High Value, High Maintenance

High Tailing Away from Resume Lifestyles

Resume lifestyles have turned into a social disease.

Resume building was bad enough for work. Thanks to LinkedIn, AI, counselors, and self-help “content.” people found synonyms for very minor accomplishments, wrapped them in Jargon, and spent hours and dollars to “craft” something that an algorithm would probably reject in milliseconds. Why not? They all sounded equally inflated, equally energetic, and alike.

Worse yet, if you had the knack for writing a resume that could escape the algorithms and desultory human screening and actually make it onto a hiring manager’s desk, you could face “analytical” interrogation about your content. After I was interrogated twice about whether I had falsified my resume, I gave myself permission towalk out.

It was bad enough when the plague of resumes scythed through the corporate world with moans of “Bring out your unemployed!” It spread past grad school to colleges and past colleges to high schools affluent enough to track their students toward schools that actually gave a damn. And from what I overhear, parents are guiding much younger kids toward the right sports, the right volunteer work, the right look – designed to get them into the right private schools or to stand out in public schools.

That isn’t anxiety that Gen Z feels. It’s PTSD. Imagine facing this crap since preschool!

These days, the plague of resume has spread from work and education into various social subcultures. The manosphere seems obsessed with becoming “high value.” Becoming alpha now requires what the wannabes call “looksmaxing,” though I suspect that fresh air and friendliness might put nicer expression on these men’s faces even before plastic surgery.

These days, everything – even beyond giant size cheeseburgers – seems subject to maxing – grades, money, titles, public pronouncements. The only thing that gets minimized is women or other socially disadvantaged groups because something’s got to look smaller to make these characters look bigger.

Can you say NFW? Don’t worry if you can’t. I can. And I do. Don’t worry. I don’t want to come to your parties anyhow.

Then, there’s the issue of being high maintenance. I’m old enough to get away with saying “in my day.” So, in my day, as an only child of older, affluent parents, high maintenance behavior would get me talked to at home and criticized as “tsk, spoiled only child brat” outside. I learned to practice my manners, to share compulsively, and, at every point, invoke the Midwestern mantra “thank you, I’m sure it’ll be very nice.” Freed of crazed social shibboleths, it usually was.

I don’t think I’m jealous of the people who get away with fussing, with picking and choosing and making outrageous demands, and even setting up cute little tests for friends and fiances. Somethings do require deliberative and lengthy choice. They’re called education, health, creating a home, nurturing your friendships. They are not the commercial “Choosy mothers choose Jiff.” I am not a mother, but I will never “choose Jiff” because it attempts to turn fuss into a status symbol.

I really have to wonder why people Fuss as a way of swiping social cred. High maintenance behavior wastes time in public spaces. It’s not cute. It’s not helpful. As they say in Star Trek, it does not serve Vaal in any way, shape, or form.

Somehow, being high maintenance seems connected to maxing of various types, resume building, and in general, making a would-be high status pain in the ass of oneself.

So I high-tail it away from these people and their customs. They may laugh at me but “thank you, I’m sure it will be very nice” actually works for me. Probably better than artificial resume building, fussing, and looks maxing.

By the way, my own resume attracts criticism from the Maxers and High Maintenance types of various stripes. They blame it on bad manners and stupidity, not lifelong hard work. It took me long enough to realize that it wasn’t written in the Constitution that Susan Shwartz has to tolerate negging or reprimands just to get a seat at the table. Much more sensible and less painful to build my own. Sure, it comes at a cost. The High Value lifestyle costs more and constantly shifts ground. At least with a table of my own, I don’t have to worry about seismic social shifts.

Since they insist on monetizing oneupmanship, shifts in status fads become their problem.

I recommend high wailing it away from the resume, high-value, high-maintenance lifestyle. I don’t have to be sure it may be very nice. I know it is. And there are achievements and a good life beyond resume building and looks maxing.