Dopp Juice Archive

So… yes. The subtle references and whispered insanities are true: I’ll be leaving Cerado in September.

This means I’m voluntarily entering the worst job market ever to happen in my lifetime — a market in which heartwrenching handfuls of talented peers and friends have been unemployed for over a year now — as a free agent.

There. It’s acknowledged. And that is the last we ever speak of the Impossible Economy in association with me looking for work again. If I can get my mother to stop reminding me of this dismal fact (and I have), surely you can play along with my game, too. Do it as a favor to a friend.

The other seemingly ludicrous point to note is that I’m leaving on very good terms with a high regard for the company, and I’ve sincerely enjoyed working with them. Chris Carfi is an impressive hybrid of creative genius and brilliant storyteller — when it comes to social media marketing, he gets it on both a theoretical and a social level. I’ve learned a lot from working with him, and from working alongside fellow mad genius Mark Resch as well. The clients (hi, BlogHer) and developers (George the PHP guru, Eric the King of iPhone dev, …) I’ve been paired with have also been top notch. I will be sad to let them go.

So why am I leaving?  Because it stopped fitting me.  What the Job Needed From Me and What I Wanted to Do crept further and further apart over time, and it finally became evident that something had to change.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault; it was just growth. And it has a hidden upside for Cerado: being able to let go of the role means I can now help them restructure their management process without my interests in the equation. The result is shaping up to be something that’s much more tailored to their changing needs, with a more efficient use of resources.

I kind of enjoy working myself out of a job.  It has a certain satisfaction to it.

It just leaves one question: What’s next?

I don’t know.  And call me crazy (I’m used to it by now), but I’m not really interested in job leads just yet.  I’d like to give a little more thought first to what I’m looking for.

When I was in Chicago for BlogHer recently, I ran my situation past a childhood friend, Jim Conti.  He gave me a useful way of approaching the “what should I do next?” question:

Ask yourself…

What am I good at?
What brings me joy?
What does the world need me to do?

…and find the intersection of all three of those.

In other words…

When the grownups asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, they forgot to explain that this was what they meant. Most of us probably answered based on how we wanted to be seen, realizing that “astronaut” and “veterinarian” sounded worthy enough of praise.  So do “rich” and “famous.”

A psychologist friend of mine made an interesting comment to me recently.  She said, “This is going to sound terrible, but I strongly prefer working with wealthy clients. It’s not because they pay me better. It’s because they already know that money’s not going to fix their problems.”

Neither is doing what they’re good at even if they don’t like it. Or doing what they enjoy when it’s useless to the rest of the world. Or being a miserable martyr for the sake of humanity. We have more work to do than this.

And I still haven’t answered the question.

I know some of the things I’m good at…

– XHTML/CSS development
– Product and project management
– Social media consulting
– Technical and promotional writing
– Public speaking
– Building community spaces

I’m feeling the tugs of what the world wants me to do in terms of social media marketing, community development, and LGBT activism.

I just… might need to get back into the groove of what brings me joy for a bit.

Then maybe I’ll know what I want to be when I grow up.

Over the course of June, I moved from a large one-bedroom apartment in the residential near-the-ocean side San Francisco to a tiny studio near Market St. We’re talking massive downsizing and culture change here.  I’ve been “settled” for a month now, but am still lacking some important furniture and tripping over boxes in the morning.  I’m close, though.

Here are the gem lessons I’ve picked up so far…

• Getting a sunny paintjob and having a bed built into my walk-in closet were both really good ideas, and also made the fact that I had a month of overlap time between the two apartments completely necessary. I don’t know how it could have been done otherwise. (I have to keep telling myself this because paying double rent for a month was rough.)
• I can live alone, but I can’t move alone. Getting help from friends made the job 75% easier.
• Friends who have buff arms from rock climbing are inclined to carry heavy objects in exchange for bottles of bourbon.
• Of the stuff that needs to be given away, offer the exciting things to friends. Crock pots, it turns out, are very exciting.
• There are some things that are too nice to trash, not exciting enough to give away, and not [whatever] enough to donate. Things like half-used hair products and hot sauces.  I filled two trashbags with these things, called them Grab Bags, and offered them to friends under the condition that they take EVERYTHING inside them.  They went for it.
• If your friends aren’t biting, Craigslist will literally take most anything off your hands within an hour. Swallow your pride and use the “Free” section. You need the quick solution, the extra time, the good karma, and that excited person’s undying gratitude way more than you need $20 right now. Unless you thought ahead, that is, because…
• Whatever nonessential downsizing and upgrading you hope will happen in the midst of the Momentum of Moving actually needs to happen at least two weeks before the final move. Any sorting you procrastinate into those last two weeks has a good change of just getting thrown into a box and taken with you, and you’ll still be sitting on it after you unpack.
• It wasn’t enough just to move and give away half my stuff. I also needed to migrate computers, face having to get a new phone (still procrastinating that one), and quit my job (sorta. long story. more on that one later), all at the same time.  There’s something to be said for dealing with lots of change at once, but damn that was a lot of painful displacement. I think I’d be easier on myself next time. (My poor partner kept half-joking, “Are you gonna get rid of me, too?”)
• Professional carpet cleaners are AWESOME. But most of them need more than a day’s notice if you’re calling at the end of the month (when the rest of the city is moving, too).
• How to clean when you’re moving: Start with the farthest room or closet from your front door, make sure everything is cleared out of it, spray it down with some fierce cleaner stuffs,  leave it for a few minutes, wipe it down, air it out, close the door, and tape that door shut. You’re done with that room for the rest of your life.  Now do the next one.
• DON’T BE FOOLED. Moving doesn’t end when you’re done with moving.  Then you have to unpack.  AND UNPACKING TAKES LONGER.
• But you can procrastinate that, since there’s no landlord looking over your shoulder reminding you of your deadline. Which means you may never finish it. Which sucks.

I think I’ll stay here for awhile.

I recently overheard a very useful quote, which was something along the lines of…

“Engagement leads to loyalty. Loyalty leads to sales. A good product leads to repeat sales.”

And I just wanted to jump up and scream, “AMEN! YES!” But instead I politely continued my meal and tried not to interrupt the strangers’ conversation.

Can I say it again, though?

Engagement -> Loyalty.
Loyalty -> Sales.
Good Product -> Repeat Sales.
Burn it backwards into your forehead.

To the social media marketers, please notice that Engagement and Loyalty don’t directly lead to a Repeat Sales, because they often have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you have a good product.

To everyone else, please notice that Engagement and Loyalty are important for getting Sales. It doesn’t matter how fantastic your product is — if you’re not telling the right story and getting people emotionally involved in it, they probably haven’t realized how great it is yet.

The point is, you have to do both.

And while I’m standing up here on this soapbox, let me yell a little louder to those in the back who are zoning out: Product is just a jargon placeholder for Anything, and Sales is another way of saying Commitment.

Whatever it is that you want people to connect with — your blog, your outfit, your party, your basketball game, your performance, your job hunt, your friend, your hot sexy body, your tweets, your…. (keep going, I’ll be here all day) — you care about it, so you’re interacting with the world in a way that helps you get the response you want. But unless that thing you care about actually matters to the world in the way it wants, even if you’re a great storyteller, you’re only gonna get that response once. If you want it again, that thing you care about has to be good. Good means it meets their needs. This isn’t about yours.

But then again, if you never tell the story — if you never break the ice, or use that cheesy pickup line, or send in that resume, or pass out those invitations, or hand them your business card, or twitter it, or give them that elevator pitch — then they’ll never know.

It’s both. It has to be both. If you’re only doing one well, you’re limping.

(And frankly, you look pretty silly, since we all know that both of your legs work just fine.)