The Fake Smile Expert: Depressed & Working in Customer Service

When you're going through depression, pretending to be chipper and enthusiastic feels about as uncomfortable as squeezing into jeans that are four sizes too small. Yet, that's exactly what you're required to do when you're depressed and working in customer service. If you have ever worked in customer service before, you know that most of what your job entails is a big smile, the ability to build rapport with your customers, and the capacity to have a genuine interest in how a stranger's day is going. When you're struggling with depression and you can barely summon interest in your actual hobbies, how are you supposed to feign excitement about a stranger's weekend plans?

From experience, I can tell you what helps and what doesn't.

First, what doesn't help: ignoring that you have a problem. Depression is an illness just like any other and it ought to be treated as such. If you are forcing a happy-go-lucky mood and trying to "fake it 'til you make it", that's about as healthy as a person with cancer deciding that since they can't actually see the cancerous cells, the cells basically don't exist. Telling yourself this lie only exacerbates the problem by wasting precious time that could be spent trying different forms of treatment. I knew I had a problem long before I did anything to solve it, which means I felt horrible for longer than I needed to.

Instead of ignoring your feelings, the first step you should take is to see your doctor. They will help you find the treatment that works best for you, which could come in the form of a little blue pill, regular therapy sessions, or even getting more sleep. It might take awhile for you to feel better, but you will eventually find the magic combination that makes you you again. For me, it's a a mix of medication, regular exercise, and getting outside as much as possible.

Along with seeing a professional, you need to get some face time with someone at your workplace who you are comfortable sharing this information with. It could be your boss or even a person in human resources. They need to know about the health issues you are having (again, just as a cancer patient would let their employer know about their illness). Your employer will appreciate you confiding in them and should support you in getting help. When I talked with my boss about my depression, her first response was to tell me that my health comes before work and that she supports whatever I need to do. She understands that I need to feel 100% to bring 100% effort to my job every day. If your employer doesn't understand this, then it might be time to update your resume and move on to a place that will.

When it comes to interacting with customers, the one method that helps me get through the tough days is to remember that the customer in front of me does not know what I'm going through. They have no way of knowing how difficult it is for me to muster the obligatory small talk, so I have to be patient and kind when they expect me to chat about the weather. How I feel is not their fault, so they deserve my best effort at small talk. Even the unkind customers deserve respect, because I understand that they might have something going on in their lives that is causing them to act out. Use your illness as a reminder that everyone is dealing with their own issues and that a little empathy can go a long way.

Even more important than being patient and kind with customers, in my opinion, is to be patient and kind to yourself. If, after cycling through all the treatment options and talking with your employer, you still aren't feeling up to par when it's time to clock in and greet the first customer of the day, then it's possible that your job is not a good fit for you. There is nothing wrong with deciding it's time for a change and looking for something else. Your health is more important than what you do from nine to five.

If you are struggling with depression and have not gotten up the courage to make an appointment with your doctor or discuss it with your employer, I urge you to do it today. You deserve to feel better, first for yourself, second for your friends and family, and lastly, for your career.

See What Sticks: How Good Notes Take You to Infinity and Beyond

Hi everyone, Amma Marfo here. Two quick things about me that you’ll need to know before we begin:

(1) I am a reader. I am a library-loving, constant tome-carrying, unapologetic bibliophile. (2) If there’s anyone you will meet who can connect what she’s reading to the world around her, it’s me.

As such, I want to dedicate my time in this space to sharing with you what I’m reading, and how it could inform a budding professional’s daily life. 

I am a sucker for a good read on creativity. These are the books that energize me in my day-to-day work, the ones that help me look at daily problems from a new perspective, the ideas that reassure me that my quirky take on my life aren't as isolating as they might seem. And in that reading, there are a few companies that are constantly referenced as being "the gold standard" for creatives. You've heard of these places- Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Disney/Pixar. So when people started recommending Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (president of Pixar Animation), I knew I had to add it to my reading list. And sure enough, it was a wonderful read that provided me with many tips and tricks that I'm eager to employ in my own life. But the one I want to share here today, is the seventh tenet of their 7 Core principles: Give good notes.

Feedback is a funny thing. When you're new to a work environment, it is simultaneously necessary and absolutely terrifying because so much of our self-worth and vision of success is tied up in our being great. However, when you're more established and in greater need of it, it's harder to get because people "below" you in the organization may fear giving it. This pair of factors, combined with people who are largely non-confrontational by nature, and we're left with either empty and nonspecific platitudes, or emotionally-charged criticism that may overstep the boundaries of work. Pixar has worked for years to create a feedback system devoid of those two scourges of honest feedback, through what they call their "Braintrust," or a group of directors and advisors that watch rough cuts of films as they come together and provide the feedback needed to transform these sketches into the blockbusters we know and love like Toy Story or Finding Nemo.

Catmull eloquently addresses the fear of failure that comes with sharing a new idea in Creativity, Inc.:

From a very early age, the message is drilled into our heads: Failure is bad; failure means you didn't study or prepare; failure means you slacked off or- worse!- aren't smart enough to begin with. Thus, failure is something to be ashamed of. This perception lives on long into adulthood, even in people who have learned to parrot the oft-repeated ideas about the upside of failure [...] And yet, even as they nod their heads in agreement, many readers [...] still have the emotional reaction that they had as children. They just can't help it. That early experience of shame is too deep-seated to erase. (emphasis added)

I believe that Catmull used the word shame in the final sentence intentionally, and for an interesting reason. Helping scholar Brené Brown makes a clear distinction between guilt (a bad feeling that results from a bad action) and shame (a bad feeling that results from being a bad person). Too often, mistakes or missteps are framed to make us feel shame, when we should really feel guilt. Guilt, in most cases, comes from a temporary state, where shame is designed to come from a more permanent one. But our ideas aren't us, and the failure of an idea shouldn't be equated to us being failures. Pixar's "brain trust" was designed to divorce the two and truly concentrate on developing ideas without shaming the idea's developers. They do this by embracing candor, believing in iteration, and leaving freedom of solution. If you inject these tenets into your feedback-giving process, you're more likely to create space for development without creating offense or judgment.

Embracing Candor: Catmull is quick to point out that most ideas suck at the beginning. More to the point, he says most Pixar movies suck when the first ideas are shared. The sooner this is embraced, the better. Few ideas are perfect on the first pass; even if they appear to be, as they develop problems will start to surface. Being able to speak up to refine the ideas, without criticizing the person or people presenting them, is a gift to anyone invested in making the idea work. And when we smooth over flaws with "Great work!" or "It's...good!" we rob people of the ability to make their ideas the best they could be. Anyone invested in creating a good product (as the thousands of people who work at Pixar undoubtedly are) needs candor, or their work will go toward a less than stellar idea. Nobody wants that.

Believe in Iteration: I have written previously about how general praise, devoid of customization or specificity, isn't particularly helpful and at its worst can be patronizing. A necessary element of this is being able to give actionable criticism. Telling somebody what they've done wrong isn't particularly helpful if there's no way for them to improve upon it. I tell the students I work with often, "I can't do anything about 'this sucks.'" But if I know more about the experience they're struggling with, what the problem is, and what they'd prefer to see, I can work with something of a road map in front of me, as opposed to the veritable game of Marco Polo that the phrase "this sucks" is providing. When you give feedback, give it in such a way that the person receiving this information can realistically go back and try again with some idea of what needs to be fixed. 

Allow for Freedom of Solution: With that said, your feedback doesn't always have to provide the solution within it; in fact, Pixar believes that the power of the Braintrust's feedback is that they don't prescribe a solution for the problems they identify. In fact, the director and his staff don't even have to address the notes that are given in these meetings. I believe that this is the strongest element of the Braintrust. The key part of the concept is that second word: trust. When we bring people on to a team, we have to trust that they know what they're doing and that they arrived in their positions for a reason. So if problems present themselves, we have to trust that they have the expertise and judgment to attack these issues and come to a feasible solution. There have been times that this strategy has failed at Pixar, and they do have mechanisms to address that. But for the most part, the people who come in with ideas are equipped to solve their own problems, if given the space and faith to do so. Think similarly of the people you work with.

Most of our ideas will not garner the audience that those of Ed Catmull and his team do. But they are just as deserving of a respectful and constructive process by which to develop them. Anyone interested in a feedback process that is (literally) award-winning should check out Creativity, Inc for some of the best reading on creativity, and how to productively harness it, I've done this year.

The Advice You Really Need to Hear Going Into 2015

Let's face it, your newsfeed is filled with the "year in reviews", "best-of's" and resolutions you should be making in 2015.

Well, I'm about to add one more to your twitter stream.

However, this post is filled with some honest, look-yourself-in-the-mirror type of advice from two of our contributing editors Camille Sennett and Kali Hawlk and myself.

Let's take a step backward briefly. The last year has been one that has had a lot of ups and downs for me, both personally and professionally that required a lot of hard work, fearlessness, gut-checks, and a constant "go out and take it" mentality. From deciding to write and self-publish my first book to spread the Niche Movement's message to leaving my full time job at Rutgers in October so I could launch my digital storytelling business to relocating to DC were all opportunities in disguise that brought a lot of self-doubt and "what-if's." Looking back though, I wouldn't have changed anything.

This time of year allows us to celebrate last year and look to a fresh start, put the past behind us, and focus on something new we should be adding (or removing) from our lives. Don't get me wrong, taking time to re-energize, reflect, and find some inspiration for the new year is needed - but don't wait until December 31st each year. You need to be doing this more than once a year. And most importantly, we should be focusing on one single question, "Am I happy with what I am doing with my life?"

Yes, I will be the first to admit, this is a cliched, loaded question. From our relationships to our careers this question can be analyzed and broken down by you, the reader, in so many ways. So let's make it easy for the purpose of this post and for the root that The Niche Movement was started on.

Ask yourself this "Do I love what I do for a living?" Since this is a time for reflection, don't just look at the last week, month, or year but really spend some time to answer this. If the answer is yes, then why do you love it?

If you say no (or thinking that you like parts of your job or love 50% of what you do) then please continue reading.

Over the last 6 months after deciding to write this book, I have had the pleasure of meeting so many people that have their passion and love what they do and they are from all walks of life. Below Camille, Kali, and I share eight real-world pieces of advice that can help get you to a place (time TBD by you) where you can say you are completely fulfilled with what you do for a living, that you have found your calling, and know your "why."

The advice is presented in three parts to help you 1) in your outward journey and think big 2) in your current setting to build a network and reputation that starts to build where you want to go 3) internally recognize where you stand.

Advice from Kevin O'Connell

1. Go out and take it!

First things first, there is no longer an excuse to complain and hate your job. By the time you read or share this it's going to be 2015. More than ever, faster than ever, we are living in a world of limitless connection and discovery. There are free and affordable resources at our fingertips to build something you love. And more importantly people around you that want to help you. So our first advice is Go out and take it!  This piece was given to me from three people: my father, someone I constantly turn to for advice; Gary Vayernchuck, entrepreneur and author, and then again, reiterated by Chloe Alpert, a 23 year old entrepreneur who will be featured in our upcoming book.

2. Be patient

We live in an instantaneous culture where we can have pretty much anything on-demand. Find a job you love, building a business, establishing your reputation takes so much time. Think of finding your happiness as a sculpture: chip away every day at something that will get you closer to your goals. This could be learning a new skill each month, reaching out to someone new once a day to grow your network, or working on a side project you are passionate about it.

3. Trust the process

When you decide to take the leap of faith to either leave your full time job to start something new or to take a new job trust that everything will work out and remain positive. You need to grow a network, that is certain, but I can't tell you how crucial the network I built over the last 6-8 years of my life has helped me as a new entrepreneur. As long as you have identified a skill set that others need (or a problem you can solve), are willing to put your full self out into the world and are willing to work hard at it, good things will come.

Advice from Camille Sennett

4. Become a Linchpin in your organization

Take notice of and respect deadlines and time-sensitive material. The ability to get things done on time will have a positive effect on your career and lifestyle. In the workplace, you'll become a reliable, trustworthy and dependable team member. This is something your boss and coworkers will notice and appreciate. In your personal life, you'll become more responsible about bills, family deadlines such as birthdays which will lead to less stress and confrontation. Becoming a linchpin and building a solid reputation will help when you decide to start something new, go after a new job, or start your own business.

Advice from Kali Hawlk

5. Listen to yourself

Don't let someone else's idea -- or even your own idea -- of what you "should" do get in your way. You need to do what is right and best for you and your work.

6. Check yourself at the door

When you think about what you want to accomplish, make sure your actions fulfill you and your goals -- not your ego.

7. Take time to find out what you want

There's more than one way to career success and happiness. Self-employment isn't for everyone. A high-powered position in a big company isn't for everyone, either. It's about what makes you feel satisfied.

8. Put in the work

Understand that achieving your goals isn't easy. The right path is hard work. The wrong path is so much easier. So don't be fooled into thinking your dream job and ideal career will be "easy" to create or achieve. Prepare to work!

If you take anything away from the advice we shared, remember that we all were put on this earth to do great work and lead great lives. Don't let a 9-5 job you aren't fulfilled by get in the way of that.

If this post resonated or if someone you know can benefit from this, then please share, it would mean the world to us. 

Why You Should Consider Working Abroad After Graduation

Guest post: My name is Troy Erstling, founder of BrainGain. Throughout my life I’ve visited over 20 countries and I’ve lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Seoul South Korea, and now Bangalore, India. These last five years of traveling have changed my life in countless ways, and I can confidently say that seeking out international opportunities has enabled me to carve out a unique path in life. I believe that traveling is the greatest form of education, and it is my passion to help others do the same. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to live and work abroad. The idea of traveling the world and getting paid to do it has always appealed to me and making a career out of it seemed even more appealing. After graduating from high school in Manalapan, NJ I moved across the country to The University of Arizona in Tucson to obtain a degree in International Studies.

My junior year of college I had the opportunity to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was my first time out of the country and it was a reckless adventure filled with steak, yerba mate tea, wine, paragliding, a pathetic attempt to learn Spanish, and some of the greatest nightlife on earth. I made lifelong friends that I travel with to this day. It was the greatest study abroad experience I could've ever asked for.

During my time there a friend told me about Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Turns out, if you are looking to get international experience and work abroad, this is usually the best way to get your foot in the door. I was sold.

After graduating from University I made it my sole mission to get a teaching job abroad. I stayed in Tucson for an extra 2 months to get my TEFL certification and I began researching the best destinations to teach English.

I eventually came across South Korea; paid round trip airfare, housing, medical insurance, attractive salary, and $2000 severance pay. Compared to the other options it was a no-brainer. I searched for jobs on websites like Dave’s ESL café, and within a few short months and a long visa process, I had my job and a one-way ticket to Seoul.

I spent the next year in Seoul, South Korea teaching English to 7-year-old kindergarten students. It was amazing. I got paid to act like a child all day and teach my kids about Michael Jackson and The Beatles. I was able to save around $10,000USD (roughly about $1000/month in savings), and had three amazing trips to Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines for my vacations. It was an unforgettable experience, but I knew I didn't want to be a teacher for the rest of my life...

Around the time my contract in Korea was winding up, I reached out to a friend of mine whom I met while studying in Argentina. He had also been teaching English, but in Spain instead. Turns out, he was no longer in Spain and had been living in India for the past ten months on a fellowship in Social Enterprise.

I looked up the fellowship and it seemed like a great way to transition my career while continuing my pursuit of creating a career abroad. It was a win-win. There were 20 days left to apply, so I submit my application and hoped for the best.

At that point my options were to take the fellowship, and if I didn’t get in go backpack the world. Win-win, but one seemed better for the overall career.

I was accepted to the fellowship and placed in Bangalore, India. My friend from Argentina also successfully applied for the position of Field Coordinator and was placed in Bangalore as well!

For the next year I lived in Bangalore, India studying entrepreneurial ecosystems in Southeast Asia with The National Entrpreneurship Network and worked for one of India's most promising startups, Zoomcar.

Throughout that time I had a lot of people reaching out to me about working abroad. I had friends from the US reaching out to me saying, “I’m 3-4 years out of school, I still do 200 cold calls a day, my job doesn’t give me responsibility, I would love to work abroad…what are my options?” Then I also had friends from South Korea who would say to me “I want to continue working abroad but I don’t want to teach English anymore…what are my options?”

One day it dawned on me that if you want to work abroad after graduation, your options are limited to teaching English and volunteer work. Trustworthy career relevant opportunities are few and far between. But here I was, living and working abroad with one of India’s most promising startups. I felt that other people would want something similar.

With that in mind I quit my job and made helping people find jobs abroad my full time job. I approached startups and social enterprises in Bangalore asking, “Would you be interested in hiring talent from abroad?”, “What positions are you currently having a hard time hiring for that you feel someone from abroad might be able to fill?”, “What are you willing to pay these candidates?”, etc.

Six months later I started my first company, BrainGain. I have lined up 15 companies in Bangalore, India that are looking to hire everything from sales and marketing, to design, to tech. Early stage startups that are Seed or Series A funded and are willing to provide fresh graduates with more responsibility than they are able to handle.

It is my first serious entrepreneurial plunge and I couldn’t be more excited to do it. There is nothing in life that I am more passionate about, and nothing that excites me more than to help others find ways of exploring an international career. When I get on a phone call with someone and tell him or her about the ways that they can live and work abroad I feel like I drank a double espresso. It’s invigorating!

As I write this I am on a train to Boston to speak at Harvard University. To think that 5 years after my travels have began I would be back in the states speaking at universities inspiring students to travel and work abroad absolutely blows my mind. I couldn’t be happier with where my life has come throughout that time.

This is a field I foresee myself spending the rest of my career. It is something that I will dedicate myself to for years to come, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch my life unfold in this sector. It is my niche.

Guest post by Troy Erstling @troyerstling

See What Sticks: Negotiation, Amy Poehler Style

DISCLAIMER: This month's post, on Amy Poehler's Yes Please is geared more toward women than my other, generally more equal-opportunity posts. However, just as Amy warns in the book, that does not reduce its value for any males reading! Stay with me, you may enjoy this too. There are moments in our lives, personally and professionally, where you may be asked to do something you don't want to do, don't believe in, or may not get to perform to your full potential because you haven't been set up for success. How do you respond in those moments? If you're anything like me, you might brush it off quietly, smiling on the outside but silently seething on the inside. However, Amy Poehler unexpectedly inspired me to push back against that feeling in one of my favorite chapters of her new book, Yes Please.

In the chapter "I'm So Proud of You," she recounts a performance where a missed cue compromised the quality of her performance. She tried to stand up for the integrity of what she had written and rehearsed, but was brushed off and haggled with by a producer on the show. What inspired me about the story she went on to recount was not the powerful and brave way that she stood up to the pushy person who compromised her work, but the turmoil she obviously felt while in the encounter...and how she pushed past it to stand up for her needs anyway. So while I fully endorse reading Yes Please in full, I'll attempt to encapsulate my new methodology for negotiation, as informed by Amy Meredith Poehler of Burlington, MA.

1. Name your concern or problem.
2. Allow yourself to feel the accompanying feelings.
3. Acknowledge it's not your problem.
4. Sit quietly.
5. Trust your "no."

Name your concern or problem.

When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way.

And don't just do this in the "fully articulated to myself, now read my mind and feel my anger!" way that is so easy for us to all do. Do this in a manner that an opposing party can understand- and operationalize. It's extremely hard to respond to the complaint, "________ sucks!" But naming your concern, and naming it to the person who is responsible, is one of the only ways that a feasible solution can be reached.

Allow yourself to feel the accompanying feelings.

Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won't rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry.

This can be hard to do in a society that equates feelings with weakness. But to extend, and perhaps counter, the passing rainstorm metaphor, consider instead a sneeze. Sneezes move at roughly 25 miles per hour. Holding in a sneeze is what suppressing emotions can feel like. If you try to silence it or keep it in, you could hurt your chest or ears, or ultimately have it explode with more fanfare than originally intended. Either way, you end up creating more of a disruption than if you had let nature take its own course. For Amy, this meant leaving the scene of the argument and taking refuge in her dressing room; for you, this could be taking a few deep breaths before responding to an email in all-caps, closing the door to your office, or (in extreme cases) retreating to the bathroom or your car. Wherever you go, whatever you do, give the sky a chance to clear before you continue.

Acknowledge that it's not your problem.

I immediately decided that this was not my problem, and the relief of that decision spread across my chest like hot cocoa. Too often we women try to tackle chaos that is not ours to fix.

Remember back at the beginning where I said this piece could be seen as geared toward women but had value for men as well? This is about to be the reason why. The feeling of needing to fix something that we couldn't have anticipated, or aren't responsible for, is a common feeling for anyone in a position where there is a power differential. Women can feel this way when working with men (the reverse can be true too, by the way!), younger staff can feel this way when working with older coworkers or supervisors, new employees can feel this way in the face of more experienced counterparts. Anyone and everyone can have that panicked moment of feeling as though there's something to be fixed. But if there really, truly isn't...if you didn't do anything wrong and the outcome could not have been altered by anything you did...then own that. Sit comfortably in it or stand tall in it, your choice. But own it.

Sit quietly.

Not talking can be hard for me. But I tried it.

This can be the hardest part. Making the decision from step 3 to acknowledge our lack of guilt is one thing; keeping yourself from qualifying it, backpedaling, or apologizing for it is entirely another. In fact, Amy acknowledges that she failed at this stage of the game, but only for a moment before resuming her silence. But there's a lot of power in sitting quietly and letting the other party consider their actions. Allow, as Amy and one of her favorite books, The Gift of Fear, say, the word "no" to me "the end of the discussion, and not the beginning of a negotiation."

Trust your "no".

This is going to sound a lot like step 3, and in a way the two are similar. But they can also be different. Trusting your "no" at the end of a negotiation or altercation like this means mot ruminating later about what you "could have, should have, would have" done differently. There are going to be moments in your career where someone tries to make you feel as though something is your fault, or as though it is your job to clean up their proverbial (or even literal!) mess. Again, if it truly is not, you're within your rights to respectfully but resolutely say so.

A note of caution, however: this strategy is not meant to keep you from exploring new things or to prevent you from stretching outside your comfort zone. Saying no to responsibility for something that isn't your fault, and saying no to opportunity because you're unsure of the outcome, are different. After all, people that do the latter are not Amy Poehler's type of people:

So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all their teeth. These are the people I want to be around.

So remember, when it comes to standing your ground in the face of the unjust: trust your no. But when it comes to stepping up in the face of the unknown? Say "yes please."