A brief treatise on working with conviction

I've been thinking about direction a lot lately. For the blog, for my romantic relationship, for my career, for my life. I'll try to keep it brief. I've committed to posting at least a couple times a week from now on, but to be quite frank, I feel like crap today. Throat's killing me. Had a milkshake for supper 'cause the thought of solid food hurt.

Anyway. When I started up this blog a little over a year ago, it was honestly little more than a gimmick to get me noticed by someone businesslike. I'm sure, in hindsight, that it showed. But those days of faking like I knew who I was to impress someone for the sake of some job, any job, to pay the bills... they're over. I'm still not raking in the dough, but I'm getting by. And there's one BIG thing I'd love to go back and tell my past self. It's what I want to tell one of the main groups I was targeting when I started this blog: fellow broke, scared job-seekers like I was. I wanted not just to be visible to an employer, but to be encouraging to others like me. Here it is, here's what I would say:

STOP just pandering to get an interview, any old interview. You've got at least some conviction. Will you sleep at night if you're a vegan but you're working at a meat plant? That's an extreme example, but you get my point. I try to keep the politics to a minimum on my online social networks, and in my work life. But I've worked in environments where my attitudes, even hidden, were so unwelcome I was afraid to even breathe at my workplace.

In one temp assignment, I worked for a very conservative elderly man. When it slipped that I might be a feminist, his mission seemed to become doing whatever it took to "put me in my place." Assigning the most menial and stereotypically female-done tasks, constant horribly sexist comments or questions to get a rise out of me. (It didn't work.) I literally couldn't even walk past him without something. I remained sugar-sweet and compliant, simply responding to his ribbing with a gritted-teeth smile, "You're not going to get a rise out of me that way."

Please don't get yourself into a spot like that. I don't know what your rub points are. I just know you'll be too emotionally exhausted to fight for anything better if you compromise too much. I know 'cause that was me.

Don't throw away your convictions for a buck. Nurture them.

So, here is my little manifesto for working with conviction. Share it or don't, I just hope you make the concept of having one all your own:

I will work with most anyone who has any range of diverse political bents that differ from mine, so long as we all can agree to disagree and get what's important done. I will work with those whose styles of working and managing are, or aren't, something I immediately understand. I'll deal professionally with anyone who does the same for me.

The line I draw is when you start to believe your rights supercede those of the fellows around you. I won't abide bosses who put down for no good reason. I will abide by and give tough love and constructive criticism, all day any day. Call me out when I screw up. I want to fix it and avoid making the same mistake twice.

I won't abide an environment that is hostile to conservatives, liberals, religious, nonreligious, minorities, the disabled, women, men, or anyone who resides on an ambiguous point on the spectra of gender identity or sexual orientation. If you're a hiring manager who doesn't operate with these basic respects, kindly deposit my resume' in the circular file. I don't want you any more than you want me.