Emotional Labor

How To Cope With Criticism

Garth Beyer

At one of my current occupations, I get to give kids money to go to college. It’s a pretty enjoyable time when I look at it like that. However, part of what I do is handle hundreds of phone calls and emails a week, call it customer service if you will.

Of course, those contacting me are doing so because of a problem they have, whether it’s from a lack of information, understanding, or what it sometimes feels like, they just want to blow up on someone.

This means I’m using a special kind emotional labor from day-to-day. I have to disassociate my personal feelings with every interaction while still keeping an open heart and willingness to help.

In other words, I continuously work on not taking anything personally.

To put it in more perspective, I seldom get a call to tell me I’ve done a good job or get an email just to tell me, “Thanks for all your work, we really appreciate it.” Occasionally I get a thank you letter from a student, maybe two a year on average.

I’m human, but even if I wasn’t, doing what I do without any pat on the back or thanks could still bring me to resent my work. Of course, it doesn’t. And for one simple reason.

Each day I remind myself that while I may receive 30 calls in one day, there are 90,000 students and 200,000 family members of students who don’t call, that things are going smoothly for, that have no problems. 30/290,000 is a pretty good ratio, wouldn’t you say?

Another current occupation (in which I am most artistic) is Writer. The majority of the time when I produce an article, when I get published, when I deliver, I get criticized. Similar to my work as a Grants Specialist, those who agree, who understand, who have been given the intended message, rarely leave feedback.

It’s not often people read to connect, but to learn and understand. I don’t see it, but there are hundreds (hopefully thousands?) of people nodding their heads in agreement and understanding while reading my work.

The few people who I hear from are those who disagree, who have a different opinion (that they would rather share in relation to my article rather than doing the hard work of writing one themselves), and yes, also those who just feel like trolling.

I once told a friend that if there was a point to complaining, they would call them com points, but they don’t. However, here is a point. (two actually)

We are criticized for two reasons. One, to broaden our minds, to self-evaluate, and to be aware of possible mistakes. In other words, to learn. Two (and most important), to be given a ratio. Not having a ratio doesn’t mean you’re doing everything right, it means you’re doing something seriously wrong.

Counting the number of critics you have is meant to remind you of all those who aren’t. I’ve never been one for math, but this is one ratio that makes it easy to cope with criticism.

 

Stay Positive & No Critics Usually Means No Art (and that’s on you, not them)

Garth E. Beyer

You Don’t Have The Experience

Garth Beyer

That’s the biggest problem with people looking to start at any rung of the ladder beside the bottom. It’s a universal problem that prevents us from doing the work we know we can do well.

Why is it then, that although you know you can do something, you’re still not allowed to do it? Because you don’t have the experience. And why is that?

Because experience doesn’t mean that you know how to do something or even do it well.

I think it’s a fair moment to share a quote from Oscar Wilde,

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes“

It’s actually easy to start half way up the ladder and even sometimes closer to the top. The only way to be granted that spot, though, is through humility, through sharing all the mistakes you have made and what you learned from them.

I could write for the New York Times, easily. They have editors,  I don’t have to worry too much about the details, just write as best I can. Why don’t they hire me then? Because I don’t have enough “experience.” I haven’t made enough mistakes, don’t have enough stories, I wouldn’t be a good enough teacher because I have yet to learn everything (the hard way).

It’s the mistakes that make the experience and the experience that delivers you to your dream job.

I guess that means there’s only one thing for you to do if you want what you want. You have to do the hard stuff, the humiliating stuff, the emotional labor. You have to make more mistakes.

Stay Positive & No, It May Not Be The Only Way, But It Is The Best Way

Garth E. Beyer

A Riff On Job Security And What It Means To Be A Linchpin

Garth Beyer

I didn’t know what was going on 10 years ago. I didn’t experience it. I only know what work, employment, the successful were all like because I’ve studied them. What I do know from experience is how difficult it is to grow up knowing that society is dysfunctional. That everything that my parents grew up with worked for them, but not for me. I felt pulled into an abyss because I knew that the world needed, not just someone, but some type of people. I grew up understanding factories and what it took to work there. Until I realized everything turned into a factory, that 2/3 of the jobs I ask friends what they want to do say “factory worker” without actually saying it. In the middle of everything that is no longer working but was being forced, I couldn’t become what I wanted to be until I decided to fight the world back and join the Tribe of Linchpins.

The job market got personal by giving stagnant wages, health insurance and a false illusion of job security. Job security is what everyone fights for, or rather procrastinates for. Every job began as a job where people didn’t have to think until their job was on the line. Then, instead of becoming a linchpin, an artist, a creator, they chose to make the tasks of the job last longer. Job security became self-controlled. This is what I grew up noticing. I say it in past tense because job security isn’t a result of always having stuff on your to-do list anymore. No. Job security has become something else, something better, something beneficial. 

Job security is only available to linchpins. The ones who do the jobs and all the other tasks that aren’t getting done. It may not be their job, but to a linchpin, that’s no reason not to do it. This is what job security means. Instead of being told what to do -which is repetitive and produces the same exact dull results over and over- linchpins figure out what to do. Figuring something out taps potential on the shoulder and tells her to get to work. It produces greater, more important, more human results and 95% of the time more profit than dictated results.

Linchpins produce emotional labor, not the kind of work you’re doing now where you come home frustrated and exhausted from doing what you’re told (always more exhausting than doing art). See, cogs are people who have been manipulated and brainwashed not to stop to think if what they are doing is different, human and actually productive above the average standards. Linchpins not only stop themselves, pause and find out how to be more creative, but they have the ability to stop other cogs, redirect then, and turn them into creative linchpins because being a linchpin means being leader and being a leader is about making other people leaders. Leaders are indispensable which means job security is universal. This job security doens’t mean you will stay at one job forever, it means that you will always have a job, a place where it will be your responsiblity to do what linchpins do best.

 

Stay Positive & This Job Security Is Sooo Much Better

Garth E. Beyer (secured since 1992)

Perks To Staying Busy

Garth Beyer
Staying Positive & Productive

When you aren’t busy, you complain about being bored or lonely. When you are busy, you just can’t wait to have some free time. It’s a never ending cycle and the worst (or best) paradox life has.

There are a few different perks to staying busy.

  • It’s good to be really busy because then you know you will always have a legit reason not to help out or do any favors for the unreliable, untrustworthy and undependable people. In other words, you avoid negative influences because you don’t have time for them.
  • You’re too busy to feel any negative feelings. You can’t engage in self-indulgent over-thinking. Any negative situations that have come to pass recently are shoved out of your mental frame by that which is keeping you busy.
  • The more you have to do, the more you can add to it. When you have  list of items that you need to do and you don’t feel like you can add anything more to them, once you start actually crossing things off the to-do list, you find that you actually have more time for other activities. The more you do, the quicker things get done and the more time you have to do extra and go the extra mile. Take time, make time, while time lasts. All time is no time if time is past.
  • Most importantly staying busy teaches you how to prioritize, delegate, compartmentalize, forget perfection, make the most of the opportunities, and establish a “do it now” principle. Staying busy forces you to take risks, to fail, to recover quickly, to learn the important factors and to do your best and forget the rest. It teaches you management, both time management and a productive management for each situation. Staying busy calls on you to be your best self, to perform emotional labor and to bring your art into everything that you have to do.

Despite that the perks to staying busy are probably as long as your list of to-do’s, some may agree that there is only one perk to staying busy. And that’s to say

You’re doing something.

 

Stay Positive & Look Around, Everyone Else Is Dormant

Garth E. Beyer