I never really went through a real interview process like most people do.  For one job, working at a Montgomery Ward, painting the place, my interview consisted of, “Do you paint?”  “Yes.  “Good, show up tomorrow morning at 7″.  I was there for two years.

For another, I actually did have an interview.  It was a job doing grocery store resets.  That’s when they move all the stuff around so you can’t find it anymore.  I didn’t really want the job, so I thought I’d try to not get hired.

“Do you have any grocery store experience?”

“I don’t think I’ve step foot in a grocery store even to shop in about 4 years.”

“Can you start tomorrow?”

Seriously… That was the interview.  Apparently, breathing was the only qualification they needed.  Had I know I might have stopped doing that.  There went another two years.

Now, it’s not like I just fell into jobs immediately.  I’m sure even the thought of that would piss off the unemployed in our current job market.  This was quite a few years ago.  Before my first job working as a clerk in a music school (I was a student there too), I went on a couple regular interviews that resulted in nada.

They were opening a new Target by my house and seemed desperate for people.  Two interviews, no job.  I thought maybe it was my long hair, but they hired a friend of mine with hair down to his butt, tattoos, and a habit of getting drunk every night.  Never did figure that one out.

At one point I got real desperate and applied at a McDonalds.  I didn’t even get called for an interview…. How bad is that?  I was apparently up against people with years of fryer experience or something.  But you start to question your future as a functional member of society when even McDonalds won’t call you.

I couldn’t go out and do the real job market now.  I’m a very “Here’s me.  Take it or leave it.” kind of guy.  But from what I hear from friends, you really have to put on a show for these people.  It’s a real song and dance about how much you love retail work.  Or you’ve always wanted to work with a company that creates web apps that track roadkill for driver safety.

It’s that question… “Why do you want this job?”  Really?  How about “…because if I don’t have a job I’ll end up having Sunday dinner out of a trash can and riding the bus all day for entertainment.”

Now that may be different if you’re a CEO type who’s already loaded from the golden parachute your last company gave you and now you’re looking for another company to ruin.  But don’t ask this question of the poor girl interviewing at Claire’s.  She’s there for the paycheck, the employee discount, and the proximity to Hot Dog On A Stick.  Done and done.

And I guess you’re not supposed to talk about money at the interview.  Like you’re just so excited to do janitorial work at Ebay that you’ll do it for whatever they offer?  This is the big charade that gets me.  Most people are getting a job for the money.  If they could get paid doing what they love, they would.  But it’s tough to get paid for eating ice cream in a chaise lounge.

In my line of work that’s not even an issue.  “Thanks for offering me the gig.  How much does it pay?” is everyday conversation.  Sure there’s negotiation at the higher levels in entertainment, but it’s still a lot more straight forward.  If we as people really doing what we do for the love of it can talk about payment, why can’t the dude trying to be a FedEx driver get a straight forward answer?

And I’m sure this doesn’t go on at high level jobs.  But I have had to take those standardized morality question tests on an interview.  With questions like:

Q: If you saw an employee smoking marijuana in the restroom would you…
a. Ignore them
b. Happily join in
c. Rat them out like a little bitch

Of course, the right answer is C.  It’s a baseline intelligence test to see if you can at least fake it well enough to look like an upstanding member of society for 8 hours a day.  I answered all the questions right, but they must have seen through me.

So, as quickly as possible, I gave up real jobs where I’d have to play act that I gave a damn.  And that, my friends, was my Independence Day.

Other Blogs On This Subject

Related posts:

1. Maziar Bahari on NPR
2. LARPers

Most performers I know are debt strapped and struggling to keep their head above water.  Much like the rest of the world.  And while I’m no Richie Rich, I have managed to get myself set up so that I don’t have bad debt and I’m able to sock away money every month to invest and retire on.

So today, I just wanted to share some of my favorite books and resources that taught me how to get out of debt and only have to worry about money part of the time instead of all of the time.  And yes, some of these are affiliate links that give me a little commission if you buy or whatever.  I only recommend them because I’ve used them too.  And every penny counts to us performers.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi – If the idea of laughing out loud at a good joke in a personal finance book seems as likely as laughing during your own heart surgery, you need to check this book out.  Ramit has fantastic information, geared toward the 20-something set (but great for everyone), for getting rid of debt, staying out of debt, and automating your life to do as little thinking about money as possible.  And the dude has a wicked sense of humor to boot.  You should also check out his fantastic blog at http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/

The Money Book For Freelancers, Part-Timers and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan – Besides their tapping into my own penchant for overly long titles, this book has a lot of really good finance ideas targeted to the self-employed set.  A group I’ve happily been a member of for 17 years.  A lot of personal finance books don’t take into account the ups and downs on working for yourself.  This one does.

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley – Want to know how the other half really lives?  Do they really buy fancy cars and bottles of Dom at the club?  Living like a millionaire isn’t necessarily what you think it is.  If you want to get there and stay there, learn how real millionaires live.

More Than Enough by Dave Ramsey – For me to recommend a guy that talks about money on conservative talk radio and tends to inject Jesus into his writing, you know he must have some good things to say.  Recently, when going through my book shelves to get rid of a few things I nearly held onto my Dave Ramsey books.  The only reason I didn’t is because, in flipping through them, I realized I’d already internalized and used all the stuff he talks about.  “More Than Enough” is a good starting point, but grab anything the guy has written.  He really knows his stuff.

Get Rich Slowly.org – This site has been around for quite awhile, but I’m just starting to get into it.  Fantastic information.  No hype, no get-rich-quick.  Just ways to increase your net worth without a bunch of risk.

Investing Without A Silver Spoon by Motley Fool – This book was my first foray into stock investments.  It teaches you how to invest directly with certain large companies.  And you can do it with small amounts of money.  If the idea of a brokerage account scares you or you want to just start dipping your toes into investing, this is a good place to start.  In fact, their whole website is chock full of good info.  It can be a little overwhelming though.  Read a couple of their books first.  http://www.fool.com/

Multiple Streams Of Income by Robert Allen – This guy is a hose beast.  Whatever you do, avoid getting on his mailing list at all costs.  And don’t follow any of his get rich quick crap schemes.  With all that being said, this book is the reason I still maintain multiple streams of income, giving me the freedom to keep a more consistent income and keep life interesting by having a variety of money making activities.  The big idea is a great one.  His little ideas tend to be sketchy.

Lending Club – This is an actual place to invest some of your money.  I’ve just started with them so I can’t give you a great idea of my results, but I think it’s an intriguing idea.  This is a peer to peer lending site.  The returns are decent and they seem to be rather strict about who they give a loan to, which is best to avoid defaults.  If you’re looking to consolidate your debt, this is a good place to try for a low rate loan.  If you’re looking to invest, this is a good place to stash small chunks of money that you won’t need for 3-5 years.  If you like the peer to peer idea and want to do it on a charity level without a return, Kiva.org is the place to go.

Now, don’t go grab all these books at once and try to change your financial picture over night.  Habits are created through slow repetition.  Start with the first one and work your way down the list.   None of these books is a perfect catch-all for your personal finances.  But they each have their own merits.

You’ll notice that some of these resources are on the old side.  The information in them is still valid for the most part.  I read the new books coming out too, but they tend to repeat information I’ve already gleaned from these other sources.  Got a recommendation for something good that I’ve missed?  Put it in the comments below.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

Other Blogs On This Subject

Related posts:

1. Book Review – The E-Myth Revisited
2. A Guide and Resources to Getting Over Yourself
3. Some Sound Financial Advice

In fact that’s the question that pops to everyone’s mind every January.  It used to be that was an optional question.  You could continue your new year the same as the previous and probably be ok.  But things change so fast now that it gets harder to keep up.  And yet it’s more important than ever to continue to change up your game to stay on top of whatever it is you need to stay on top of.

So with that in mind, I’d like to turn you on to two pieces of reading.  First is this letter from the guys in the band in OK Go.  http://okgo.forumsunlimited.com/index.php?showtopic=4169 You’ll remember them from the treadmill video a couple years back.  It’s a good summation of where the big music industry is right now and how it affects you.  Yes, you.  I want you to read this, especially if you aren’t a musician.

I’m a little behind on this other one, but I just had a chance to read it in my hotel room last night.  Seth Godin, one of my favorite thinkers, released an ebook compiling the thoughts of other important thinkers of marketing, business, internet, and life.  No matter what your business, I encourage you to read it.  Lots of great ideas for making the world better.  You can get it free at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html

As you look over what you want to do this year, some of it will involve pushing more work, some will be pulling back.  Read through both of those links and leave a comment below to let me know how you’re going to put it into action this year.

Meanwhile, I’m going to figure out how to make Missoula laugh harder than last time.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

PS… This is the way we do… I give you 8 free MP3s and you can share them with your friends.  You look like a trendsetter, and I get to have more people hear my stuff.   http://www.roadsideattraction.com/8-free-songs

Related posts:

1. Keeping My Brain From Turning To Mush With Audio Books

The E-Myth Revisited is not an artist-centered book.  It’s for entrepreneurs.  Or, more importantly, people who think they’re entrepreneurs, but are really just stuck in a job they’ve designed for themselves.  The book looks at why so many small businesses don’t survive.  That subject by itself isn’t very useful though.

Michael Gerber goes on to show you how to design a business from the ground up that is independent of it’s owner.  A system that allows the owner to be an owner and not a worker.  Not that you’d spend the rest of your life on vacation.  But your business would run itself while you take care of important things.

I’ve got the audiobook version that I listen to during my morning walk.  And I’m starting my 2nd listen.  This is the type of book that you read once, then go back and read again, stopping to accomplish each of the steps laid out for you.

One thing I find in a lot of small business books is that they don’t answer the questions that pop up in my mind while I’m reading them.  Michael Gerber must be a mind reader.  Everytime a question or objection popped into my head, he was answering it in the next couple minutes.  Kind of creepy at times.

So, if you’re looking to develop a business that doesn’t involve you being directly involved every single day, give this book a go.  And, as a companion, read The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris.   It will show you how to make Mr. Gerber’s principles work in a modern environment.  They compliment each other perfectly.

Phil Johnson
www.RoadsideAttraction.com

No related posts.