You have a job interview! Now what?
Well for one thing, you need to dress the part. You also need to be prepared to answer the dreaded salary question. And of course, you have to get ready to negotiate for your life.
But you’re not done yet. Don’t you dare go into that interview without first doing your goddamn homework. Here are your assignments.
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I don’t fancy myself a hypocrite. And yet I haven’t been practicing what I preach.
We talk a lot about career advancement as a path to financial independence here. You’ve got to angle for promotions and ask for raises and, most importantly, switch jobs on the regular.
And yet I’ve felt stuck at the same company for almost eight years.
And I hate my job.
In that time, I’ve received three promotions and multiple raises. But it’s a small publishing house on a metaphorically small, remote island within the broader publishing industry.
And unless angry maenads tear my boss apart sometime soon, I’ve literally reached the top of the ladder here. There’s nowhere else to go within my company, and very few options for other publishing jobs in the area.
I feel trapped. I feel like a failure. I’m bored, directionless, and frustrated. I want to enjoy going to work again. I want to feel challenged and get paid more. And above all, I wish I didn’t hate my job.
So because I’m feeling rather… fragile and truthsome right now, I want to dissect my current career stagnation. I want to confess my failures and seek absolution. People of the internet, be gentle with me.
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Two methods of investing in the stock market enter the ring.
Only one will leave victorious.
Welcome to… INVESTING DEATHMATCH!!!!!!!!!
Hey! Get back here! Don’t you dare click away. This is fucking important and I am stretching a goddamn WWE metaphor past the bounds of decency to make it interesting for you.
So sit your ass down and learn a thing.
Before we ring the bell and start this fight, we should get the basic concept of investing out of the way. Investing in the stock market means you buy tiny chunks of various companies and in return you get tiny chunks of their profits. These tiny chunks add up over time so that you make more money than you would if you just put your money in a savings account.
Got it? For more on investing, we strongly recommend you check out Dumpster Doggy’s Invested Development course or this beginner’s guide over at Half Banked.
Ok. Now I want a good, clean fight…
We’ve been getting a lot of variations on the same question recently: “How the fuck do I credit?”
How indeed? A lot of our readers are struggling with not only maintaining a good credit score, but with even understanding the whole concept in the first place.
It’s one of the many money terms I have the sneaking suspicion everyone else in my high school class was taught on a day I was absent.
Thus, I’ve been left to figure it out for myself over the years. And what I’ve found is reassuring: it’s not nearly as scary or complicated as you’ve been led to think. But like a pack of trained raptors, it must be treated with care and attention lest it rend you limb from limb.
They say first impressions are important. What they don’t say is that they’re also not fucking fair. Like, not at all.
When you go in for a job interview, the first impression you make on your potential employer could determine the outcome of the hiring process. In fact, 30% of hiring decisions are made within the first five minutes of an interview. That’s why what you wear and how you present yourself are so important. So make it count.
Appearance-based discrimination happens all the time in the hiring process. And while you can’t help the color of your skin, your body size, or your gender, you can do something about what you wear and how you wear it to give yourself a fighting chance.
I interview job candidates all the time. I’m my company’s internship coordinator, and I also visit one of the local universities every year to practice mock interviews with their students and recent graduates.
So I’ve seen it all. Including the girl who dressed like Professor Trelawney on a bad hair day… the guy I smelled before I saw… the girl who looked like she was dressed for our first date rather than an interview… and all the motherfuckers who dared to wear flip-flops to a goddamn job interview.
Coco Chanel, 1930s fashion icon (and alleged Nazi sympathizer, let’s not play), had many wise things to say about jewelry. Like, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off,” which is both tasteful and minimalist.
Most importantly though, she said: “Costume jewelry is not made to give women an aura of wealth, but to make them beautiful.”
Costume jewelry is cheap and fake, made to look like real precious gems and metals. So she’s making a statement about the purpose of jewelry. But she’s also saying that you don’t have to be wealthy to be stylish and attractive. In other words: your monetary worth does not determine your worth as a person.
Chanel went on to say, “It’s disgusting to walk around with millions of dollars around the neck because one happens to be rich. I only like fake jewelry… because it’s provocative.” Now this is the kind of opinionated anti-bullshittery I can get behind. And I’ve kept it in mind with all my jewelry purchases.
This timeless genius of style believed there was no shame in wearing fake jewelry. Because economic circumstance should not determine beauty. (And also because the Nazis stole every precious gem in Paris. But I digress.)
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It’s no secret that I’m interested in economic injustice. That’s why I wax grumpy and bitter about things like gentrification, fast fashion, clean water, and environmentalism. But I have a lot to learn about the kind of systemic inequality that keeps some people down while others float above.
Which is why I read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.
The premise of Alexander’s The New Jim Crow is simple on its surface. Since its inception, the War on Drugs has targeted Black and brown people at disproportionately high rates. This has led to a new racial caste system in the United States.
But of course, like anything to do with race in America, it’s far from simple. And Alexander seems to realize how far-fetched some might consider her findings because she spends, like, 20% of every chapter going “I know this sounds crazy but seriously, stick with me. Just look at this data.”
While I wasn’t completely ignorant of the racism inherent in our justice system before reading The New Jim Crow, I am now completely overwhelmed with new and damning knowledge. The insidious rules of the new Jim Crow state affect people socially and economically in disastrous, life-ruining ways. Through every stage of the justice process from arrest through trial, punishment, and release.
Here’s some of what I learned.
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Hail, Bitch Nation! (I hope you’re warming up to your collective nickname because this humble and retiring blogger certainly enjoys the hell out of it.) We come to you today with an announcement: we, the Bitches, are going on a brief two-week hiatus. A summer vacation, if you will.
My darling, hyper-intelligent baby deer, I am going to share with you one of the best, most secret methods of saving money. It cuts down on wasteful spending, increases your savings, encourages you to be intentional. And it even empowers you to live your best life.
Please hold onto something and prepare yourself spiritually. Ready? Here goes:
Don’t spend money on things you don’t like.
Wait, come back! I know it sounds obvious… but I find myself breaking this personal rule all the damn time. And whenever I do, I regret it, and not just for the wasted dollars I will never ever see again. So take my hand and let’s break it down, shall we? Here’s what I’m talking about when I say “just don’t spend money on stuff you don’t like.”
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Wealth is largely subjective. Depending on where you’re sitting on the great Staircase of Financial Solvency, your perspective of who’s wealthy and what’s expensive is going to vary wildly.
Because of this disparity, the definition of “expensive” truly depends on an individual’s personal money situation. Someone who makes $300K a year and can easily afford their rent and insurance isn’t going to think twice about buying cage free eggs, organic milk, and grass-fed beef. Meanwhile, their neighbor who makes $30K a year is going to be buying the practically expired milk on sale. To them, the whole concept of buying organic, cruelty-free food seems absurdly out of reach… even while their wealthier neighbor finds it “inexpensive.”
Which is why it’s about as irritating as a Spotify Premium commercial to hear people speak authoritatively about what’s expensive and what’s not. Especially when their version of “expensive” is a diamond encrusted dog manicure and yours is a Whole Foods grapefruit.
Lemme ‘splain.
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