How and When to Blow Off Bad Advice Given by "Helpful" People

People love to give advice. Most of the time, they are wrong and it also occurs to me that they are just simply trying to mess you up.

My father always gives me advice and counseling and most of his advice is trash. Years ago he was an office manager but was given the title of Corporate Comptroller. Well he really wasn't involved in any of his company's strategic management issues.

Also, he always claims that "management is the 'carrot and stick approach'" Well that is Theory X management and there is also Theory Y management. I have a Master's degree in Management and I studied the subject extensively in college.

I had a Halloween mask company and hired a professional sculptor to design a line of Halloween masks for me. My father kept telling me, "You can't make any money selling this kind of merchandise because Halloween is only one day a year." Well, obviously it you couldn't make money on it, no one would be making masks etc. I mean it's just common sense. Besides, the sales go on for about 6 weeks before the holiday.

My dad claims that he has a borderline genius lever IQ but I fail to see how this could be the case. He seems to have no abstract thinking skills at all. I guess most IQ tests score you as per English, math and visual-spatial ability but not abstract reasoning.

Furthermore, I found out from a textbook on consumer behavior that there is 100 million dollars up for grabs as per Halloween merchandise and that doesn't include candy. So, you can make beau coup dollars on this holiday if you play your cards right

You should also know that one of the best selling masks of all times was a mask of Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street fame. It sold 40,000 copies per year for several years.

So if you take 100K dollars and divide it by 40K masks (the masks cost $45 a piece) just do the math and see how many masks of this magnitude can be supported by the industry. I was taught how to do this kind of analysis in the Management Policy course I had to take as the capstone of my MSM program.

Years ago, a person who lived on my street who is Jewish was being harassed at school. I took him under my wing and bulked him it in my home gym. I was trying to do a mitzvah. So, here's what happened:

His father was my hairdresser. He kept giving me advice to leave my parent's house and find a job. If I had tried back then, I would have died.

He also kept calling me, "a professional student." Well I am a good student. I had outstanding grades in college. And I enhanced my writing skills and stretched my brain writing on a multitude of topics like my original version of the Atman piece published by Associated Content.

I know for a fact, that this person's son was still living at home up until the same age as I was before I finally left my family's home. Nevertheless, I always have to contend with all these butinskis. I am fed up of it.

Well, his son remained my friend and when I finished my university studies I made a beeline for his home and they were not happy to see me. The father got me into this conversation and he had to be informed that I now had a Master's degree in Management.

This was back in '88 when I went back to LI to see them.

Let's fast forward to the present day. I am disabled but I took 2 different courses in freelance writing. It seems that for every step forward, I take at least 2 steps back.

At that point in time when I completed my courses, I was actually on the verge of homelessness. With the help of God as administered by my church, I was saved from the streets.

I have a lot of free time and I spend my days up until around 3 PM at the library and at the local supermarkets in my hometown. I write at home and then upload my content using the library's computers, which have Internet connection.

People keep getting in my face about the fact that I am not working for a living. As soon as I put one clown in his or her place, another one just pops up.

I choose to do everything freelance because I have problems with my memory and organizational skills that preclude me from holding a full time job.

And in addition to all of this, I definitely did not get my MSM degree to mop floors and slice meat. The situation is ridiculous.

Over the last several years since I came to Avenel, a whole bunch of people have bothered me and I am too sick to work full time and I am also sick of people annoying me all the time. At times, I want to explode and punch some of these people in the kisser.

One guy who kept bothering me when I was at the Laundromat (I was friendly with the help and let me stay there and hang out) kept telling me how his son had an MBA and he was making 200K dollars a year and he kept getting in to my personal business. He was full of baloney by the way.

One guy at my church keeps lecturing me. He was telling me how to go about a job search, as I wanted to break into marketing research or financial analysis. He told me that Career Builder and Monster have scripts for doing a job search. I couldn't find any. (Actually, I have 2 years experience on the latter when I was at AT&T years ago).

He thinks everyone is always doing everything wrong and he keeps giving me advice that I know is wrong. He also thinks that the company he works for isn't doing everything right and he seems to subscribe to the belief that the whole world is out of step and only he is in step

I hurt my foot a couple of years ago and I cut my right big toe. He told me that I didn't need to see my doctor so I didn't. The next time I saw my doctor, he told me that I should have seen him over it. I was lucky that the toe didn't' get infected.

Today, in the A&P in my town, another pain in the touchas showed up. He kept telling me to try to get a job doing something menial. He told me that he knew I am struggling. It's true I am, but I wasn't' asking for his advice. All he does in round up carts in the shopping center's parking lot. Really, once I put him down, what is next? I don't know but all these problems have been continuing since the time I was put on SSDI benefits.

I have an acquaintance that has a degree in journalism. He worked in some capacity for a while before he became too sick to work. After I finished my first freelance writing course, I sent a copy of my resume and some writing samples to him.

He told me that the résumé needed work as it didn't seem well formatted and the original version was 3 pages long. So when I finally finished paying off the first course, I had access to a professional resume writing service as a benefit of the school. They did a good job of formatting the résumé and helping me rewrite it.

As per the writing sample, he told me in a down cast tone of voice, "It looks like an essay." He said it as if I was doing something wrong. It was the project I picked for my course. I could have done a feature article, an ad or a press release too if I so desired.

I also have a friend who I have known for over 20 years who I spoke to some months ago. I told him that I got a 98 on one of my manuscripts that I submitted to the first school I sent to for freelance writing. I thought he would celebrate with me but instead he said, "What did you do wrong?" in a dour tone of voice. He sounded like I killed someone. I felt sick talking to him.

When I was living in New Brunswick, NJ my landlord moved to a nursing home and his adopted grandchildren took over the building. I only had a small room there. The grand daughter told me that she and the grandson "wanted m to find a job." Well I am not able to work right now and based on the problems I have, I know I will never be able to hold a full item job.

People give me all kinds of grief. They don't understand my situation and maybe I am being paranoiac but I think they know I can't and they are just trying to get me into trouble.

What the future hold I don't know, but I am doing everything I can to get back up on my feet again. I will stop for no one. As for the present, I am a struggling freelance writer but all beginnings are difficult.