t'sé 🌻

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

this is so beautifully written - and the sentiment behind it reaches nearly forgotten parts of my heart, too deeply to express.

e.g.: “Hey, remember when I asked you for advice on X? That was really helpful, I tried it and now (insert what has improved)”

“You kept gushing about (insert series/book/movie/recipe) and made it sound really appealing, so I checked it out and I really liked it!”

“Thank you for letting me vent recently, telling you what bothered me really helped me to work through it / helped me see it from another perspective / gave me the courage to address it with the person I was talking about.”

It helps people see their own strong points, it deepens your relationships, it makes the people in your life feel appreciated and special and it can give you warm fuzzy feelings!

a door slamming

someone exclaim “oh, you sneaky bastard”

the sound of a bell jingling down the hallway

a light thud

someone exclaiming “listen here, one of us can see in the dark and it’s not me, so we’re gonna have to figure this out”

a deep voice going “HEY”

me immediately concerned, it is dark, what is happening

same deep voice: “WHAT DO YOU HAVE”

the playful jingling of dog tags

“WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR MOUTH”

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

CW/TW: residential schools, genocide, religion.

For those of you who may be unaware, Canada has it's own very recent history of genocide. This history has been known but unacknowledged by the government and religious groups responsible for too long. Now the extent of this tragedy is becoming more apparent to the rest of the world as we find the bodies of indigenous children who died while at residential schools in the "care" of government and religious groups.

In the next several months they will find more and more unmarked children's graves using ground penetrating radar at the sites of these schools.

This is not ancient history. The last residential school in the province I live in now, closed in 1996. The families that these children were stolen from are very much still alive, as are the survivors of these schools. There is work being done to identify and bring the children home.

You can help by offering support to the indigenous people in your life; we will continue to see more emotional and triggering news in the coming months.

As the number of graves discovered increases we need to remember that they aren't just numbers, they are children and siblings and cousins.

You can also choose to wear orange on July 1st ("Canada day") in solidarity with the survivors and victims of residential schools. This is not a year we should be celebrating Canada, this is a year for mourning and justice.

Residential school crisis line:

1-800-721-0066

Métis crisis line:

1-833-638-4722

OK, look it’s just-

The reference is going over SO MANY people’s heads on twitter and he doesn’t have to explain himself but it’s SENDING ME SO LIKE. 

Just in case you missed it, Bezo’s rich ass is going to be flying to space, on a rocket ship from his own company. That’s fine. That’s totally ok and normal. 

Jamaal Bowman, who is a congressman from/for the Bronx (so you know I like him more) is directly referencing a song by Gil Scott-Heron called “Whitey’s on the Moon.” Scott-Heron debuted the song in 1970 on his spoken word album Small Talk at 125th and Lennox. It was directly inspired by activist Eldridge Cleaver, who argued that the space program/space race was a way to ignore the internal issues going on in America at the time.  

I’ll put the video to the song below the cut, but Bowman has taken the lyrics from the actual song that read as the following, and plugged in Bezo’s name. Still works.

I can’t pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey’s on the moon) Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still. (while Whitey’s on the moon)