Frustration Friday: Emo is a No-No

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Frustration Friday: Behold the Power of Emo

I meet people who are suffering in the job search.  They're worried.  They're tired.  They're angsty.  In short, there are many people who get outright Emo over their job search and career issues.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the term Emo, which knowing the gloriously geeky demographics of this blog is unlikely, it can be roughly summarizes as a kind of angst-ridden, self-pitying attitude).

Here's what I want to ask the Emo Careerists:  what the hell is being angsty doing for your career issues?

Is it helping you on the job search?

Is it helping you network?

Is it helping you in interviews?

The answer of course is almost certainly no, unless you interviews are with people who are very pathological and probably not worth working for.  Emo does nothing more than waste energy and annoy people.  A lot.

Here's what Emo is – it's a cry for pity (often not even alloyed with a cry for help).  That's it.  It's a cry for attention, a cry to be thought of as a sad victim, and of course a cry for validation of one's own sorrow.

Such outcries are just plain annoying because they're manipulative, they're posturing, and they're performances.  It's not a try cry for help – and honest cry- it's a passive-aggressive call not so much for help, but for validation of one's own problems and for attention.

Emo isn't about solutions.

So next time you're depressed over your job prospects, if you suspect you're getting Emo, then it's time for some serious self-evaluation.  If you find you are indeed pulling out the Angst Attack on people, then you're sabotaging your life – and you have enough problems as it is.

– Steven Savage

News of the Day 11/11/2010

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The Samsung Galaxy is out, the economy of Ireland is down for the count, and plenty of gaming news! Let's get to the must-know geek news!

In Passing: Dino DeLaurentiis passes away. HIt's amazing how many films he's been involved in.

Career:
Seth Godin notes that it's easier to build a tribe to make your goals happen than hope to get picked for something.

Economics/Geekonomics:
Ireland's attempts to recapitalize has failed. Bailout possible, and even more bitterness in the Eurozone will result. I don't think there's the same level of negative feelings towards Ireland as Greece, but people aren't going to be happy.

This Friday's Rolling Stone has is going have Matt Taibbi's look at the high-speed 'Rocket Dockets' used for foreclosure in Florida, and an excerpt is here. Taibbi gets a lot of attention for his work, so I expect the Fraudclosure issue to get more attention. Florida also looks to be ground zero of lots of Fraudclosure tomfoolery, so what's found there will hopefully get attention paid elsewhere – if only right now Florida looks so damn bad.

Publishing:
Next Issue Media wants to be Hulu for magazines. They're starting on Android though – though this might pressure Apple into changing some policies turning publishers off (like keeping data and that 30% cut). Let's see what the company can do – I see this model having some legitimate potential – and let's note that people now use Hulu for COMPARISONS . . .

Technology:
MUST READ/VIEW: The decline of Yahoo in handy timeline infographic form. It actually helps me realize Yahoo's situation is far worse than it seems. Also it looks like there's going to be some cuts coming to their product division, about 10%. So how long until the AOL buyout?

Reviews are coming in on the Samsung Galaxy, and I find them a bit mixed. A more positive one is here, a more negative one here. My take from what I'm hearing is positive, but I think right now having two tablets on the market to compare makes comparisons a bit iffy.

Teleivision:
Ron Moore apparently wants to do a reboot of 'Wild, Wild West'. Well it's got steampunk potential I'll give it that, but not sure if that's what audiences are clamoring for. I myself am clamoring for people to stop remaking so many things . . . but he has geek cred which may power the project through.

Video:
Boxee is shipping it's set-top boxes and is partnering with Netflix and Hulu. Interesting as is, but more interesting is the fact that Boxee seems to be viewing Google as more a partner – or at least not a comptetitor. Not much else for me to say here – at this point the video tech market is so chaotic I'm not sure what to say. A quick teardown is here, revealing one big heat sink.

Video Games:
Activision makes $360 million on Call of Duty. Already.

Viacom wants to sell Harmonix for the sake of focus. It actually sounds like an awfully honest assessment of the situation, so I'm buying that a need for focus is actually part of the reason. I'm also guessing the crazy game market doesn't help focus either.

Meanwhile the focus of Warner Brothers Montreal is download games

EA knows what it wants: They're taking over all the publishing duties for the next Star Wars MMO. Smart move.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Yahoo – when did it become essentially doomed?

– Steven Savage

Aspirations Over Affirmations

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You know all those exercises where you affirm yourself for your career?  How great you are?  How awesome you are?  All the traits you supposedly have that make you fantastic?

Are these really such a good idea?

We keep telling ourselves how great we are – but does that help us actually become great?

We tell ourselves we're wonderful – but do we truly believe it, or are we dodging deeper issues?

Or, when it gets down to it, are we just stroking our own egos with all these affirmations and not really achieving something?  Are we both building ourselves up while not actually improving who we are?  Do Affirmations actually help us do anything?

(Also, aren't they getting a bit annoying?  How much more can people pump themselves up?)

I'm not sure Affirmations are a good idea.  I'm starting to prefer Aspirations.

Aspirations are what we aspire to.  When we make promises to ourselves and others to get better, to improve our skills.   When we state things like "May I become a better programmer" or "I will become a better writer" those are Aspirations.

Aspirations are more realistic, they give us a guide to get where we want to go, and they don't have as much chance for us to deceive ourselves with egotism.   They're what we're aiming for – so we can se the course of our lives.  They leave room for failure – as opposed to tempting us to deceive ourselves.

So next time you're there trying to find ways to rally yourself, consider Aspirations over Affirmations.  It's more realistic.

(It's also less annoying).

– Steven Savage