It's OK to Be Squiggly

Just got some heartening career advice from my professor: "Its ok to be squiggly." Lord knows my career is super squiggly and probably will remain so- and that's ok. I've started rethinking it and now view my varied experience as an asset. I know the fundamentals of my industry but have a more diverse background to better inform my worldview and help me relate to more ppl, audiences, and situations. Bonus points: my professor was an AmeriCorps VISTA

I'll Know I'm An Adult When...

I polled a bunch of friends and asked them what milestones constitute an official transition from adolescence to adulthood, or full-blown YoPro-dom. Here are a few gems:

Plugging In and Bugging Out

As a person who just got an iPhone 6 months ago, I am a little late to the smartphone party. Full disclosure: the only reason I got it was because I thought I had lost my trusty flip phone in a cab and had been told by Verizon that they didn't make my phone and battery anymore. Now that I have one, I cannot imagine going back to my dinosaur days sans email/Internet/app access. I would probably be lost in another cab if I didn't have GPS on my phone.

The one regret I have with my iPhone is that I am now perpetually plugged in. I check and recheck my bag before I leave the house to make sure that my phone is with me. I have stopped taking the Metro paper from the friendly guy outside my subway stop because I'll be getting my news from Twitter. I research restaurants on Yelp for the weekend, check flight deals on my lunch break, and text and email while walking. I don't even use my digital camera anymore because I have the camera in my phone. And my phone charger is the first item on my packing list when I go away on a trip. Panic levels escalate if I don't have my phone.

These panic levels may have something to do with the fact that I feel perpetually overwhelmed by the amount of information at my disposal, and the added task that I have to sift and synthesize all of it.

The Curse of the Online Footprint

I was uploading photos to Facebook this morning from St. Patrick's Day and was suddenly struck by an overwhelming feeling of "miffed." It wasn't because Struggle City, population iPhone's Facebook app, sucks at uploading multiple photos (but seriously, let's get on that Facebook). It was because I had to be so damn picky about which photos I uploaded. They were pictures of St. Paddy's Day, so let me be the first to spill the beans that there were snaps of drinking and drinking games. But my friends and I are all well over 21 and the games were helping some non-acquainted friends get to know each other. No one had their head over the toilet or was drawing inappropriate things in Sharpie on anyone's faces. It was good clean Irish fun. But I didn't post any of the photos that contained a Solo cup and I didn't tag anyone in the photos. My Facebook photos are on lockdown-- only my friends are allowed to see them and I have a list of people who are excluded from seeing anything personal I post. I even worried that some of my friends wouldn't want the pictures posted just because they might be associated with a St. Patrick's Day party. It made me miss the days when Mark Zuckerberg designed Facebook to be a social network among college students. Back then it was ok to show a person blowing off some steam with a friendly game of Beer Pong without thinking that they were a horrible alcoholic lacking in morals or public decency.

I recently attended BU's PRSSA PR Advanced conference where a panel of young PR professionals described what it takes to land a job and chart a career in PR. One of the panelists mentioned the importance of being authentic. He used to have two identities-- work Mike and real Mike-- and he never let the two intersect. After realizing that this was a) exhausting, and b) didn't let people get to really know or trust him, he merged the two personalities into just Mike. It was pretty refreshing to hear someone say this and demonstrate that you can be successful being yourself in the workplace. But when a conference participant asked him if that same rule applied to compromising Facebook photos or candid Tweets, he said that you probably shouldn't be a person who takes those kind of photos or Tweets those things to begin with.

I agree with him to a certain extent-- if I'm an employer and I see that my potential Director of Communications is still participating in wet t-shirt contests 10 years out of college, I might have some reservations about hiring you or letting you be the face of my company. But it seems like young professionals are being hyper-critically judged by their actions and their Internet histories. Right now, it's ok for me to host a "wine tasting" at my house because that's considered classy, but drinking a beer out of a Solo cup on a porch at a BBQ makes me a philandering party animal.

Wedding Bills Will Be Ringing

Wedding Guest by yoproblog

The second a YoPro turns 24, a big bag of mail gets dumped on your apartment steps. You think it's your loving family and friends wishing you a happy birthday, but no: it's the start of a wedding marathon that will not let up for the next 10 years of your life. Suddenly everyone and their mom decides that they are getting married (no joke, my mom is actually getting married in 2 weeks) and they want you to grace them with your presence.

You start hearing your friends saying "I'm going to 4 weddings this summer." It sounds far-fetched at first, especially when they start saying "I'm IN 5 weddings this summer," but then you get to the day where you utter "I'm IN 6 weddings this summer and 2 of them are on the same day" when you realize that the wedding cyclone has seized you too. Suddenly you're not in Kansas anymore, and you're paying for an expensive hotel room in the Hamptons that costs almost as much as the money you forked over to buy the matching ruby red slippers the bride requested that her bridesmaids wear.

What no one tells you when you get that first disgustingly cute invitation is that while weddings can be quite romantic and a great excuse to party, they're also a money trap.

Must-Read for YoPros: Millennials paralyzed by choice

My friend Akhila posted this amazing piece from Priya Parker on CNN's Global Public Square (GPS) blog about the pressures Millennials face in making career and life decisions (Millennials Paralyzed By Choice, 3/8/2012). It struck really close to home because a) I have had countless conversations with friends about the Catch 22 that is being a young adult, and b) It was pretty appropriate coming from Akhila because she's beyond badass and I'm jealous of that quality of hers. Parker analyzes a generation that is presented with seemingly limitless possibilities, and yet no decision they make in career or life stands out as that golden ticket or silver bullet to success and happiness. She makes a really astute observation that I have also recognized about how this phenomenon has intensified because of social media.