Basic Personality Changes Linked to Unemployment
apa.org
apa.org
Social acceptance is a human need, like thirst, hunger, and safety. People will kill for acceptance.
"It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves."
~Junot Diaz
When I left graduate school, I came home for three years with no one that I could have the kind of intellectual connection with I had at college. It was like I was speaking a foreign language to my family and coworkers. Of course, I could go on the internet and talk about my computer stuff, but it's not the same when you are with people you trust your understanding of your knowledge with.
It's scary, and I'm still clinging to my own sense of self, even though I don't get to know whether it's still there, every single day. But I won't be marginal.
Your family, friends and coworkers are what is real in your life. I know it's probably not your fault, but graduate school has this nasty effect of absorbing every bit of mental "energy" from the students. Your connection to the rest of your life gets starved and your identity becomes whatever you research.
Then, if you don't happen to be from the very lucky who get tenure, you get thrown to the wolves into a world that cannot and will not understand you. I could tell you of the time that I almost cry in my first (grossly overqualified) job because I could not figure out how to use the damned phone.
I am not telling you to leave behind whatever is you found in graduate school. You can always make a special place for it in your life. But the way forward is to make your life broader, by nurturing aspects and relationships that have been neglected so far (or creating new connections if some of the older ones got broken beyond repair).
At the end, you will become a happier and more interesting human being! :)
Not necessarily. One can suck at, or dislike kickball and shine somewhere else. Similarly, I think a lot of people get little reward or satisfaction from their job but get "social acceptance" from their side activities (e.g. sport, music, video games...).
The lack of social acceptance, in this context, is related to the desire to play and not being accepted, more than the success at playing. The fact that you are in the the group to participate in kickball, means you, on some level, want/need to play kickball. (You could like kickball or are being forced to play it. In this context, the reason doesn't matter.)
> but get "social acceptance" from their side activities
You can fulfill the generic need elsewhere (like eating fish, instead of hamburger, to satiate your hunger). And, different sources of interactions have different psychological rewards, based on how you view yourself. If you admire self-starter entrepreneur types, do self-starter entrepreneur type things, and, as a result, are treated/seen as, and thus accepted as, a self-starter entrepreneur type. A greater feeling of acceptance and self-confidence is inevitable.
But, to bring it back to my example, you were trying to play kickball, for whatever reason, and they didn't want you to play kickball with them.
The second redundancy, after nearly 8 years, was surprisingly different. I guess it's because I'm older and wiser.... maybe. "You are not your job" is an easy thing to say to yourself but I think you have to go through the experience of being jobless to really internalize that. I think that's what made my second redundancy different.
i'd come out of that job having learned a lot and had gained a lot of confidence as an engineer. Losing the job didn't feel like losing a part of myself so much as the first time.
One of the most helpful things for me came from a 'career transition' course that my employer paid for me to go to as part of my redundancy. The instructor/presenter was talking about people they'd worked with previously who had spent months engrossed in their job search to the neglect of other things. When asked what their biggest regrets were, one had given an answer along the lines of "I've spent the last six months totally immersed in my job search when I could have spent this time with my kids". The point they were getting that is that in a way, the time you get from a well-paid redundancy might be a rare opportunity and you should take advantage of it to do the things you want to do but never had the time. Certainly look for a job, but don't make job seeking your existence. Ofcourse you have to have the luxury to be able to do that, but I think it's a good philosophy even just to remind yourself that your life always involves more than just a job.
I am currently an intern, thanks to some schooling program for the unemployed, and god do I want to go back being unemployed. I can't even bail out because I would need to reimburse the schooling program, which is 5500 euros. I was so excited of having the opportunity of trying again to be part of society, to have some reason to get up in the morning, to see people, but I was very naive about myself and about the schooling program I was offered. I would have better contributed by picking up trash, but in this country, even those jobs are difficult to get for some reason (I guess the government would not like having all the education which was given to me, go to waste because of the economic context).
I still have this desire to make my own video game in my basement though, but I barely have the mental resources to do it. My girlfriend hates me for being unemployed, so it makes things even worse for my self esteem. I feel pushed and sometimes I'd want to kill people who still argues that civilization need some form of class system. To me, civilization only meant getting welfare, getting porn and online video games. Not a system I have utter confidence in.
The schooling program I'm in aims to teach people web programming in 1 year. I already had programming skills before that (from a public school program where I failed my exam), so I learned nothing, and I hate php/java/mysql with passion.
Aside from that, you are unemployed and living on welfare, why then are you not making your own game in your basement? There is still time, and while your conditions aren't perfect (whose are?) it seems it maybe one way out of your current situation, if not financially, at least for a sense of completion/self-esteem.
Best of luck!
I live with my girlfriend in a pretty small apartment. I need to be in a quiet place in order to work on something, and we've been fighting. I have a hard time being next to somebody who doesn't like what I am. We have been arguing a lot and she just can't accept the fact that unemployment is a reality of today's society. So I feel like I'm at fault, and it's been very hard to focus on stuff that matters to me.
> Have you tried looking for professional help?
I see a psychiatrist, but there have been less and less sessions, and I did not see my psychiatrist for maybe 3 months now. That reminds me right now that I should try to get an appointment.
Also, if you hate programming, you will always be mediocre and unenthusiastic. Nobody likes working with unexcited people. So break away from what you hate. I studied finance and had trouble finding a job. I didn't realize how much I hated it until I stopped forcing myself to keep trying. I found that I really liked programming and now I have a job in the technology field (though it is not cutting edge. I'm still only just beginning though!)
Your girlfriend is still with you. If you sense that your girlfriend hates you, you still have a chance to turn things around. Why don't you compensate in other ways? Finding a job takes time. In the mean time, do things to make her happy or clean up around the house, cook, etc.
Best of luck!
I like programming, I just hate php and java.
Actually, it is the most natural desire for the human as it is for animals from which we have evolved - to not want to do anything when you do not have the urge.
Animals can look very busy, but if you change their evolution-formed instincts that force them to do so, they would stop immediately and would just lie down and do nothing.
It is interesting to note that having a requirement to work may be just a drawback of the current society. When the AI eventually arrives, there may be no such requirement anymore.
Most people today consider that everyone should work, that work is good for the soul, and necessary for the well being of the economy. When you think about it, civilization is built on employment.
Me, I think I might want to work if I set my own goals and if society can be okay with it. The problem is making that work get out in the world. I might just work for the same reason a neanderthal just toys with sticks, fire and stones.
I was in a very similar situation - unable to find work after college. It took me three years from graduation before I landed a job that was even tangentially related to what I wanted to do. In the interrim I did a bit of everything from bagging groceries to furniture delivery to repo work. The hardest part about it all was trying to find an explanation for my family as to why I'd spent those years in college. Or to explain why I couldn't find work. "Can't you try this? Can't you try that?" (Well, mom, that's what I was trying _last_ year and it didn't exactly work then.)
There isn't always a reason. Sometimes it's just bad timing. I stuck with my search, slowly (too slowly) expanded the list of places I'd be willing to live or the list of jobs I'd be willing to take. A decade later and I'm doing what I had set out to do in the first place.
At least once a day!
Thanks for taking the time to write.
After about 6 months unemployed I was asked to attend a govt sponsored course once a week. I was skeptical thinking it would be a waste of time and that I knew how to write a CV and type a letter dammit. BUT! the guy who was my contact was solid, gave me good advice too but the two most important things he did: 1. He had contacts because he was essentially a recruiter but working through the govt. (that got me a trial period leading to a full time job) 2. He got me up and across town every Wednesday for 9am and told me a thousand times how smart I was gave me the confidence boost I needed to see through the jungle of BS that is jobhunting.
My point being: don't negate any opportunities because they look bad at first glance. Comb your hair and go, do your best. We've all been to interviews where the job looked great, but then you arrive and it's clear you maybe don't want this job or like these people, but the opposite also happens. My current job was as a COBOL programmer - it never happened from day one, they were looking for a webdev really but the job description was written by a cobol dev who was overworked. What he actually needed was a working framework so he could use his time on backend programming. it may sound trite, but every opportunity is to be attempted.
One major trick to applying is to not preclude yourself from jobs, but let HR do that. Apply to anything that interests you, even if you don't exactly meet the criteria.
EDIT: I was a bit casual, but it's bothering me, so I'll be serious. I guarantee your resume is hurting you, and I'm willing to help.
EDIT: I wasn't entirely certain if you meant your HN username or your full name... either way someone got an e-mail not meant for them.
Just wondering if voluntary work would help with these indicators? Anyone got any idea about why conscientiousness is linked to enjoying income for men in the study?
Another study (http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/alex.wood/cons.p...) says "Conscientious people experience greater drops in life satisfaction following unemployment".
Taken together, one could hypothesize that with extended unemployment, some people adapt (decrease conscientiousness) to reduce the suffering caused by unemployment and learn to get their rewards otherwise.
I'm curious how volunteer work would fit in there too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#cit...
UPDATE: The OCEAN personality model was created by two guys working in the personnel dept. of an Air Force Base in 1961. So, take this with a grain of salt -- this model is optimized to rate folks working together in a miliary organization.
If I have some savings and want to work on my own projects for a year, I am what - unemployed?
They want to view people as some sort of robots with their terminology and primitive models.