What does your business card say?This question comes from a place in the heart, because lately it has come to my attention that describing ones self in a one or two word sound bite can be difficult, if not downright dangerous.
As it happens, I am in need of a new business card, a detail has changed, so in order to make life easier I am looking for a Job Title.
So far I have 'Talker'.
Wendy Herbert
Talker
I have a very small business. It is essentially me, and 8 or 10 times a year I employ 9 or so people for special projects that can last for as little as a day and up to a few weeks for well paid, interesting and fun work.
I like my job. It's diverse, and it pays my rent.I am never bored, I get to meet a wide range of people, I always learn new things, and I have a certain amount of autonomy.
I have ambition, hell yes, and time frames, research guides and lists to enable the realization of my dreams.
Everything I currently do has a place in my future plans. I see all of it as essential for reaching my goals.
But when people ask me what I do.......well.....that's where it gets tricky.
Because what they are actually asking is " Can you explain to me in 5 seconds or less how I can categorize you" and the answer is " No, because when it comes to that pigeon holing part, I actually have no fucking idea how I fit in".
Some days, like today, you will find me dressed in a Santa jacket MCing (and hopefully entertaining) 600 members of a private club as they make their way through a three hour Christmas Orgy of presents, prizes, turkey, inflatable walking candy canes and magicians.
Tomorrow, however, I will sit in the home of a quiet, but brilliant, business woman and double check her power point presentation with her, as she struggles to remember not to turn her back to her CEO and to keep the wobbles out of her voice and the butterflies out of her stomach.
Some mornings you will find me exploring the hilarity of a well placed hand gesture in an AA Milne poem with a bunch of Cantonese speaking 8 year olds, but in the afternoon of the same day, I may be in a board room of a bank role playing Diversification and Conflict Resolution issues with men who earn more in a month than some schools have as their budget for a year.
You see the problem.
The only thing I am truly qualified for - apart from motherhood- is working in the Radio industry.....that's my qualification.......from AFTRS......and I did that ( radio) for a good long time.
But I don't do that anymore- although I still talk A LOT with my work- but I have to say, I earn 4 times what I did in radio in HK....
Wendy Herbert
Better Paid Talker
I know someone, who knows someone, who describes her job title as a receptionist in a hair salon as 'Traffic Manager' because she had mark off customers names and direct people to the chairs when they came in for a trim.
Perhaps the title should be given an extra word.
Human Traffic Manager.
But Human Trafficker just doesn't have the same.......je nes se quois.
Or something.
I don't know what.
Wendy Herbert
Fill in the blank
That seems about right.
I may just end up stealing the idea of a friend of mine, a dear little man with with a mind like jelly and an ego as unique as his smile.
When I asked him once what his card said he boldly announced " I don't carry a card. If the don't know who I am, they can just fuck off ".
And rightly so.
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