I wanted to preempt whatever I had intended to write about this week.
I subscribe to The Muse website newsletter with my personal email account.
Here’s the link to 57 Great Interview Questions to Ask
The Muse also has a list of 30 Surprising Cover Letter Intros to use.
My goal is to publish a second updated career book within three years.
I’m grateful to everyone who’s buying Working Assets.
Also I’m thankful to those of you who check the book out of the library for free.
I had wanted to talk about working in a public library as a possible career.
For those of us without a college degree we can apply to be a clerk or a computer tech person.
You can often apply for a job on the library’s website or via their LinkedIn account.
The case I make is for a person with a 4-year degree to consider getting a Masters’ in Library and Information Science.
Often these jobs are union jobs and might offer a pension unlike traditional office work.
I’m not a fan of getting an office job after how I bombed out of the insurance field in the 1990s. Followed by a repeat of the same dynamic in the job I had at a law firm for two years while in graduate school.
Starting out fresh out of library school with an M.S. in New York City the salary is $56K for a professional librarian job at a public library.
Not all library systems are equal. The supervisors at some public libraries can be tricky to deal with.
Yet in the end if you ask me getting a job in a public library is far better than working in an office. Especially if you don’t want to wear a suit or put up with the corporate life.
The best thing is a public library might have a scholarship fund staff with 4-year degrees can apply for to go to library school.
I’ll end here with this:
For those of you who live in New York City and have a Brooklyn Public Library library card you can check out of any Brooklyn branch a copy of my book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers.
It’s shelved at their Business & Career Center. You can place a copy on hold and have it sent to the branch you want to pick it up at.
If you read one DEI book first read Inclusion Revolution by Daisy Auger-Dominguez. It’s the complete guide to the topic.
My favorite DEI book though is the Antiracist Business Handbook by Trudi Lebron. She owns a million-dollar coaching and consulting business. Lebron believes in Just Commerce–a better alternative to Conscious Capitalism.
I’ll talk about DEI in terms of inclusion for individuals with mental illnesses. In order to thrive in an inclusive workplace you first have to get the job to begin with.
In New York City there’s a Queer in Every Career Job Fair. Why isn’t there a (mental illness) Peers in Every Career Job Fair? Or what I would title a Wheels-to-Work Job Fair for those of us who use wheelchairs?
One DEI book I have on my shelf to read talks about DEIB–diversity equity inclusion and Belonging. Again feeling like you belong in a particular workplace is predicated on getting a job with a savvy company that knows promoting diversity and individuality increases sales. The well-being of staff flourishes too.
Michelle T. Johnson easily 10 years ago wrote the book The Diversity Code. What she said: “Honoring individuality is the highest form of achieving diversity.”
In coming blog entries I’ll talk about alternative career paths.
It begs the question: What if you want to work in an office job? Shouldn’t that be an option?
For a lot of us the corporate office environment is not conducive to our mental health. I’m going to talk about getting a job in a public library which I feel should not be overlooked as a viable career.
Laurel House a nonprofit operates the Resources to Recover website to give peers information that can help us recover.
On October 6th I had my second Guest Blogger entry published there. I wrote about disclosure on the job in more detail.
This is going to be the last reference to disclosure for a while.
Coming up I will talk about Diversity Equity and Inclusion resources that can benefit peers with mental illnesses who want to find and retain a job and succeed at a job that gives them joy and a livable wage or salary.
Read here: Disclosure on the Job: 3 Persistent Drawbacks – 3 Surprising Benefits.
In my job helping customers create resumes and conduct job searches I often find myself acting as a therapist. The library patrons have unique life stories they bring to the table. Their experiences impact their employment needs and choices.
Peers with mental illnesses as well as other clients have often experienced trauma in their lives. The job a person has should aid in healing not make us ill.
Especially when we are individuals who have historically have been treated in a subpar way. By the very mental health staff tasked with helping us. If you didn’t think we could recover were you happy to spin your wheels helping us knowing that what you did wouldn’t enable us to recover. Then why did you become shrinks and social workers to begin with?
I’m going to talk in here about the reality of having a mental illness. Not a fan of total honesty this is why I cannot advance a “let-it-all-hang-out” on your lips mentality on the job. Though I write about my experiences I choose carefully what I disclose and when and where.
So–here goes–this could’ve happened to me. Or you. It happens to everyone regardless of our race, creed, gender, socioeconomics, illness or whatever demographic we fit in.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Abuse is not confined to a house or apartment. Our jobs are our living quarters for 8 hours a day. A victim of abuse or trauma could be wary of a coworker taking advantage of them.
Having a mental illness–especially in the early stages of our recovery–can be a trauma. This shouldn’t prevent us from trying to get a job. The last thing we want is to experience a new trauma in the workplace.
Our jobs should not make us ill. Our coworkers and supervisors should not gaslight us. Issues of power and control exist in the workplace. Which is why I say tread carefully with what you tell others.
To begin with individuals with mental illnesses are at a greater risk of being victims of crimes than of committing a crime.
In fact other people with mental health issues are often our abusers. Trust–this has happened.
It’s no easy task finding a company to work for where our coworkers are healing allies not self-interested adversaries.
Pain and trauma are part of everyone’s life. “Everybody Hurts” to quote the 1990s REM song title.
How to transform our pain into creative energy? How to get a job where working there can be an act of healing from illness?
I’m keen to give readers specific strategies for finding these needle-in-a-haystack positions.
The next blog entry here will be a hyperlink to a guest blogger entry that I had published at the Resources to Recover website on October 6. That entry will be my parting shot in focusing on disclosure on the job. After this I will start to talk about DEI initiatives–how Diversity Equity and Inclusion measures can help peers with mental illnesses on the job too.
No other expert has talked about risking becoming vulnerable at our jobs. There’s scant research into and advocating for bringing “All of You” into the workplace.
What’s written does point to the economic advantage companies have when employees are treated right and feel like we belong. Hello–where is that business and how can we apply?
My goal is to help peers with mental illnesses find jobs with employers who recognize, accept, value, and celebrate the differentness of every human being.
We should not shy away from using the word differentness. It has nothing to do with not being normal. Not that being normal is such a great prize to begin with.
Our differentness is a competitive advantage.
We are not robots. We are not machines. Though we will break down under the unrealistic pressure to be someone we’re not.
I’m thinking long and hard about the solution to this dilemma. How it hasn’t been okay to cry at the office. Or show other emotion. It’s said that in the workplace forced positivity has been expected.
In the coming blog entry I will talk about how trauma can influence what we do and say at our jobs.
Should we make ourselves vulnerable with coworkers?
Today is the regular on-sale date for Working Assets on Amazon and elsewhere. You can order the book at a bookstore to pick up in person too.
The great thing about this career guide for peers living with mental illnesses is that it contains groundbreaking information. What I wrote in this book hasn’t been talked about before.
One tactic I talked about was asking your supervisor for feedback on your performance year-round. Instead of waiting passively to hear what they wrote in your performance review.
It shouldn’t be that you’re displeased with a performance review if you think you’ve been a stellar employee. Only chances are you and I aren’t going to receive a fair assessment.
This is how it goes: a hard worker could be rated unsatisfactory in the category Amount of Work Performed.
You don’t want your performance evaluation to come as a surprise with the even ruder awakening of a 2 percent pay raise.
In the 1990s I told a boss what Peg Bundy told her husband Al on the TV show Married with Children: “If I wanted peanuts, I’d fly Delta.”
Thirty years later I remember this comeback. I don’t recommend you act impertinent on the job.
Here’s the link to the Amazon sales page for Working Assets.
In my just-published book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers I wrote what I did from the perspective of an individual who has been employed at jobs for over 30 years.
Quite frankly coworkers don’t always want to hear about everything that’s going on in your life. A simple confession like: “I forgot to use deodorant this morning. I must get some at the drugstore now” doesn’t need to be brought to life.
IWDs–Individuals With Disabilities–aren’t given a free pass to have anything less than an acceptable demeanor on the job and elsewhere.
The remedy should be to flaunt our identity.
Yet I’m realistic that as persons who have been shut out of employment we have to work twice as hard to get half as far once we’re on the job.
Grateful to be given the job we’re often loyal and dedicated employees who outperform coworkers who don’t have disabilities.
This should give us a halo around our job performance that enables coworkers to view us favorably.
Not so fast. Seeking justice on one job I was denied a promotion.
Being a hard worker doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a stellar performance review and top-notch pay raise either. Something I will talk about in a future blog entry.
The playing field isn’t level. Which is why though on one job I could talk with coworkers about everything I chose not to.
In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about one surprise suggestion I offered in The World of Work chapter in Working Assets.
I help people create resumes. My BIPOC clients are getting jobs in the fields they went to school for. The tide is turning. It’s the time when real progress is happening.
Telling someone to refer to their race in a cover letter was a risky thing I did. It’s not that I would recommend this for everyone. The person got a job in their field.
In terms of an invisible disability would I be so quick to tell a job hunter to lead right off with this part of their identity in a cover letter?
My real-life work experience informed the perspective with which I wrote Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers.
Every interaction we have with another person involves selling ourselves. In a cover letter and in a resume and on a job interview and on the job this is no different.
How can we turn whatever challenges we have into “working assets” that help us interact with our coworkers and get our jobs done effectively?
This starts with changing our perception. We can “be the change” we want to see in the workplace.
Daisy Auger-Dominguez published the book Inclusion Revolution. She has had a long career as a DEI officer at different companies. In her book she wrote about how a Latina coworker approached her after a meeting. To say that she was proud because Auger-Dominguez wore a white dress that reflected their Latina heritage.
We should not be afraid to bring our identity into the workplace. How can we do this if having a mental illness is part of our life experience?
There are pros and cons to disclosure that I often touch on. I will publish a guest blog entry on disclosure on the Resources to Recover mental health website expected to post on October 6.
The difference is that I think finding the job that is the right fit comes down to researching the companies that have a track record of putting people before profits.
Though not all public libraries are great places to work I do recommend working in one of the better public library systems for those of us who would not thrive in an office setting.
This comes down to researching your target job environment which I talk about in Working Assets. I’ll detail this further in a coming blog entry.
At one of my jobs coworkers left no topic off the table when gathering to talk about our lives. Finding this kind of atmosphere is possible if you do your due diligence when searching for a job.
Sometimes finding this perfect-for-you job is a “happy accident.”
I know from firsthand experience that I couldn’t thrive in a corporate office job. My friend Robin who had schizophrenia rose up to be the CEO of a company. He disclosed only once, and it backfired on him. He was denied a promotion.
What you reveal and what you conceal on the job I’ll talk in more detail about in the next blog entry.
I say: wear that white dress and hoop earrings if you want.
I’ve published Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. My target market is individuals living with mental health issues who have the desire and ability to work at a job.
Those of us with bipolar or schizophrenia or other illnesses have unique needs. In my new book I devote a whole chapter to Managing Your Mental Health on the Job.
The fact is that those of us with emotional issues who are employed often “disclose” without being aware that we’ve done this.
The host of a podcast (a woman living with schizophrenia) revealed that she can appear “spaced out” and this can make others think she’s on street drugs.
The woman jokes to the person she’s with that most likely they’d like her “to share” (the drugs) yet she is straight not high.
The fact is an impression is formed of a person within 7 seconds (yes!).
It’s a dual-edged reality: we want coworkers to have empathy for us when we appear “a little off” on the job. But will saying you have schizophrenia thus momentarily draw a blank elicit a favorable response from a coworker?
My guess is that we’re still not “there” yet in society. As a high numbers of peers with mental illnesses are unemployed to begin with.
How can we get “there” to where talking about our experiences helps us perform better on the job?
In my view disclosing on the job can make it harder to do our jobs when we then need to spend time navigating the after-effect of how coworkers responded.
The bottom line is: employers are concerned with their bottom line and how doing our jobs helps them earn money or whatever they’re in business to do.
How can we start to have an easier time at work while also fulfilling the duty we have to satisfy our company’s mission? Will being open and honest make it easier for us to do our jobs?
In coming blog entries I will talk about this in more detail. I take guidance from the 2022 DEI business books I’m checking out of the library and reading.
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