Bookkeeping resume: getting the file out

2:53 PM 3/21/11

So, today I 'got the file out.' Thank Mark Forster for that phrase. (He has a tidy, minimal website that I like, although it doesn't use HTML frames: http://www.markforster.net.) When you tell yourself you are going to get the file out, it means, you tell yourself that you're not really going to do this huge, scary, overwhelming project - instead, you're just going to get the file out and look at it, or something like that. Then you look at this file and handle it and read over it, and you have no obligation to do any more than just look at it.

But after you're holding the file in your hands (or reading it on the computer screen), you start to feel like maybe you can do just a few more small things to it. So you can say, 'I'll just write down the main ideas,' or something like that. Something small. You're still not really going to do the whole big thing. I myself just keep saying the phrase 'get the file out' no matter what task I'm doing, because 'get the file out' is now general, universal, and symbolic, to mean 'I'm just going to do one small thing instead of the whole big thing, and I have no obligation to continue it or finish it.'

I knew that somewhere, I had a job resume already done from years ago. I found it and looked at it again. It had all this weird formatting, like CAPS LOCK in some places, and boldface type and underlines and tab indents. I did that because I was copying it from a book that I bought which had examples of different resumes in it.

I've decided since then that less is more, that minimal formatting is better than fancy-schmancy formatting, and that it's best if you left-justify everything and maybe do a little bit of boldface type and things like that, but not much. So I got rid of all the indented tabs and some of the CAPS LOCK and other things I didn't like. I also had tabs in weird places because I was trying to get them to line up when they wrapped around to the next line, and I got rid of all those and just let it use the word wrap by itself. If you added or moved anything, the tabs would end up somewhere in the middle of the line, and it was a mess. Less is more, less is more - it was from the 'Composing Music: A New Approach' book by William Russo and Jeffrey Ainis - that's when I first started saying 'less is more.' Simple is better. Weird formatting is annoying. Plain text with no formatting at all might be better than weird formatting.

I looked at this old resume and it said, 'She's trying too hard.' Trying too hard to put teeny tiny details everywhere and move this tab to exactly this position and so on, because of that book that I got it from.

I had gotten scared, back then, thinking that the resume had to look a certain way, and it really, really mattered about your tabs and your boldface and underlines, and it had to fit this template in this book or else you would be rejected from all of society forever and ever.

I feel better writing this resume now. I know that bookkeeping is what I am doing. Back then, I only knew I liked doing data entry. But bookkeeping is much better than that.

By the way, I learned most of my bookkeeping during the time period when I had just moved into this apartment and *I HAD NO INTERNET CONNECTION*, which is relevant after reading RDL. I know from several past experiences that my life is very different when I have no internet connection at home. I did most of the Schaum's Outline during that time!!! I sat there in the quiet darkness, alone every night, with nothing around me but the four walls, and I sat there with my pen and paper doing the exercises in the book. If only I had a candle burning it would have been perfect. (In reality I don't tolerate candles well. I went through a phase where I was burning candles that I had received as gifts, and I observed that I have chest pains and heart-attack-like symptoms when I am inhaling lots of smoke. It happens when the neighbors are burning fires in their fireplaces in the winter, too. I am probably going to die very early from a heart attack. That problem only began after my exposures to the ephedra and the tobacco and other poisons that I was handling in that other apartment. Chances are that I have permanent heart scarring because of the drug residues, and I will die before age 50 from a heart attack, even though I am slender and female.)

Anyway, I worked on changing this resume, and I feel better now that I know it's about bookkeeping. I also read on a website that the ISTP personality type (it's the Myers-Briggs system on that website) has been found doing particular categories of jobs, and they had observed that bookkeeping was a very good one for this type. I was very excited to see that, because I had already been learning about finances and money, and then I really, really loved doing the Schaum's Outline. So I felt much more confident after reading that. Other people had observed that my type is, indeed, able to do this job, for real.

Bookkeeping is actually fun! It's like computer programming or mathematics. It's a thought process that feels good to me. It requires exactly the type of skills that my brain is able to do well - perfectionistic accuracy of data entry, perfect spelling, categorizing things, doing a process where you fit things into a visual image (this type of item is on the left, and those other items are on the right - remember this, forever and ever).

I wish that socionics had been known about back when I was learning the Myers-Briggs, and I wish that I had been typed by someone who had a clue. I wish I had read books that didn't make SP artisans sound like moronic cavemen who can barely speak English and all they do is run around beating people with clubs or riding motorcycles (yes, okay, I know an SLI co-worker who really does ride a motorcycle). I wish that my school had known how to type people's personalities and recommend jobs they would realistically be able to do. I always knew, somehow, that I couldn't do the 'personal friendliness' type of jobs, that those were the worst ones for me, like being a friendly hostess or secretary who greets the clients, remembers their names, and makes them feel welcome, that kind of thing - I can't do that AT ALL.

But I felt like that meant there was something wrong with me. At all the places where you go to get hired for temp jobs, it's like the place is full of enneagram type Threes and they seem to be the personal-friendliness types and it makes me feel like I should be like them and there's something wrong with me because I'm not like them at all. The whole culture of the 'job hunting' world is wrong for me.

Deciding to go into bookkeeping is the best thing that I can see myself doing. It requires minimal money investment, you can get entry-level jobs there, keep studying, and maybe gradually get more certifications or something, and make a higher wage, while sitting down in front of a computer and not physically exhausting myself running around or being exposed to hazardous chemicals or getting burned.

I wrote down the main ideas on the cover letter. I haven't written it into a readable form yet. I'm taking a break. I already did several things, cleaned up the resume, wrote down the main ideas of the cover letter.

It really is weird how I am so much like RDL's wife. I am like a darker and unhappier version of her, with different knowledge and experiences. But I still have exactly the same interest in nutritious, all-natural foods, and healthy hair, and wellness (those were her blogs). I was thinking of that because, after I was reading her, 'they' are now projecting this feeling or sensation into my mind while I'm typing, and it makes me put on a particular persona while I'm writing, so that this particular speech style is coming out. Chances are that I am still a puppet, and every single word that I say is probably fake and forced, and I haven't said a single word of my own. But they found another persona who 'feels like my own,' and so when they force me to be that way, it doesn't feel that unnatural.

The enneagram: I was remembering, there were some groupings of the types. The competency triad, the positive outlook triad, and the other triad that I can never remember - oh, the reactive triad. I was thinking of that because I clicked on a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, indirectly, someone commenting on RDL's blog, and I read some random person's blog, some missionary, and they were constantly saying things like 'I am grateful for this or that.' RDL had said there was a particular type that likes to express the little things that bring them joy or that they are thankful for. I was thinking that that particular person would be hard for me to talk to. It would be hard to make them understand that there is this darkness in the world, that there is something bad which is blocking our happiness and that something needs to be done about it. I got the feeling from those people that 'nothing is wrong.' It reminded me of the positive outlook triad. I want people who believe me when I tell them 'something is wrong and something needs to be done about it.' But I don't want to worry about the 'wrong things' forever and ever - at some point, I want to live my life and enjoy it. I don't want to be preoccupied with the 'wrongness' and the 'darkness' forever and ever.

Oh, I forgot to mention, when I was writing the previous blog about what is making us unhappy, why can't we be happy, why are we unhappy - I'm trying to remember the phrase, and 'they' keep saying the wrong words. They keep saying 'blocking,' and that's not the word that I want. I forgot to mention that they have to agree with me that 'the government' is one of the biggest reasons why we are unhappy, one of the biggest 'roots of evil' in the world. Taxes and regulations and high prices are the result of government, and those things make us slaves who can do nothing except work and work and work and work just to pay the bills. The government's banking system loans money freely to everyone and then they become slaves to pay it back. The government is one of the biggest roots of evil, and they are one of the biggest reasons why we are unhappy. Getting away from government is the action that needs to be taken, because voting is impossible: computer hackers control the vote. And not only hackers, but other pressure groups. We can't change the government. We can only leave the country, or find ways to avoid the government as much as possible, or build intentional communities and expect to someday be in direct conflict with the government over our community's beliefs, like the genocide at the YFZ Yearning for Zion ranch where they took away all the children.

That's all for now.