Category: Uncategorized

HERO Traits

In reading one of the burnout books I alighted on the concept of HERO traits. Those of us who possess these traits are thought to do better on the job and in life.

The HERO traits are:

Hope

self-Efficacy

Resilience

Optimism

Gratitude

Empathy

Mindfulness

Social media algorithms purposed keep people on sites like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) using metrics designed to keep people antagonistic towards each other.

I say lay off getting sucked into these agents of acrimony. Try asking a real live person out for coffee. To talk about what makes them tick. To have fun. Instead of wallowing in online fury.

Red and blue make Purple. Purple is a gorgeous color. United we stand. Divided we fall.

Why not devote time to using the HERO traits to better ourselves.

We can also use these traits interacting with others like coworkers.

Awakenings

I’m taking a detour to promote the new book that can be bought on Amazon for only $14.99. Reading the stories of struggle and triumph could give you ideas about tactics to use so that you can flourish on and off the job.

The book above features the first-person accounts of 28 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia who have recovered. Plus, credible information on AOT, ACT, marijuana use and psychosis, treatment and medications used.

My recovery story is featured at number 5 in the book. It’s the shortest in length recovery story. The other stories have longer pages.

The other survivors went through years and years of hell and heartache. Getting the right treatment right away can result in a better outcome quickly. Yet for those of us who struggle long-term this book shows that hope for a better life is possible at any time in your recovery.

There are as many versions of recovery as there are people living in recovery. Like a thumbprint our lifestyles are unique and can be full and robust in their own way.

The point is not to compare yourself to other people. The grass might be greener on the front lawn over there. Inside the house it’s a hot mess where you can’t see it.

In coming blog entries I will talk more about coping with pressure on the job.

Staying Well on the Job

Staying well on the job is not possible if we can’t take a sick day or a mental health day to rest recuperate and recover from illness.

In a future blog entry I will talk about my experience as a professional librarian.

Here I want to lead up to my testimonial with what I think about the fallacy of putting a devotion to your work above or instead of your wellness.

In an issue of Mademoiselle magazine a feature article on working life insinuated: “Do as your boss does” and show up to your job even when ill.

In the 1990s when that gem of advice (cue the sarcasm) appeared I talked on the telephone with the owner of an insurance firm.

He told me: “It’s okay to take one sick day. You take two or worse three sick day in a year that’s an issue.”

Right then I wouldn’t work for him. Going to our jobs when we’re ill is not healthy–for us or our coworkers.

On a union job like the one I have you can often accrue sick time to the tune of 30 days or more if you rarely use sick leave.

The trend is for workers with 100s of hours of sick time to donate their sick leave hours to a coworker who needs more.

Again the FMLA–Family Medical Leave Act–is not paid time off. Senators and congresspersons in Washington have refused to enact paid national sick leave for all American workers.

That’s why I recommend getting a union job that might offer a pension and generous paid time off.

I’m no fan of working in a cubicle in a traditional office job after the first ill-fated nine years I had jobs in corporate and law firm offices.

There’s a better way and I’ll write about the alternative coming up.

It involves having the courage to not only think outside of the employment box but to flatten those boxes. To not let ourselves be constrained in a box to begin with.

Finding the career that is the right fit for yourself is an act of healing and an act of love.

In the new year I will talk in greater detail about burnout and pressure on the job and how to cope.

Black Business Month Books

The books listed in this blog entry should be available at any public library that is not censoring and banning the books people can read and check out with library cards:

Black Faces in High Places: 10 Strategic Actions for Black Professionals to Reach the Top & Stay There by Randal Pinkett.

Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider by Stacy Spikes.

Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business if You’re Not a Rich White Guy by Kathryn Finney. (I read this book at least 2 years ago and reviewed it here.)

It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage by Arlan Hamilton.

Twice as Hard: Navigating Black Stereotypes & Creating Space for Success by Opeyemi Sofoluke.

These books are geared to acing jobs the corporate world for those of us who aspire to the C-suite.

Though I’m not a fan of thinking a corporate office job is the only one you should get I understand and respect that for other people they want to excel in a traditional workplace.

The point is that these authors promote navigating the corporate life on your own terms with skills you can learn that they give you. Linked to how they got ahead from a job like film studio gopher to CEO and from food-stamp recipient to venture capitalist.

I say to you readers: Go for It if this is what you want.

Healing from PTSD to Succeed on the Job

About one or two years ago I posted here a blog entry on advancing trauma-informed career counseling. The link to that post is at the end of this entry.

The fact is if you’ve been the victim of racism you’ll be hypervigilant about that happening again. Going into the workplace BIPOC individuals don’t need this added stress.

In keeping with Black Business month I’m going to write about DEI topics here.

It’s not that I don’t think racism exists. It’s that I can’t believe this is still happening in 2023.

Along with reading other career books I think the above book The Pain We Carry should be required readings for victims of microaggressions which are hardly micro and for victims of any racial injustice.

Coming up in the future I will link to an article on gaslighting on the job featured at The Muse website.

Though I have a bias against working in a corporate office setting (based on firsthand experience) I understand that some of us want to work in traditional office jobs and succeed in those careers.

See here my blog entry on Advancing Trauma-informed Career Counseling.

Working Assets Is On Sale Today

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.

Pre-Ordering Print Copy of Working Assets

Amazon has set up the pre-order sales page for Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers.

The print copy goes on sale on October 9 of this year. You can pre-order the print copy by clicking on the above book title link.

If tons of people pre-order the print copy Amazon will keep more inventory of the book in stock.

It’s great if an author generates pre-order sales. You will then get the book shipped on October 9 to get the print copy right away when it goes on sale.

Today the e-book can be bought for $5.99 on Amazon to read with the free Kindle app on any device or computer.

You can also like I did use the Apple iBooks app to install the Working Assets e-book on an iPad.

Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers contains competitive information that would benefit people who don’t have mental health issues.

The difference is I had the idea as the Visionary I am to create a book for individuals living with mental illnesses.

No one else thought peers could be a target market for a career book. What I’ve done has had no precedent in the marketplace.

I’m the author so I might be biased. However I think Working Assets is a brilliant book that fills a need.

I’m grateful to my blog readers for supporting me all these years.

Publishing Working Assets is a dream come true.

Thank you for your support.

Working Assets E Book is On Sale Today

Hi everyone,

Today Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers has gone on sale on Amazon and Apple iBooks.

I installed my copy using iBooks on my iPad.

Working Assets is also available via Amazon Kindle.

The Career Guide has competitive information culled from my over 12 years as a professional librarian with a niche helping customer create resumes and conduct job searches.

Managing Your Mental Health on the Job

Today I did not go to my job. Shook up I was because of the subway shooting in Brooklyn on the N train. I have lived in Brooklyn for 23 years. Luckily, I was not on that train in the morning.

As it is I only ride the subway when I’m forced to and have no other option. My goal when I retire is to take cabs everywhere. If you’re a tourist and can afford to visit New York City I recommend you save money to take taxis around this town.

How does this factor into managing your mental health on the job? After arriving home last night I decided to stay home today.

As I’m typing this my cell phone beeped with an alert asking for information about the suspect. This indicates that the law enforcement individuals involved have pinpointed who they think it was that opened fire inside the second car of the N train. The shooter is no longer only “a person of interest.”

Why have I become agitated over this shooting? Most likely because of the level of cold calculated attention-to-detail that the alleged shooter used to carry out the crime.

Calling up your supervisor and telling them you can’t come to work isn’t something I take lightly. What is the right way to take time off?

First: I would not broadcast to and tell your coworkers a week before that you’re calling in sick on the following Thursday. Keep this to yourself.

Maybe what flipped this switch in my head was that coworkers have no qualms about taking what’s called a “mental health day” and calling in sick to do so.

This is the root of why I stayed home today. Before I hadn’t taken a mental health day ever. After getting shook up over yesterday’s shooting I decided it was time to take a mental health day when I needed to.

My experience having a union job is that I accrue one sick day every month. Right now, I have 50 sick days stored up in my time bank.

Since a lot of us don’t have a union job (and even for those of us who do) I advocate for becoming a worker’s right Activist. You can like I do petition for paid time off.

I’m trying to get management to give all staff who have worked here for 15 years a one-month paid sabbatical. So that we can use the time for whatever we want to do.

I’m also urging that all staff be given 4 extra time-off days per year coded as “mental health days” in addition to our regular sick time.

Plus: give us hardship pay as essential workers who showed up to our jobs throughout the pandemic.

In a future blog entry here, I would like to have a peer friend be a guest blogger. My goal is to have her talk about ways to manage symptoms you might have while at work.

Sadly, in most corporate and other office jobs you aren’t given a lot of paid sick days you can take off. Fast-food and other minimum wage earners get no paid sick time at all. Forcing them to show up in ill health to their job. Just so they can get paid.

In the 1990s I talked with the boss of a company. Thinking I might go work there.

On the telephone he told me: “It’s okay to call in sick once. If you call in sick two or three times that’s not okay.”

Huh? We are human beings. We are not machines. Our bodies are not robots. We’re not Roombas designed to figure out where to go to clean a floor. And some of us haven’t cleaned our floors in years.

Expecting that employees show up to work when we’re sick is the way to spread illness to other coworkers. It’s the guaranteed way to risk making ourselves chronically ill as well.

Joe Manchin (a Democrat) and others (Republicans like Nicole Malliotakis who I call Nicole CacaCola) are against giving American workers paid sick leave.

Manchin used the “Welfare Queen” trope to claim people who took time off would be going on a Carnival Cruise. It was reported that most of his constituents live in poverty.

What? I’m sitting at my desk typing this. After I’m done here, I will be going in bed and resting until noon. Then I’ll have breakfast. I won’t be going outside. I won’t be having fun.

My stance is that we should listen to our bodies. If our body is telling us to rest, we should rest. If our body has energy, that’s when we should take on the world.