Some Popular Posts
For all the new people that are coming in, here are some older posts of mine that were popular:
- Become More Positive—The How What and Why
- Don’t Listen to Robert Kiyosaki
- Job Interview Question: So What’s Your Weakness?
- Do You Need to Write a Thank You Letter After Job Interviews?
- Beautiful people earn 12% more than Ugly Bettys And What You Can Do About It.
- How I Survived With $7500/year
How I Survived With $7500/year
The Reason for This Blog Entry
There were several reasons why I wanted to post this. Penelope Trunk’s entry on how to survive with an entry-level salary gave me a reason to write this up. I agreed with most of her points, and it’s a solid read. That entry inspired me to write about my experiences of surviving with a very low salary after college.
Also The Tao Of Money’s recent entry about finance bloggers gave me another reason to write about this. That post talked about how some financial bloggers were already rich and never had to dig themselves out of a hole. Since I occasionally wrote about financial stuff in this blog, I felt it should be good to write about my financial journey.
Finally, I can probably win a Wii from Get Rich Slowly by writing this entry. 
My Background
I graduated in 2001 with a computer science degree. The tech bubble busted at around that time. Most companies usually looked at exceptional GPA for entry-level positions. My GPA was average so I had a hard time finding a job. Not only that, news and blogs reported companies failing, massive layoffs, programming jobs being outsourced, and how experienced programmers took entry level jobs out of desperation. So competition was tough.
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How to Answer Almost Any Interview Question
There is a blog entry on how to answer 23 of the most common interview questions. For people who don’t have experience interviewing, this is a good guideline. I especially like the answer for #20.
But we shouldn’t really need a list of stock answers to interview questions, there should be a formula for it.
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Become More Positive–the How, What, and Why
This is one step towards becoming a more positive person. Here is an exercise for you guys: try to think, talk, and write in positive sentences. Do this for a set number of time—10 days, 30 days, 1 year, or whatever you choose.
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Dress Code Guide
If you have trouble figuring out what to wear, check out this site. It ranges from formal to casual and what the “correct” outfit for each occasion is.
A Couple of Job-Search Related Links
Click here to view Steve Yegge’s blog post called Ten Tips for a Slightly Less Awful Resume. The post deals with technical resumes, but his tips can work with any resume. It’s a great read.
Another blog post I found is Rands in Response’s The Button. This post is about interviewing. He writes about how you should find the interviewer’s button and push it. It’s true that you’ll probably get a good response if you’re successful, and it should be helpful for people who don’t have experience or luck at job interviews. My suggestion is that use whatever advantage you can get, but don’t overdo the button pushing. It may be equally helpful if you are relaxed and show your confident and competent side to the interviewer. But you should check out the article. Click here to read about The Button
Are You a Leader?
Leadership is a role. Do you have what it takes to be a leader? Or are you already in a leadership position? Here is a checklist to see if you’re a capable leader. Do you
1. Often lose your temper or patience?
2. Feel that you deserve the status of “leader”?
3. Feel threatened if someone does better than you?
4. Constantly remind everyone of your power?
5. Only protect yourself and not defend your subordinates?
6. Not help your subordinates to grow, learn, and perhaps surpass you?
7. Abuse your power?
8. Belittle or insult your subordinates?
9. Take all the credit?
10. Get insanely jealous if someone of a lower rank surpasses you in status or rank?
If you answered yes to more than one of those points above, then quite frankly, you’re not fit to be a leader.
Students: When Will You Ever Use Algebra? Calculus? Physical Science?…
When you went to school, you probably said, “when will I ever use this stuff?” at least once in your life. Maybe you said it during high school’s algebra class. Or maybe it was during college where you had to solve differential equations. Whenever it was, it was a valid question. When will you ever use this stuff?
You probably never solved calculus problems in your day job. In fact, you probably never used most of the stuff they taught you in school at a practical level. But you know what? It did have some sort of purpose—it made you smarter. It conditioned your brain to solve problems, not necessarily math or science problems, but just regular problems.
If you ever found yourself with a difficult problem, your brain is working to solve that problem. In fact, after 15+ years of challenging, academic studies, your brain is conditioned to go through the steps to solve a problem.
Even if it’s not problem solving, the classes still expanded your mind. It conditioned you on how to learn new stuff. It expanded your vocabulary, thoughts, and views. It also helped you to practice writing, reading, thinking, and solving problems.
Also being successful in school helped you learn how to get things done. It also taught you about time management. It probably even taught you social skills because you had to interact with teachers and your buddies in school.
So if you’re in school now, work hard in these classes. All those classes that you think are useless are useful—it’s just not that obvious. They’ll stretch your brain far. And that will help you in your job life.
If you’re out of school, you know the drill: keep learning, practice and improve your current skill sets, learn new skill, read a lot, take classes in subjects you’re interested in, and just do things to evolve yourself.
Warning: Romance in Your Workplace is Hazardous To Your Work Life
I was watching the The Office (US version) one day, and I realized how much office romance goes on in that show. I knew it’s a fictional TV show, but that show was a social commentary on what goes on at today’s offices. I also read an article saying that about 40% of the workers had an office romance.
After college, single people have limited options on finding a date. They spend most of their times at work. So it’s logical that people find their love at their workplace. Is that a good idea? Most of the time, the answer is no.
First of all, you can actually meet people outside of work if you try. You can join classes, take up hobbies, try online dating, go to bars/night clubs, go to a gym, go to parties, go to bookstores/malls, go to church/temple, ask your friends to hook you up, etc. There are a lot of options. You just have to get off your ass, go out, and meet people.
I know it’s convenient to meet people at your workplace. I mean, you’re already there. And I’m sure that there are a lot of cute people walking around at your work. Maybe you even know some of them.
There’s a saying, “don’t shit where you eat.” And your workplace is a place where you don’t want to do that. What would happen if your relationship gets hairy? This can mean break ups, fights, and typical relationship dramas. This just creates more stress for your job. Why would anyone want more stress at their job?
Office romance might also be against the company policies. If it is, you would need to go through the trouble of keeping the relationship a secret. It might be against your company’s sexual harassment policies as well. If a co-worker finds your PDA offensive, then you guys are in trouble. Not only that, if your relationship doesn’t work out you might have a sexual harassment charge from your ex-office lover.
Also, if you have a relationship with your boss or your subordinate, things can get messy with your co-workers. Jealousy, gossiping, low morale and others negative things would hinder your job performance.
I’m sure that person in the office is very attractive and you two have awesome chemistry. But you should try hard not to progress it further. Just keep it to innocent flirting. Nothing should come out of it. But what if that person is your soul-mate? Well, there are a billion more people out there. The chances are, you’re capable of finding another “soul-mate” of yours outside of work.
The only time an office romance could work is when the other person is at a different department—as far away from your department as possible. That way your jobs won’t affect each other. So if your relationship does get hairy, it won’t have an immediate effect on your job.
Also, if both of you can keep the professional side and the personal side completely separate, the relationship might work. But we’re all human, and this would be hard to do.
If the relationship does work out, then that’s fine. This means that you guys eventually get married and live happily ever after. But this is something you have to be sure of. You have to think hard about it. You need to make the decision more from your logic than from your emotions.
Overall, the chances are against you for office romances. Find your soul-mate outside of work. There are a lot of great people out there that’s not working at your job.
Personal Development List
Personal development is important for you and your career life. If you work on your soft skills, it can translate to every area of your life. Sure you can learn techniques and tricks that gives results in the short term, but for long term results you need a paradigm shift. You need to re-evaluate your core self and improve from within.
For example, once your core self is healthy and strong, you don’t need to know the best answers to interview questions. You don’t need to learn how to talk to people. You don’t need to worry about how to impress your boss or other important people. It just automatically happens.
I’m not saying techniques and tricks are worthless. They are useful during your path to self improvement. It serves to expose your blind spots, and it helps you to re-evaluate yourself so you can improve yourself for the long run. So Priscilla Palmer has a list of most of the personal development sites on the net.
I haven’t read every site there. But I do read some of those sites and they are pretty good. They range from lifehacks, financial/money tips, management skills, leadership skills, career development, personal development, and much more. So check out the list.