It's Thursday, the boss is on vacation, the weather is nice, and there's no more chili dogs to satisfy to workers. I smell a revolution.Thankfully, we've got another article by Penelope Trunk to pass along, which is like being able to eat chili dogs over and over again. Oh how happy we'd all be.
6 myths about work
By Penelope Trunk
Each generation revolutionizes something. Today's younger generation is revolutionizing work. The goals people have, their values and opportunities have all changed drastically in the last 10 years. The new workplace demands new rules for success, yet people continue to get outdated advice based on persistent workplace myths.
These myths about today's workplace are adapted from my new book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.
#1. Job hopping ruins your resume.
Job hopping is one of the best ways to sustain passion and personal growth in your career. It also helps you build a network quickly and allows you to build your skill set faster than if you worked in the same job year after year. The learning curve is always highest at the beginning.
And here's some good news for hoppers: Most people will have eight jobs between ages 18 and 32. This means most young workers are job hopping. So hiring managers have no choice but to hire job hoppers. Ride this wave and try a lot of jobs out yourself.
#2. Getting a promotion is good for you.
Promotions aren't created with you in mind -- they're created with the company in mind. The company creates a ladder and tells you to climb it. But you need to pick the steps that are right for you. You deserve a customized career, so be wary of all promotions.
Most people who are good at their nonmanagement jobs won't excel as leaders. It takes a very specific personality type to be better as a leader than as the worker who's actually doing the work. The irony is that people who are conscientious about getting their work done are promoted into leadership positions that don't value conscientiousness so much as being open to new ideas.
Also, the average salary increase is 4 percent. Is that going to change your life in any meaningful way? Definitely not. This is why the idea of getting a promotion is so last century. Instead, negotiate for training, mentoring, or flex time. These are all things that will really improve your life and your career.
My favorite? #5.
#5. Going to grad school open doors.
Grad school generally makes you less employable, not more. For example, people who get a graduate degree in the humanities would have had a better chance of surviving the Titanic than getting a tenured teaching job.
And unless you are going to a top business school at the beginning of your career, you should not stop working to get the degree. Go to night school because you will not make up for the loss of income with the extra credential.
Law school is one of the only graduate degrees that makes you more employable. Unfortunately it makes you more employable in a profession where people are more unhappy. Law school rewards perfectionism, and perfectionism is a risk factor for depression. Lawyers have little control over their work and hours, because they are at the beck and call of clients, and many are constantly working with clients who have problems lawyers cannot solve. These two traits in a job -- lack of control over workload and compromised ability to reach stated goals -- are the two biggest causes for burnout in jobs. Continued...
MUSIC
Discovering Good Fun in Mournful Dark Moods
By JON PARELES for The New York Times
A mournful streak runs through the lyrics of Architecture in Helsinki, like these from “The Cemetery”: “I don’t wanna fall face down/In the flood of the tears from the years that we loved and we messed up.” But those words, like most of the band’s set on Friday night at Fillmore New York (the renamed Irving Plaza), arrived with manic glee.
[Left: Cameron Bird of the Australian band Architecture in Helsinki performing at Fillmore New York on Friday night.]Architecture in Helsinki, which is actually an Australian band from Melbourne, breathlessly crammed together all its favorite pop and rock devices. There were funk bass lines, nonsense syllables sung in harmony, new wave guitar licks, double-time raps, ska trombone riffs, intricate minimalist counterpoint, bounding Caribbean-flavored rhythms, growls and shrieks. Songs started in one zone and ended up in another: a cowbell-driven stomp led to a chorale, and a Miami disco vamp dropped to half speed, then reawakened with chiming Congolese-style guitars. And the lyrics wandered from frustrated love to portents of violence to madcap non sequiturs. “We’re leaping off the edge of this world,” Cameron Bird sang as the set began.
Architecture in Helsinki’s music is art-pop with its heart in the early 1980s, when new wave bands countered the reductionism of punk with full-tilt eclecticism. The band can’t help echoing Talking Heads, which dipped into many of the same styles, and when Mr. Bird pushed his voice into a cartoonish rasp to be answered by Kellie Sutherland belting clear melodies, there was an unmistakable echo of the B-52s.
Songs from the band’s coming album, “Places Like This” (Polyvinyl), sometimes flaunted the resemblances too closely; it would be a shame if Architecture in Helsinki reduced itself to a revival. Onstage, however, the ideas arrived in a joyful, inexhaustible rush. The band’s new single, “Heart It Races,” had a line in its chorus about “made his wife a widow,” but with its throbbing synthesizer bass line, steel drum sounds and a singalong of “boom dah-dee dah-dee dah-dee,” it was too much fun to ponder darker thoughts.
Still, the band has some. “Places Like This” is due for release in August, but some audience members were already familiar with the songs because it has leaked online. Mr. Bird introduced an older song by dedicating it to “everyone that’s downloaded our new album,” doubtless for its title: “Maybe You Can Owe Me” (from the band’s 2005 album, “In Case We Die”). As the set ended, another band member urged the audience to buy CDs and T-shirts before leaving: to “do the right thing, support music.” Afterward the merchandise booth was mobbed. [READ FULL ARTICLE]
AIH's performance at First Avenue in Minneapolis last fall blew me away and made me an instant fan. Definitely check out this record when it releases and try and hit one of their shows, but remember to bring your dancing shoes.
Architecture in Helsinki - "Red Turned White"
Architecture in Helsinki - "Hold Music"
Architecture in Helsinki website