors well when they hid from predators after a physical injury.  For emotional pain though, it probably does us disservice.

We all live in our bubbles defined by our daily routine and social circles.  I’m fortunate enough to find myself in a loving and comfortable bubble.  Still, I want to venture out and expand it to include more lives and experiences.  Care Dares is a step in that direction.

In what ways do you crave expansion?

Links to related posts:

• Part 1: Career Coach at a Bar
• Part 2: Career Coach at a Bar — MIT
• Part 3: this post

Career Coach at a Bar — Part II — MIT

One key idea behind Care Dares is to attempt things that expand one’s comfort zone.  Since I’ve never been to a bar by myself before, there was definitely some expansion to be had.  First things first, what should I wear?  The dress code was very casual at both places.  Should I wear jeans and try to blend in?  Well, since I would be approaching people at a bar, something tells me that I would be better served if I dressed more attractively.  With that in mind, I put on a blue cashmere sweater dress with knee high boots — shooting for attractive and trust worthy.

With that, I headed to the Muddy Charles.  The bar was located in the Walker Memorial Building right on the Charles River.  On the way in, I was stopped by the bouncer/bartender.

“Can I see your MIT ID please?”

“Oh, I’m an alumni.”

“What did you study?”

“I was course 6.”

“Ok, go ahead.”

Inside, I saw that there was no bar area to speak of.  Everyone was sitting around small tables with their friends.  It was a casual and cozy atmosphere.  Now, I don’t know how guys do this when they approach women at bars.  That’s got to be ten times harder than what I’m doing right now because for one, women typically have their creepy-detector on high alert at a bar.  They don’t want to fall prey to weird guys with questionable intent.  Unless you are a super hot guy, you are basically presumed guilty until proven worthy.  I suddenly felt guilty at having held this attitude myself.  The “creepy” guy that me and my friends had politely ignored was probably just a nervous dude making an effort to meet someone new.

As the bartender poured my beer, I decided that I would have to make a quick decision and approach a table right away.  When you are by yourself, the last thing you want is be caught lurking around.  There was a table in the corner with three guys who looked like grad students.  I grabbed my beer and walked right over.

“Hey guys, can I join you?”

They looked up and made an expression of ok, sure and I was in.  Phew!  Before I even sat down, they started introducing themselves.

“I’m Kevin, I’m in Jen’s lab.” (All names changed for privacy reasons)

“I’m Scott, in Jen’s lab also.”

“I’m Louis, a friend of Jen’s.”

Umm… Who the heck is Jen?  Turned out it was Jen’s birthday and they were out celebrating.  Only then, I noticed that they were at the end of a long row of tables haphazardly pulled together.  Doh!  I was crashing a birthday party, again!  Though inadvertently this time.  I quickly told them I don’t know Jen.  Awkward!  I thought perhaps I should go to a different table, but they looked like they were curious and not unfriendly so I decided to roll with it.

“I’m studying to be a career coach and I’m interested in learning more about the big career questions that people struggle with.  I thought I might get some good data points here.”

Wait wait, you might ask, I thought you were going to career coach people at a bar and not just ask questions.  Well, here is my two cents on giving advice — you need to earn the right to do it.  Moreover, coaching is most often not about giving advice, but rather, 1) creating a supportive and stimulating environment so people can access their inner resources.  2) help direct the focus by asking the right questions.  For example, when an accountant asks the question whether she should go back to school to get a degree in computer science so she can be a programmer.  That’s a very vague question.  Perhaps after a series of questions and explorations, you find out that the crux lies in the fear of feeling stupid, sitting in a classroom with eighteen year olds who might absorb the material faster.  I believe that there is value in helping people get to that core question and that was the exercise I attempted at the Muddy.

Over the next hour, we talked about each person’s career questions.  For example, Kevin’s question was whether to stick with science or go for an MBA and pursue the management track.  Scott had a lot of ideas about what he doesn’t want to do but still had no idea of what he does want to do.

I will spare you the details but during that hour, I asked some questions that hopefully helped move those original questions forward.  After awhile, I felt my work was done for the time being.  I bid my three new companions goodnight and headed to the VFW, the one I’m more apprehensive about.

Links to related posts:

• Part 1: Career Coach at a Bar
• Part 2: this post
• Part 3: Career Coach at a Bar — VFW

Career Coach at a Bar — VFW & MIT — Part I

 

The March dare is to career coach people at a bar.  First of all, what was I thinking when I agreed to this?  It’s plain nonsensical.  People want to have fun when they are out on the town.  The last thing they want to do is engage in a serious career talk with a stranger of questionable intent.  Does she want to pick me up?  Is she trying to get business?

I think the original rationale was to do something I normally do but do it in a weird context.  I remember a friend had suggested reading the news on an iPad on the dance floor of a club.  Well, it’s about equally nonsensical but I’ve already done something similar…  If you must know, back when I was a grad student and slaving away on my thesis.  One evening, I remember that I really wanted to go dancing but I had a deadline the next day that I felt too guilty to do anything but work.  In a stroke of genius, I thought what if I did BOTH?  So I convinced Dan, my housemate, now husband, to go to Atlantis, a local restaurant-turns-club-at-night venue that had drum & base Sunday nights.  It’s small and not very popular so the dance floor is sparse at best.  Dan thought I was crazy but he was a good sport.  We worked on our laptops at a table while we bopped our heads, then when a song we liked came on, we would dance for a while, then sit down and do some work.  We must’ve looked like the biggest dorks but the novelty made the work bearable and I made my deadline.  I doubt it was a sustainable way to be productive which is why I never tried that again.

Coming back to the present day, I figured perhaps doing something meaningful in a weird context would be better, which is why I casually took on this dare.  As a budding career coach, I find myself engaged in conversations about people’s careers wherever I go.  I have obsessed over my career all my life, and now that I’m where I want to be, I find myself needing outlets for my obsession.  So, with this dare, I figured I’d start close to home and go career coaching at the Muddy Charles — the bar at MIT.  As an alumni and a friendly woman, I would have better luck striking up a conversation with random strangers.  The atmosphere is less likely to be very rowdy, which would be more conducive to conversations.

After I made that decision, I realized that it wouldn’t be very challenging.  I know the population well, I know the questions they have and what career issues they tend to wrestle with.  Perhaps, in addition, I should also work with people whose career paths I don’t know much about and learn something new from the experience.  So, I started brainstorming bars where people with a similar career tend to hang out…  Doctors?  Fisherman?  Aha!  I have it, the VFW.  Everyone there is a vet and I don’t know much about military careers.  Also, it felt like a good thing to offer career coaching to veterans who might be thinking about civilian jobs.  Who knows, this might even lead to some volunteer opportunities down the line.

So VFW it is!  With that settled, now to logistics.  Can anyone go to a VFW?  To find out, I called up a local VFW branch.  No surprise, it’s members only.  I explained that I’m a career coach trying to learn more about military careers.   The woman I spoke with was friendly but a little skeptical and said that I would need to obtain permission from the commander and that he is around from 7:30-11am on weekdays.  Well, I guess I had my work cutout for me.

Bright and early on Monday morning, I stopped by the VFW post and asked to speak to the commander.  The commander looks to be in his fifties.  He was not in military uniform and didn’t look as intimidating as I had imagined.  At first he was a little more guarded but after he made sure that I wasn’t a reporter he was very friendly and we struck up a casual conversation.  Turns out he was in Vietnam during the middle of the war.  He told me that he will give my name to the bartender and that I’m welcome to drop by later this week.

Mission accomplished and I can’t wait!

Links to related posts:

• Part 1: this post
• Part 2: Career Coach at at Bar — MIT
• Part 3: Career Coach at a Bar — VFW

Shakespeare Week Wrapeth Up

Speak-in-Shakespearean-English week is officially over, phew!  It was definitely challenging in a way I didn’t expect.  Overall, I spoke less than I normally would because it was labor intensive to talk.  Since my new resolve to do it right, I had to attend a dinner where I was just getting to know the hosts.  I had to take my five-year-old to a birthday party and talk to the other mothers.  I think my son’s preschool friends’ parents now officially think I’m cuckoo.

Things did get a little easier after the first few days.  The language came to me more naturally.  Though I was told that I sounded more like Yoda than Juliet.

After that argument with Dan, I learned my lesson and beefed up on my Shakespearean insults. For example, rather than telling someone they are a jerk, you may say instead “thou lumpish sheep-biting canker-blossom”.  In fact, I discovered a web-interface for a Shakespearean Insulter where, at the click of a button, you can get a fresh new insult.

Finally, the bright spot of the week — I had lunch with my friend Susan who joined in on the Shakespearean babble.  We carried on about relationships, interview techniques, and how to consolidate your various 401k “parchments” over Indian food. Susan definitely gets the Best-Sport award!

Now, onto the next dare, career coach people in a bar.  Hmm…

Links to related posts:

• Part 1: Speak in Shakespearean English — Day 1
• Part 2: Poopy Shakespeare Week
• Part 3: this post

Poopy Shakespeare Week

This dare is turning out to be a lot more difficult than I had originally anticipated.  After the Bar Mitzvah, I thought, how hard can this be, simply speak a little Shakespeare?

Lesson #1  Sometimes, it’s much harder to do an easy thing that involves constant exertion than a hard thing that only calls for a single burst of effort.

Let me start with the first failure.  On Saturday, Day 2 of the Shakespearean week, the family was out on the town and everything was going swimmingly when Dan and I started an argument over a parking job – standard couple’s stuff, small but infuriating.  I got so frustrated in the heat of the moment that I couldn’t hold on to Shakespeare and slipped back into common man English.  When Dan immediately proceeded to point out my failings, it felt like a taunt and made the situation worse.  It wasn’t until two hours later that Shakespeare recovered.  That set a bad precedent.

Later that same day, when our five-year-old was acting up, I again lost patience and slipped back into the common tongue.  Aside from admitting weakness, I notice this is making me sound like a bitch wife and mean mother, I swear, ’tis not so.

Lesson #2  It’s hard to keep a light attitude and put yourself out there when you are suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  I somehow thought of the movie Life is Beautiful and was re-inspired by how much fortitude it must have taken Roberto’s character to remain resolutely buoyant in the face of misfortune.

Anyways, on with the report.  That entire weekend, we were staying at my father-in-law’s house because we were at the tail end of a three-month home renovation.  The in-laws were away on a trip.  They were due back Sunday evening.  That afternoon, our five-year-old used an ungodly amount of toilet paper during a bathroom session which clogged the toilet.  If there is something worse than clogging your toilet it’s clogging someone else’s toilet.  Dan and I alternatingly tried our fixes.  You know.  How you wait, and wait, and wait for the water to go down, then you flush again.  Hoping and praying that it would go down this time.  But when the water comes up and up, whirling dangerously close to the edge, you kick yourself for not having waited longer.

All in all, it was a red alert situation. Being the family phone-caller and negotiator, I felt it my responsibility to take control of the situation.  I browsed plumber reviews on Yelp and prepared to make some phone calls.  How to speak though, therein lies the rub.

Consideration number 1, Dan was frantically emphasizing that this is a special situation and I should just take care of it asap.  Consideration number 2, I was suffering from class-guilt.  The tone with which I attempt Shakespeare can easily be mistaken as arrogance — going around thee this and thou that; especially over the phone, with no body language and facial expressions to mitigate it.  The last thing I wanted to do was to be a pompous ass to someone who unclogs poop for a living.  Consideration number 3, I was afraid that the plumber would think it was a prank call and hang up on me.

The in-laws were due back soon and I did not want to repay their kindness with an over abundant toilet.  I called the plumber in, gasp, everyday English.  Yes, guilty as charged.

The evening didn’t end there.  Around 6pm, the in-laws came back, tired and hungry from their trip.  When I reluctantly unleashed the Shakespeare on them, they were in no mood to humor me.  I must say that so far I had imagined this dare to be more entertaining than it turned out to be.  Aside from making a couple of people laugh, the overwhelming response was that of unease.  People did not have a context and didn’t know exactly how to react.  So they felt uncomfortable and avoided eye contact — for when they gaze upon me, they see a mad woman, a lunatic, a village fool.  In order for this to be any fun to them, they would not only have to hold an open attitude when surprised, they would also have to be in a similarly light spirit.  And that is just too much to ask.

That evening with the in-laws, I find myself speaking much less than I normally would and half-assing it when I did speak, squeezing in a shall here and a thou there.  To say that there was no flourish would be an understatement.

Lesson #3  It’s hard to keep a light attitude and put yourself out there when you are met with unease and annoyance.  (Shit! this must be what bad comics go through on a daily basis.  Now I have a taste of what awaits if I don’t step it up in December…)

This morning, I woke up and decided — no more pussyfooting around, I’m going to do this and do this right.  I hereby reset my 7-day Shakespeare challenge, starting today as Day One.  From this day forth, I shall redouble my efforts and make Shakespeare proud!

P.S. The saga of the toilet dost have a happy ending.  Upon hearing how many pence shalt be given to the gentleman plumber as recompense, Dan produced a plunger from the basement and attacked the porcelain beast with enormous vigor and furious force.  Three minutes hence, victory was his.  All is well that ends well.

Links to related posts:

• Part 1: Speak in Shakespearean English — Day 1
• Part 2: this post
• Part 3: Shakespeare Week Wrapeth Up