Brazen Careerist’s Penelope Trunk
I’ve been reading Penelope Trunk’s mindfuck of a blog, and learning a few things in the process. Listening to this podcast, in which Penelope gives brutally blunt career advice to hapless blogger Steve, was sort of a wake-up call. Penelope asks Steve some hard questions about why he is blogging, and what his goals for his blog are. When he’s evasive, she rips him a new one. It’s not pretty, but it’s honest, and to Steve’s credit he posts the whole thing unedited.
Penelope can be thought of as kind of an anti-Tim Ferriss. Where Tim looks for simplicity and optimization, Penelope looks for conflict and doubt. Tim polishes his image and generally presents his best side, while Penelope shares her angst, personal failings, and relationship problems. Tim offers advice about how to minimize work and maximize play, while Penelope takes as a given that adults need to put in 8 hours of daily work, and focuses on the question of “Whose working life do you want?”
So, who do I want to take advice from? A borderline-narcissistic tango-spin record holder, or a neurotic Jew with Asperger’s syndrome? Well, both actually, but I’ll focus on Penelope’s advice in this post since I talked about Tim Ferriss last week.