Keeping Your Eye on the Prize: Christina Bruni on how her new book, ‘Working Assets’, will help peers find and keep their dream job
Editor’s Note: Carl Blumenthal has been a peer specialist since 2002, including four years as a job counselor for netWORKplus, the former assisted competitive employment (ACE) program of Baltic Street AEH.
Carl Blumenthal: I’ve had many jobs I loved over the years, and the ones as a peer specialist have been mostly part-time. What do you recommend for peers to keep jobs long-term while still keeping that passion alive?
Christina Bruni: To keep jobs long-term, it’s vital to find the job and work environment that is the right fit. I have been a librarian for over 22 years at one job. Yet, I dream of trying to retire from my job in five years. I got my joy back on the job was to reading books that helped me obtain my goals. Reading the business book Be More Pirate or How to Take on the World and Win inspired me to prioritize seeking happiness.
To remain at a company long-term, I suggest two options: Getting a different position at the firm that will allow you to do new things (a lateral move) or volunteering to take on new tasks for your current job. Three years ago, I signed on to mentor teen interns. Interacting with Generation Z teens is my favorite part of being a librarian. I was born in the first year of Generation X, so I enjoy learning from the teens and seeing the world from a fresh perspective.
The spark that lit the fire in me to continue as a librarian was publishing Working Assets. Achieving this goal was not the endpoint of what I wanted to do in life. It was the ramping up of my career as an advocate, giving me the energy and enthusiasm to speak out for the long term. I can turn my ideas into reality using my blogs, books, and public speaking. Making a difference in other people’s lives makes me happy.
Blumenthal: I appreciate how much of your experience as a job seeker and employee you put into the book, and you also based it on the career choices of other peers. Anecdotes are inspiring. But can you elaborate on the study of peer workers by the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation? The more evidence that exists on both our strengths and challenges, the better the chances of our success.
Bruni: Full disclosure: I participated in the Boston University longitudinal study of sustained employment among psychiatric peers. I was one of the participants singled out for a phone interview. The number-one strength we shared is that peers have survived adversity. 80% of us had at least one psychiatric hospitalization.
Persisting can be a challenge. Yet, the alternative is letting our symptoms get the best of us and throwing a pity party for ourselves. As I told a social-worker decades ago, the secret to success in recovery is desire and persistence.
The evidence of our strengths can be linked to the coping strategies study participants used on the job: such as taking a break, listening to music, exercising, and calling a sponsor or friend.
Blumenthal: You mentioned supported employment as evidence-based as state vocational rehab and the Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work program as resources. In theory, vocational rehab programs should work but do they in practice?
Bruni: In New York State, it was first titled Office of Vocational Rehab (OVR). Then it was called Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID). Today it’s Adult Career and Continuing Education Services-Vocational Rehabilitation (ACCES-VR). The repeated name changes appear to be a PR stunt.
In my view, peers have historically been shunted into long-term day programs that do not teach them competitive skills to succeed in the workplace. Then they “graduate” from there and into a vocational rehab program setting and flounder.
In contrast, according to my late, great mentor Robert P. Liberman, M.D., who lived with bipolar disorder, dozens of the clients at the UCLA psych rehab program he directed gained jobs in their fields resulting from the social skills they learned there. He said the trick is to carefully research the options you are given. The adage of “caveat emptor” or buyer beware applies here when choosing a particular type of rehab program. Many peers might follow what a mental health staff member advises them to do.
In 1990, before training me to become an administrative assistant, my OVR counselor told me I could get an elementary school teacher job, which I had no interest in doing. That I had an English degree and was female dictated my job choices than because vocational rehab agencies can stereotype you, setting you up to fail when your gender, education, or type of disability has nothing to do with how successful you will be at a particular job.
But, by researching your options, you can obtain social skills training or attend an Intensive Psych Rehab Training (IPRT) program, where you set a 12-to-24-month goal and act to achieve it. Unfortunately, such alternatives today programs don’t exist in many parts of the US.
Blumenthal: What are the five most important attributes for a peer job-seeker and worker (once they get the job)?
Bruni: Such attributes have nothing to do with innate personality traits. They can be learned and used by any peer: Acting conscientious. Employing a sense of humor. Seeking common ground with so-called normal coworkers. Being able to follow through on tasks you are assigned. I recommend using an effective time-management strategy like the one in the book, The Pomodoro Technique.
Blumenthal: What lessons have we learned about working from home during the Covid pandemic that help or challenged peers?
Bruni: The benefits are: You can listen to music while you work; heat up soup on your stove for lunch; or get an ice cream sandwich from your refrigerator for an afternoon break; decorate your desktop creatively. (On mine I have a quote magnet that says “You Rock” and a flower magnet telling me “Bee Bold Enough to Follow Your Dreams.”) And you’re not forced to engage in chit-chat at the water cooler if you’re not a social butterfly.
The challenges are creating structure can be harder; dressing in sweatpants and a ratty old tee shirt could become the norm, and long-term isolation can breed paranoia. But, among the workarounds are starting the day by meditating, breathing three counts in and seven counts out, or exercising in your living room. Dressing up can amplify your mood and give you confidence.
While working from home, I would call my supervisor to talk about pressing issues. So, don’t forget to call your boss regularly. And have no qualms walking to a local diner or pizzeria for your lunch break.
Blumenthal: There is a wealth of resources and strategies in Working Assets, but it can be hard to know which are the best. Is it possible to rank the ones that have helped your clients the most?
Bruni: The number-one effective strategy has been to create a spectacular resume. One peer had me view a resume she paid a woman to create. It was riddled with spelling errors and typos. You can get free resume help at a lot of public libraries. The other issue I’ve seen is that the text formatting on the resume is often off-putting.
How the text appears on the page may halt the hiring manager from reading to the bottom. One of the first clients I created a resume for had been looking for a job for six months without getting any interviews. After we created an impressive resume, she obtained an interview and was given a job offer. Because I helped numerous clients create stellar resumes, they got interviews that led to job offers–even a woman in her sixties. This proves age does not have to be a liability when looking for work.
Blumenthal: Can you list the jobs peers have obtained using your methods and, through follow-up with them, do you know whether they have continued to use those methods successfully?
Bruni: One peer whose resume I created got a bilingual job in the court system. Of his own accord, a couple of years later, he left that job and became a paid peer advocate. A woman who was already skilled in using my methods also got a job as a peer specialist.
A peer blogger friend corrected common mistakes by reading Working Assets and became a successful peer specialist.
Blumenthal: In the Stages of Change model that is part of motivational interviewing, there is pre-contemplation, contemplation, planning, acting, maintaining, and (bouncing back from) relapsing. How do these different stages apply to Working Assets?
Bruni: In my blogs, I’ve recommended using the 90-day action plan detailed in Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions. The author, one of the original researchers on the Stages of Change, recommends Psych, Prep, Perspire, Persevere, and Persist.
Psych: Track your progress, raise awareness, arouse emotion, and commit. First, you identify your goal. Keeping a daily log of your efforts to find a job is one way to track your progress. Getting information from trusted sources is a way to raise awareness. Feeling useless while staying home all day watching TV could be the catalyst for committing.
Prep: Define a SMART goal: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time specific. For instance: I will go to the library once per week for two hours to conduct research on careers. I will narrow down jobs to those relevant to my skills and personality or that I can learn the skills for. I will devote 80 days to this action plan.
Perspire: Every week, I go to the library and conduct this research. I counter the urge to watch TV as I have always been doing. I reward myself for achieving each sub-goal. I control my environment by placing a career book on my dining table for easy access to read. I ask three people to join my support team. This step will take six weeks.
Persevere: I will avoid high-risk triggers by creating a Slip Card to remind me of what to do instead. I will remember that slips are to be expected. I can halt them from becoming a total fall. To resist the urge to watch TV, I will sit on my bed the night before the clothes I wear to the library. It does not matter if I will have a setback but when. I plan what to do the next time I slip.
Persist: I record my daily activity. I talk to members of my support team. I continue to reward myself for my efforts. I control my environment by going to the library when it’s less crowded.
Blumenthal: It’s a truism that looking for a job is a full-time job. You put a lot of emphasis on a whole-person approach to work and are very optimistic about the ability of peers to be passionate about what they do. Might you have underplayed the challenges peers face, especially those of us with no, little, or nothing but painful experience?
Bruni: I understand how it is working at a painful job or having a series of ill-fitting jobs that is soul-crushing. A person might not be treated right. Or they might have narrowly prescribed duties. Or their work might be robotic. Whatever the reason, I tell everyone to “think outside the cubicle” to research non-traditional employment. I’m a cheerleader working at a public library. A librarian will need a master’s degree. Often a clerk or computer tech person doesn’t require a degree. Part-time work can be obtained shelving books at a library.
In the 1990s, I worked painful jobs. What kept me going at that time was that New York City was a wonderland. I shopped for clothes at Unique Clothing Warehouse. I browsed museums and bookstores. I bought record albums in Saint Marks Sounds.
As for repeatedly winding up in painful jobs, I suggest a radical approach: turning job-hopping to your advantage. In his book Born for This, Chris Guillebeau substitutes the term ”job-shopping” for “job-hopping.” You can find your ideal work environment by working at a different job for one year each. Then choose the job that best suits you out of the ones you’ve explored.
For peers, I recommend having a social life outside your job as I had in the 1990s. You can go to meetup. I joined the #1 New York Shyness and Social Anxiety Meetup. They offer support groups, movie nights, and even a “free hugs” event (pre-COVID) in Central Park. I attended the Mental Health Project’s monthly poetry reading through this meetup. At this open mic for peers, only you could stand up front and read poetry, prose, or anything you wanted. Everyone was in the same boat having a mental illness. There was love and support in the room.
Blumenthal: What are your plans for additional career counseling?
Bruni: First, readers can buy my book on amazon.
Second, I have written a two-part Career Corner column on succeeding as a peer specialist that will appear in future issues of cityvoicesonline.org.
Finally, I want to publish a second career book within two years that gives more competitive information, including financial self-sufficiency.
Any reader can contact me with ideas for what I should write about next at [email protected] or go to my website, www.christinabruni.com, for my blogs and how to order my memoir, Left of the Dial.
