Impress Them; Let Them See You Sweat!
©SGHolland April 2018
A woman came to our computer school one day, somewhere near graduation time to help us smarten up our resumes, and to prepare us for job interviews.
[ About the resumes: I later learned that an interviewer could tell right off where we were trained on computer programming simply by looking at the format of our resumes! And they all said pretty much the same thing.]
We learned from this chic lady that we must work on presentation of ourselves to prospective employers. We must wear a specific kind of outfit, and that it had to be expensive (because prospective interviewers will be able to tell), but simple. We women must wear silk blouses with ties at the neck. The men must wear white shirts and properly tailored suit coats. We needed our hair and make up to “look professional.”
And we needed to be prepared for the inevitable interview with well rehearsed responses, and we must not fidget. Keep hands off our faces, and definitely do not chew gum! Try not to smell like cigarettes or worse.
Stay cool, calm and collected. Be confident.
[I can say that I followed all of these instructions, even on the frugal budget of a single divorcee raising three teenagers. The hundred dollar (plus) wool suit and the silk blouse. The pricey pumps. The leather brief case. It went on a credit card and was a wild fling of confidence that took a while to pay off.]
It was vital that I “get a job” after my crash course on systems analysis and computer programming. I was a pretty good student. This was a night school project, done while doing robo-calling for $6.00 per hour in the daytime for an insurance agency. Talk about making a person sweat! There were about thirty of us people sweating it out at night school while working a day job.
I HAD to get a living wage to sustain myself and my kids. Even moving was not an option — the house had been on a reasonably manageable mortgage payment that was far below current rental rates.
I was sweating it.
But I forced myself to be so cool and collected looking that during one interview, when asked how familiar, percentage-wise, I was with a an IBM System 34 computer’s capacities, I said, full of confidence, “pretty much.. maybe 70%.” (That was not an example of a cool and collected answer, and the interviewer saw right through it, of course.)
I did persevere and was found by a kind and gifted man whose company specialized in creating enhancements to IBM System 34s for commercial businesses that already had them.
I say I was found, because this man went hunting at my computer school for recent graduates who would like to work their ways into the tech world by doing maintenance work and sub-routines for his clients. What a Godsend! I mean really!
When I got my one suit on and my one silk blouse and my new pumps to turn up for the job interview, I was met by a smiling fellow who was sitting back in his office chair, relaxed in a short sleeved sport shirt, and tossing back frozen peas into his mouth. He said, “Sit down, sit down! Let’s talk about the job!”
He found out that I was drawn to screen design and documentation for users. This was not really what I was trained for, but I did have a sense of design, and could write decent sentences on instruction about which button to push, and how to enter data. (does anyone remember when User Tips was non-existent?)
I owe my next several decades, in one way or another, to this very frank and honest man who was wanting jobs done — and never mind the posturing.
Our work was always done at night when the computers were not being used by the client, and could be enhanced by us without interrupting business.
That meant that I turned up for work at about 7:30 pm, and worked until about 4 o’clock am.
While my kids were smart and good and wished me no harm, they were also teens, trying their autonomy out. For my youngest, this meant that he invited his buddies over to our house while I was out working and they did their homework while drinking beer and smoking bongs. Yes. My own kid.
He was 16.
When I found out, he and his buddies moved their homework venue to a Denny’s where they could smoke and drink coffee and do homework at night. Later he would tell me that it was much better for them all when they were doing it at our dining room table because they really got their homework done, while at Denny’s they were more distracted. Hmmm.
I asked God, literally and out loud, on the way home one night at about 4:30 am, to find me a day job doing something I could do well, during business hours. Then I found an ad in the local paper that led me to exactly that kind of job. And I was back in charge at home. My job went well until that business burned down to the ground one night! My computer skills were crucial to that business getting back up and running. I had put my office management data base on an early PC which my prior boss had encouraged me to learn how to use. I was able to produce lists of customers and suppliers to the owners of the burned-down enterprise.
Did I sweat?
You bet I did. And I found out it was normal and expected for a computer programmer and even for an office manager to get good and sweaty during the pressurized times when things were not sliding along perfectly. No person in shiny pumps and a silk shirt and a buttoned-up suit could have dealt with those moments that give the name “work” to jobs without sweating, at least secretly. And those who sent my paycheck regularly were very glad to have someone on hand who was not afraid to sweat when sensitive or hard work was to be done.
SIDE STORY ABOUT DRESSING FOR SUCCESS:
In my struggles during that period of time I had taken a course in Real Estate Sales and gotten my license.
Once, in my frenzied job hunt before computer training, I met the richest man in our then small town in Northwestern Washington State. I was “scouting” as a rep for an esteemed Real Estate Agency. The product: new properties in a resort area of the Washington Cascades. For this I had to get gussied up in my business outfit, with the tailored suit and heels and a smart looking coat. I was to meet him at his office.
The office was in an area of storage buildings. The driveways between the buildings were dirt (mud), and the address I was looking for was on one of the non-descript doorways lining that industrial facade.
I knocked. I was ushered into a tiny, smoky, damp room with concrete floor and a dinged-up old wood desk in front of which the richest man in town sat in a creaky old wood office chair. By his side was the smelliest Airedale — very very friendly and damp and licky — sort of drooling freely in the humble place.
My overall-clad prospective client explained that the only property he was interested in investing any money in would have to be commercial property. His business? Pipes. The kind of pipes that still lie under nearly everything in that little town — up and down their roads, and through their hills and valleys. That man had been The Man when one wanted to construct a home, a neighborhood, or a business center. All the pipes in that town were from his company. And he was the richest guy in town.
No resort real estate sale. Big lesson, though. What you wear, and how much you do or do not sweat has nothing to do with what you Really Do for a living.
If you like to play parts, and keep up images, and preserve facades, and never let them see you sweat, you may find a perfect job. If you want to impress a certain segment of the business world, you have to wear the “uniform”. Looking good may BE the job!
— -Depends on what kind of job you are looking for. It turns out to be that the sweating you willingly do as you work your job day by day is what pays the bills in the end.
©SGH 2018
