I don’t know why but I feel like you guys will enjoy this story.

When I was a teenager, I got really fed up with people asking me what my plans were for school and where I wanted to go to college. It was relentless at every family gathering, and my family is all pretty well off, making it a bit anxiety-inducing. So I made one up. I just invented a college. I wasn’t trying to fool anyone, I just wanted people to stop asking about it, so I gave it an absolutely ridiculous name; “The Velociraptor Institute of Chicago” - worth mentioning that I lived nowhere near Chicago at the time.

This evolved into a rather large joke between my aunt and I. We would occasionally hang up “school fliers” in my room - one of which being an “X Days Since Last Dinosaur Related Incident” and making bad “school sweaters”.

One day, I decided that it would be hilarious if my all-too-boring voicemail message was something related to the reptilian fallacy.

I went to Google Translate, English to English, and typed out a message from the school staff, something along the lines of; “Hello. You have reached the Velociraptor Institute of Chicago. None of our operators are available at the moment due to dinosaur related incidents. Please remain calm. This is not an emergency. Leave your name and number and we will return your call shortly.”

This was a hit among my aunt and any friends or relatives that happened to call, but as most jokes do, it faded out into the back of my head eventually. I don’t really like phone calls so I essentially forgot about it completely.

Until I received my first voicemail from a potential job interviewer.

howtogrowthefuckup:

howtogrowthefuckup:

We’ve received some asks regarding this and, well, it is January and some of you believe in that resolution shit, so here’s a quick guide on how to make a list of goals.

I could tell you to just write down your goals on a piece of paper. Boom, list. But I’m going to share with you some wisdom I gained from one of my graduate professors. He told us this regarding programming, but it applies here as well. (I’m seriously abbreviating his list of questions to make that happen.)

1. What do you hope will happen? This is the golden phrase here, children. If everything went correctly in your life, what do you hope will happen? What do you want to happen? Write that down. This is your last goal, your long-term goal.
2. What do you need to get ready? What are the necessary parts to prepare you/your life to make what you hope will happen, actually happen? For instance, if you want to be a graphic designer, what kind of degree is required? What kind of experience? Where do you need to apply for school? Do you need financial aid? Write all of these steps down. They are your short-term goals.
3. What other factors are important to your success? So your success in life isn’t 100% tied into that one long-term goal. What else do you want to happen along the way? Do you want to meet someone? Do you want to learn how to knit? Those also count as goals. You can even give them short-term goals like in step 2.
4. Write these down somewhere, make sure they are realistic and specific, and cross them off as you achieve them. 
5. That’s it. It’s so fucking easy to make goals. Now you need to put in the work and actually do something with them.

Example! Loosely based on my own (past) goal!

Goal: Become a Capital-L-Librarian

• Research library science
• Determine area of study
• Find ALA-accredited school
• Apply to school (FAFSA, application, recommendation letters, etc.)
• Take all necessary classes
• Earn MLIS degree
• Search job postings
• Update resume & cover letters
• Apply to positions
• Interviews
• Land the job!
• Celebrate

An older guide, but might help some of you making resolutions.

becausedragonage:

vaspider:

mad-maddie:

shithowdy:

do stuff while waiting for other stuff

like that sounds intuitive and vague but so much of the day is spent in a period of wait and if you struggle to motivate yourself to do things then this is the best time

waiting for your water to boil? bag up your garbage. waiting for your coffee to drip? wipe down your counters. roommate taking up the bathroom? scoop the cat box. waiting for your food to cook in the microwave? do however many dishes you can while it’s in there. 

waiting is the perfect time to do a limited amount of something for yourself where you would be otherwise just standing around doing fuck-all

THIS IS REALLY HELPFUL!

I actually turn this into a game!

“How many chores can I do while the water is boiling for my tea?”

“Can I put away the dishes and wipe the counters before my lunch finishes reheating?”

“Can I sweep the floor AND change the laundry while the dogs are out back?”

You can totally do this! If you make it like a game, also, you will get better at it, and you can be like ‘yes, now I put away the dishes AND wiped out the sink before my water boiled, I am a level 2 Adult!’

Game everything. Make it all into a minigame. Executive dysfunction trembles in the face of ‘how much laundry can I fold between chat replies?’

Where no one knows your name

How many times is a person meant to make new friends?

When I moved into an apartment in DC with an absolutely iconic girl from Craigslist, I wrote in my journal, “you never know when you’ll meet your next bridesmaid.” Charmingly juvenile, as I was 24 years old. Ironic, as I never had any bridesmaids. And embarrassing, knowing I wrote something that’s surely been embroidered on a bachelorette party t-shirt by now.

My point was: you can meet people you fall in love with anywhere, anytime, assuming your heart (and calendar) are open.

Now my heart and calendar are open and I am one of Elizabeth Bennet’s sad sisters, cloying and desperate for attention while everyone at the ball ignores me.

Meeting people here is unnerving and hapless and eye-clawingly vulnerable. My first new friend told me she was moving away in a few months. Do you invest deeply in hopes of another faraway friendship? Do you just go back to waving as you pass on the street? I like this girl! What an embarrassing thing to have to say to someone! Do you just invite people to every and anything like a lunatic? I can’t even remember to call the people I am forever-and-ever in cahoots with.

I’m also deeply bound by what I’ll call the Movie Trap: say it’s 3pm during not-a-pandemic, and you get the urge to see a movie. You look at the showings, and there’s one you really want to see at 7:15. You think to yourself, “I should make an effort,” and you text a friend.

“Hey, you wanna go see This Cool Movie at 7:15 tonight?”

No one ever says yes. Don’t give me an example of when someone has, because it’s always one of these answers:

• “Oooh, I’m actually seeing it with Kate tomorrow - wanna come?”
• “Can we go to the 9pm showing? Stuck at work.”
• “Yeah but let’s see Movie You’ll Fucking Hate instead.”

Now maybe I’m just lighting flares guiding you to the worst parts of my personality, but this drives me nuts. No, Liz, I don’t want to go tomorrow. I want to go tonight. At 7:15. So I can be in bed by 10. And you’d have to drag my dead body and prop open my eyes to get me to see something like Marriage Story in theaters.

The Movie Trap is a big reason I usually hang out by myself, or I make plans weeks in advance. (Don’t I sound like a blast.) Just the idea of being like, “I like you! Wanna hang out in October?” makes me want to collapse into a puddle of sad adulthood. Which is why on Friday at 4:30pm, when a girl I’d met a week prior asked if I wanted to grab a drink, I just said yes. I put on a pretty dress, did my makeup, put stuff in a purse, and drove the 25 minutes to town.

It was really fun! And how novel to have new contacts in my phone like “Maggie blue house” and “Jess concert friend” — a throwback to the days of “Greg guy on L train” and “Devon ad party.” The very concept of not knowing someone’s last name or even needing it, and a year from now updating their contact info and smiling at your origin story.

But for the most part, no one is in our phones. In terms of phone numbers collected, here is the list:

1. Two friends we knew prior who thank god you guys exist.
2. New friend who is moving away.
3. New friend who is game to drink tequila and ride mountain bikes.
4. Neighbor-not-yet-friend who I really fucking like and am not sure how to cross hang-out threshold with.

​Not to say there aren’t any other prospects or people I’m platonically gaga over, but I don’t have their phone numbers. There are honestly a lot of people like this because when you live in a small town (and you’re from the Midwest) you say “oop, sorry” to every person/object you bump into, and you say “hi :)” to every person you see. These are the rules. If I drive by you and don’t wave, it’s because I was so deep in a daydream I probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. This isn’t acceptable, because in our urgency to tattoo our vaccination status on our foreheads so we can make friends, it turns out just driving by someone can be a viable strategy.

A few days ago, a man was driving by our kitchen window and then our driveway, and then he reversed back up to the kitchen window and started waving.

Ben went outside — it was that kind of wave. The man had seen from his car a smokejumper emblem on the back of a truck in our driveway.

“Hey, are you a smokejumper?”

We aren’t. But my dad was, and he was in town visiting, accompanied by the emblem on the back of his truck. The guy said we should drink sometime. Numbers were not exchanged. We’ll call that a node, because it’s not quite a connection. And it’s mainly nodes, waiting to be connected, to have relevance.

But first, no matter who you’re trying to befriend, you have to answer everyone else’s Do I Care Quiz. The quiz is employed by 93% of locals to determine how they feel about you existing within their personal 50-mile radius. The first question is non negotiable:

1) Are you visiting?

Variations on this question include “how long are you in town?” or “what brings y’all to town?” or my least favorite and most insulting, “did you just finish Jeeping?” I know I have blonde hair and say y’all, but how dare you. (Also, to be clear, you can own a Jeep, customize your Jeep, mod out your Jeep, and love your Jeep, but you’re not Jeeping until you drive too fast through a tiny town so you can hurl your Jeep over a mountain pass without ever getting out of it.)

So the answer to “are you visiting” is “no, I live here.” Which brings us to the next question, my favorite for how loaded the gun, kneeling in the grass, scope on, target locked it is.

2) Are you part-time or full-time?

The first time I answered this question, I didn’t realize it was essentially like asking how someone voted in the 2020 election. The judgment was cocked and ready and the palpable relief/joy/or at the very least, tolerance, exuded by answering “full-time” was like when the sun comes out from behind the clouds on a 40 degree day. I was fine, but wow that does feel better.

The third question though does not have a standard hoped-for answer. This is where nodes turn to connections turn to phone numbers.

3) What brings you here?

It seems like the best possible answer would be saying you work in town, and you’re going to begin construction on displaced-worker housing to ensure the people who run this town can actually live in it. We’d have everyone’s phone number. Saying you’re a writer who works remotely and bought a house from a legendary and beloved local who could no longer afford it is really something you keep to yourself.

But in the interest of making friends, I just word vomit my entire history. We might as well find out at the onset if I make your eyes roll back into your skull. Not at all threatening that all it takes is a single social signal misinterpreted to be the absolute death knell of my ability to make friends in a town of some 1400 adults.

In fact, I’ll share one such interaction. I was hiking with Cooper, about 5 miles by foot away from my house. I was on a trail, crossing a sloped meadow, and a group was traversing up the hillside to the trail. I said hi, where y’all coming from. One girl answered and we talked about the trail. She eyed me up and down.

“Did you just move here?”
“I did!”
“I served your family last week,” she said.
“Oh,” that phrasing. “Must have been my in-laws.”
“Heard you bought Jack’s house. Such a bummer when locals like that are forced out.”
“We didn’t even know about his house,” I said. “We were looking at another house and he asked his realtor if he could get us to come see his house. We just loved it, and him!” She had no emotional reaction to this.
“You moved from California?” she asked. (Dangerous question.)
“Yeah, got these sea level lungs, haha,” attempting to disarm with humor was a failure, “but couldn’t be happier to be out of California.”
“It’s not like this all year. Winter’s really hard here, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“Well California’s the last place I lived, but I’m not from there. I’ve lived in brutal winters. At least Colorado gets sun!” I laugh with cloaked loathing.
“It’s different when you live at altitude,” she said, like no human aside from her had ever been literally anywhere. “Are you trying to go around?” She indicated the path behind her.
“No, y’all go ahead, just gonna wait to give you your space. I’m sure you’re faster than me.”
“K, good luck making it to the lake.“

Maybe she was thirsty. Maybe she was hungover. Maybe she just has vicious delivery, but it felt like every blade of grass was leaning against the wind to listen. She was with four other people and not one of them said a word. I left that interaction not wanting to see another human ever again.

But that interaction, and her intimate knowledge of exactly which house I lived in, made me want to decorate like we lived in a gingerbread house, all candy canes and plum drops, screaming to any passerby that we’re friendly. One of the mayor’s first questions to me was “what are you going to do to the house?” There are rules here about what your house can look like, and I kept emphasizing we bought the house because weloved it, not because we wanted to change everything about it. And now, instead of wanting to decorate the interior, I want to put up shades so we don’t contribute to light pollution, I want to hang a sign by the water spigot saying “grab some if you need” for hikers and mountain bikers, I want to paint a sign for the wild mint by our door that says, “I mint to tell you to take some,” because our neighbors were openly panicked they wouldn’t be able to just grab mint from the cabin’s garden anymore.

Without question, COVID makes things harder. Dinner parties feel like dares. Dropping cookies off at someone’s house feels invasive. Grabbing a drink feels like the ultimate sign of trust. But at least we have nodes who can connect who can think to invite us and who can see that despite having lived in California, we’re not all that bad.

In the meantime, I’ll be painting signs about water and mint, hoping to garner the benefit of the doubt from the so beautifully, earnestly, and waiting-to-see-if-you’re-worth-it doubtful.

Subscribe to the newsletter at tinyletter.com/keltonwrites — high altitude relocation and renovation in a tiny mountain town.

• as with literally everything i write, this got really fucking long! like, wordcounter.net estimates this will take 7 minutes to read. so i’ve placed the bulk of this post under a read more
• this is not a quick tips kind of post; this is a detailed breakdown of how to write a resume from scratch, with examples that are largely taken from my own resume. this is primarily a resource for people who don’t know where to start with writing a resume, not for people who just want resume hacks
• i’m saying all this so i don’t get people in my inbox complaining about how long this is. writing a resume takes a lot of time and effort, and this post does not shy away from that
• creating a resume will take you a while, especially if this is your first attempt. don’t be discouraged! take breaks, and don’t try to make the perfect resume on the first try. this tutorial is designed to be completed in rounds
  
• it usually takes me a week to get a new master resume into working order
• don’t worry about page length right now. you should make a multipage master resume that contains every relevant experience before making a 1-page resume. after you’ve made the master, you can build custom resumes from it for job applications
• this post is best viewed on desktop, because i use nested bullets, and tumblr mobile hates those
• let’s get into it!

step 1:

• list out everything you’ve ever done that could feasibly count as a resume entry: extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer positions, research, organizations you were a part of (professional or casual), freelance work, long-term hobbies. i will refer to each different experience as an “entry”
• for each entry, write where (city + state) and when (timespan) you did that thing 
• ex.tritones a cappella group, los angeles, ca, august 20xx - present
• going forward, update this list as you join or complete new jobs/hobbies/whatever so that you don’t have to wrack your brain a year down the road wondering how long you held down that job or leadership role

step 2:

• describe each entry
• use bullet points to list out all the things you did within that role. start with the big picture, then move on to the small stuff
• big picture: the goal of the role/organization/research, overarching and long-term projects, what results you were trying to achieve + why
• ex. “studied the neuroanatomy and synaptopathy of the inner ear to determine the role of glutamate receptors in hearing loss”
• small stuff: literal day-to-day tasks, every software and hardware you worked with, any particularly successful moments
• basically, walk through a typical day or week in this role and list out every single thing you have to do, even the grunt work.
• ex. “used redcap to administer neuropsychological batteries and collect biological data”
• ex. “designed and implemented a novel article format that yielded a 10% increase in audience retention”
  
• if you still have access to the original job posting or a corporate description of responsibilities for your role, pull that up and see how much you can paraphrase from it
• no duty is too stupid rn. did you google weather forecasts for your boss every week? write it down. you can make it fancy or choose to delete it later

step 3:

• fancify this shit
  
• rewrite your bullet points from step 2 with better jargon. tell your employers what you did in a concise yet assertive manner
  
• it helps to break down each point into its most basic components, which you can then generalize or rephrase 
  
• ex. “googled weather forecasts” might become “compiled weekly reports on changing data points to assess weather trends over time”
• use action words. you can find resources all over the internet for this, but if you’re still struggling, shoot me an ask and i’ll link some of the resources i’ve used myself
• caution: you don’t want to sound like you used a thesaurus on every word. make sure you aren’t obscuring the meaning of your bullet points. “googled weather forecasts” should not become “utilized online databases to assemble weekly communications on meteorological variations”
• start thinking about how your responsibilities for each entry relate to a) what skills you want to showcase and b) what the employer wants from you. does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with online databases, or does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with weather forecasts? your bullet point for “googled the weather” will change depending on the answer to these questions

step 4: 

• look at the big picture
  
• you probably have a metric buttload of bullet points for each entry. now you need to cut that down to what’s relevant. think about which bullets are most impressive, noteworthy, and descriptive of each entry
  
• aim for 3-5 bullet points. any less than that and you have to ask why you’re including that entry. any more than that and the employer’s eyes will glaze over
• try to combine bullet points
• ex. “identify content and write articles when necessary,” “maintain a pool of freelancers,” and “identify key graphics and maintain tagging structure when uploading articles” all involve the process of creating an article, so they can be combined into: “identify content, assign stories to freelancers, write articles when necessary, and upload with appropriate graphics and tags”
• start thinking about tailoring your word choices and bullet points to what the employer is looking for
• if you can, pull up the job posting or a sample resume for the job you’re applying to and compare your resume to it. are you using similar language? are you demonstrating similar skills?
• jobhero.com is a lifesaver
• finally, eliminate redundancy in your resume, both in every individual entry and in the resume as a whole. if a skill can be demonstrated by multiple entries, you only need to list it once
• kill your darlings! it may sound harsh, but the things that seem super impressive to you probably won’t even be a blip on the employer’s radar. “but saying i made coffee runs shows i’m dependable and a team player!” the employer isn’t looking that deep, my dude. you can showcase your dependability in your cover letter or your interview
• you should redo steps 3 and 4 several times, soliciting feedback from your parents, peers, career center, etc each time
  

step 5:

• add the Other Stuff
• education
• typically, you should only include institutions for the highest level of education you’ve attended. (undergrad and grad school both count as college for this purpose)
• there are exceptions to this, depending on how long you’ve spent at a higher level of education, whether your alma mater will earn you brownie points, whether you had genuinely impressive accomplishments earlier in your life, etc.
• once you hit, like, 2 years in college, you should try to get rid of high school achievements and showcase college achievements instead
• list the school name, city + state, degree type (BA/MA/etc) and expected graduation date (even if it’s in the future), your major(s) + minor(s), and any related coursework (ie preprofessional tracks, specific courses related to the job). you can list your gpa if you feel it’s relevant, but i caution against doing this once you’ve graduated
• ex. (where // indicates a new line) harvard university, boston, ma, may 2020 // bachelor of arts in cognitive neuroscience // minor: english: focus in creative writing // related coursework: pre-medicine, computer science 101 and 102 // gpa: 3.9/4.0 (dean’s list, all semesters)
• skills
• a list of items without descriptions. you can do a bulleted list or you can list the entries in paragraph form, separated by commas or bold bullets
• hard skills: hardware, software, languages (spoken and programming), digital and communication platforms, social media proficiencies, other technologies and devices
• ex. microsoft office suite, java, wordpress, slack, familiarity with ap and chicago style
• soft skills: general qualities, buzzwords, personality traits
• ex. leadership, conflict resolution, time management
• certifications and awards
• can be one section or two depending on how many of each you have
• list each one on a separate bullet point
• for each, write the certification or award, the institution that granted it, and the month and/or year you received it if relevant
• publications
• tbh i just cite my publications in the following format instead of following a style guide
• lastname, firstname. “article or chapter title.” book title, publisher (aka company or website). publication date.
  
• if you’re the sole author, you don’t need to list the author’s name

interlude: stretch the truth a bit. don’t lie about having experience or skills you don’t, but if you can reasonably google how to do something, boom! you’re proficient in it. if you worked with two team members who never pulled their weight? you just became the sole project lead. were you a beta reader for anime fanfiction back in the day? you’re a freelance editor, baby!

step 6:

• now you have to organize all the entries from step 4
  
• separate your entries into relevant sections. what’s relevant might change based on what you’re applying for
• i’ve had, at various points in my life, some subset of the following sections: work experience, volunteer experience, leadership experience, research experience, writing experience, other relevant experience
• list sections in order of descending importance
• write all entries in reverse chronological order: start with the most recent and work your way backwards
• write all bullet points in order of descending importance. unfortunately, i don’t have any quick tips on determining what’s important, but it helps to look at the job posting and see what matters to the employer
• i tend to list big picture goals, then personal accomplishments (leadership skills, projects), then daily tasks

step 7:

• format this shit
• you can find resume templates online or in your word processor. templates serve as a good starting point, but i recommend creating your own format so you can edit and customize it with ease. this will probably involve a lot of fiddling with indentations, paragraph spacing, and moving things around
• don’t go smaller than 10pt font
• mess around with line and paragraph spacing to get the right balance of white space. if you’re curious about what i use, shoot me an ask and i’ll share my weirdly specific settings
• keep an eye out for bullet points with orphan words (ie lines containing only 1-3 words) and get rid of them to streamline your resume
  
• margins can be anywhere between 0.5″ and 1″
• consistency is key! make sure each entry has the same kind of spacing. don’t use hyphens in one entry and en dashes in another
  
• in the header, write your name, email, phone number, and address

interlude: save this version of your resume as your master resume. this gives you an unedited list of everything you ever did that you can now pick and choose from when you apply to jobs. update this list every 3-6 months.

step 8:

• customize your resume for the job application
  
• unless you’ve been in the industry for several years, your job-specific resume should be no more than 1 page
• if you have more than 1 page: compare the job listing and your resume side by side and ask which entries demonstrate your capabilities most effectively, which bullet points are the punchiest, and if there’s any extraneous info
• match each job requirement to one bullet point on your resume. then match each bullet point on your resume to a requirement in the listing. get rid of any bullet points that don’t meet either of those criteria. if multiple bullet points match the same job requirement, get rid of the extra bullet points
• if you have significantly less than 1 page: see if you can add more bullet points or reformat your resume to introduce some more white space. a 2-column set-up is great for this, with section headers on the left and bullets on the right. do you have any hobbies you’re forgetting about? any soft skills you could add?
• emulate the language of the job posting; use the same action words, the same soft skills

coda

• your resume should work in tandem with your cover letter, but that’s a topic for another post. maybe in another 6 months i’ll write a post on that, too
• always save your resume as a pdf! you don’t want your employer to have access to your metadata
• if you made it through this whole post… i’m so sorry lmao but also thanks for sticking with me
• let me know if you found this helpful or if this method scored you a job!
  

Can’t believe I have a credit score because 4 billion years ago some amebas decided to fuck around and find out.

Me everyday at work:

True adulthood is when you can make peace with the fact that you love and respect your parents, in spite of the fact that they are not always right.

Me, this year, on my last birthday of my twenties.

lawdulting:

maddisonkennedy:

I am honestly so mentally and physically exhausted, I just need to be held.

I just need 20k and a new house.

I just need alcohol, and more alcohol.

distinguishedbaloney:

f-ckmedead:

itistimetodisappear:

Anyone else constantly on edge because we are in the final stages of late capitalism and these next couple of decades are gonna be make or break for the western world, and this just happens to coincide with the part of my life where I’m supposed to make something of myself :/

You didn’t have to say it with words

howwesurviveishowwegetby:

mysharona1987:

[Pictured is a tweet from user at anya volz which reads, “Adulthood is making the same meal forty times in a row until you are done with that meal and it’s time for forty of a new meal.” End ID.]

theprofessional-amateur:

bemusedlybespectacled:

I have exactly one (1) lifehack for every adult thing and that is “admit your ignorance to customer service people”

no, seriously! I know how nothing in adult life works, but I have learned it by calling up the customer service division of whatever agency I am having a problem with and then just asking about whatever the problem is, emphasizing my complete lack of knowledge about the thing.

my actual literal script for these interactions: “Hi, my name is [name].This is my problem: [problem].I don’t know how [adult thing] works.could you explain how [adult thing] works?”it fucking works every time.

me: I keep getting conflicting information as to whether my therapist is covered by my health insurance.I don’t know anything about health insurance, so this is very confusing to me.could you explain why this might be happening?
health insurance customer service: it’s because your normal health insurance is X company but your mental healthcare is subcontracted out to Y company, and Y covers your therapist but X doesn’t. just always bill Y when you go to your therapist and you’ll be fine.

me: I accidentally put the wrong date to pay my credit card off and I’m afraid it will post before I get paid.this is my first credit card so I don’t know what I’m doing.could you tell me when it will post?
customer service person: it will send a message to your bank today, but your bank won’t respond to it until tomorrow when you get paid, so you’re fine. and even if it does bounce, the fee is only $25 and you qualify for a waiver.

me:I went to an urgent care place that said they’d take my health insurance, but now i have a big bill.I don’t know how billing works:can you explain why the amount is so much for such a routine trip?
customer service person: it’s because you were out of network at the time. however, since your insurance hasn’t covered the cost of care, the urgent care people should refund you for the cost of the services you paid for.
me: [gets actual check in mail for the $200 I spent on testing my pee]

I would not recommend this method for retail (for the love of god, do not tell a sleazy car dealer that you don’t know how cars work), and sure, sometimes you have to speak to the manager or threaten a credit card chargeback or whatever you need to do. but 99% of the time, speaking nicely and admitting to needing help has worked wonders for me, and means I don’t have to stew in terror over doing some adult thing Wrong.

As someone who has worked in customer service, including call center for a bank, 100% this. Be polite (like just decent human being level, the amount of abuse you get in a call center is EPIC), tell the rep in a basic way what your issue is and what you need help with. Don’t worry about using the bank or whoever’s jargon.

And seriously, just be nice. Reasons I would automatically refund fees without it being a company error (rule was customer had to specifically ask and only under certain criteria. I, and all my coworkers, ignored that constantly)

-they weren’t a total asshole

-they didn’t understand a policy/product/rule/whatever and asked for help exactly like op suggested above.

-they were patient. Call centers have a super high staff turnover, in part because you are verbally assaulted all day while being forced to keep times short, and, often, supposed to try and sell something to the person who called in angry. Meaning there is a chance that rep has been there less than 2 months. And some issues can be very complicated to fix and/or explain.

While this doesn’t work exactly the same in retail, I can also tell you having worked many many years of retail I also gave out a lot of discounts. Once again, be a decent human being to staff. You can always ask if there is a coupon or promo out, don’t be rude if they say no or that they can’t give it to you. I discounted stuff for teachers and recent graduates prepping for interviews all the time.

Many people think screaming at staff and throwing a temper tantrum is how you get good service and discounts. In my experience it is being nice and being patient that actually gets good service.

Chronicles of me trying to have a productive quarantine :

*First lockdown measures* Now that universities are closed for two weeks, I will be able to spend more time on my dance studio and improve my dancing

*Full lockdown announcement* Dance studios are closed but I will be working on my drawings with all his free time

*1 month of lockdown * Okay I have an art block and I don’t feel like drawing anything for so long but maybe I can write more

*3 months of lockdown* What if I learned Arabic?

*6 months of quarantine* What IF I learned….how to play the Guitar?

*9 months of quarantine * What IF…… I leeearned… tO pLay…. ThE UKELELE???

*1 year of quarantine * WhAt IiIiIiIffffFfF…….? I leArneeeed….

math?

I will excel in this office, take my word for it

completely zones out and detaches myself from reality for hours living inside my fantasies

When you buy things your account balance will your card be lower than what it was before buying the things. who would have thought ?

I guess one of the hardest but most important lessons I had to learn transitioning from adolescence to adulthood once I moved out was to start living by my own standards and not by anyone else’s. I stopped asking everyone for advice on every little thing, ESPECIALLY when it came to making my own healthy relationship. I had to learn that trying to please everyone was killing my happiness and I actually didn’t agree with some advice I was getting.

learning what live I wanted to live, building my core values gave me a platform to base all my decisions off of. I no longer needed to ask for advice on everything once I realised who I was.

painwithoutinjury:

i hate when people call me on the phone like this is for my mom only….

just moved into my new apartment vibes

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Follow me on Instagram: @j.oslina

The best part of adulthood that no one ever talks about is that you can just make brownies whenever you want brownies. Truly incredible.

everything changes around you, but at different paces. when you’re younger everyone has sort of the same milestones. everyone in your class are the same age, give or take a year for those who’ve been held back or who’ve skipped ahead. maybe someone’s super skilled at something but it’s all pretty even. between 21 and 27? everything changes. some get married and have kids, some have bought their first house. someone else just moved back in with their parents, another one flunked college while the third graduated successful. a fourth one graduated but is just bumming about. someone else has developed an alcohol problem. another one has married, divorced and is about to get married again. one person has traveled the world and another haven’t left their hometown. you might even know someone who had to bury their partner. maybe someone has had a chance to develop cancer. everyone is at such different stages around you that it’s hard to compare yourself to others, and it’s easy to feel inadequate.