Over the last few weeks, I have been spending some time thinking about positive relationships, making connections and creating your own opportunities.

As mentioned in earlier posts, I have been frustrated with some aspects of my professional situation and keeping up a "poor me" attitude about this. What is feeling sorry for myself going to do, not a whole lot. So how do I go about fixing it? What possible solutions are there for curing my unhappiness?

Leaving my current job and looking for something better is a possible option, but not something that I want to consider right now. I like all the people I work with, and leaving after only six months will only make my resume look even more like I am a jumper, even though I am not. I am actually very loyal, to companies, friends and family.

No, that isn't the move, instead I have decided to attempt to make my own opportunities and develop something for myself here at work that will satisfy my short and long-term career goals. Basically, this entails being more forward with people, clearly stating my intentions, maintaining a positive attitude, and talking, a lot. Ask Tara how much I talk and she will probably tell you something about needing to leave the windows open in the house so that I don't use up all the oxygen in the room I am in. So far I have approached some people outside of my department for possible positions and networking. I am hopeful that this will help.

At the same time, I have been trying to employ this tactic outside of my job with people that I encounter during the day. The place that this seems to work best is at my part-time position at Barnes & Noble. As customers come up to the register, I talk to them. It is surprising how much information is available about people when they are buying something (this is to be mentioned in a post later) and this makes it easy to find something to talk about. I feel them out for a second or two, maybe see how they reacted to the person in front of them that I just assisted and then modify my demeanor to match theirs.
The next step is to ask them something about themselves. It's crazy, I tested this a few times and though it was a fluke. I thought people would be really reserved with someone that they don't know, but they aren't. People love to talk about themselves, and the more questions you ask, and the more interested you are, the more they are willing to give up. Through this method, I have some of the best conversations in recent memory and I get to meet some really interesting people that would have normally just passed through my life. Some of the interesting people that I have met in the last few weeks include:

Bruce Klacher is a consultant who specializes in Organizational Improvement, specifically employee satisfaction and surveys. He has collected information from thousands of people around the US and helps companies streamline their employee interactions, hiring, merit increases, etc. I receive his monthly e-zine and sometimes correspond with him via email.

John came in on a Saturday; he was being shipped out the day after I met him to Afghanistan. He said that they were keeping him there at least a year, regardless of what is going on over there. I wished him luck and asked him to stay safe.

I met a woman who has authored 3 books for elderly exercise. She claimed to be the person who first developed (in the whole world!! - she said that to me 3 times) a book and methodology for chair exercises for men and women over 90 years old so that they could stay limber. No offense to her, but there was nothing about her that looked fit or limber. I did believe that she had developed chair exercises, primarily because it looked like she spent most of her time in one, and she also walked with a cane.

Lesson learned from this - just because a book exists does not mean that the information contained within is either proven as valuable or taken from real experience. It only means that someone took the text that someone typed and printed it a whole bunch of times. To satisfy my curiosity, I looked her book up in our computer system, and it did exist but we had never sold a copy, ever.

Last night I met another consultant who hailed from Utah. He had worked at the Olympic games, and now is working at the new stadium for the Patriots here in Foxboro, MA. He specializes in Organizational Management. The areas that he works on are the training of management in hiring practices; legal issues surrounding employees, workforce motivation, etc. I talked to him about some of my interests and he asked for my contact info so that he could get in touch if an internship opened up. Pretty cool.

There have been hundreds of other interesting people, too many to mention here. If I meet anyone that compels me to write, I will post it here. Thoughts?