Legal | Techno | Babble

I am interested in the crossroads of law, government, and sociology, and as Thanksgiving quickly approaches, I am reminded of the well-meaning but ill-received attempt to both celebrate the most American of holidays while generating economic growth (also a favorite American pastime). So with that, I take you back to a simpler time, when the most controversial part of Thanksgiving was when to celebrate it.  Thanksgiving was defined as the fourth day of every November. The day was officially set as the last Thursday in November by noted attorney-turned-president Abraham Lincoln back in 1863. This established the holiday as within the purview of the presidency, a fact Franklin Delano Roosevelt would use almost four score later to stimulate a depressed economy.  In 1939, when Thanksgiving would fall on the last day of the month, President Roosevelt tried to change the date of Thanksgiving to give more shopping time between the holiday and Christmas. Political opponents deemed the ...

I am a solid month into my career pivot and am getting the hang of rejection. Failing to land a job still hurts, but it teaches me how others perceive me. If I must feel the sting of rejection, at least I can learn something valuable from it.   At first, all rejections were brutal. I felt like a failure and perceived the dismissal as a personal affront. One rejection basically ended my job search for the day. However, this trajectory was unsustainable, and I quickly became numb to the process.   I then had an interview where I was asked about my ideal workplace, and my extemporaneous response was that I appreciated feedback so that I knew what I needed to work on. At that moment, I realized that an interview rejection was just one question away from valuable feedback. So, when the following rejection message came through on LinkedIn, I replied: "There is no need to respond, but if you are comfortable with it, would you mind letting me know if anything stood out as a barrier to...