Telling the Truth

Change Agent

The New York Times

Self-improvement, Personal Journals, How To, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2018

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beth is an alcoholic in recovery with a four and a half-year blank spot on her resume. She's sober now and ready to go on job interviews, but she's not sure how to talk about her alcoholism to potential employers. Enter Domino's Pizza. The early 2000s version of the company, when the pizza was rated among the worst in the country. We'll hear how their strategy to kickstart their business offers lessons for Beth as she goes on a mock interview.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Charles Doohig, and this is Change Agent. Our caller today is Beth and she's got a problem with her resume.
0:21.0	I'm trying to go back to work in a regular full-time capacity and not knowing how to account
0:29.4	for the gaps in my work history.
0:33.2	How many years have you been out of work?
0:35.2	How big is the gap on your resume?
0:37.2	Four and a half years.
0:40.6	Beth worked as a curator in some of the biggest museums on the East Coast.
0:44.0	And this four and a half year gap is not for the reasons you might think.
0:48.0	The specific question for me is,
0:50.0	am I better off being honest about my past four and a half years?
0:56.0	It seems like it might just be easier to lie about it.
1:00.5	Would you be okay with that? No, I would not be okay lying about it.
1:05.0	The reason she's uncomfortable lying is because it's all tangled up with another problem she has,
1:10.0	with drinking.
1:12.0	Beth is an alcoholic in recovery.
1:14.2	It got to the point where I was hiding bottles places and my husband was finding them.
1:19.6	And we had a bathtub that was like an old clothlet tub, but I would hide bottles behind the bathtub
1:26.9	so that when I was in the shower, I could be drinking. And this went on for a long time,
1:34.0	that I would drink in the shower
1:36.0	at 7 o'clock in the morning,
1:38.0	get on a train, get myself to Penn Station,
1:41.0	pick up more wine, drink it, and go into work.
	...

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