g l o s s i n g s

notes in the margins

by definition a résumé is:

–noun 1. a summing up; summary.  2. a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.

And summary is the key here, along with brief. Bullet points utilizing trigger words such as “managed,” “coordinated,” “assisted,” “performed,” “created,” “developed” and “implemented.” Good words but somewhat cliché as is the “traditional résumé” these days.

If you’ve answered phones and written emails, you are suddenly a communications manager. Entered data into a database? Welcome to the fine art of information technician. Helped someone fill out an application, for anything? Now you are an applications facilitator.

We have a whole lot of “professional” terms to elevate the work we do, and we find nothing wrong with using them.  This may have well begun with the women who were stay-at-home Mom’s and then wanted to return to the workplace but couldn’t very well put on their “traditional résumé” Mother, Wife, Housekeeper and came up with domestic engineer. But that’s just a guess, not something I researched and can validate.

Still, I know from having my own résumé reviewed that normal, descriptive terms such as “wrote correspondence for president of company” doesn’t fly like “Communications Manager” does. Doing routine things such as filing, isn’t nearly as impressive as Coordinating and maintaining document storage systems.

So, what does today’s résumé really tell you about a potential candidate? If they know how to enhance their sound of their responsibilities regardless of just what it was they actually did. Potential employers should still be as clueless after receiving one of these as they were before they started looking at it. And yet, daring to step out of the traditional résumé format will probably get you a quick toss into trash can.

So, employers, you get what you pay for. The next time you wonder why that impressive candidate you hired because of their stunning résumé can do little more than alphabetize a pile of papers that then go into correspondingly labeled hanging folders, think about what you could have gotten if you paid attention to that résumé that was outside of the norm but was unflinchingly honest and descriptive.

Résumés do not project personality and contemporary résumés are not really reliable as a brief summary of the actual skillset owned by the applicant.  They are nothing more than canned food for the hungry. And make no mistake, it’s not the applicant but you, the employer, who is the chef of this cuisine. In your hurry you encourage and receive Spam. It even comes with its own can opener, how easy is that!

I went to Ocean City, Maryland this week with a girlfriend, on vacation. It was something new for me. Not going on vacation-that’s something I’ve done many times as a kid. The new was going with a girlfriend. It was a wonderful week. We talked, laughed, cried, drank, ate, and just hung out without having to be anywhere else.  She whooped my ass at 500 Rummy a few times, too, but that’s only because she makes up her own rules! And we came home early because she needed to. She has a lot of things in her life that need her attention and as much as it was lovely escaping, the reality is that you can’t escape until you attend to the important issues that need to be attended to.

Being an early riser, I was usually up and about by 6 am, and one morning I went down to the beach very early just to be close to the ocean and feel the cool morning sand on my feet. I collected a few seashells and let the foamy waves dance around my feet.  It was one of the most peaceful hours I’ve spent in a very long time. When I got back to the room I pulled out my notebook and this is what I wrote:

9.21.09
Ocean City, MD
The Carousel, Rm 2112

Went down to the beach today at 7am. It was quiet, bright, warm sun, cool sand, and the water felt good-comforting-as it flowed around my toes. The ebb and flow dropping perfect shells, sparkling jelly fish in the morning sun. A baby conch! And the imperfect-broken with tiny holes-like me. A keeper to remind me even the imperfect is beautiful. Light, airy and yet as solid as the unbroken. The waves spilling on the beach and then racing back to rejoin the body. Or were they pulled back resisting the inexorable force? My footprints, deep in the sand, washed clean, erased all evidence of me there. Does this ever get old?

There is something compelling about the ocean and I never tired of watching it. The night before we left to come home I made my final trek down to sit there, quietly in the dark.  The lights from the hotel at my back illuminated the path but didn’t intrude on the solitude. And I wasn’t alone. A woman named Sandy (Cassandria) joined me and we sat together for a bit, talking and laughing quietly as she made shadow pterodactyls with her hands.  She became part of the moment and the memories that I take from that week. A stranger who had the courage to stroll up and say “can I join you?” A half-hour, at most, and yet forever.

It was a wonderful week.

“You get what you give,” is a maxim I’ve believed in for quite a long time. I forget that often, until something happens to remind me. As I was reading some articles about unconditional love, and considering just how effective, not to mention possible, it is to simply give love without expectation, my thoughts ran back to some things that have happened in my own life over the past 6 months.

It’s been a difficult 6 months, in some respects, and in others it’s been an illuminating time for me.  I went through a very rough period with someone I considered a “best friend,” which caused me to feel hurt and angry. And I was both. At least, until I changed my expectations. When I let go of the anger and hurt, and stopped feeling neglected and trying to hold onto something that I felt wasn’t there any longer, I started to feel better.  That was huge for me.  What I didn’t realize, until later, is that it was huge for my friend as well. 

By letting go of the expectations, and accepting the changes in our relationship, I was able to be receptive when the opportunity to heal presented itself. It took some effort on my part to let that healing begin and it wasn’t without moments of negativity or distrust but the healing is taking place and I needed that to happen, for my heart and my spirit.

What I’ve also realized is that what you give is what you get.  But not necessarily the way it appears at first reading.  What I gave was needy and then what I got was my friend giving needy to someone else.  Perhaps it was what I needed to witness in order to see just what I was doing.  I might not have recognized it any other way.  Seeing my friend turn to another person with the same single-minded dedication with which I turned to her not only hurt and angered me, it confused me.  I felt like I was losing something that belonged to me; something I thought I could keep forever.

At first I tried almost frantically to keep her focus on me, and all that did was make her pull away even further.  Then I reacted to my hurt and anger by going into ignore mode.  She did not exist, even when she was in the same room.  She did, but I refused to let her know that.  I have a bad habit of withdrawing when I’m hurt and shutting out the person I feel hurt me.  I’m pretty good at it, too. The hurt and anger had become an insurmountable wall and breaching that wall was impossible for both of us.

It took time but gradually I sorted through the hurt and anger, and slowly I just let it go.  I accepted that she had moved on and our time had passed.  I realized that I have no control over how others feel or what others do.  The only person I have control over is myself.  That icy chill I was exuding started to thaw and while I did not try to resume the friendship, I did not avoid a reconciliation when it appeared. As a result, we are rebuilding our relationship, albeit with differences.

The friendship is, I think, actually stronger, and more evenly balanced.  What we went through took us from an unbalanced need-driven relationship to a balanced friendship between peers and adults who enjoy and support each other in all aspects.  It may take time to re-build the trust I had in her but I’m trying, although this time doing so with the knowledge that the only person I can really trust is myself. Removing expectations removes the possibility of failure to meet those expectations.   

As I look at the other relationships in my life I realize that I have been just as needy and fearful with them as I was with my friend.  I’ve tried too hard to force an outcome that may, or may not, happen.  And I have too many expectations for a “return on my investment,” so to speak. There are resentments and expectations that I need to remove. Resentment that s/he doesn’t appreciate what I have given them and an expectation that I should get back what I’ve given. 

If I let go of that fear that I won’t be the recipient of their love and affection, then what happens, happens and I’ll still be okay, inside.  Others cannot fail me if I don’t have an attachment to specifics; I just need to let be what will be and appreciate what I get without feeling it wasn’t enough.

Again, I cannot control how others feel or what they choose to do or not do.  I can only control myself.  I have to do what works for me and at the end of the day look in my own mirror and know that I was being who I am at my best.

I feel best when I give anything freely-love, gifts, time, laughter, attention, etc.  And yes, I’d love to have all of those things in return but it might not happen, and that has to be okay, too.  If it’s not then I haven’t “given” anything but rather I’ve simply loaned or put a down-payment on something that I expect a return from, without a guarantee. 

Love, affection, caring and concern just don’t come with guarantees. More importantly, if those things aren’t coming from the heart of someone then it is simply obligatory.  I don’t want to be an obligation.  What I want, what I need, is to be loved, cared for, and wanted because they do, not because they feel they have to. 

None of this is easy, by a long shot, and I have to work on it constantly, but it’s worth pursuing, because quite bluntly, it takes more effort being hurt and angry than it does to do things that make me feel good inside. Hurt and anger are exhausting.  It’s difficult to sleep and you feel drained constantly.  Who wants to be around someone who is miserable all the time?

I know I don’t.