Valentine's Day

Yesterday I went to the "Bundesagentur für Arbeit", the German governmental HR-Agency. I wanted to get financial support for applications and I was surprised. One big consulting company restructured them a couple of years ago and I saw the difference between yesterday and my last visit a couple of years ago. They have decreased bureaucracy and are a little bit more service- oriented now. The lady was quite friendly and it was easy to get the form to apply for financial support.

They also gave me an questionnaire about my career goals and my employment history. I thought about my old jobs at one big retailer for furniture and my job in consulting. I asked myself the question, why they had hired me, because I will have to sell myself to find a job and so it is good to know my USP (Unique Selling Position). In a way it was both times luck. I just liked the people working for the company and they found me likeable. Job interviews remind me of dating sometimes, but this is not what I am going to tell my next employer while talking about my former jobs.

I thought about my job in customer service while reading "THE REBEL SELL". The authors think that: "Consumer capitalism has taken every authentic human experience, transformed it into a commodity and then sold it back to us through advertising and mass media.". I would go one step further, customer service is a part of personal selling, too. For me, it is very difficult and complex sometimes, because I had to deal with emotions. I didn't lie, because I never said anything that is not true, but I didn't say what I was really thinking sometimes. I was polite and very professional to make people smile and happy as customers. But those people don't really mean anything to me.
I just managed emotions professionally.
Am I authentic?
I always thought so.

I met my old boss today in a supermarket and was surprised, because I thought about the job so much yesterday. She was very nice and told me from the high turn-over rate and that they are hiring all the time and they like to hire people like me that are familiar with the work and don't need a lot of training. So in a way she offered me my old job again. I should be happy, because I am looking for a job right now and this job is well paid and I used to be happy with it. But now my intuition says: "No". I am not motivated to do the job again. By the way, what motivates me?

I believe, it's learning and teaching. I always strived to do my job better and satisfy even more customers, make their visit more comfortable or pleasant. I wanted to do it better and better every day and I had a great team that supported me. I really liked it, it was a great place to work. But today I feel that it is not really challenging anymore. It's nothing really new to me and I don't see much potential to do a better job anymore.
In a way I also have issues with managing emotions, because sometimes I feel like polite fake and not authentic. But I don't lie, I just hide things sometimes.
May be I am selectively authentic.
Or am I not authentic at all?
Am I just selling myself?

I am totally confused right now. I don't know what selling position to find. But do I really need to sell anything?
I need to get out of my apartment and away from my parents, so I will travel to Berlin tomorrow. I need some new ideas and inspiration.

I think Valentine's Day is an old idea, but I don't like it today. It's consumer capitalism on it's best. It's about emotions, selling and being authentic. Everybody seems to buy stuff and it is crazy. I don't really know how to deal with it right now, so I tried to let a motion picture speak. It's radical rebellion that I bought and in a way I am afraid to be a conformist part of the system.