A real post appears in the wilderness
I reached a weird professional milestone today, that sort of ties into a form of imposter syndrome for me, so, here are some noodley thoughts about that.
I'm in this weird place professionally where I worked in the public sector for almost a decade doing work that's similar to what's being done in the private sector, but isn't an exact match.
The terminology we used was different, some of the work processes, definitely our org culture. On the one hand, if you took two random private companies in the same field, you'd probably find similar discrepancies and differences.
On the other hand, because we're in the times of covid, and unemployment has skyrocketed, and there are three times as many applicants for every job in my field (and the number of CVs being sent per position pre-covid was already in the triple digits), I'm suddenly being filtered out by a lot of employers because my background is in the public sector.
Like, before covid I was job hunting and doing interviews successfully, and no one even looked askance at my background. All they cared about was what I actually did at my job, and interviewers at companies were literally the ones to tell ME that yes absolutely my public sector job is the same as what they do in the private sector.
But now, everything is different, and much harder, and it sucks a lot.
It mostly sucks because every time I don't know something, whether it's a term in a job ad, or a question in an interview, I immediately think - oh, it's because I'm from the public sector, and my job wasn't REALLY in the field I'm interviewing for, and I'm really an ~imposter.
(Part of this is the fact that at my old job, while I did get raises, my job title didn't change in the almost 9 years I worked there, even though in reality I switched at LEAST 4 jobs while I was there. But the title stayed the title I was qualified for as a young uni graduate with no experience, and so in my head it's like - well, no one ever told you were even doing the more advanced work, right? It was just sort of understood but never acknowledged.)
Anyway, these ~imposter feelings don't actually stop me from Doing Stuff. They don't stop me from sending out CVs for aspirational positions, they don't stop me from networking, they don't stop me interviewing, they don't even stop me asking for a good salary. But they're just sort of always... there? And they make the mental load of doing all of those things a lot harder.
By far, the thing I'm worst at in the interviewing process, the thing that's the bane of my existence and didn't used to exist before covid (or was a very niche thing in my field and has now become standard) is the take-home exercise. Again, thanks to covid there are SO MANY applicants that employers can now afford to basically say - here, spend days working on this exercise for us, and then we'll decide whether you're worth a second look (or, sometimes, even a first look).
I'm great at in-person interviews, I'm decent at on-the-spot simulations and exams, I'm absolutely terrible at the take-home version. The reason being, that it gives me too much time to get into my own head and overthink things, especially since I know this is all an exercise and the Points Don't Matter. There's something about that that just fucks with my head. Every task takes 3 times as long, every decision is torture, I end up asking everyone I know to look over things, and every suggestion they make is like "oh! they know this because they're Good At This and I'm just a pretender" even when realistically, the outside person understands the exercise way less than I do.
Anyway, it's been the absolute bane of my existence, and somewhere deep inside I was beginning to think I could only get a job at a place that didn't require a take-home exercise (they do still exist, but are rare), because I'm just so terrible at them.
This is in spite of the fact that, every time I've requested feedback in a situation where an employer passed on me as an applicant after a take-home exercise, the results always surprised me. The reasons people passed were never what I thought. The things I was worried about not being good at were never the reasons given for why they didn't choose me. On the contrary, sometimes I was praised for things I'm the least secure about.
(The decision to ask for feedback even if my work is unsatisfactory was honestly the best thing. A friend told me that a lot of times people make a lot of dumb decisions in the hiring process, and I should remember how much of it comes down to luck, and man getting those feedbacks has certainly made that clear to me lol. Like, it really brought home how much I can do everything right and for various reasons that aren't up to me a job just isn't gonna work out.)
Anyway, the reason I'm writing all this, is because today all my fears were finally disproven. It was proven to me once and for all that I can do a complicated, challenging take-home exercise and excel at it, based on my ideas and experience alone, and I can impress people who have all the right qualifications and decades of experience. The precise sort of people I always think will see right through me.
It happened, I worked hard and I was Good Enough. It doesn't mean I have a job, I might be just as unemployed by the end of this week as I was at the beginning of it, but the fact that I passed this step feels so huge, and such a big blow to my stupid impostor syndrome feelings.
So, I just needed to make a note of that.
(P.S., I know it can be tempting to use a post like this to ask questions about the hiring process/job market when it works differently where you are, or to share HOW it's different from where you are, but please consider... not doing that. I didn't make this post to talk about the process of interviewing, I just wanted to share a happy personal thing. Thank you ♥)
*
Next on the agenda, for months I've seen Russian slash fandom blow up because of a Russian superhero/comic book movie that came out recently. Because there's a huge slash fandom I kind of assumed the movie was mediocre? That's usually what speaks to fandom the most.
But it actually... looks really, really good? I watched the beginning and laughed out loud twice in the first 10 minutes (with the movie! not at the movie!)
So, here have a trailer with English subtitles for "Major Grom: Plague Doctor". It's apparently coming out on Netflix, for worldwide distribution, in July.
*
In other really meaningful, emotionally heavy moments, and something that will probably mean a lot more if you have a particular kind of disability as I do, today I saw my physical therapist for the first time in like 5-6 weeks (I was sick for a few weeks, and then she was on vacation, and then I missed an appointment by accident), and she told me...
She told me we shouldn't see each other anymore.
I told her I was going back to doing pilates in a regular group, and going swimming as well, and she was like - great, you need to do all of that and not come to me anymore. You don't need this kind of one-on-one attention at this point. You still need some kind of organized framework, but doing the general able-bodied stuff is fine. It's enough.
She said - look, we haven't seen each other in so many weeks, and you're not in crisis. You're not experiencing major problems.
And I said - but that's because I'm not working, so I'm not sitting for so many hours a day. And she said - yeah, that's fine. If and when that changes, if and when the situation gets worse, definitely come back to me. I'm always here. But right now, you don't need me.
She said I've actually not needed her for most of the past year. But because of covid, there were no group classes, and no open pools, and she was my only option, so it was necessary. But now, when things are open and safe again, there's no point.
(To be clear, I see her privately at this point, so she's basically telling me to stop paying her lol.. But I guess really she's like - I have patients who actually need this kind of attention, and you need to clear out so I have more time for them lol.)
Anyway, it's happened to me before, with a previous PT. And then things got worse (they always get worse in the winter) and I went back, and now I'm being cut loose again.
It's always such a panic-inducing moment, when you're told you're well enough that you don't need the emergency help anymore. I kept saying - but I should still see you every 2 weeks right? Or 3 weeks?
And she kept being like - no, you can just... stop seeing me.
Finally she relented and told me to book monthly appointments and cancel them a few days in advance if the situation is still good lol
Anyway. It's a huge moment, and I'm not sure (as I'm always not sure when it happens) that I'm really ready for it, that I'm really well enough. But I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity when a medical professional tells me I can Chill and save my money.
However long this stage lasts, until things get bad again, I'm very, very grateful for it.
*
OK, and now for some of my favorite crack (you didn't think we'd get through this post without some Italian rock music, did you)!
There's just so many amazing things happening in this fandom right now, since the band is on an endless press tour in lieu of an actual concert tour because covid.
I love the tumble edit where like, this band comes in two flavors: sparkly sexy vampires and friendly neon pink bisexuals. (Note that Victoria believes in neither bras nor shirts in both versions. God I love her utter "fuck only men being able to go topless everywhere" approach to life.)
Anyway, the most important photo at the moment is of course, Ethan's... everything. I wish there was an even better quality still easy to find on tumblr, but alas.
I sent this photo to a friend and she was like "what is happening here Marina" and the answer is just: so much. SO MUCH.
Also I love that because Ethan absolutely refuses to tell people literally anything about his personal life (we know he has twin sisters! so there's that, but that's basically it) I feel like in 10 years we'll find out he's been married this whole time, or like slept with a different person in every city they performed in lolol (just kidding, if there was ever a time when he could get away with that, it's now over.) Anyway, I enjoy this extremely limited, thirst-trap version of himself he's OK sharing.
I also really love the rest of the band is super into him showing off his stuff, mostly because I think he used to be way too shy to do stuff like that, but also... I can't with their smoking. I CANNOT.
Let's leave aside that Damiano basically dragged the two other boys into this ACTUAL ADDICTION (and imo Victoria for a time as well, just because she has a thing about always chewing gum and part of me thinks that's to resist the constant smoking temptation) they're also doing the extremely dumb, teenage thing of using cigarettes as props and it's just... no. Please stop ;____;
It's fine if they wanna smoke (though between Damiano being an athlete for most of his life and being a professional singer for the other half, I WISH SOME OF HIS COACHES WOULD DO AN INTERVENTION) and obviously it'll show up in candids, but for the LOVE OF GOD as someone who started smoking at 12, whose entire friend circle smoked all through school, who's seen SO SO MANY PEOPLE have a relationship with smoking, good and bad, that started in middle school and continued into adulthood... THEY NEED TO STOP.
That's it, that's my most I Am An Old opinion. I HATE their staged smoking when they know for an absolute fact they have a HUGE audience of children and teens. I HATE IT SO MUCH. So actively harmful and unnecessary. Why won't Damiano's "I don't want to be a slave to a substance" approach extend to this as well ;___;
I also wrote some fic the other day, because I had a plot bunny and a desire to sublimate stressful things happening in my life into typing porn into the ao3 window at 3am lol
A first time for everything (2382 words) by sabrina_il
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Måneskin (Band)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Damiano David/Victoria De Angelis/Thomas Raggi/Ethan Torchio
Additional Tags: Friends With Benefits, First Time, GSF, Damiano's bandmates love him very much, Praise Kink
Summary:
Damiano decides that after years of random strangers assuming based on his fashion choices that he loves getting fucked in the ass, he should actually... try that, at some point. He asks his bandmates for help, but they have their own ideas.
*
Finally, a few days ago the covid restrictions eased so much that masks are no longer required basically anywhere, except maybe hospitals.
No masks on public transport, not in stores, not anywhere. I mean obviously you can, and lots of people still do, but you don't have to anymore.
And it's... a very reasonable measure, that if anything came quite late, at a safe time to do it? We haven't had a lockdown since January. Right now there are fewer than a thousand active covid patients in the entire country. Fewer than 25 patients in critical condition.
It feels like here the pandemic has been effectively over for a few months. I mean since the vaccines started kicking in, which was around March.
Obviously that's not fully true, some people are still refusing to get vaccinated, some people are still getting sick, even locally it's not actually over. Not to mention the rest of the world where it's very, very much not over and won't be for a long time.
And of course, we could always have a surge again. Even with the vaccines, the virus is still mutating. The summer holidays are approaching, and after them the major Jewish holidays, and those are all times when people will want to travel abroad, especially if their family is vaccinated and they've been feeling safe and normal for months.
But I just want to say that for this one moment, I'm so extremely grateful that for me and my daily life, the pandemic is effectively over, for now. And not in that way where the authorities are taking desperate measures to appease all sides, but in the way where it's actually safe and reasonable, according to medical experts.
Most of the population has been fully vaccinated for months. I no longer think twice about going to friend get-togethers, seeing family, sitting indoors in a restaurant, hugging people I've just met.
It feels... nice. No matter what happens next, even if things get worse again, it's a glorious summer to have, in the midst of an ongoing global crisis, when I can just breathe in the air and bask in the sunshine and not constantly worry about how the plague is affecting my daily life.
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I'm in this weird place professionally where I worked in the public sector for almost a decade doing work that's similar to what's being done in the private sector, but isn't an exact match.
The terminology we used was different, some of the work processes, definitely our org culture. On the one hand, if you took two random private companies in the same field, you'd probably find similar discrepancies and differences.
On the other hand, because we're in the times of covid, and unemployment has skyrocketed, and there are three times as many applicants for every job in my field (and the number of CVs being sent per position pre-covid was already in the triple digits), I'm suddenly being filtered out by a lot of employers because my background is in the public sector.
Like, before covid I was job hunting and doing interviews successfully, and no one even looked askance at my background. All they cared about was what I actually did at my job, and interviewers at companies were literally the ones to tell ME that yes absolutely my public sector job is the same as what they do in the private sector.
But now, everything is different, and much harder, and it sucks a lot.
It mostly sucks because every time I don't know something, whether it's a term in a job ad, or a question in an interview, I immediately think - oh, it's because I'm from the public sector, and my job wasn't REALLY in the field I'm interviewing for, and I'm really an ~imposter.
(Part of this is the fact that at my old job, while I did get raises, my job title didn't change in the almost 9 years I worked there, even though in reality I switched at LEAST 4 jobs while I was there. But the title stayed the title I was qualified for as a young uni graduate with no experience, and so in my head it's like - well, no one ever told you were even doing the more advanced work, right? It was just sort of understood but never acknowledged.)
Anyway, these ~imposter feelings don't actually stop me from Doing Stuff. They don't stop me from sending out CVs for aspirational positions, they don't stop me from networking, they don't stop me interviewing, they don't even stop me asking for a good salary. But they're just sort of always... there? And they make the mental load of doing all of those things a lot harder.
By far, the thing I'm worst at in the interviewing process, the thing that's the bane of my existence and didn't used to exist before covid (or was a very niche thing in my field and has now become standard) is the take-home exercise. Again, thanks to covid there are SO MANY applicants that employers can now afford to basically say - here, spend days working on this exercise for us, and then we'll decide whether you're worth a second look (or, sometimes, even a first look).
I'm great at in-person interviews, I'm decent at on-the-spot simulations and exams, I'm absolutely terrible at the take-home version. The reason being, that it gives me too much time to get into my own head and overthink things, especially since I know this is all an exercise and the Points Don't Matter. There's something about that that just fucks with my head. Every task takes 3 times as long, every decision is torture, I end up asking everyone I know to look over things, and every suggestion they make is like "oh! they know this because they're Good At This and I'm just a pretender" even when realistically, the outside person understands the exercise way less than I do.
Anyway, it's been the absolute bane of my existence, and somewhere deep inside I was beginning to think I could only get a job at a place that didn't require a take-home exercise (they do still exist, but are rare), because I'm just so terrible at them.
This is in spite of the fact that, every time I've requested feedback in a situation where an employer passed on me as an applicant after a take-home exercise, the results always surprised me. The reasons people passed were never what I thought. The things I was worried about not being good at were never the reasons given for why they didn't choose me. On the contrary, sometimes I was praised for things I'm the least secure about.
(The decision to ask for feedback even if my work is unsatisfactory was honestly the best thing. A friend told me that a lot of times people make a lot of dumb decisions in the hiring process, and I should remember how much of it comes down to luck, and man getting those feedbacks has certainly made that clear to me lol. Like, it really brought home how much I can do everything right and for various reasons that aren't up to me a job just isn't gonna work out.)
Anyway, the reason I'm writing all this, is because today all my fears were finally disproven. It was proven to me once and for all that I can do a complicated, challenging take-home exercise and excel at it, based on my ideas and experience alone, and I can impress people who have all the right qualifications and decades of experience. The precise sort of people I always think will see right through me.
It happened, I worked hard and I was Good Enough. It doesn't mean I have a job, I might be just as unemployed by the end of this week as I was at the beginning of it, but the fact that I passed this step feels so huge, and such a big blow to my stupid impostor syndrome feelings.
So, I just needed to make a note of that.
(P.S., I know it can be tempting to use a post like this to ask questions about the hiring process/job market when it works differently where you are, or to share HOW it's different from where you are, but please consider... not doing that. I didn't make this post to talk about the process of interviewing, I just wanted to share a happy personal thing. Thank you ♥)
*
Next on the agenda, for months I've seen Russian slash fandom blow up because of a Russian superhero/comic book movie that came out recently. Because there's a huge slash fandom I kind of assumed the movie was mediocre? That's usually what speaks to fandom the most.
But it actually... looks really, really good? I watched the beginning and laughed out loud twice in the first 10 minutes (with the movie! not at the movie!)
So, here have a trailer with English subtitles for "Major Grom: Plague Doctor". It's apparently coming out on Netflix, for worldwide distribution, in July.
Click to view*
In other really meaningful, emotionally heavy moments, and something that will probably mean a lot more if you have a particular kind of disability as I do, today I saw my physical therapist for the first time in like 5-6 weeks (I was sick for a few weeks, and then she was on vacation, and then I missed an appointment by accident), and she told me...
She told me we shouldn't see each other anymore.
I told her I was going back to doing pilates in a regular group, and going swimming as well, and she was like - great, you need to do all of that and not come to me anymore. You don't need this kind of one-on-one attention at this point. You still need some kind of organized framework, but doing the general able-bodied stuff is fine. It's enough.
She said - look, we haven't seen each other in so many weeks, and you're not in crisis. You're not experiencing major problems.
And I said - but that's because I'm not working, so I'm not sitting for so many hours a day. And she said - yeah, that's fine. If and when that changes, if and when the situation gets worse, definitely come back to me. I'm always here. But right now, you don't need me.
She said I've actually not needed her for most of the past year. But because of covid, there were no group classes, and no open pools, and she was my only option, so it was necessary. But now, when things are open and safe again, there's no point.
(To be clear, I see her privately at this point, so she's basically telling me to stop paying her lol.. But I guess really she's like - I have patients who actually need this kind of attention, and you need to clear out so I have more time for them lol.)
Anyway, it's happened to me before, with a previous PT. And then things got worse (they always get worse in the winter) and I went back, and now I'm being cut loose again.
It's always such a panic-inducing moment, when you're told you're well enough that you don't need the emergency help anymore. I kept saying - but I should still see you every 2 weeks right? Or 3 weeks?
And she kept being like - no, you can just... stop seeing me.
Finally she relented and told me to book monthly appointments and cancel them a few days in advance if the situation is still good lol
Anyway. It's a huge moment, and I'm not sure (as I'm always not sure when it happens) that I'm really ready for it, that I'm really well enough. But I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity when a medical professional tells me I can Chill and save my money.
However long this stage lasts, until things get bad again, I'm very, very grateful for it.
*
OK, and now for some of my favorite crack (you didn't think we'd get through this post without some Italian rock music, did you)!
There's just so many amazing things happening in this fandom right now, since the band is on an endless press tour in lieu of an actual concert tour because covid.
I love the tumble edit where like, this band comes in two flavors: sparkly sexy vampires and friendly neon pink bisexuals. (Note that Victoria believes in neither bras nor shirts in both versions. God I love her utter "fuck only men being able to go topless everywhere" approach to life.)
Anyway, the most important photo at the moment is of course, Ethan's... everything. I wish there was an even better quality still easy to find on tumblr, but alas.
I sent this photo to a friend and she was like "what is happening here Marina" and the answer is just: so much. SO MUCH.
Also I love that because Ethan absolutely refuses to tell people literally anything about his personal life (we know he has twin sisters! so there's that, but that's basically it) I feel like in 10 years we'll find out he's been married this whole time, or like slept with a different person in every city they performed in lolol (just kidding, if there was ever a time when he could get away with that, it's now over.) Anyway, I enjoy this extremely limited, thirst-trap version of himself he's OK sharing.
I also really love the rest of the band is super into him showing off his stuff, mostly because I think he used to be way too shy to do stuff like that, but also... I can't with their smoking. I CANNOT.
Let's leave aside that Damiano basically dragged the two other boys into this ACTUAL ADDICTION (and imo Victoria for a time as well, just because she has a thing about always chewing gum and part of me thinks that's to resist the constant smoking temptation) they're also doing the extremely dumb, teenage thing of using cigarettes as props and it's just... no. Please stop ;____;
It's fine if they wanna smoke (though between Damiano being an athlete for most of his life and being a professional singer for the other half, I WISH SOME OF HIS COACHES WOULD DO AN INTERVENTION) and obviously it'll show up in candids, but for the LOVE OF GOD as someone who started smoking at 12, whose entire friend circle smoked all through school, who's seen SO SO MANY PEOPLE have a relationship with smoking, good and bad, that started in middle school and continued into adulthood... THEY NEED TO STOP.
That's it, that's my most I Am An Old opinion. I HATE their staged smoking when they know for an absolute fact they have a HUGE audience of children and teens. I HATE IT SO MUCH. So actively harmful and unnecessary. Why won't Damiano's "I don't want to be a slave to a substance" approach extend to this as well ;___;
I also wrote some fic the other day, because I had a plot bunny and a desire to sublimate stressful things happening in my life into typing porn into the ao3 window at 3am lol
A first time for everything (2382 words) by sabrina_il
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Måneskin (Band)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Damiano David/Victoria De Angelis/Thomas Raggi/Ethan Torchio
Additional Tags: Friends With Benefits, First Time, GSF, Damiano's bandmates love him very much, Praise Kink
Summary:
Damiano decides that after years of random strangers assuming based on his fashion choices that he loves getting fucked in the ass, he should actually... try that, at some point. He asks his bandmates for help, but they have their own ideas.
*
Finally, a few days ago the covid restrictions eased so much that masks are no longer required basically anywhere, except maybe hospitals.
No masks on public transport, not in stores, not anywhere. I mean obviously you can, and lots of people still do, but you don't have to anymore.
And it's... a very reasonable measure, that if anything came quite late, at a safe time to do it? We haven't had a lockdown since January. Right now there are fewer than a thousand active covid patients in the entire country. Fewer than 25 patients in critical condition.
It feels like here the pandemic has been effectively over for a few months. I mean since the vaccines started kicking in, which was around March.
Obviously that's not fully true, some people are still refusing to get vaccinated, some people are still getting sick, even locally it's not actually over. Not to mention the rest of the world where it's very, very much not over and won't be for a long time.
And of course, we could always have a surge again. Even with the vaccines, the virus is still mutating. The summer holidays are approaching, and after them the major Jewish holidays, and those are all times when people will want to travel abroad, especially if their family is vaccinated and they've been feeling safe and normal for months.
But I just want to say that for this one moment, I'm so extremely grateful that for me and my daily life, the pandemic is effectively over, for now. And not in that way where the authorities are taking desperate measures to appease all sides, but in the way where it's actually safe and reasonable, according to medical experts.
Most of the population has been fully vaccinated for months. I no longer think twice about going to friend get-togethers, seeing family, sitting indoors in a restaurant, hugging people I've just met.
It feels... nice. No matter what happens next, even if things get worse again, it's a glorious summer to have, in the midst of an ongoing global crisis, when I can just breathe in the air and bask in the sunshine and not constantly worry about how the plague is affecting my daily life.
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