Q&A Friday!

Q&A Friday!

A list of things topics that won’t be discussed this edition:

On to the questions.

Dear Dan,

I have recently been struggling with my career choice. I had a great conversation with a person at a bar who said that I basically have 3 choices: Change your attitude, Change the situation, Get out of it.

Is this good advice?

Signed,
I work from home so I am crazy anyway

Take solace in the knowledge that you’re starting in the right place: the bar. Or as I like to call it “The Place Where Problems Go to Die.”

That being said, I’m not so sure about the company you’re keeping at said bar. Maybe he’s not the sharpest knife in the tool shed, or maybe those delicious chocolate martinis really are made of liquor, but by my count you’ve only got two options: Change your attitude or change your situation. “Getting out of it,” while technically an option, isn’t really an option, though it could be an explanation for why this man has so much free time to give out advice at bars. So yes, this is very bad advice – the guidance equivalent of “shit or get off the pot,” which is not only short-sighted, but gross as well.

Basically, the thing to remember is that it’s never too late to do what you want with your life. Unless you’re 35, in which case it’s definitely too late. The problem is, if you want to change career paths, the initial derivation won’t be easy. There’s pay downgrades, lousy responsibilities, zero respect, and a bevy of women dressed in tight Oxfords who are eager to laugh at the 30-year old receptionist guy. Your job? Forget all that. Go full Zen, and focus on the end goal of recreating yourself into a person you like more, respect more, and who is happier in their skin. But (and this is important) never, ever forget all the hard work, strength, and diligence it took to get you where you wanted to be. That way, when you start to regret your second career choice you’ll have sort of a guidebook for doing it all over again.
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Hello Dan,

Love your blog! I will make it short & sweet. I am interested in sponsoring your blog with a link on the sidebar.

Please let me know if you might be interested. If we can come to a fair price, I will pre-pay for 1 year.

Many thanks, cheers!

All the best,
Cassie :)

I got this e-mail many, many months ago during a time when I was very busy and preoccupied. I had recently started experimenting with homemade mojitos. It’s actually a very complex process involving just the right amount of muddling, shaking, squeezing, etc. For weeks and weeks I tried different rums and sugars, tirelessly striving for the perfect cocktail.

Eventually it got to the point where I could consistently crank out a top-notch mojito in no time. I was very proud of myself, and happy that I could now count “makes a great mojito” on my List of Things I Like About Myself and Others Should, Too.

And that, my friends, is why this blog will never have a sponsor.
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There’s a woman in my office who sends every single e-mail with one of those red flags because apparently everything she has to say is SO FRIGGIN URGENT. This annoys me to no end. Help?

Boy, she sounds like a real douchebag. You could always try sending all of your e-mails to her with one of the red flags, ones that read like “URGENT – My chopped salad was so good today. Yum!” But then you’re just fighting douche with douche, and they’ll cancel each other out and leave you feeling unfresh all over again.

Instead, here’s what you do. Strike up a conversation with her and steer it towards people who make bad choices. “So my friend got pregnant by her drug dealer,” is a good opener. Then go on to relate this cautionary tale:

There was a girl named Suzie who lived in the woods. And Suzie always sent e-mails using the urgent flag. It made everyone in her office very mad because they would drop everything to respond to her, only to find out that the issue was not in fact pressing, but rather some trivial matter involving reality television or photos from her last vacation. Eventually, everyone became fed up. Then one day Suzie was being raped, and she sent an urgent e-mail for help. But no one responded.
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Remember when you wanted to adopt Knut? Well, guess what, your chance has come: Turns out the Zoo spent all the money they made with him (remember when CNN showed up to cover the fantastic news story of a polar bear being born in the Berlin Zoo and then thousands of random polar bear lovers from all over the world showed up in Berlin?) so they can’t afford a bigger place for him and now he has got to be sold.

xoxo,
zoological gossip girl (what?) jule

Though I love the idea of a zoological Gossip Girl (“Hey Upper East Siders. Looks like some chimp’s been passing his banana out to strangers. Who says there’s no pleasure in monkey business?”), I’m afraid my Knut time is past its prime. It’s like when you have a crush on a girl in high school, and then you Facebook her ten years later and she just looks . . . fat different. You just prefer to remember them the way they were.

(Think you’ve got what it takes to have a question? Email me at redactedblog@gmail.com)