By Kimberly Durment Locke
Negotiating a salary is probably one of the most difficult parts of a job interview. It could also be one of your worse moments if you are not satisfied after accepting the offer. It’s not always easy to talk about the salary at an interview, even though the employer knows that you are eager to get to that point. Somehow asking about the salary has become a major taboo, as though you want the salary not necessarily the job that comes along with it.
But let’s face it, salaries attract job seekers, even if the job doesn’t become a long-term career. Sometimes you just want to get into the door of a company and make a good salary to start.
This forum for expression that was previously reserved, in most instances, for sharing updates and images with long-distance family members and friends, has grown into an opportunity for political rants about the current presidential administration, its selections for various positions, and its platform. While the right to express one’s views is all well and good, it might be helpful to consider the impact these postings can have on your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues before jumping headfirst into that bucket of off the-cuff remarks and tirades.
Realize that not everyone who voted Republican in the 2016 presidential election was, wait for it…a Republican. Some voters actually did not vote according to party lines and therefore, that cousin or friend or colleague reading your “presidential impeachment” post may be one of your own, meaning a Democrat in this instance, who switched allegiances due to an issue or issues their party candidate did not support. It does happen in presidential elections because, fortunately, voters are allowed to vote for any candidate they wish regardless of their registered party affiliation.
Administration and issue bashing could further isolate this family member, friend, or colleague not only in terms of your relationship, but also in terms of any party loyalty that person may still have lingering inside them. I’ve heard of many instances where these political riffs are resulting in families and friends actually disconnecting, or as they say on Facebook, “unfriending” one another, not just on Facebook, but also outside the boundaries of these social media networks.
The somewhat hackneyed question, “…can we all get along?” made known by Rodney King after he was apprehended and then beaten by police following a highspeed car chase in 1991, may sound trite, but when many have Continued from page 24 When Politics Overtakes Relationships Continued from page 20 Career Development become so immersed in their political views and feelings they cannot tolerate sharing a meal with family members or being respectful to a colleague, the phrase takes on a new dimension and reminds us all that we are all human, we all have feelings, and although we may not agree with the political choices of others, freedom of expression should not mean freedom to be mean spirited, harsh, elitist, and willing to isolate ourselves from loved ones, friends, and colleagues in the name of political expression.
If it does mean that our politics and how we voted are more important than our relationships, then I can only hope and pray that one day we will all vote for the same presidential candidate so we can continue to value one another at home and in the workplace. Kimberly Durment Locke is a freelance writer living in the Los Angeles area who enjoys writing about a variety of topics and issues. Her articles have appeared in the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, Wings of Change magazine, and Pasadena magazine. She is a registered Cherokee Nation Citizen and also is of Hispanic and European ethnicities.
