Tag Archives: silicon valley

Career, Girl Talk, Mental Illness

It’s Not Impostor Syndrome

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As I’ve been thinking more lately about the next 5-10 years of my career, I’m trying very hard to be confident in my abilities yet realistic. Everyone talks about “Impostor Syndrome” these days, thanks to Sheryl Sandberg (who clearly suffers from a case of it herself), but that’s not what I’m facing. Or maybe, a teeny tiny bit of my struggles is self-doubt and feelings of being and impostor, but most of that feeling is fact, supported by hard evidence. While I have some learned skills and natural talents, I’m not prepared for any sort of next step in my career – whether that be a step up, step sideways, or even down.

I’ve read numerous job listings, applied to a few just to see if I could get any bites, even partook in a couple of interviews as an exercise. While I’m not devastated that none of them landed at an offer (I am focused on adding value in my current role at least for the next year), I’m also hyper aware that I’m not setting myself up for long-term success.

This is not the first time I’ve written about this, of course, but every day that goes forward is another day passing where I imagine a future for myself of under or unemployment. Yes, I can definitely take steps to improve my prospects, but I feel like I need to commit to a clear direction before I move forward.

My social anxiety and general anxiety is crippling, yet I hate using that as an excuse. But any job that requires constant nurturing of numerous social relationships is not for me. This pretty much excludes most, if not all, senior-level marketing and business development functions. There is a small space for someone like myself as an expert in content production and data analysis, the later area which I can certainly improve in, but I’m not sure I want to spend my life dedicated to hiding in a cubicle crunching numbers.

That leads me back to the question of whether I want to stay in technology to begin with. I completely fell into tech, and I’m glad I did, but it’s also an industry filled with highly intelligent, well-pedigreed individuals who are so talented at learning quickly and effectively to continue optimizing their daily process and deliverables. That said, I do really enjoy working in an industry that values brainpower over fluff. I could have ended up working in media given my background, maybe even having found myself in LA instead of San Francisco after college, and I imagine now I’d be lost in how to move up inside a highly social, “who-you-know” relationship-based industry.

Nonetheless, in Silicon Valley, those who succeed without seriously high IQs are brilliant on the people side, and as I’ve already stated, while I’m an extrovert my social anxiety limits me greatly on this front. I cannot have a job that requires me to go to drinks and sustain conversation with a business partner, prospect, or industry analyst. I might be able to do this once in a while, and at times enjoy engaging with other people, but the amount of stress it causes each time I imagine must cut into my overall life expectancy.

Even if I was to successfully obtain, say, a content marketing manager job in the future, where does this lead? At 20-something, content marketing is a good role because it exposes you to a lot of areas within marketing and business overall, and then you can pick which to pursue. That said, a good content marketer looking to move up the food chain will have similar options (and limitations) to what I have today. The content marketer could just build out a team of content writer in a large organization and manage global content strategy – which is a good and important job but seems to end at that. I don’t think I’d feel fulfilled in a role limited to content creation. Or, the content writer could move into a more external-facing role, but I’ve already discussed that I’m not suited for such a position.

Work is work, yes, and no job is perfect. It’s possible over the next 10 years, when/if I have a family I’ll realize that my “kids” are what’s most important and my job requirements will shift dramatically. Perhaps then becoming a terminal content marketing manager with clear deliverables and reliable hours will seem more than palatable. Or then I could freelance as a writer and charge heaping fees for each document I create, which by then would be high-quality due to years of high velocity output for some global 2000 technology organization. Maybe I need to tell the little girl voice who wants to change the world to shut up because it’s time she grow up and find a stable, albeit unsexy career. I’ve spent too long at startups that no one has heard of, and this makes me unemployable.

This is what goes into getting hired in a non-technical position in Silicon Valley, from most to least important:

  1. Pedigree: Where did you go to school and what company’s have you worked at in the past? What was your degree(s) in? One successful company that is respected, even if you spend just one year there, helps greatly. (If there were some pedigree score on resumes from 1-10 I’d say at this point I have about a 2.5.)
  2. Analytics Savvy: Can you speak data? What results have you generated from your work and how did you measure them? How can you use data to add more value to an organization?
  3. Social Skills: Are you able to maintain a hour-long conversation with different types of people on topics ranging from how great they are to last week’s football game? Do you come off as not somewhere on the autism spectrum*? (*The tech industry has plenty of room for people who are brilliant aspies, but mostly in technical roles. However, if you are very strong in analytics than this is acceptable and expected even in a non-technical role.
  4. Writing Ability: Can you write in complete sentences? Have you ever created any collateral which drove quantifiable results (sales revenue metrics are best if you can figure out how to measure this.)
  5. What Have You Done? If you pass all of the qualifying items above, then, and only then, does what you’ve actually accomplished matter.

So if I want to stay in Silicon Valley I need to work on at least #1 and #2. I’ll never be strong at #3. I’m ok at #4 and can focus on improving this in my current role. For #2, I want to figure out how to become a quant-minded marketer. I’m trying to get the right analytics set up to measure goals and such, but I don’t know where to start. For #1, well, I think my goal needs to be really beefing up my analytical skills in order to obtain my next position at an established, soon-to-IPO startup. I desperately need that at-least one year of a success on my resume to be taken seriously in the Valley. Alternately, if this still proves impossible, I could get an MBA in order to get into one of those “just about to be successful” companies, but that requires getting into a Stanford or Harvard, which is just as hard if not harder (esp as a 30-something.)

So I just am taking a hard look at myself and my future to decide how badly I want this. It’s not like if I go into another industry suddenly I’ll have a clear career path and not have to work at it, but I have a feeling that outside of tech there’s a bit more opportunity for people who aren’t former valedictorians and student council presidents. I definitely can make something of myself here – I feel I’ve established a wavering baseline of competency as a tech marketer – but it’s going to be a lifelong uphill battle. Yes, it’s even harder as a woman, with few female role models at the top to look up to (not that I’m a typical woman and not that I get along with women anyway, but it is what it is. There are additional unspoken limitations when you are female and cannot have a close yet informal mentor relationship with a senior executive without dirty looks from fellow employees.)

I really need to figure out how much I want this. And what is “this” that I want?

Well, this is what I want, but can I get a job that fulfills this, and how on earth to I pivot from communications to something that does:

  • To create a product or experience that many other people use and that improves their lives
  • To be able to get to the end of my life, look back, and think of all the great things that I’ve built (or been a part of building)
  • To disrupt industries that are inefficient and limit value to the everyday person
  • Enough money to afford a house, infertility treatments for 2-3 kids plus the resulting 2-3 kids, international vacations at mid-tier resorts
  • Time to spend with my future family, traveling, painting, writing
  • Being around smart, witty people all day and laughing whenever possible
  • *Or, maybe, I just want to take a road trip to anywhere, picking up stories and experiences, and become an author, somehow, and creating stories that address psychological and sociological issues generated by our current and future technologies and economies… hmm.
Career

Lean In: Becoming a Better Leader by Leading

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One of my colleagues I greatly respect shared a valuable piece of advice with me earlier this month: you don’t get to become a manager by asking to be a manager. You get to become a manager when you show you can manage. Just do it.

This colleague is exactly my age, at my supposed ranking of seniority in the company (title-wise) and yet he has two direct reports. I, on the other hand, have none. And, as I told him, if for some reason we both had to leave our current positions today, he’d be set up for a VP-level role at another company (or at least one at the same level) whereas I’d have difficulty securing a position at my level due to not having direct management experience.

But that’s not the real reason I want to manage. I’m at a time in my life and career where I have ideas on how to move the needle that are bigger than what one person can do. I also want to learn how to be a good manager, but it’s so challenging as I wasn’t brought up in the most socially normal family and my general “how to relate to other people sense” is always lacking. I’m really working on that, and hopefully it shows. I figure I’ll always be ADHD and sometimes not think before I talk completely, but as long as I keep a positive attitude and am not afraid to be relentlessly enthusiastic, it will get me somewhere in life. Well, it’s gotten me where I am today to a point. Still, I’m no cheerleader. Continue reading Lean In: Becoming a Better Leader by Leading →

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It’s Official – I’m Moving!

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Looking at the lease renewal letter with the $250 rent increase one more time, I decided I really have to move. So I wrote up my 30-days notice letter, turned it into the apartment office, and clenched my teeth knowing that means I’ll have one week to move out when I get back after my trip next month.

I think this is for the best. I hope this is for the best. I’ll be saving money, anyway. And given that the only way to ever be able to afford property is to live super cheaply now and save, save, save, well, that’s what I’m going to have to do. I just hope I can find some place decent to move.

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Ridiculous to Stay, A Pain in the Ass to Go

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Ah, it’s a beautiful Saturday morning in my lovely studio apartment. The spring air is keeping the room cool – in a few weeks it will be piping hot outside, with the heat somehow collecting in between the walls of my studio.

In the background of my waking state is TLC’s “My First Home.” A couple is looking for a home in the Bay Area, and they’ve found one they loved.

Meanwhile, I search Craigslist ads vigorously. It’s not that I’ll find a place to move today, as my move-in date is July 1 at earliest, but I’m still trying to decide whether to leave my complex for a more affordable option or stay here and deal with a tight budget and less savings.

When I moved in and the studio cost $905 including utilities, it wasn’t that much of a jump from the $700 + utilities room share options available on the market. For $100 extra dollars, approx, I could have a place of my own. That was a no brainer.

Then rents went up to $1050 and I decided to stay. It was a shock, surely, but it still seemed like a pretty good deal given my options.

$1300 – is about double what I could be paying for a room share situation. I could even compromise and get a room and bathroom in a 2br/2ba condo apartment for less than the $1300.

Moving is such a pain in the ass, though. I could hypothetically “move” for little cost, if I can get some friends to help. As far as furniture goes, I don’t have much. The only large thing I’m sold on keeping is my bed, since I bought that new for a whopping $800 two years ago (I decided after 6 months on a used futon with poor support, I deserved a good night sleep). I have a large bookshelf I got at Target a few months ago and it’s really heavy – but it would be a shame to toss that! Other than the bed, bookshelf, and some small tables, I have a piece of crap IKEA coffee table that started to fall apart before I put it together (though it’s functional) and a large horizontal dresser that I could part with – I’m not sure anyone would want to buy it, but I’d consider trying to sell it on Craiglist. I have plenty of room in my closet now for my clothes, and I’d hope that wherever I move would have at least this much closet space. Then there’s a TV, a printer, a microwave, and other odds and ends. I really don’t have that much stuff. It’s still a bitch to move, but it’s not like I’m moving a house worth of life. It’s just whatever I could fit in a studio for the past two years.

Also, having less space might be good for me. It would keep me organized as there wouldn’t be places to hide things. Heh.

The downside of getting a roommate is – well – obviously enough to have me living in a studio currently. Noise. Roommate drama. Not being able to cook naked in the kitchen. These things are hard to compromise on. 🙂

My biggest fear is that I won’t find anything I like. I have some cushion. If I decide to move – I’d come back to California around June 20-something, and I’d have that time to finish getting out of my apartment. I’d put my things into storage and move in with my good friend who has offered up her second bedroom. I’ll pay her rent, but it will be way less than what it would cost to stay in my studio in August. $1300 versus, maybe $500 or something (plus whatever it costs to put my things in storage for a month.) That will cover the 2 weeks in June that I can’t work because I’m going to be in Israel on vacation. Then I can really take some time to find a good living situation.

The real question is, how picky am I? I get anxious in so many living situations. Finally, in this light and airy studio I feel, well, at the very least calm and comfortable. The greenery outside (beyond the parking area) makes me happy. It almost reminds me of home, back east. I love waking up here.

But is it the stupidest thing in the world not to move? If I did move, I’d look for a place ideally that costs less than what I’m paying now, so I could pay under $1000, and I’d put any extra money between that and the $1300 I would be paying for my studio into a special down payment fund. I’m tired of renting, and dealing with yearly rent increases.

I just wish I felt more settled. All of my friends are getting engaged and married. Buying homes. Me? Well, I’ve been in a relationship for two years. We joke about moving in together one day but we’re talking more apartment than house. He’s going to grad school in fall 2009, and who knows where I’ll be. That’s why it really doesn’t make sense for me to buy anything right now. Even though the prices for condos in the area are coming down while rents are going up, up, up.

The more I think about it, the more I realize the only logical option is to move. I could be saving $500 a month if I find a place for $800, or $6000 a year. $6000 a year is nothing to shake a stick at. That’s a huge chunk of change to go to my downpayment fund. Even if it’s $4000 and I get a slightly nicer place, it’s still a lot of money.

*sigh* – I just… wish there was an obvious option hitting me on the head. But life is never so black and white.

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How We Gonna Pay This Year’s Rent? – a $250 a month increase!

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I knew it was coming. But I didn’t know how fast or how hard.

My rent increase letter arrived in my mailbox today. In its perfect off-white envelope adorned with the elegant and harmless-looking apartment complex logo, the contents inside were more like an offer of a boxing match where the mailer was allowed to bring guns and a knife. I would, of course, have to fight bare handed.

When I moved into my quaint Silicon Valley studio apartment two years ago, it cost me $905 a month, utilities included.

Last year, when they bumped the rent up to $1050 a month (still, with utilities included) I was tempted to leave. But around here, I had few options anywhere near as nice. I wanted to live alone – that’s part of the problem. Still, other options for studio apartments that are cheaper than $1050 are, maybe, $900, and look more like a closet than an apartment.

Today’s letter, I knew, held the answer to my question – will I have to move out this year or can I stay for one more year? The answer… I’m moving out.

The utilities are no longer “included” although they’re offering $50 a month extra for them to be “included.” That brings the total rent up to $1300 a month to get what I’m getting now for $1050. A $250 increase? Are they out of their minds???

No, they’re just raking in the dough while plenty of people are losing their homes and the rental market is getting increasingly more squeezed. When my rent was $905 another company owned the apartment complex, in fact, I think it was family owned, so the rents were always reasonable. Then this big shot property management company came in, decreased the quality of life around here, and upped the rents. Gotta love capitalism and free markets, eh??

So… now I have to figure out what to do. To complicate matters, I’m leaving town for about a month at the end of May into June, which leaves me with about a week when I get back to find a new place.

The good news is that my friend has offered to let me stay with her while I look. So it sounds like I’ll be storing my stuff in storage for the summer, living with my friend, and trying to find a decent rental in this painful renters market. I’m almost tempted to look into buying. It seems like a really good time to buy. I’m not sure I’m in the right part of my life right now to buy property, but gosh, if I’m going to really be spending that much of my income on housing, I might as well be putting it into something I’ll own in the long run.

So right now I have about $25k for a down payment if I cash out my Roth IRA and all of my savings accounts. Of course that would leave me with no emergency fund – probably not the best idea. Perhaps I could convince my parents to give me a loan for a more enticing down payment, but I’m not sure they even have the money. Well, my dad will have the money in a couple of years when he can access his 401k, but he retired early and the money is apparently somewhat tight right now.

Do any of you think I should look into purchasing property? I’d probably want to buy a 1br condo – it seems to be in poor judgement to buy a studio (as I doubt it’s easy to resell a studio.)

There’s a lot I have to think about. I didn’t expect such a huge rent increase. I thought maybe they’d bring it up to $1200 and I was going to deal with that. But $1300 a month? For a studio? For a fucking studio?

Seriously.

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10 Reasons Why I Love My Freelance Job

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I work for a web startup in Silicon Valley on contract, about 40 hours per week.

10 Reasons I love My Job:

1) The people I work with are passionate, fun, and great collaborators working together to create something new.

2) My job tasks are diversified and include many things I’m interested in, such as writing, community management, UI, and QA.

3) The room to grow at my company is only limited by my skills and interests.

4) I get paid a very decent monthly wage for the opportunity to do something I love.

5) Because I’m on contract, I get the flexibility I need to pursue my other passion: theater directing in the evenings and on weekends. I’ve applied for numerous web startups, but most wanted me full time at 60+ hours a week. If I had no life outside of my job, I’d be happy to take this on. However, I need to have balance in my life. I don’t mind sacrificing company-sponsored benefit plans, sick days, holidays and stock options if it means I can keep doing what I love AND have a job I love.

6) While I don’t have a lot of time to do “other freelance projects,” I have a few hours a week that I can move around to take on some extra work. I like to continue freelancing on additional projects because it’s always good to have side income in case your full-time (or in my case, 40 hour per week freelance) gig goes kaput.

7) Free lunch on Mondays!

8) I feel appreciated. My ideas are not always used, but at least they’re considered. People seem to respect me. That’s the most important thing in making me feel satisfied at a job.

9) Flexible schedule and work location. I work from the office 2-3 days per week and I work from home the rest of the time. I find I actually do more work when I’m at home because I can focus. I’m also not anxious like I was at former jobs where I just didn’t feel smart/competent/knowledgeable enough to feel comfortable yet still challenged in the position(s).

10) My job is a great stepping stone to whatever comes next. I’m learning so much, and I learn more every day. As a writer, I’m still involved in research and finding out new things. As a community manager, I get to do my favorite thing ever – help people. Is it so absolutely bizarre that I actually love responding to customer feedback and writing FAQs? Being involved in QA, I’m learning a lot about testing a site for bugs. In general as a marketing assistant and such, I’m learning a bit about product management and general marketing for a web startup. I think all of this puts me in a great spot to move on to bigger and better things later in life, whether that be a position with more responsibility at my current company or something else. A while back I applied to a community manager position at another startup and it came down to me and someone else. I didn’t get the gig, probably because my journalism experience wouldn’t directly cross over to interacting with site users on a daily basis. But now… my resume can potentially land me another community management job, if I ever need to look for another one down the line.