The Teaching Question, 2

This is in response to “The Teaching Question”. When I read this entry, I was amazed at how much it sounded like my own life. I have a degree in writing, creative writing. If I wanted to, I could go back to school, take some more classes, student teach and become an elementary English teacher. I don’t want to do this. People, such as my family and a few friends of the family, feel that I should be teaching. I, on the other hand, don’t want to do this. All my life I loved to write and that is what I want to do. My family tells me that teaching is where the money is and that I would have the summers off, but it’s something I just don’t want to do. I am currently a substitute teacher’s aide and I like it, but after working in this field, I found it’s just not for me, even though I like working with children. I need to find a job that emphasizes my writing abilities and my love of children, if possilbe. I live in a small town and it’s really hard to find a job in this area. I live far from bigger cities and even then, I’m in competition with so many other job hunters. I’m currently applying for jobs that have to do with my major somewhat, but are more related to business adminstration. I am branching out from my degree and I’m still not getting hardly any interviews or calls. What’s going on? I took my resume and cover letter to the career services department at my school for the director to glance at and comment on things I could improve, and then I revised it, so I feel that isn’t the problem. Am I just not meant to get a job?

Help, Right When I Needed It

This entry is in response to “Tips To a Successful Job Interview”. After making a phone call this morning to a local newspaper office where I had a summer internship, I was left feeling hopeless when I asked about a “help wanted ad’ they placed in their newspaper. I inquired about the job and the office told me that they already had some one in mind and that they were sorry. This left me feeling upset and even more worried. How was I going to get a job if the company where I had my internship didn’t even consider me for the position? After searching for a job for quite some time now with no offers (except for one which I passed up due to lack of pay and location), I opted to see if any information or ideas would be posted online, and behold, I open up the page and there is a list of them! I always thought that I was doing enough in my interviews, but I really never thought about asking the interviewer some questions. It is also a good idea about researching the company, but is there any specific information I should be researching and how do I bring up this information in an interview so it just doesn’t sound like it’s coming out of the blue?

Call Backs…Good or Not?

Okay. So, I wrote and sent a follow up letter the other day to a company in which I had an interview the end of March. I let about a week and a half go by before I called the company (which is today) and I let the assistant president of this company know that I was still interested in the position. The assistant president of the company told me at my own interview that the company would be interviewing people until the first full week in April, so I thought I’d give it a try and see if they filled the position yet. Thankfully, the woman told me that it wasn’t filled yet, but when I told her that I was still interested in the job, she was like, “Um, thanks for letting me know that. Thanks, bye.” I got the impression that she didn’t care if I was still interested in the job, almost as if it didn’t make a difference if I called and let her know that I wanted the job or if I didn’t call. I hung up the phone depressed and feeling like I just wasted my time. It only took two minutes to call and talk to her, but before I spoke to her, my spirits were high. I thought that my calling might impress her and help me to get the job, but I got a totally different feeling after I hung up the phone. So, my question is: Does it really matter if a job seeker calls the employer back? I’m hoping that not all employers are like this. Should I have just sent the follow up letter and that’s it? I didn’t think I was too pushy, but I want to know that my effort counts for something. Also, I don’t really know what else to say to the employer other than that I’m still interested in the job. I don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound like I’m repeating myself from things I listed on my resume and and the things I said during my interview. I know that I need to do whatever I need to in order to land a job, but every company is different.

Little Pay

I was offered a job in my field of study, but for little pay. I expected that by being a college graduate, the pay would be much higher. It’s pretty sad that the salary they told me I would be getting paid was just over minimum wage. How can companies pay people this money if they require the degree? How can they get away with it? Even though it’s the only company that has offered me a job within my field, doing what I want to do, I turned it down because of the low pay. Has anyone else had this problem?

Dramatic Drama – Part 7 of 7: Finale

My last story is one in which I got to work with an LA based film production on a psychological horror flick. I got to work for three days on location and met a great cast and crew working hard through freezing temperatures. I even went out to get business cards to distribute. It’s work, but fun work.
I’ve been reading up voraciously on my field of interest. It’s like I never have enough time in the day. I’ve bought a few How-To Indie Film, acting, getting cast books as well as magazines to stay up to date and marketable and using every bit of my time I can, but it can be exhausting. I reason that “It takes money to make money. And time is money. (money is evil… time flies, so evil must fly … where am I going with this?)” Keep working every day with baby steps.
Along the way so far, I’ve had a job as a car salesman, been a financial advisor candidate, a mail sorter, a school secretary interviewee, air pollution controller applicant, and speech language pathologist resume submitter. Those are just a few of the things I’ve done. I’ve also been a TV show extra, film extra, and independent (indie) short film extra. Plus I volunteered for theater ushering. It seems like a lot, but I know people who have had way more real world experience. But everyone has to start somewhere and work their way up.
I hope that my posts have been humorous, thought-provoking, poignant, and above all … helpful.
I leave you today with a few inspirational and moments of Zen for you to ponder. It’s been fun and challenging trying to write quality blogs everyday and keep them condensed and on time. This is the last of my episodic series as I’ve pretty much caught up to present day happenings. I might pop in occasionally to contribute recent interview dialogues and commentary, but as I said, I keep myself busy. Recently I even applied to Teach for America and a computer job with benefits and higher salary income with which I am vying for. I just might get it. Remember that a body at rest stays at rest. Get the snowball rolling.
- Never let anyone tell you can’t do something: “It’s impossible.” Think Jesse Owens. Think the speed of sound. People thought the body couldn’t withstand the force to reach outer space, but once they started breaking barriers, it was as if anything was possible. Don’t doubt what you can do. We are already approaching the speed of light, and one day we may surpass it. Don’t believe it until you’ve tested it out yourself over and over again. And even then, don’t believe it to be 100% true. Fight the good fight. Have confidence.
- If you’re going to dream. You might as well dream big.
- “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Eddie Bracken from Profiles in Stardom by Bob Fraser.
- Never give up your dreams. You will be rejected. You will fail. The difference between those that are successful and those that aren’t depends on how you take your rejections and your failures.
- There are three types of people: those that watch things happen, those that make things happen, and those that say what the #@!% happened? – From a keychain
The most exciting story ever told is the one you will tell. Good night … good luck on your search through life. And thanks for tuning in.

Dramatic Drama – Part 6 of 7: Teen Superstar! Not.

Nothing is quite so satisfying as when you finally figure out how it works, where all the pieces fall, and what your real passion is. It’s like waking up from a long dream into Shakespeare in Love. You understand your grand purpose, your modus operandi, your raison d’être. And it takes a long hard winding path with more than one’s fair share of misdirection, sidetracking, and moments of déjà vu from passing Albuquerque too many times to get there. But even then the good fight is not over. Even now after I know my true calling of melding fine arts and technology there are still many kilometers to journey. I don’t know exactly what my ultimate career will be. Do I dare trek into graduate school? Should I create my own independent films with my newly bought prosumer camcorder? Should I continue taking film extra parts hoping to get rich and lucky or should I pursue a theatrical route in community plays? Should I stay or should I go to another state? I end up with more “what if’s” than I started.
I said this week that I was dedicating my blogs to the postgraduates, and I think that we all share a common thread in that many college students don’t know what they want with their life, even when they are in mid-adulthood and beyond. It’s tough for college advisors to tell students that until you go out there and experience life for yourself, you don’t know what you’re capable of and what’s really out there. I sympathize. Like one of my older coworker, and friend, said to me, “wouldn’t it be easier if someone could tell us what decision to make at critical junctions in our life?” Indeed, but then where would the fun/masochism! be in that. One movie that I recommend is “American Graffiti” with directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. It is probably just as true today. It shows the innocent struggles of graduating high school students on the brink of adulthood contemplating what to do with their lives while being set in the 60’s with an all star cast of Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and Richard Dreyfus.
I recently applied to several things around the neighborhood. A new service I found useful for local jobs is “craigslist” which can be useful for free job searches, ad posting, and acting gigs too. I’m also on several message groups and user newslists / newsgroups. I want to emphasize that these are excellent for finding jobs in the so called “hidden job market” before they hit the newspapers and are posted to the public. Or they are great for smaller local stuff. If you ever get a chance grab some of your local free newspapers at the local grocery store or weekend edition of the newspaper and you can find art and audition leads as well. Many jobs are not posted publicly but hire from within, so if you can get there before the competition, you have a one-two punch of getting closer to working. Internships are great for getting a foot in the door.
I also want to emphasize this: take every single opportunity or viable lead you come across. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. But never leave things just up to chance. Lady Luck is fickle and you have to put the cards in your favor. Even if the job or position isn’t right you’ll learn something to do better next time. For example, I saw another music video channel position for teens that would make their dreams come true. I found it while renewing a book on my local library’s website. It was a position for teens and when I got there, I had to wait around for several hours with a lot of younger kids and feed my meter a few times. I felt extremely self conscious. I finally got a brief talk to the interview before she interrupted and thanked me. I had used the audition also hoping to get hired for a job, but with no luck. However the person was sympathetic as I graciously left. Just as I got to the door handle the person said, “Try looking for a local internship position. There’s several around.” I faced my fear and went for it. It’s all that matters.

Dramatic Drama – Day 5 of 7: Bad Horror Flick?

That video job had supercharged me into getting one step closer to my job that I wanted, but it was one of my first entertainment gigs that I ever had. So while it was fun, I was still new to it.
Later on I would read a great resource on the web called “You Must Act” by Bob Fraser which is a good online resource that is free who said that one might be able to get into working with film, theater, and “the industry” but one has to be able to work hard and humble oneself. Thus, I was willing to do a repeat of my journey, only this time I journeyed south to Kentucky instead of to my state capitol. And I think it was a learning experience.
But would I do it again if I had to schedule an offday on New Year’s Eve, wake up at 3:00 am drive 2 hours there to work on a low budget horror flick for four hours, break for cheap bologna sandwich & pop lunch, and then drive 2 hours back? I’m not sure. I knew that the person described the project as a “short indie film”, but I don’t know if I could do it again. It was exhausting by the end of the day, to say the least.
I’m not ungrateful or trying to be non-humble, but next time I think I will set a goal and be more selective about my projects in the future. This one challenged me physically, and I hope next time it will challenge me mentally. This is how we college students should all look at our jobs. Sure, we should be grateful to have a steady income and a good paying job, but we have to also draw the line on how the job ends up affecting us. Is this what I want to do? Is it challenging me and fulfilling? Is it a good temporary step where I can make some cash for whatever shortage reason I’m in now? If something is not making you feel right, you need to reevaluate your situation, maybe tough it out or make a change.
I read that Michael J. Fox, one of my favorite stars of the “Back to the Future” series once did a gig where he was working on both “Family Ties” during the day and then the “Back to the Future” movie during the night. He had to get a chaffeur to shuttle him around, tuck him into bed, and rouse him up for the next morning. And I’ve come to realize that what seperates those that are truly successful from those that aren’t is part luck (being in the right place at the right time) and a lot of hard work (blood, sweat, and tears).
One good thing I got out of the trip up there despite having such short screen time, relative to the time and effort I put into the trip, was I met two new contacts, and I also ended “playing a good guy.” That is, I met a guy who like me was unsure about whether the trip or film had been worth their time. And it felt good to give him some words of encouraging advice.
Job seekers are like actors and vice versa. It’s always better to help out a fellow man instead of stepping over them to get a part or a role or a job. You never know when you’ll work with them later or when you’ll need their help. When you help others, you help yourself too.

Dramatic Drama – Part 4 of 7: Job Search & Grad School

I love college. Really I do. But I never appreciated it more until I was no longer enrolled in it. It took a hard real world labor job to make me realize what I was missing. In retrospect, I don’t think I would have figured out what I wanted to do in life (films, theater, video editing & webmastering) unless I took college, but I wouldn’t realize how many importantly precious opportunities were in college until after I worked a job. A catch-22.
One of the things that I needed and which I feared would hinder me from getting into graduate school is the lack of a portfolio. I had done some research and found most graduate school students are 28 years old in certain cities. So I felt I had more time to research schools and my topic of choice. I didn’t want to jump back into paying for college without being a savvy shopper. Colleges are a business too. Just ask any alumni and they’ll agree they are getting asked for donations a lot after graduation.
During my term working with my mail sorting job I had a lot of time to ponder while saving up cash. I could read books on my breaks and lunch period. So I found it useful to bring a little radio to listen to news and a book. But mostly I read a lot because as an actor, you’re always trying to get better at your craft. Shakespeare even said that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. Thus, the lessons can be applied to non-actors. And we are even salespersons trying to promote ourselves and learn more to improve our sale of our best product, us. In fact confidence is the key to success not only to an actor, but any other field.
I remember trying to pitch myself to a few jobs such as a civil-service job as a secretary for my former high-school. It had benefits and higher pay. Of course I was scared by leaping head first back into the job market and potential rejection. I saw an all female candidate pool which scared me at first, and I was scared of trying something new. But I was even more scared not of rejection, but of the feeling of failing to go for an open opportunity. I was raised to respect my Dad most of all who had struggled to reach America and to give up was to personally let him down in my mind and of course myself.
The secretary selection committee on that had four high school staff members and I felt under-prepared. I answered all questions fairly and equally, but it came down to selling yourself again, your image. If I had been more confident and established better rapport I would no doubt have increased my chances even more.
Another job I was looking at sounded too good to be true. It was in a local job ad newspaper saying an air pollution controller would pay $20/hr. I was skeptical since most places require a lot of experience and supervising familiarity, but this job said it would train and had all these benefits. I scheduled an appointment for an interview, but I left after sometime. For one, it was a group interview presentation lecture which was sort of like a cattle call for job candidates and I thought it was just too impersonal. Secondly, it involved sales. I already had a sales job let down and didn’t want to repeat it.
I also replied to a University web master position and a speech language pathologist. I learned from the first one I could have raised my chances if I executed the fine art of following up weekly, but I didn’t know this at the time. And I tested out the latter position, but found I needed credentials.
Morale of the story: jump into the job market and fight. You’ll learn a lot in the crash test school of hard knocks if you get in than if you’re just watching.

Dramatic Drama – Part 3 of 7: Independent feelings

I was still working with my delivery job when I got a chance to actually work with a television crew for a few days, in another city in fact. It was the biggest opportunity I had ever had before and in my mind I was break dancing. My sister was also pretty excited for me and would have wanted to go if it wasn’t for the fact that she had MCATs to study for.
The series of events unfolded first with my covering my backside. I had to get at least three days off work which was actually was easier than I thought. Then I also had to confront my parents who would be curious about me being gone for three days. I broke it down in simple terms that this would be a great business trip to learn new technical skills and that I would drive up there by myself and spend a few nights there. My Dad was again skeptical of course wanting me to cancel, but I said “No way! You can’t do this, besides I’ve already scheduled three days off. I’m ready to do this and have all my clothes in here.” I think he was worried actually that I was leaving for good and thought I had found a career, but I assured him I’d be back in three. I think what really motivated me at the time was also the fact that my coworkers had told me that they drove two hours to work everyday and then two hours back home. Everyday regardless of whether we had overtime!

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Dramatic Drama – Part 2 of 7: Lucky Break

As I said yesterday, when I started working with mail delivery I was gung ho for the work and money. I had set my goals high. I wanted to go to graduate school for film, and with an uncertain but slight lean toward video editing. I wanted to go to a big name school in LA or NY. I mean if you are gonna dream, you might as well dream big, right?
The mail delivery business I was in had a strict hierarchy favoring people that had served the country, soldiers and veterans, and they also hired civilians. The structure was setup to reward those who had worked hard for the government for many years. It also was a stable, steady income trading an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. At least that’s what it’s supposed to do in theory. Of course hierarchies systems always have some problems if people decide to discriminate based on hierarchy or flaunt their status. For example, the main classifications involved a full-time employee, part-time and temporary seasonal positions. It was also the first time I dealt with blue collar work and unions. But gist is that a temporary seasonal position could work insanely harder than a full-time on the same task, but get paid much less without benefits. I never had noticed or cared until I noticed a lot of complaining from my temp seasonal coworkers. And personally my stance was that it was unreasonable for me to expect equal pay scales when just starting out. Being raised as a son of an airman, I had a work-through-pain-and-inequity-soldier-and-you-will-be-rewarded feeling. Many of my peers didn’t feel the same way. So there was a lot of caustic daily complaining and ill feeling between full time and temps when we had transferred to a new mail unit after all the large holiday packages were exhausted. I stayed neutral, but I could feel a of war politics going on.
There was also a new shipment time pressure element, with lack of sufficient workers, and endless repetition of mail daily duties. I thought I was a great worker and fast, but I learned in the new unit that we were disposable. The work could be hazardous, back breaking, and even fatal if you worked too fast or were careless. But of course, don’t think I have a silver spoon in my mouth. It was easy and you could get in a routine and have breaks and lot of chill out and think time. But, like a full-time employee told me who oddly echoed the sentiments of my car sales job… “You’re wasting your time the longer you stay here, you have a college degree.”
Now, I don’t give up from a fight easily, and I also heard some people don’t like you and just want you to quit (more office politics) but I stayed on until we got terminated in the summer due to the end of our holiday contract. I looked all summer for a job, but couldn’t find anything except some web positions, that didn’t reply back to me. I drew my first unemployment checks, which I recommend to do online to get faster checks.
They brought us back about two months later to start again with a new contract.
Meanwhile, I had stayed on my college newsgroup for theater and they were looking for extras for a big name college music & video television channel. My very, very first break! I was sent this opportunity a few days after I had agreed to the contract. After working back at the mail delivery plant, I got the courage to ask my boss if I could get a few days off in a row. Since they knew my previous good performance and it was still the beginning of our contract I luckily was able to go! More on this and jobs tomorrow.