If you put in the effort, someone will notice

If you put in the effort, someone will notice. Sometimes. If you’re lucky.

The older members of Generation Y, like me, have grandparents and parents who are self-made men and women as inspiration for their own success. As many Gen Y denouncers suggest as a flaw, when Gen Y was growing up we were told if we work hard enough there’s nothing we can’t achieve or obtain.

What they didn’t tell us, however, was that this depends on someone else noticing and appreciating our hard work.

My dad is the best example of a self-made man I can think of, and a big believer in this philosophy.

For years, he worked as a cable guy, and in mines and oil fields in northern Alberta and the territories. He went to trade school in the early 1990s to become an electrician and, although my parents had to file for bankruptcy shortly after, it was probably the best thing he ever did.

He worked as an electrician for years, hauling around a heavy tool belt, crawling into small spaces, handling tiny wires and spending weeks in the cold while working on projects in the winter. His work at the airport caught the attention of one of the largest car rental companies in North America and they created a position just for him: he became the facilities manager for all of Toronto.

After almost a decade there, he was offered the opportunity to defect to a competitor (another large car rental company) to oversee locations across the country.

Although there are stressful days when he wishes he was back doing manual labour for a living, he has a comfortable mostly-office job with an impressive salary, especially for someone who didn’t go to university or college. He also has lots of perks like a company car, free gas, plenty of vacation time, an assistant and the ear of the president of the company.

As an unmarried, childless twenty-something working hundreds of kilometres below the earth’s surface in a mine in the early 1980s, he probably had no idea what his career would look like at age 52. He could have followed almost any path.

Today, most young people attend college or university to obtain some kind of speciality and, honestly, some kind of direction or certainty as to which direction our careers will take.

But in today’s economy, many of us are facing the same uncertainty our parents faced at our age.

If there’s one thing I learned from my dad’s career path, it’s that I should work hard at any and every opportunity which comes my way in order to succeed, whether it’s the ideal project or position or not.

For example, when I was hired as a sales and marketing intern at TalentEgg last summer, I was happy to have a paying job at a great company after months of searching. But I was also disappointed I wasn’t able to land my dream journalism internship.

After all, isn’t that what I’m going to university for, what I’m paying tens of thousands of dollars for? Journalism, not sales and marketing.

But I sucked it up and hid my disappointment as best as possible.

I probably wasn’t the ideal salesperson and I had no formal marketing training, but I wanted to learn. And I discovered I was more interested in it and more capable than I thought. Besides, I really believed in the company and the people I worked with were great.

I’m not a one-trick dog and neither is anyone else.

I suppose I wasn’t such a terrible sales and marketing intern after all because Lauren, my boss and the president of TalentEgg, kept talking to me, and became a mentor and friend once I stopped formally working for the company and went back to school in September.

But I never stopped working. I offered to spend some of my time blogging and agreed to represent the company on related blogs and message boards. I made myself available as someone to bounce ideas off of and tried to communicate my genuine interest in the ongoing success of the company.

This week, Lauren offered me the opportunity to head up a new project at TalentEgg. I’ll provide more details once it officially launches. For now I’ll just say I’m extremely excited about it.

It’s creative. It’s online. It involves writing, editing and managing people. And it’s paid.

Although it’s earlier in the year, I find myself in the same position I did last spring. I’ve been applying for journalism jobs for months and haven’t been able to land anything.

The difference between this year and last year is I’m not disappointed to take this position. I’m fired up about it. It’s all I think about. I’m not just grateful for a job, any job, I’m starting one I love at a company I believe in and feel connected to.

I’ve worked hard at many things over the last year and TalentEgg was one of them. I didn’t expect anything out of it – I really wanted to do it. But Lauren noticed and now she’s placing value on my work.

More details about the project to come in the next week or two.

What has paid off for you once someone noticed how hard you were working?

This is when I turn into a zombie

Voting for the Ryerson Students’ Union elections ends tonight and we’re staying at school into the wee hours of the morning to get all the results live.

I’ll be liveblogging the evening’s events at RyersOnline. Look for a page to go live around 5:30 p.m. if all goes as planned.

The other editors and I will be posting results, photos and possibly even interviews and interesting tidbits of information as they pop up.

I have to be honest, though: I haven’t voted yet and I don’t think I will.

Aside from the fact that I’m graduating this year and these elections’ winners will have no affect on me, I’m completely disillusioned with the RSU and have no interest in supporting any of the candidates.

As a journalism student, I’ve been forced to pay attention to the students’ union since first year in order to survive story assignments about student politics. It was even more important last year and this year as I developed story ideas and was assigned more complicated political stories.

It’s been great reporting training because although some of the RSU members have good intentions, they are politicians. They know the tricks of the trade and can talk around an issue in ways most students couldn’t dream of.

But the infighting, allegations of corruption, nepotism and lack of getting anything done is truly disappointing. Other than a purely professional one, I have lost all interest.

It doesn’t bode well for my political interest when I will have to report on politics in the future.

Chances are I’ll have to report on some politics at some point, whether on the municipal, provincial, federal or international level. And unfortunately, politicians on all of these levels seem to be mostly the same.

I’m a politically passionate person. I believe in things and parties and even a select few politicians. I’m interested in watching the rising stars to see what they’ll do. I vote.

I’ve always wondered how becoming a journalist would affect this part of me. Will my passion for politics help me as a journalist? Hinder me? Or will it just disappear altogether as I become more immersed in political reporting?

Perfectionism: good or bad?

Most of the others left by 8 p.m.

My fellow news editor worked on the layout of the newspaper with me until about 11.

But I stayed until almost 1 a.m. perfecting the layout of a single page — a special, one-time page on the students’ union election — because I work much faster on my own than I do when everyone else is around.

I’m home now, but I’m still in the zone and not tired.

Should I have just left at the same time as the other editor? Or does productivity trump going to bed at a reasonable hour?

All signs point to me becoming a workaholic despite my other stereotypical Gen Y characteristics.

Never underestimate the power of a little push

I know I’m where I am today thanks to my own drive, hard work and persistence.

But I’ve also come to appreciate the people in my life at various points in time who have given me the extra push I needed to get through a rough patch.

It’s taken me a while to recognize who they are and exactly what they’ve done for me, but now, when one of those people appears, I know instantly. Now, the experience is much more rewarding because I feel I can appreciate what they’re offering me.

My parents raised me to believe that a person’s success was determined by how self-sufficient they were.

This was probably because, at times, they weren’t very self-sufficient and they had to take jobs, borrow money and accept second-hand items (including cars) from well-off family just to get by. They worked hard and did their best, but it wasn’t until much later in their lives that they were able to achieve some measure of self-sufficiency.

But I’ve been accepting help from well-meaning friends, family members and strangers for almost five years now, since my mom died. Whether it was simply their company and inspirational words, or their expertise in a certain area, or even gifts or money.

It has been tough to realize people actually care about me enough to offer me these things without expecting anything in return, except my company and, for those who have contributed to my education, my continued hard work.

It’s also been difficult to realize I may actually be the type of person who deserves these tokens of appreciation and support. My drive, hard work and persistence has probably helped these people decide I deserve whatever they’re offering, but I’ve always been too modest to think or say that.

Recently I noticed that I’m now able to accept these things as they come. Instead of feeling guilty and holding myself back by being reluctant to accept them, or by not accepting them at all, I know I’ve proven my worth and the person really believes in me.

I survived the loss of my mom with the support of family and friends.

I stayed in the journalism program at Ryerson thanks to the faith my first-year reporting instructor had (and continues to have via email) in me.

I focused on school and extra-cirricular activites at a critical time in my career thanks to the financial and moral support of my dad.

I’m going to the National Post for my internship instead of a small community paper because my third-year copy editing instructor took the extra time to tell me she thinks I’m a strong enough journalist to pull it off — almost a year after I was last in her class.

And today my aunt took me shopping for some professional-looking clothing so I can feel confident and comfortable when I finally start my internship in March.

I didn’t ask for any of this, but I needed it and it’s truly helped me to become who I am and get where I am in my life.

I’m not a success yet, but I think I’ll get there one day if I accept help from enough kind-hearted individuals. I hope I can offer the same help to others along the way, but perhaps a person’s success is measured by how much they help others realize their dreams.

Big news, people

I’ve decided to do my internship at the National Post instead of the small community paper I had originally planned to go to.

With some encouragement from my instructor, I realized I can do it. I’ve heard it’s a lot of work, but if I want to stand out among my peers, I have to choose to work my butt off.

I start in about five weeks. But I’m too busy to stress about it now.

I also may have the toughest interview of my career coming up in the next few days.