Uncategorized | NZ Muse

January 18, 2013

Friday Five: Social media peeves

It’s been a little while (too long?) since I last got my rant on.

Here are a few things that are getting up my nose (I’ve been saving these up):

People sending me random LinkedIn connection requests. I’ve been getting quite a few from people I share connections with but don’t directly know and have never met or dealt with. If you think connecting could be mutually useful, then let me know why you think it would be beneficial! Otherwise your generic message is going into LinkedIn purgatory.

People who, when tweeting their own posts out, include “via @[ownusernamehere]” at the end of the tweet. I get why you do it – in case people RT it, you want your handle included. But this is just WEIRD. Sorry.

People who clog up my timeline with their frequent tweets namedropping all their new followers, ostensibly to thank them. ANNOYING. I may end up unfollowing them. Personally, if I start following someone, seeing a tweet like this would annoy me far more than it would make me feel, I dunno, special. Maybe that’s just me.

People whose Twitter streams are basically just a flood of headlines, links and Twitter usernames. It’s nice that you’re showing love to other bloggers’ posts, but Twitter is Twitter, and RSS feeds are RSS feeds. Show some personality! (If that’s what yours looks like, that’s quite possibly why I didn’t follow you back.)

People who laboriously thank everyone in a post who linked to one of their blog posts that week. Again, I get that it’s all in the name of reciprocation. But it’s tiresome.

Phew! That feels better. Now, onto the weekend! Feel free to vent away yourselves in the comments.

January 17, 2013

Internships: the good, bad and ugly

Bad things that happened upon returning to work in the new year: everything tech-related that could go wrong went wrong. BUT OF COURSE. It’s only a matter of time before my computer refuses to turn on at all – my laptop is on its last legs. The fact that this is the third time I’ve started writing this post, and am crossing my fingers that it doesn’t get eaten.

Good things that happened upon returning to work in the new year: Overall, it was pretty darn painless and practically pleasant. Love my coworkers, love the work.

Neutral things that happened upon returning to work in the new year: Having an intern on the first day back.

Yup, it’s time for a post about internships.

My thoughts on internships from the student side

I can’t speak to internships in other industries – the 400 hours of work experience engineering students do, the formal graduate internship schemes accounting/banking/consulting firms do, or the crazy American style of unpaid internships that last for months. I can only speak for the more casual 1-2 week (usually unpaid) internship that’s basically a prerequisite to getting anywhere in the creative industries, New Zealand style, and why it’s invaluable.

Practical experience. Look, the catch 22 for those trying to enter the workforce is the need for experience. Nobody wants to take a gamble on a newbie. The best way is to get real world experience under your belt before you graduate, through volunteering, internships, or any other way you can get it. My university was big on work experience and we did two industry placements in my final year. Those gave us good clips for our portfolio. Getting published makes you that much more legit in others’ eyes, and in today’s age, when the barriers to creative industries are basically non-existent, quality work will help you stand out.

Cold, harsh reality. Internships give you a taste for what you can really expect – and you might not like it. One of ours didn’t come back after the first day. Doesn’t say much for their commitment … but if you’re going to hate the reality of an industry, it’s better to find out now than later. TV or radio seem glamorous? Wake up to the crazy hours you’ll have to work in order to prove yourself and you’ll soon change your mind.

Making contacts. Who you know matters as much as what you know. Getting inside a workplace enables you to make contacts there that you’d never otherwise have such close access to. Make the most of it (I wish I’d done this myself), swallow those nerves and approach people.

My thoughts on internships from the supervising side

We’re all busy. That means a good intern is a godsend. A bad intern? A bad intern is very bad news.

Help us help you. We will happily answer questions, welcome ideas and suggestions, and your thoughts on the kinds of things you’d like to work on and what you’d like to learn more of. We in the creative fields are always short-staffed, so in my experience, interns generally have the opportunity get to take on as much as they’re capable of.

Help yourself. Internships should be win-win: learning and experience in exchange for some free labour. But you need to help yourself. It’s 2012; you can’t be afraid of technology. Even in a more traditional discipline, you’re going to need to use various software tools to get the job done. There’s no excuse for technological illiteracy. I don’t want to hear “I hate technology” from you. I definitely don’t want to have to explain how Dropbox works or help you figure out why the text on your browser has zoomed way out. This is the workplace, not daycare, and there’s not a lot of time for hand-holding.

There better be an ROI. Nobody wants an intern who’s going to be more trouble than they’re worth. Particularly when an intern is only around for a very short time, it’s not worth investing effort into extensive training on certain proprietary things. Ironically, sometimes I end up giving interns the plum tasks and do the grunt admin stuff myself for this reason. Basically, if having an intern around is going to hurt my productivity, then we have a problem. I don’t expect that having an intern around will basically double what I can achieve overall at work, but let’s try for an output of, say, 1.5 of me. Fair enough?

What have your experiences of internships been?

January 16, 2013

Adventures in the kitchen: Sweet chicken stirfry with crunch

Easy Asian stirfry chicken

Here’s a relatively easy weeknight dinner idea, adapted from this recipe by Iowa Girl Eats. The original called for sesame seeds (which I forgot to get), broccoli (which I hate – I considered substituting cauliflower but that seemed a little off, texturally and aesthetically, so I quickly fried some bok choy to have on the side, and it was fresh and green and light and spot on). I substituted chives for spring onions and tossed in some nuts.

Ingredients:
Rice
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 bunch of bok choy, cut up
1 garlic clove, minced
1 egg white
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 chicken breasts, cut up
salt & pepper
A handful of chives, chopped
Cashew nuts to sprinkle

Instructions:

Cook rice (I tossed about a cup worth into my cooker and left it to its devices).
Stirfry bok choy for a few minutes until softened (but still reasonably crisp), then remove from heat.
Mix honey, soy and garlic in a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk egg white and cornflour.
Season chicken with salt and pepper, then toss them into the egg mixture to coat.
Stir fry chicken until cooker through, then turn off the heat but leave it on the element. Add in the sauce and chives, and stir through.
Remove and serve up in bowls over rice and alongside the bokchoy.

Frugal factor – 4/5. If you’re lucky, you might get chicken breast for $10/kg. Probably the most expensive would be the honey, if you don’t already have it on hand. I bought cashews for another reason, but we had enough left over to use in this dish.

January 15, 2013

Tuesday Three: Tech thoughts

It’s been about six months since an iPad was added to our household, courtesy of my employer. Annoyingly, it’s one of the very early, chunky ones. That said, it’s still handy for dealing to emails and for reading in bed – Flipboard FTW – or being out and about during the day. Full on blogging and serious writing, not so much (I might feel differently if it was a newer version and fit properly into the iPad combo stand/keyboard I also have, but it doesn’t.)

I’ve always spoken out against e-books, and I still don’t see myself ditching paperbacks at any point. That said, I’ve found it particularly handy for one thing: free classics. I’m plowing my way through a long list of old novels and it turns out they’re mostly available for free (generally through the Gutenberg project) online. I can’t possibly rack up late return fees at the library, don’t need to wait for them to be transferred to my local branch and go pick them up in person, and it’s unbelievably handy to be able to highlight words and look up their definitions right there on the page (which I find myself doing at a frequency which correlates with the age of the book).

I’m still not convinced by 3D movies. Pretty much every free film screening I’ve been invited to over the past couple of years has been a 3D one (most recently the Hobbit) and while the technology is occasionally impressive, in general, it stinks. It’s patchy from scene to scene, most of the time looking no better than cardboard cutouts in front of a backdrop.

By the way, I’m working on a post about my favourite WordPress plugins, so if you’ve got any to nominate, let me know in the comments!

January 15, 2013

Guest posting over at Mo Money Mo Houses…

One handy thing about T’s job is the substantial discount he gets at company stores (cost price plus a certain markup), which means cheaper auto-related items (car parts, oil, fluids) and outdoor gear. I don’t get discounts anywhere, though I do get free magazines, a ton of event invitations, and sometimes other sweet swag…

My latest post is a guest spot over at Mo Money Mo Houses on the perks of the job – click through to check it out!

To readers visiting for the first time from Jessica’s blog, hello! If you’re new, a good place to start would be some of my greatest hits. If you like what you read, subscribe by RSS here 🙂

January 14, 2013

The dangers of recommending a friend for a job

I have to admit that I’m a hypocrite in this regard. I’ve recommended friends for jobs – smart, well spoken, well presented and generally awesome friends – and it’s worked out fine. My former boss even made mention of this in his farewell speech on my last day. And I’ve also chipped in my two cents of approval in regard to candidates that I did not recommend, but knew a little about nonetheless.

But it doesn’t always work out. I’ve seen this firsthand. Workplace chemistry is a funny thing. Personality clashes can arise and temperaments ill-fitted to the daily tasks at hand make themselves evident.

Yet it’s so much easier when there’s some kind of established connection, no matter how tenuous. That’s why warm leads > cold calls every time. I’d bet managers put more weight on personal recommendations, seeing as they say the majority of jobs are never advertised publicly. You could call it nepotism, as someone I know does, or you could call it human nature or common sense.

Hiring is a long process, recruiting from outside can be expensive, and so it makes sense to tap your networks first. Any edge you can get as a candidate is a huge bonus, hence the importance of staying on contacts’ radar. I have one – let’s call her M – whom I’ve worked with a little, but to be honest, I tend to forget about her entirely in between the rare Facebook status I see from her (she seems to have given up on Twitter and doesn’t do much on LinkedIn, and we’re not close enough to email). Every so often she checks in with me, however – once, just AFTER a job had been filled at my company, and another time, just as a new opportunity had been sent out (in the vein of an all-staff email mentioning the vacancy and welcoming suggestions). Had she not, I’d never have thought of her.

Back to my point. Suggesting friends for jobs: if it goes well, awesome. If it turns sour, it reflects terribly on you. Not to be taken lightly; always err on the side of caution.

Would you ever recommend a friend for a job, or have you?

January 13, 2013

Link love (Powered by heat waves and new opportunities)

As a writer, I’ve always stood by the tenet that content is king. Yes, promotion is important – if no one knows what you’re creating, they’re not going to see it. But marketing is just the doorway. You’ve got to have something worth directing people to.

IMO, the SEO vs content is moot. It’s not even 50/50. It’s more like 30/70, weighted toward content.

Without good content, you have nothing to point people to.
Without good content, they have no reason to keep coming back.

As Google algorithms grow increasingly sophisticated, cheap white hat tricks are dying. SEO and readability are becoming more synonymous and they aren’t mutually exclusive anymore. Hopefully we’ll see fewer of those dreadful SEO writer gigs for cents around and instead see investment into real writing and quality content. Maybe.

Blast from the past…

One year ago I shared some tech tools I swear by, traditional things I don’t care about, discussed suburb snobbery and what I liked about my then-neighbourhood, plus how driving style reflects your personality.

Two years ago I published one of my most popular posts ever – my opinion on dream jobs/passion jobs, wondered what true employment independence means, tried to express what it’s like to have writing in your blood, the benefits of driving an old car, and tracked how I spent all my time over the course of a week (it’d look different now – I no longer own a guitar and spend more hours working…)

Three years ago I wrote about doing our bit in a fucked up world, whether mystery shopping was worth the time (I tallied up my earnings for the year) and shared some foodie confessions.

And, for a laugh, four years ago I was contemplating facing life after graduation. It turned out okay, 2009 me!

And now, some links I liked this week:

LIFE

Here are some ways to simplify your internet habits from Zen Habits

Yes and Yes on all the ways she’ll know she’s made it . Just another milestone, and another … I can so relate

An amazing story on Grow about becoming homeless and surviving by hustling

MONEY

Thanks to Frugal Portland for including my post on the extra expenses that come with summer in this week’s carnival of personal finance 🙂

Small Steps for Big Change now knows first hand the dangers of cosigning a loan

My Broken Coin lists 10 things you’ll gain if you stop being cheap

Mochi and Macarons suggests budgeting yearly for freelancers with variable income

Some tips on creating a realistic travel budget, via She Wears A Red Sox Cap

Wealth Informatics walks us step by step through how to negotiate lower cellphone bills

WORK/CAREER

Been screwed over by your boss? Untemplater considers the best way to handle the situation

From Make a Living Writing, why you need to build your social media audience now

Do you have a job, or a j-o-b? This Redhead Writing post is by far the best thing I came across in the past week.

“For seventeen years, I had a j-o-b. Lots of them, in fact. They each offered me health insurance, 401ks, stock options, paid time off, sick days, and a rock-solid paycheck every two weeks. I went to work, I did my work, and I went home. Oftentimes, the w-o-r-k from the j-o-b followed me home.

“But there was an achy space — I guess to be honest, there were achy spaces. The spaces in between every task. Between my front door and the car door. Between my car and the front door of the office. Between every task throughout the day, that bit of bliss before I had to pick up and do something else for someone else. The spaces between paychecks grew more and more achy.”

Now that is the kind of writing that gives me the shivers.

January 11, 2013

Adventures in the kitchen: Mozzarella making

Had I been born a couple centuries ago, my prospects as a mere woman would be considerably dimmer than they are today. T is indisputably the better cook. And as this piece (originally published at Good) demonstrates, I can’t even make cheese when a Mad Millie kit puts everything I need right in front of me.

Cheese and I have always gotten along well. It’s a genetic thing. Thinking back, I can recall memories of my mother standing in the kitchen in the evenings, slicing off slivers from her trusty Colby block, enjoying a solitary snack.

Over the years I’ve progressed from sliced cheese to block cheese to soft cheeses, and now, the full gamut of Nosh’s displays. But as with other dairy products, the price of the good stuff (and even the mediocre stuff) makes it a luxury rather than a staple. So I was amped to try my hand at making my own.

The first attempt started off well on the back foot. After unpacking the entire Mad Millie cheesemaking kit, I had to make an emergency trip to the supermarket to pick up some disposable gloves. Armed with two kinds (the clear food preparation type and a hardier all purpose variety), it was game on.

I’d seen a demonstration of ricotta making first-hand, from start to finish, and while it looked easy as pie (and is therefore probably the place to start as a beginner) it’s actually not a cheese I’m a big fan of. No – straight on to mozzarella it was – how hard could it be with step-by-step guidance?

They say cooking is an art, and baking a science. The boy and I both tend to fly by the seat of our pants, but it’s important to observe the times and temperatures laid out in the instructions, so I kept the booklet close at hand (too close, perhaps; it’s permanently wrinkled from rogue spills). Also, its important that you choose your kitchen utensils properly and most important the knives. I suggest you to read this article on cutco knife reviews to make sure you choose them properly.

All started off well. The mixture began to coagulate into satisfyingly solid curds:

Once formed, we wrapped them up neatly to drain…

and then revealed these.

So far, so good.

Now the tricky part – the rewetting and working of the curd into balls. The general idea is that you place some curds into a slotted spoon, lower the spoon into the hot water, then pull them back out and form the mozzarella balls with your hand. The curds at this point should be lush and pliable; I’d seen this part at the demonstration. However, these specimens were neither stretchy nor particularly soft. It seemed as if they’d lost too much moisture along the way and couldn’t get their mojo back, no matter how long they spent plunged back into the pot.

The end result? An odd texture I’d describe as something like a firm feta – not what we were going for, but at least it was vaguely cheesy and definitely edible.

It made for a good toast topping, anyway, along with a bit of bite courtesy of a red onion.

I should probably have prefaced this by noting that I am almost always spectacularly unsuccessful at Pioneer Woman-type pursuits. I’ve never successfully made bread from scratch at home, and I’ve never, ever had dough double in size (despite the countless times I’ve tried baking my own cinnamon rolls). I’ve failed at yoghurt, too. (I have managed to cobble together both hummus and mayonnaise from scratch, but not to the point of cracking a decent flavouring of either.) So it’s not entirely surprising that my grand ambitions in this instance also fell short.

After a couple more tries at mozzarella, again with the same result (and a separate iffy attempt at mascarpone – our improvised double boiler couldn’t hit the required temperature heights) I’ve decided I may just have to go back to basics and start with ricotta.

January 10, 2013

Why your website should have a price list

In researching stuff for wedding planning/articles I’m writing, I’ve been stymied, more often than not, by businesses that offer no indication of pricing on their websites. It’s been frustrating, to put it mildly.

The case for putting a pricing page on your website

It minimises the risk of wasting time, be it yours or a client’s.

When you don’t post a price list, punters don’t know what field you’re playing on. Are you budget? Are you mid-range? Or are you premium?

All we then have to go on is the coherence of your writing, the design aesthetic of your website, and other indicators (that a non-specialist may or may not judge correctly). And as we all know, a slick website is not an indicator of quality in the 21st century.

But every project is different!

I get that in many cases it’s very much an individual thing and it’s hard to quote on something sight unseen (although with some things, like venue hire, surely there is a more or less fixed price that is the default minimum and won’t change all that much, except perhaps for time slots when demand is higher. If you provide photography or videography, there is surely an hourly rate you won’t go below, or a package that is the absolute floor in terms of price point).

But if it’s at all possible to even indicate a wide price range, that would be helpful for so many people. There’s nothing more frustrating than emailing for more information when you have no idea what ballpark companies are playing in, only to receive an ulcer-inducing quote back.

But if I put prices on my website, people will be scared off!

Yes, being upfront about your price bands will scare some off – but odds are they were not going to be able to afford you anyway. A price list simply saves everyone some time.

But updating the website to reflect price changes is a pain!

If you’re having to adjust your prices more than, say, once or twice a year tops, that’s probably a warning sign. And if even doing that is technically difficult for you, consider taking a closer look at how your website is run.

Put a price tag on it!

Do you feel the same way? Freelancers/business owners, what’s your philosophy on revealing pricing?

January 9, 2013

Fitting travel into your life plan

7 ways to fit travel into your life and budget

They say that when it comes to getting work done, you can pick two of the following three – fast, cheap and good. Yes, any two – but you won’t get all three in one package.

I feel it’s the same with travel.

The typical New Zealand path is to head off to London after getting in a year of two of work experience. It’s a bit of a gamble at the moment – with the economy the way it is it’s a struggle to find good jobs.

A friend who recently booked her one-way ticket (and has now been over there doing random temping work for a couple of months) told me she wasn’t going over in order to further her career, but for an adventure. Which is totally legit. My own case of wanderlust is intensifying by the week. But I’m having trouble facing the possibility of toiling in a café or a mindless cubicle when I’ve been able to do jobs I love ever since graduation.

It’s a wonder anyone can afford to leave this country. Flights to the European or American continents are a couple of grand alone. And our dollar doesn’t exactly go very far in other currencies. That’s what you get when you live at the bottom of the world. Then again, maybe that’s precisely why we want to get out and stretch our feet.

A while back, I read an article about a young professional who took extended leave to do a big trip around Europe. Work hard during the year, accumulate some cash, then take off to sightsee (and presumably, eat fabulous local food). And that is exactly what I want to do.

I’m not in a ladder-climbing kind of field, but I am at this stage reluctant to risk my financial position (BORING! But true) to pack it all in and go live and work abroad. It’s not like I have wads and wads of cash lying about, but I finally feel like I’m on the way to getting my shiz together money-wise.

Some friends are currently in the UK on the traditional OE: none of them have found it easy. Personally, I want to use my savings for a house rather than scraping by while I scrabble for a data entry job living in a hovel in grey London. (Seeing status updates like “It’s 3.30pm and black outside!” strike pure terror into my heart.) I’m a planner and control freak by nature, and I don’t want to fly thousands of kilometres across the world if I don’t have a damn chance of being happy when I get there.

There are plenty of lifestyle design types bootstrapping it around the world (be they life coaches or business coaches peddling courses and ebooks, writers, web designers, online marketers) in very cheap countries. But what if you actually want to spend time travelling, not just spending your time working in a different place? Or what if you want to come back to a job? To buy a house? What if you want to visit pricey places like western Europe?

I wish I could say I have the answer, but I don’t.

In an ideal world I would be able to work, say, nine months out of the year and spend the rest traveling. Or manage to get some kind of international transfer (but I’m not in a field that’s in demand overseas and it’s certainly not going to score me a lucrative job abroad. The thing about fun jobs is everybody wants to do them; the boring jobs pay well or they wouldn’t attract anyone).

With those options out, how else could one do it?

Work a 9-5 and travel in your allotted holiday time.

Work insanely hard, save up, then take six months or a year off and do all your travelling in one hit.

Set it up so that you can work from anywhere, thus earning money to support yourself while you travel.

Digital nomadism is a thing now, didn’t you know? Lifestyle designers include coaches, writers, developers, designers, marketers and all other manner of freelancers/solopreneurs.

Bootstrap it through WWOOF-ing, Couchsurfing, house-sitting and similar setups with free accommodation

And/or in some cases, working for food/housing.

Get on board with a volunteer programme – there are thousands and thousands out there.

Note that some of them do charge money to set you up with a placement. Once you’re over there, most of your expenses should be covered. Similarly, look into industry programmes that might be available to you – for example, a local organisation here offers a number of unpaid media internships abroad that run for a few months at a time.

Teach English – there are opportunities all over Asia and Europe.

Some teach English overseas programmes will take pretty much anyone with a bachelor’s degree. Or you can get TEFL-certified on your own time and dime. (Personally, I’m not taken by any of the particular countries on offer, but it could definitely be an experience and get me closer to the places I do want to visit.)

Check out grants and scholarships.

In Delaying the Real World: A Twentysomething’s Guide to Seeking Adventure, author Colleen Kinder details examples of securing funding to go overseas to conduct your own research projects. No joke.

Get a sweet job with a travel/tour company or something else in the industry.

A friend of mine who did this has gotten to travel to some seriously amazing countries in the name of work.

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