Listed below are three updates from previous letter-writers.
1. How do I handle a “common” job with a parallel profession as a musician?
I requested about profession recommendation for musicians a very long time in the past, and I’ve waited a very long time to have an replace I felt like sending. Sadly, the previous couple of years have simply been actually, actually dangerous. Issues began to go sideways not lengthy after I wrote to you. This system I used to be in was a very dangerous match for me, and I ended up dropping out lengthy earlier than the top of it. There have been different dangerous issues too – I received’t go into all of it as a result of it could be fairly identifiable.
One main theme of the previous 12 months has been bizarre and tense well being issues. Your publish on PMDD was very well timed – it appeared proper across the time I used to be realizing that my explicit premenstrual hell was maybe not, actually, regular. I bought medicated for that earlier this 12 months, which helped lots. I additionally found lately that I’ve CRAZY ADHD, WHO KNEW, and began taking meds for that too – and the distinction is like night time and day! I’m having quite a lot of emotions about the entire state of affairs. I’m overjoyed to lastly have one thing that works for my mind, but in addition extremely unhappy and indignant that it took so lengthy to determine this out.
So many individuals left very type and useful solutions on the unique publish (thanks all a lot!) and I went again to learn the feedback many instances. Lots of people prompt some type of company job, and that’s what I’ve ended up doing. After dropping out of faculty I took a break for a couple of weeks, then freelanced and job hunted, and again in March I fell into a brief place in a company mailroom. I’ve been there for 8 months now, and to this point so good I assume? It’s a very boring, low stress job. I do quite a lot of information entry and scanning and sorting and making UPS labels and I take heed to quite a lot of podcasts. My coworkers are all very type, and my bosses appear to love me, and we take turns bringing in snacks each week, which has turned out to be extra necessary than I believed it could be. I’m very underpaid however requested for a increase a month again when my contract got here up for renewal (thanks Alison for the wording solutions!), and am being persistent in following up 🙂 In the long run, I don’t know that this job or sort of job would be the finest match – that is my first company job, and it seems that I’m not so good at conditions the place I’ve to take a seat nonetheless for lengthy durations of time (however a minimum of I perceive why!!!!). However for the second, it’s okay. I’m treading water, making an attempt to sock away some cash, checking out the treatment state of affairs and discovering a brand new equilibrium, doing music issues on the weekends, and customarily setting myself up for my subsequent transfer, no matter that’s.
Anyhow, if in case you have any musician pals, please test in on them and perhaps give them a hug. The post-pandemic arts state of affairs simply actually sucks – so many individuals I do know (myself and my ex-partner included) are shifting on to different issues, as a result of life is simply too rattling costly now and we’re all broke, exhausted, burnt out, and fighting varied diseases. I’m feeling extra optimistic about my private life than I’ve in a very long time (it’s wonderful what some constant revenue will do for you!) however I’ve by no means felt extra discouraged about the way forward for the music business (or, maybe extra precisely, the way forward for not-independently-wealthy musicians within the music business…). The financial shifts of the previous couple of years are quickly choking off the final income streams out there to the common musician, and it’s actually actually miserable.
Thanks a lot, Alison, for all of the work you place into this website – it’s such an important useful resource. And due to all of the commenters – I really like this heat, type hearted, and supportive little pocket of the web 🙂
2. My boss mentioned it’s unprofessional to not begin an e mail with a greeting (#2 on the hyperlink)
After my boss emailed me about how I began that single e mail, I ensured all my emails had a “correct” greeting, even in longer e mail chains (there could have been a bit malicious compliance concerned).
Nonetheless, it was the start of the top. I began getting unfavourable suggestions from my boss on different minor issues after which combined messages, like “You’re asking too many questions; you need to know your job by now” after which “I’m undecided why you don’t simply ask me that query.”
I might see the writing on the wall and began in search of one other job. I used to be finally placed on a PIP, advised to jot down the PIP and give you objectives for my success, which she then permitted. (Is it simply me, or was that actually bizarre, too?) Regardless of succeeding in all my objectives, I used to be fired with out trigger on the finish of it, with a small severance. I don’t know why I even bothered.
All of this occurred inside six months of a wonderful efficiency assessment during which I used to be advised I used to be assembly or exceeding expectations, accompanied by a good increase.
They marketed for my place at a decrease wage and title, traveled to my metropolis to rent somebody, didn’t, after which transferred all my duties to others.
I used to be fortunate sufficient to seek out one other job rapidly, and whereas it has its personal characters and challenges like each job, a minimum of I haven’t been blindsided. It was really a weird expertise, and I nonetheless surprise what it’s that I did to make her opinion of me change so rapidly.
3. Coworker was a jerk after I gave her (solicited) suggestions (#3 on the hyperlink)
I made a decision in the long run to suck it and see. (Observe from Alison: this seems to be a Britishism.) I rigorously shared my expertise with my new work buddy (a way more skilled contractor) and he or she revealed she’d had the identical assembly – and that the girl who’d been impolite to me had additionally been equally impolite to her. We mentioned chatting with her supervisor, however the lady in query was about to host a crew assembly that very day and we determined to see how that went first.
Properly, it was awkward as hell, principally. It seems this lady is simply outright obnoxious to everybody, about every part, and no one says something!
So, being British, I went with the tried and trusted strategy of aggressive politeness. Each time she was impolite to me over the following few months, I responded with smiling, sturdy politeness within the face of her coldness and abruptness. Taking this method with impolite individuals tends to focus on the rudeness, making them really feel awkward and alluring comparability from others.
Over the six months or in order that I used to be there, her friends will need to have spoken to her: she slowly grew to become much less impolite. By the point I left she was extraordinarily good to me, and even pretty good to others.
