Talking the talk counts for way more than walking the walk. I took two internships when I was in college. The first was with a small-town paper. I edited, I printed, I published, the whole nine yards. The second was at the Washington Post. I learned how to make a palatable cup of coffee and how to copy papers.
Guess which internship employers are most interested in when they interview me?
I got a new job about a month ago. I'm making way more money than I ever expected given my lackadaisical approach to work. I know that I was competing against quite a few other candidates. I know that many of them were more experienced than I. However, I still got the job.
I'm dating a wonderful young woman. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's extremely talented, and one of these days she's going to be raking in boatloads of money. There's just no holding her back.
There was another guy who wanted her. He was somewhat soft-spoken and very nice. He seemed to genuinely care about her.
In both cases I believe I got what I wanted because I have a pleasant voice, I can tell an okay joke, and I make people comfortable. I'm an okay orator if I do say so myself.
That's it, though. I'm all ready calculating how long it'll take to for me to earn enough scratch that I can quit my job, buy a boat and cruise up and down the coast for a few months. I don't care about that job. I don't even like it and I'm certainly not better than several of the other candidates.
This girl I'm dating, I'm with her because she happens to live five minutes from the office. I swing by her place after work, fool around, then go home. In another week or two I'll be bored and ready to part ways. That other guy had real feelings for her. He would have done anything to make her happy and I have little doubt that he'd have been in it for the long haul. But I can make her laugh and he can't.
What's up with that? It's all good for me, but what the hell? Can't people see through that crap? Do they simply not care?