MouthyGirl.com

How to Keep Your Job Past the Probation Period

So the job search is over, YAY! Now you have a new job to go to…this is always a strange time, unless of course you do it frequently.

At this point you should have knowledge of several things for your first day, including a contact persons’ name and number, you should know what the dress code is, and also your job title and duties. By this time, if you’re going to be on a probationary period with this employer, you’ll know it.

This means that the job isn’t “yours” yet. You have the time period they gave you (typically 30 – 90 days) to prove you should be hired beyond the probationary period. A lot of companies are opting to do this now because sometimes you just can’t find out everything in an interview. Legally.

You know what I mean; tardiness problems, bad hygiene, bad attitude, improper dress, chronic illness, laziness….family drama that spills into the workplace…it’s a long list that gets longer everyday because of those sorry people who don’t take their jobs seriously enough to actually earn the money they make.

They give good employees like you and me a bad name. To be perfectly blunt, this is why personality tests and credit checks are becoming commonplace in the interview process. Bad habits and choices spread across your life, they don’t just affect your home life.

Anyways, when you go to work somewhere new, it’s difficult to feel confident because you don’t know anyone. Just smile at people as you walk by, that gesture alone can do wonders for other people’s impression as you’re shown around your new workplace.

As long as you’re going to be surrounded by other people working for someone else, you need to be an adult and make the best of it, learn what you can, take opportunities that are available and grow. Corporate America has things to offer, you just have to recognize it. All employers have something to offer beyond just a paycheck, even if all it might be is a lesson learned.

Part of the first day on a new job is the fear of not being liked or making a bad impression. So don’t be the jackass that comes in and starts badmouthing everyone and everything you don’t like. If you’re a pessimist, don’t make it public, if you’re judgmental, don’t tell everyone, these are all things you should keep to yourself and only share with those already familiar with you.

Smile early and smile often, make sure it’s brushed and sincere, but use it as a tool and don’t be greedy with it, a smile will light up your face and draw people to you. Seriously.

Additionally, don’t ask one person every question you have. If you don’t know where the bathroom is yet, use that as an excuse to introduce yourself to a coworker, “Hi, I’m _____. I’m new here and haven’t been pointed to the bathroom yet, do you mind showing me to the ladies room?” When it’s lunchtime ask someone where a good restaurant is, or to show you to the building’s cafe, this will break the ice and possibly lead to a nice lunch with someone else..or a nice lunch people watching.

Say thank you and please, and be agreeable. This trial period isn’t just with your boss, the people around you have a little bit to do with how your co-existence will be, so don’t forget that nobody likes a jerk. And for crying out loud, don’t try to be someone’s best friend!

It’s another day, another dollar – another window of opportunity is open for you now. See it for what it is, a new, fresh day with opportunity in your path. Who wouldn’t want to be you?

Tags: adult, attitude, boss, friend, friends, habit, interview, job, lunch, money, news, paychecks, periods, thankful, want

In Dire Need of Good News

I am a news junkie, but I must say I have to search and search for some happy headlines. They are few and far between. While some say there are glimmers of hope, I am seeing more and more despair. I’m having a hard time finding that silver lining, and the pit I feel in my stomach is getting bigger.

For example, in California the state is facing a huge budget deficit after voters rejected $6 billion in funding measures (i.e. tax increases). Arnold is making the “tough decisions” on what to cut, and the cuts are affecting primarily the poor. He is planning to eliminate the CalWorks and Healthy Families programs, which provide cash aid, employment services and health services to the state’s poor. Overnight, California would go from one of the most generous states to one of least generous in aiding the poor. Sure, it would save the state about billion dollars this year, but the result would be hundred of thousands of poor people left out on their ass with nowhere to turn. That is just plain cold and callous to me.

It isn’t like the poor in California have much opportunity, either. In some counties, unemployment is around 25%. It is in the double digits in just about every other county. It’s not like the poor are going to be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make a go of it.

It isn’t just California, though. Currently, 47 states face budget shortfalls. Most of them are making cuts to health care and education to fill the gaps. This means, though, that there are more job losses, which is turning the recession into a bigger one. The really sad thing is, the more job losses there are, the more demand there is for social services like public healthcare. Unfortunately, many desperate people will be turned away the one and only time in their lives they need help the most.

I’m starting to understand what the Great Depression felt like, and why they called it that. It wasn’t just about the economy. It was the feeling, too. That feeling is here today. For those of us out of work, the prospect of finding another job is slim. Once the unemployment runs out, there is nowhere to turn except to the charity of neighbors and friends. Those of us who manage to keep our jobs, are living in fear of losing them with the understanding there might not be another to replace it. We put up with more from our employers and work harder for less money.

It’s starting to feel bleak. We all need a little good news. We need a silver lining.

Tags: budget shortage, CalWorks, economy, education, friend, friends, Great Depression, Healthy Families, job, money, news, recession, silver lining, socialism

Remembering Lost Soldiers

I had an uncle, my mom’s brother, who was a towering giant of a man. As a child when you were around him you felt incredibly safe and protected but at the same time, scared of him – you never want to anger a six plus foot tall man when you’re only three feet tall, lol.

I remember our families, my sisters and I and our cousin Rebecca spending a lot of time together when we were younger, before our families all settled in different areas and our lives became too busy for regular forays to visit family in other states.

We had a lot of fun, for a long time all of the kids in our family were girls until my cousin Wesley came along (named after my uncle). Regardless when we were younger we would all inevitably anger the big man, always far too late at night for us little girls to be awake and giggling, and we’d hear the giant bellow from the living room, “Girls, GO TO SLEEP!”. We would all gasp and close our eyes very tightly, laying as silently as we could in case he came to check.

And when he did, those footsteps through the house lasted an eternity! Rebecca always gave us away, she was defiant from the start, and that still hasn’t changed about her.

My uncle’s name was John, and he had a tour in Vietnam when he was young, lost a best friend there. In the late 90’s when I was still too wrapped up in my own teenaged life to notice, my uncle started battling the big C. Cancer.

I didn’t really become cognizant of the battles he was going through until my son and I got our own place and I became much more involved with my family. (my marriage had isolated me from them).

I remember one year when my uncle was having a particularly hard time, and this was after battling cancer off and on for probably ten years or so, and he had indicated to the family that he didn’t want to fight it anymore. I was devastated, my uncle had been a deacon in mine and my sister’s baptisms and we all felt a closeness to him, almost like a father to us. My mother and I arranged to visit for a weekend and did, staying in a motel room and visiting with my Grandfather while we were in Oklahoma, where my uncle had settled.

After we came back home, I wrote my uncle a letter, and though I don’t recall everything that I said, I remember recording raw emotion and desperation like I’ve never felt before, pouring out of me into that letter. I wanted him to continue to fight, a big man such as he, a vehicle of God like himself, surely could push on and beat this, just around the next corner.

He continued to fight after that, and I wrote a few more letters to him, but increasingly his health got worse, and for most of the last I’ll say two years of his life, he was in declining health and leaving home less often.

In the spring of 2006 we buried my Uncle. It was a very hard time for our family and we’ve all struggled since that time to remain close and in touch, sometimes when family suffers a loss like this it’s hard to get together without thinking of those we’ve lost. My grandmother, who is a confirmed saint, had to bury her oldest son – and her best friend. I have a huge frog in my throat as I write this, it was an incredibly painful time for all of us.

Days like tomorrow remind me of him, and the Agent Orange that he was exposed to in Vietnam that eventually took his life. When I look at my cousin Rebecca it pains me to think about her having to continue her life without him in it, they always shared a closeness and a bond that was palpable to the rest of the family. I envied her relationship at times, as I didn’t have that kind with my own father.

I think about all the fathers and sons at war for our country right now and worry for them, praying to an unknown god that they will return to their families and enjoy a long and plentiful life.

This post is in memory of my Uncle, John Tuck, who fought and died for his country. I miss my uncle.

Pictured below: John & Rebecca Tuck.

Tags: brother, confirmation, country, father, friend, friends, girls, god, grandmother, marriage, memory, mom, relationship, relationships, soldier, son, spring, want, worry