Survivor guilt

I think I first experienced survivor guilt when working for a corporate where staff were made redundant all around me, yet I still remained. I even called it survivor guilt, although I didn't know then that survivor guilt (Fimiani et al., 2021; Russell, 2021) was actually a thing. I felt terrible to be still within the organisation while they all had to go. There were three rounds of redundancy and I survived each round, but each time my psychological contract (Maguire, 2003) with the organisation was damaged a little more. 

So what is survivor guilt? It is guilt arising from "being spared [the] harm that others incurred" and "the feeling of guilt that people may experience when they believe themselves to have had any kind of advantage compared with others, such as having more success, greater abilities, better health, greater wealth, a better job, or more satisfying relationships" (Fimiani et al., 2021, p. 176). We can feel survivor guilt despite the fact that we are not ethically responsible for having 'dodged a bullet'; we have "luck guilt" (MacKenzie & Zhao, 2023, p. 2708). 

Survivor guilt has been "a medical concept since the 1960s. ‘There were high rates of PTSD and survivor guilt in Vietnam veterans,’ says [Dr Hannah] Murray, [a Research Clinical Psychologist at the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma]. ‘Survivor guilt can often lead to self-harm, self-sabotage, or a feeling that we must almost “repay” a debt.’ And it doesn’t have to be linked to death. ‘One definition of survivor guilt is feeling that you have an unfair advantage over someone else,’ says Murray, ‘so it could be that you survived a mass redundancy, or that you’ve simply had opportunities" which others have not (Russell, 2021, 13%). Once a 'disease' of it's own in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, survivor guilt appears to now be part of the symptoms of PTSD (American Psychiatric Association, 1967).

However, we don't have to have PTSD to have survivor guilt. Not only that, but we can experience survivor guilt even though what may have spared us was luck (think natural disasters), or matters outside our locus of control (management deciding where we were without power or influence) (Murray et al., 2021). Having missed being made redundant, if we were with a tight-knit work group, can mean we have to process the feelings arising from survivor guilt.

We need to process our "luck guilt" (MacKenzie & Zhao, 2023, p. 2708), where we have "feelings of inferiority associated with shame and depressive feelings" (Fimiani et al., 2022, p. 4) by talking about how we feel. Shutting it out and hoping it will go away generally only works short term. More permanent processing usually requires expert guidance, which is usually best achieved by seeing a specialist, such as a grief counsellor. 

Sam

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (1967). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II, 2nd ed.). Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics of the American Psychiatric Association.

Fimiani, R., Gazzillo, F., Dazzi, N., & Bush, M. (2022). Survivor guilt: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical features. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 31(3), 176-190. https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2021.1941246

MacKenzie, J., & Zhao, M. (2023). Survivor guilt. Philosophical Studies, 180(9), 2707-2726. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-023-02002-9

Maguire, H. (2003). The changing psychological contract: challenges and implications for HRM, organisations and employees. In R. Wiesner & B. Millett (Eds.), Human Resource Management: Challenges and Future Directions (pp. 87-103). John Wiley & Sons.

Murray, H., Pethania, Y., & Medin, E. (2021). Survivor guilt: a cognitive approach. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 14, e28, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X21000246

Russell, H. (2021). How to Be Sad: Everything I’ve Learned About Getting Happier, by Being Sad, Better [e-book]. 4th Estate.

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The CJCD Journal

Previously in our series (here) on how we can stay professionally updated, I talked about the NICEC - National Institute for Career Education and Counselling - journal. So continuing to keep those cost barriers low for improving professional practice, this time we consider an open access publication from Canada - the Canadian Journal of Career Development (CJCD)/Revue Canadienne de Développement de Carrière (RCDC) - created by the Canadian Education and Research in Career Counselling (known colloquially and abbreviationally as CERIC).

CERIC established the bi-lingual journal in 2002, with funding from a range of trans-Canadian organisations to publish "multi-sectoral career-related academic research and best practices from Canada and around the world" (CERIC, 2025c). The journal is firmly both "Canadian and international in scope" (CERIC, 2025b). And, as mentioned, it is open access, and "multi-sectoral, [seeking] articles that deal with career development in its broadest sense. Authors are encouraged to submit articles dealing with career development in the corporate, non-profit, secondary education, post-secondary education and government sectors" (CERIC, 2025b).

And the best thing is that, like the NICEC journal, we can read the CJDC/RCDC online at no cost, in either French or English, and improve our practice knowledge. This too is a wonderful resource for career practitioners around the globe. If you haven't yet had a look at the Canadian journal, check out the home page at https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd, and go here for past issues: https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/issue/archive. Full issues or individual articles can be downloaded.

Sam

References:

CERIC. (2025a). About the Journal. https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/about

CERIC. (2025b). Archives. https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/issue/archive

CERIC. (2025c). The Canadian Journal of Career Development (CJCD)/Revue Canadienne de Développement de Carrière (RCDC). https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd

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Lies, damned lies and statistics

It is fascinating how often we attribute things to people without checking. However, I know a few people who are SCRUPULOUS in checking. One is Garson O'Toole of Quote Investigator's fame (here), and the other is Michael Quinion of World Wide Words (here). WikiQuote is also reasonably accurate (here). 

My husband and I were talking about the coiner of the phrase "lies, damned lies, and statistics" recently, and he thought it was a saying of Mark Twain's, and I thought that Mark Twain had attributed it to someone else. In full, the unattributed quote is "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". 

I consulted the first of my three gurus: Garson O'Toole. A quick search showed that Mark Twain in 1895 had attributed the saying to former British PM, Benjamin Disraeli (O'Toole, 2022). However, the quote was not found in any of Disraeli's works, despite so much of Mr Disraeli's work having been formalised in writing. Undeterred from the lack of evidence, Garson O'Toole (2022) did a thorough search and found that one T. Mackay, in a letter to the editor of The National Observer on 8 June 1891, said "It has been wittily remarked that there are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a ‘fib,’ the second is a downright lie, and the third and most aggravated is statistics" (Mackay, 1891), which is pretty close to the quote as we know it today. 

Neither WikiQuote nor Michael Quinion had any dates earlier than 8 June 1891, so O'Toole (2022) seems to offer the earliest evidence. However, it sounds to me from Mr Mackay's letter that the witticism may have already been in relatively common usage in June of 1891 (NB: the usually utterly accurate Quote Investigator noted the date of Mr Mackay's letter as 13 June when it was the 8th). So the saying "lies..." etc is older than 8 June 1891. It was not created by Mark Twain: he reused it four years later. On another continent. And attributed it to a famous person: PM Benjamin Disraeli (as we so often do today, attributing to a famous person), but that attribution may not have been accurate enough. 

Evidence may be found that Mr Disraeli may indeed be the originator; but we lack evidence for that right now. We do have evidence that the first person currently having recorded it in writing was Mackay (1891).

It will be interesting to see what other sources are found as time goes by. Hopefully we may find the originator :-)

Sam

References:

Mackay, T. (1891, June 13). National Pensions [Letters to the Editor]. The National Observer, 6(134), p. 93. https://archive.org/details/sim_the-national-observer-and-british-review-of-politics_1891-06-13_6_134/page/93/mode/1up

Quinion, M. (2025). Search. World Wide Words. https://worldwidewords.org/search.htm

O'Toole, G. (2022, June 22). Quote Origin: There Are Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. Quote Investigator. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/06/22/lies-statistics/

Wikiquote. (2025). Home. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page

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Tools to help in recreating self-identity

Last year I was in touch with a friend whom I hadn't caught up with since Covid-19 rocked our collective worlds... to find that things were not going well on many fronts for my friend. Work was great, but everything else felt like it was coming unglued: they felt they had lost their sense of self; no longer knowing who they were. I was so very grateful that they were honest and open, and felt able to talk to me: but I was out of my depth in providing any actual help (and said so). I suggested that my friend ask around their network to find a counsellor who could guide them through what they were experiencing (as being a career development practitioner doesn't equip me for helping someone who needs emotional guidance!).

However, in the same week, two magazine articles crossed my desk which sparked the inspiration for this post. I passed these onto my friend, who may feel ready to take these actions at some point, to help them address the sense of loss they are experiencing.

• Write 1. Get a notebook. At the beginning of each day - perhaps on our commute - we note down what we expect to stress us today. At the end of each day before we go to bed, we note down what actually did stress us. We do this for a month, then review (West, 2024), potentially with a counsellor. We look for patterns, then try to do something about (a) the gap between our expectation and reality, and (b) what behaviour patterns we can begin to change. And it is easy to see why we might need to find someone who can help us effect change with behaviours which are eroding our sense of self.
• Write 2. We divide a piece of paper - or a page in our new notebook - into two halves. We "Head one column self-pity and" then head "the other one self-compassion". Under "self-compassion" we write the definition, "Is constructive and promotes emotional resilience, self-awareness and growth". Under "self-pity" we write "Is destructive and leads to a cycle of negativity, helplessness and emotional stagnation". Then we consider how we "talk to [...]ourse[lves] about [...]our life and what actions or inactions [we] are taking", and put each of those into the appropriate column, e.g. "doing something proactive [...], like reaching out for help, would go in the self-compassion column"; or where we "feel uniquely wronged or afflicted and where [we] resent others, which leads to inward-looking rumination and a downward spiral, would go in the self-pity column" (Perry, 2024). Two further illustrators show us a difference in thinking reminiscent of internal or external locii of control (here, Lefcourt, 1966) or mindset (here, Dweck, 2006): "Everyone makes mistakes. I’ll learn from this and do better next time" on the self-compassion side, versus self-pity as "It’s not fair I wasn’t trained right" (Perry, 2024).
• Experience new things. Being more active and trying new things - think activity tasting platter - may help. Find someone - so we can travel in company - and 'taste' loads of new-to-us experiences. Not too many things, but perhaps two each month, over a year or so. We can go through community newspapers and read local notice boards to find those little community groups, then inquire about visits. We might try things like cold water swimming. The local Horticulture Society. Tai Chi. Orienteering. Tapestry. Lawn Bowls. Beginner's Spanish. Anything that we stumble across, that sounds like it would be fun to try. Our partner in crime may change on the journey, or we may eventually fly solo. We can stick at things we enjoy until we don't need it anymore. In the process, we will (a) rediscover ourselves, (b) develop as a person, and (c) meet new people. Slowly we will make new friends. And by doing that we will create a renewed sense of our own identity.

It should be noted that these three ideas are small fixes, not substitutes for the professional guide I think my friend may need (and is currently getting). But sharing these may enable us to help ourselves, or others, a little.

Sam

References:

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Baltimore Books.

Lefcourt, H. M. (1966). Internal versus external control of reinforcement: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 65(4), 206-220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0023116

Perry, P. (2024, September 8). Bad events knocked the joy out of my life. How do I get it back?. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/08/bad-events-knocked-the-joy-out-of-my-life-how-do-i-get-it-back

West, T. (2024, August 27). The reasons why we fall out of love with our job. Radio New Zealand. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018952948/the-reasons-why-we-fall-out-of-love-with-our-job

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What is the first, second and third person?

I realised that - despite having explored whether writing in the first or the third person in academic writing is more 'appropriate' - we had missed the first step... and had not defined what the first or third person IS.

So we will do that, then we will chew over a few ideas as what is 'appropriate' really is a difficult question to answer. It seems to fall into the 'it depends' category.

• The first person voice is where we stand in the story-tellers shoes as 'I' and 'me'. A statement such as "...we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender" is in the first person: we own the statement (Churchill, 1940, s. 796). The first person "perspective works well when the story includes personal experiences, observations, and reflections. With first person, you tell the story as the narrator using the pronouns I, me, mine, we, our, and us" but we need to also understand that this perspective can "feel subjective" (Felder, 2012, p. 123)
• The second person voice is where we write directly to others, as 'you'. We might say "...you will defend your island, whatever the cost may be. You will fight on the beaches, you will fight on the landing grounds, you will fight in the fields and in the streets, you will fight in the hills; you will never surrender" (after Churchill, 1940, s. 796). As we can see, second person can be good for "instructions or explanations" (Felder, 2012, p. 123), and not very good at teambuilding or persuasion. This is a 'telling' voice
• The third person voice is where we are, effectively, the faceless researcher. We use collective pronouns such as 'they' or 'them', and might say "the people will defend their island, whatever the cost may be. They will fight on the beaches, they will fight on the landing grounds, they will fight in the fields and in the streets, they will fight in the hills; they will never surrender" (after Churchill, 1940, s. 796). We use this voice for writing which we want "to feel more objective", where we want to put the research into the foreground, and ourselves into the shadows (Felder, 2012, p. 123). We are more remote; we have moved away from the action.

It has been suggested that "personal experiences communicated in the form of an academic paper and written in a narrative style would be deemed more personal than that conveyed in a third person, formal style" (Djenar et al., 2015, p. 18); by acting as narrator, we unmask ourselves, and become a person to the reader. Whereas "Scientific writing is not of a personal or conversational nature", which appears to be a proxy for the first person voice being "commonly used. As a general rule, personal pronouns such as I, we, you, me, my, our and us should not appear, except in quotations" (Elliot, 2005, p. 167, citing Anderson & Poole, 1994, p. 6).

The following paragraph brings together a number of the issues with whose voice we take in our writing - being inauthentic; appearing science-like; and conveying false objectivity: 

"It feels contrived to talk about oneself in the third person and goes against rules of language as performative practice. This convention is a remnant of positivist objectivist writing in the natural sciences, which was transferred to the social sciences and the humanities – probably to try to give it the status of the hard sciences".

"The use of the first person does not impact on the formality or the persuasive character of the language, but could add to it" (Henning et al., 2005, p. 92).

Good luck with working out whose shoes you prefer to stand in (and yes, that is the second person ;-)).

Sam

References:

Churchill, W. L. S. (1940, June 4). "We shall fight on the beaches". In His Majesty's Government, House of Commons Debates (Vol. 361). Hansard. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/jun/04/war-situation

Djenar, D. N., Mahboob, A., & Cruickshank, K. (Eds.) (2015). Language and identity across modes of communication (Vol. 6). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Elliot, J. (2005). Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Felder, L. (2012). Writing for the Web. Creating compelling web content using words, pictures and sound. New Riders.

Henning, E., Gravett, S., & Van Rensburg, W. (2005). Finding your way in academic writing (2nd ed.). Van Schaik Publishers.

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Building a better idiot

Well. I have a bit of a conundrum. I seem to recall that in a Heinlein book, the author, Robert Anson Heinlein had one of his characters say something along the lines of "make a system idiot proof and the world will build a better idiot". Despite wracking my brain to remember what book that was in, asking my sister (another Antipodean Heinlein fan), and asking a friend, I still cannot find the quote (even Google, Duck Duck Go, and WikiQuote come up empty). My sister suspects that this may have been a pearl dropped by RAH characters Jubal Harshaw or Johann Sebastian Smith. The friend pointed me to the Douglas Adams quote: "a common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools" (Adams, 1992, p. 113) but that seems far too recent for me – I seem to remember the quote from the 1970s (or perhaps the 1980s at a push).

I have tried searching my Heinlein ebooks, but feel that the wording from my fuzzy recollection is probably too inaccurate for a match.

So, faced with a full re-read of my collection to find this quote (which would be fine, but the lack of attribution is gnawing at me a bit), or trying something else, I wrote to the Heinlein Society. And within just a few hours, a lovely man named Walt Boyes had emailed me, advising that the writer of the better idiot saying was an author by the name of Rick Cook (never heard of the author) from a book called "The Wizardry Compiled” (nor the book either, but hey). Walt also added that "Heinlein would certainly agree with it", which was lovely.

So I got the book out of the library and found the quote at the beginning of Chapter 6 as an epigraph: “Applications programming is a race between software engineers, who strive to produce idiot-proof programs, and the Universe which strives to produce bigger idiots” (1990, p. 39)... with a post-script: "So far the Universe is winning". Yeah, but no. That is similar to, but is not quite the saying that I remember.

And I now have a real puzzle, as I recall this differently (make something idiot proof and the world builds a better idiot), and from earlier than 1990… and have never read – or heard of – Rick Cook (1990). But at least that moves us back in time two years from Douglas Adams (1992).

I guess I am now looking at a full Heinlein re-read. Sigh.

Sam

References:

Adams, D. (1992). Mostly Harmless. William Heinemann.

Cook, R. (1990). The Wizardry Compiled. Baen Books.

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Thanks by way of a chocolate fish

Oh: why do we Kiwis award a chocolate fish as a thank you? Well, giving a small token of thanks - koha - for a job well done is a Kiwi cultural thing. And we have gotten into the habit of making that small token ...a chocolate fish. 

It is "given (literally or figuratively) as a reward for a job well done; as in 'Good on ya, mate. You deserve a chocolate fish' " (Auckland Doctors, 2013, p. 3). Hingston reports that this particular "fish is very special in New Zealand culture. It is about 10 cm (4 inches) long and made of pink marshmallow covered in chocolate [which] are often used as rewards for good ideas or forfeits for bets and all Kiwis understand the expressions ‘give him a chocolate fish’ or ‘you owe me a chocolate fish’" (2009, p. 37).

It isn't quite a literal chocolate fish - as Hingston (2009) notes, it is a chocolate covered marshmallow fish - pictured alongside made by Queen Anne. Once made by Cadbury's - with, to my mind, nastily squishy marshmallow and very sweet milk chocolate - the best ones are made by Queen Anne, the original Christchurch firm. Their chocolate fish come in many different flavours, dark, milk and white chocolate, and - providing you like a nice, firm marshmallow - they are delicious. Check out the website - here - to order some of their delicious range (the boysenberry and peppermint flavours are my faves!).

One organisation I work for makes the giving of a chocolate fish literal - they have a 'chocolate fish nomination' which the recipient can redeem at the organisation cafe (or swap out for something of equivalent value). In my online courses, I publicly award a metaphorical chocolate fish, announcing it to reward exemplary behaviour, or eagle-eyed error-spotting.

The earliest mention of 'chocolate fish' in the media, via a quick search at the National Library of New Zealand, appears to be in 1903, in the Auckland Star. Many things were made of chocolate were advertised for sale by H M S Smeaton Ltd of Queen Street, including a chocolate creel and fish. Amongst a number of other ads, I also found a sweet (ha) Christmas story about a "Little Prince" in the Lyttelton Times, where the authors related that "the chocolate fish tied up in silver paper had a flavour about them that no chocolates out of a bonbonniere could have — a subtle flavour" (Askew & Askew, 1914). I was also quite taken by the notice: "Fishing at the mouth of the Rangitata recently, a fine fish weighing 12lbs was landed. Later, many not quite so big were also bagged. Another party working north of the Saltwater Creek landed a fine line of chocolate fish, and other dainties, to be seen at 'The Regent' Confectionery Store and Stall near Grand Pictures" (Timaru Herald, 1924). With the newspaper being able to poke fun via chocolate fish, I think we can safely say that chocolate fish were already common in New Zealand by 1924.

While The Chocolate Fish Company (2024) suggest the fame of chocolate fish grew at the hands of Richard Hudson of Cadbury Schweppes Hudson (see here for more), if so, there is no record of it in the media. It seems that chocolate fish landed in Aotearoa earlier than Hudson's enterprise in the early 20th century, and were well schooled before the advent of the Cadburys joint venture.

But what about the chocolate fish use as koha? Well, an early report of "a chocolate fish for a reward for 'a job well done'" is reported by The Chocolate Fish Company, where "20 dancers [...] were rewarded with large chocolate fish" (The Chocolate Fish Company, 2024, citing the Evening Post, 26 September 1933). However, I found an earlier mention, where a fourteen year old boy before the courts for theft explained to the judge that the plaintiff - a shop owner - had "asked me to mind the shop, [and] gave me a chocolate fish for minding it" (Auckland Sun, 1927). It appears that giving chocolate fish as a thank you was already a thing by 1927, and needed no further explanation of either the chocolate fish, or the giving of it. It should also be noted that the defendant had also helped himself, in addition to the fish, to "two packets of chewing-gum and about 9s in cash" (Auckland Sun, 1927). Ouch. Perhaps a chocolate fish was simply a token of appreciation, even then.

But what I still need to find out is: why a chocolate fish?

Sam

References:

Auckland Star. (1903, April 7). Public Notices: The Latest Novelty. Auckland Star, 34(83), 2, column 3. 2https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19030407.2.22.3

Auckland Sun. (1927, June 18). Idle Hands: Boys Turned Burglars. Auckland Sun, 1(74), p. 1. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SUNAK19270618.2.22

Askew, A., & Askew, C. (1914, December 30). The Little Prince. Lyttelton Times, 115(16746), p. 11

Auckland Doctors. (2013). Kiwi Words and Phrases. http://www.aucklanddoctors.co.nz/media/50118/kiwi_words_and_phrases.pdf

Hingston, J. (2009). Afghans, Barbecues & Chocolate Fish: The ABC of Kiwi food. Hachette New Zealand Ltd.

Queen Anne. (2025). Chocolate fish [image]. https://queenanne.co.nz/collections/chocolate-fish

The Chocolate Fish Company. (2024). Chocfishtory: The History of Chocolate Fish. https://chocfish.co.nz/pages/fishtory

Timaru Herald. (1924, March 17). Notice "Fishing at the mouth". Timaru Herald, 98(18084), p. 9. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19240317.2.51

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Career mapping

When we are "navigating unfamiliar territory, it is natural to feel anxious - especially if there is no map" to guide us (Clarke, 2011, p. 3). So, to guide where we want to go in our work, we build a map: a process which is called - logically - career mapping. 

We plot our potential career path, like a mindmap or a flowchart, through self-knowledge, skill development training, qualification, internship, and role hierarchy to reach a particular goal. The goal might be a particular position, function, status or skill set: so a CEO, Human Resources specialist, leader, or creative. Alternatively, we could plot a linear model (Clarke, 2011) such as - for example - taking sciences, maths and technical drawing at secondary school, then doing a first year science at university, going on to train as an electrical engineer, beginning PLC programming work for a commissioning engineering firm before training more in circuit design; leading to a role with an electric vehicle manufacturer. We can plot in detours. We can build bridges. We can collect skills. The possibilities are endless. 

Career mapping is a tool which allows us to understand and put our "personal values and career goals in an institutional context and [...] perspective" (Tinsley, 1984, p. 20). It allows us to put ourselves into an industrial, functional or organisational context, and consider where that gets us. Creating a map - whether a linear list or a flow chart - helps us to make sense not only of our own mahi, but also our team, our function, and "the institution as a whole, its mission, its values, its context in higher education nationally and locally, its informal agendas, its resources, and its problems" (p. 20). Powerful stuff.

This can take a "written form [..such as an] essay, chart, map with annotations, graphic" which enables our client "to develop an action plan for [their] own career, beginning with present title and salary and a brief description of present responsibilities and projecting title, salary, and responsibilities along the following time line: one year from now, two to three years from now, [...or even through to] retirement" (Tinsley, 1984, p. 21). How the client wishes to present their map is up to them, but putting it in some type of recorded form and monitoring it makes them more likely to achieve their goal (Harkin et al., 2016). While career mapping has been around for at least 40 years, apps now enable us to easily flowchart and visualise the "personal rewards and costs, [and to define] the skills and resources" (Tinsley, 1984, p. 20) for us to make sense of our path through an organisation, a sector, or within the broader world of work. 

Also, for a change of direction, we could consider dividing the map a new school leaver client is creating into levels, organising it to address the following ideas (Clarke, 2011, p. 23): 

• Entry level: Our entry point into the world of work. "our expectations about the work world will likely have to change. Even though [we] might not think [we] have much leverage or ability to choose, in fact [we] have quite a bit. Use [...]our youthful innocence to [...]our advantage and just go for what [we] want with purpose"
• Mid-level: As we build skills, keep track of progress. Network. Think ahead. "Establish [...]our regimen of building [...]our arsenal of skills, contacts, and other resources. Challenge [...ourselves] to learn something new every day, no matter how seemingly insignificant"
• Mastery: Build self-knowledge. Train for the gaps. Work to our strengths. "By now [we] have probably worked in a few different companies and environments, and [we] know what [we] want and what works best for [...us]. Make informed choices and continually evaluate options - even if [we] don't choose to pursue them"
• Encore: What have we missed? What do we regret not having tried? "It is hoped that [we] have made wise career choices, but perhaps [we] haven't explored more of what turns out to be an infinite set of possibilities. Push the limits on the "what if" to see where it can lead [us]"
• Detour: Use reflection to dig in and consider our values, interests, engagement, energy, passion and excitement. "Introspection is [...]our friend as [we navigate ...]our course. Get in touch with what moves [us] - with what has meaning - and let that inform [...]our choices. Couple that insight with decision, and [we] are off"

While the example above is for a school leaver, the ideas of entry, mid-, mastery, encore and detour are concepts which be considered at any age. 

Any tools which give clients an alternative frame to consider their career thoughts are helpful! 

Sam

References:

Clarke, G., with Garrett, E. (2011). Career Mapping: Charting your course in the new world of work. Morgan James Publishing/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

Harkin, B., Webb, T. L, Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment? A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198-229. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000025

Tinsley, A. (1984). Career mapping and the professional development process. In A. Tinsley, C. Secor, S. Kaplan (Eds.), Women in Higher Education Administration: New directions for higher education (Vol. 45, pp. 17-24). Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishing.

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Posthumanism and post-linguistic theory

When doing research, we use a base theory to provide a backbone for our methodology (our research philosophy, inquiry strategy, and design - big picture why and how) and our methods (our data collection, sampling and analysis tools). If we use some type of unifying theory it helps our decisions to align, making our data collection more consistent, more trustworthy, and potentially containing less bias (if we are undertaking qualitative research) and validity, reliability and generalisability (for quantitative projects).

I am currently trying to get my head around what post-linguistic theory is; which, I think - at this early stage - relates to the epistemology of posthumanism (Koivunen et al., 2021). So before I can understand post-linguistic theory, I first need to understand posthumanism. And - of course - before I can understand posthumanism, I first need to understand humanism. 

A humanist epistemology appears to value reason, and focuses on the humanity side, rather than the nonhuman, the 'other'. Humanism seems to make "a distinction between mind (rational, spiritual, essentially human) and body (unwieldy, worldly, essentially animal)" (Allen, 2023). So if humanism is "two legs better" (Orwell, 1945, p. 104), then post-humanism appears to be that "all animals are equal" (p. 11); mind and body both have value; that all living things have value. This is 'post' the age of enlightenment, where discovery is scientific, Western, and potentially "industrial, imperialist, and warlike" (de Vaujany et al., 2024, p. 3). 

Lamb and Higgins explain "the posthumanist question" as the "how and why we have come to think about humans in particular ways, with particular boundaries between humans and other animals, humans and artefacts, humans and nature" (2020, p. 350). Additionally, posthumanism can be thought of as "the end of a 'man-centred' universe" (de Vaujany et al., 2024, p. 2). 

Which brings us to post-linguistic theory; this too is a framework with pre-, present and post- elements (Andersson et al., 2018). Pre-linguistics is perhaps akin to beings without a sentient voice (babies, cells, etc); present is text and communication; and post-linguistics, or "post-linguistic propositional knowledge" - which I hope is the same thing - could be "a way of perceiving and expressing knowledge [aligned] with Goethe’s concept of the phenomena themselves being the theory" (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014, p. 332). Related to language, this is where we blend "discourse-oriented linguistics and pragmatics into affect studies", and we "re-introduc[e...] a linguistic model to a post-linguistic theory frame [... to help us] to understand affectivity as a form of meaning-making" (Koivunen et al., 2021, p. 646); and what I think that means is that we examine positive and/or negative emotions, story, conversation, and making sense of our how we, and our participants, react to those feelings. 

I get the feeling that post-linguistic theory is somehow a bit like the T S Eliot poem, Little Gidding, where "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate, when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning" (Gardner, 1985, p. 897). We come full circle, and know the inherent, "immanent meaning" of what we are examining (Andersson et al., 2018, p. 37).

However, I do not yet see how post-linguistic theory fits - or does not fit - with posthumanism. I can see a fit with action research, though. Ah well, I need to do more reading!

Sam

References:

Allen, P. (2023, September 3). What is Posthumanism?. Perlego. https://www.perlego.com/knowledge/study-guides/what-is-posthumanism/

Andersson, J., Garrison, J., & Östman, L. (2018). Chapter 2: Distributed Minds and Meanings in a Transactional World Without a Within: Embodiment and Creative Expression. In Empirical philosophical investigations in education and embodied experience (pp. 27-68). Palgrave Macmillan.

Coghlan, D., & Brydon-Miller, M. (Eds.). (2014). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Gardner, H. (1985). The New Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1950. Oxford University Press.

Koivunen, A., Antti Kanner, A., Janicki, M., Harju, A., & Hokkanen, A., Mäkelä, E. (2021). 1PP 736 Emotive, evaluative, epistemic: A linguistic analysis of affectivity in news journalism. In the Proceedings of Communication and Trust: 8th European Communication Conference (p. 646). https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/7239636/ECREA_2021_Abstract_Book.pdf#page=604

Lamb, G., & Higgins, C. (2020). Chapter 16 - Posthumanism and Its Implications for Discourse Studies. In A. De Fina, A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies (pp. 350-370). Cambridge University Press.

Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm: A fairy story. Secker & Warburg.

de Vaujany, F.-X., Gherardi, S., & Silva, P. (Eds.). (2024). Organization Studies and Posthumanism: Towards a more-than-human world. Routledge.

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Public versus private health

Apparently, in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have the lowest numbers of specialists per capita in the OECD (Ashton et al., 2013). That is not a great statistic for any nation to have. And it must make the pressure on healthcare more severe here than in most other nations.

I am a member of Southern Cross, a private healthcare provider/insurer. Southern Cross is a trust, run on a co-operative structure - and I thoroughly appreciate their service. I just wish that there was less of a need for it, though. For example, my mother recently needed cataract surgery, and was able to have both eyes operated on immediately. Yet those without insurance (and who cannot afford to pay the private medical surgery costs themselves) must wait on public lists for months: and needing to meet severity tests to be allowed access to a specialist appointment. and that only gets them a place on their local hospital's surgical list... where, after waiting perhaps 9 months or a year to reach the top of this list, they have a single eye operated upon. Then they go down to the bottom of the list to have the second eye done. Yet, because they can see from one eye, their need is less urgent; so they may no longer meet the criteria for surgery.

We appear to have two tiers of access to 'normal' health services: those who can pay - and get the 'cream'; versus those who cannot - and get the dregs. I am not talking about emergency care or life-threatening treatments: that care is pretty equitable. I am talking about those services which make our lives worth living. Like being able to see. Like getting a hip replaced before the pain reduces our quality of life. Like having tendon grafts. This type of health care access inequity offends my sense of fairness.

Medical services are expensive, and requirements are increasingly complex, yet the Nordic nations manage to run sound healthcare systems (Knudsen et al., 2019; Nordic Health and Welfare Statistics, 2024) possibly because they levy higher levels of taxation (OCED, 2018). I wonder if we have reduced so much taxation from our New Zealand system that we no longer have the wherewithal to pay for the services a democratic society might naturally expect to have...?

Additionally, I have been thinking about the gap between the public healthcare system and the private one. We have a couple of friends who are ophthalmologists. They improve their income by splitting their practice between private and public. While both are committed to the public system, it is the private system which provides their retirement funds and a less frenetic pace of practice.

But. The private sector adds pressure to public services: the private sector externalises emergency care and risk onto the public healthcare system (Penno et al., 2021). I don't know how we get around that fairly... or even if we need to try to change that when we are also so short of specialists (Ashton et al., 2013). But if we are going to have private healthcare, we also appear to need a good public system, as the public ambulance at the bottom of the private cliff.

The trouble is, none of this is simple to fix. The levers are multiple; and where inexpert, short-termist policy can generate significant consequences for those on the margins of our societies. There are no easy answers in this sector, but I do wish our governments would take a cross-party, long-term strategy in investing in the health of the nation. 

Sam

References:

Ashton, T., Brown, P., Sopina, E., Cameron, L., Tenbensel, T., & Windsor, J. (2013). Sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among specialists within the public and private health sectors. The New Zealand Medical Journal, 126(1383), 1-11. https://nzmj.org.nz/media/pages/journal/vol-126-no-1383/sources-of-satisfaction-and-dissatisfaction-among-specialists-within-the-public-and-private-health-sectors/4e5b26130a-1696475225/sources-of-satisfaction-and-dissatisfaction-among-specialists-within-the-public-and-private-health-sectors.pdf

Knudsen, A. K., Allebeck, P., Tollånes, M. C., Skogen, J. C., Iburg, K. M., McGrath, J. J., ... & Øverland, S. (2019). Life expectancy and disease burden in the Nordic countries: results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017. The Lancet Public Health, 4(12), e658-e669. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(19)30224-5

Nordic Health and Welfare Statistics. (2024). Health Statistics for Nordic Countries. https://nhwstat.org/publications/health-statistics-nordic-countries

OECD. (2018). Chapter 4: Country tables, 1990-2016. In Revenue Statistics 2018 [report]. Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/rev_stats-2018-7-en.pdf?expires=1722380271&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=6FE2F3689A9ECC11E9184A273A7965B1

Penno, E., Sullivan, T., Barson, D., & Gauld, R. (2021). Private choices, public costs: Evaluating cost-shifting between private and public health sectors in New Zealand. Health Policy, 125(3), 406-414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.12.008

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The Emperor has no clothes & AI

While I am sure that AI platforms will improve, I was struck by a Guardian long read article last year where a journalist reported that, "when I asked ChatGPT to write a bio for me, it told me I was born in India, went to Carleton University and had a degree in journalism – about which it was wrong on all three counts (it was the UK, York University and English). To ChatGPT, it was the shape of the answer, expressed confidently, that was more important than the content, the right pattern mattering more than the right response" (Alang, 2024).

I think that is the core of the AI problem. The confidence of the delivery from the AIs we consult (Alang, 2024). The large language models which AI is trained upon is logically North American. That is where the tech companies are. The USA has driven much of the research and IT work for the past half century. The US is probably the most WEIRD society (here; Henrich et al., 2010): a Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic society, which collectively make up 12% of the global population. Researchers have considered "how WEIRD [society populations] measure up relative to the available reference populations" (p. 62), finding that in most behavioural research studies, a full "68% of [research participants] came from the United States, and a full 96% of subjects were from Western industrialized countries, specifically those in North America and Europe, as well as Australia and Israel" (p. 63); and even more narrow, that "67% of the American [participants] (and 80% of the [participants] from other countries) were composed solely of undergraduates in psychology courses" (p. 63).

So not very representative then. And if we think of the 12% of global population in WEIRD societies, 50% will be female. Around 40% of Americans go to college (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). So lets assume of the 6% of WEIRD societies which are male, that 40% have gone to college. While this is very rough maths, at the most, AI is based on 2.4% of the global population (and it will be a fraction of that number, because few will have completed an IT degree, let alone a behavioural science degree, as per Henrich et al., 2010). Yes, I know I am comparing apples with oranges, but I don’t think we can safely assume that the data being used to 'train' the AI models is unbiased. I think it is pretty clear that the training data is based on a tiny non-representative percentage of the global population. 

The software and hardware engineers working on AI are also likely to be male, with a good chunk from North America (Alang, 2024). While, 23% of workers in IT are women (Deloitte, 2021), it was noted at one large US company that there were "641 people working on 'machine intelligence,' of whom only 10 percent were women" (Simonite, 2018). So yes, while nearly a quarter of the IT sector has women in it, the gender distribution is uneven. And if we come back to Von Bertalanffy's system theory (1968), this shows that the input is definitely biased. Thus the transformation - no matter what we do elsewhere - will also be biased. This means that the output too will be biased. 

We are used to consulting the internet for factual answers. Yet there is a growing trend that what is on the internet is a mashup of fact and fiction. Since the early 1990s, we 'little people' have been able to create our voices without the peer review of publishers and others to filter what we say. And now, perhaps throwing a massive spanner in the works, generative AI creates blends of fiction and fact... and - unless we know our field - we have little idea which elements are fiction, and which are factual (Alang, 2024; Lingard, 2023). We consult the oracle and lack the understanding to be able to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

But the more I read, the more I think that the emperor is indeed naked. So far, anyway.

Sam

References:

Alang, N. (2024, August 8). No god in the machine: the pitfalls of AI worship. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/aug/08/no-god-in-the-machine-the-pitfalls-of-ai-worship

Deloitte. (2021, December 1). Women in the tech industry: Gaining ground, but facing new headwind. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-and-telecom-predictions/2022/statistics-show-women-in-technology-are-facing-new-headwinds.html

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X

Lingard, L. (2023). Writing with ChatGPT: An illustration of its capacity, limitations & implications for academic writers. Perspectives on Medical Education, 12(1), 261-270. https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1072

National Center for Education Statistics. (2020). Chapter 2: College Enrollment Rates. In The Condition of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_cpb.pdf

Simonite, T. (2018, August 17). AI Is the Future—But Where Are the Women?. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-researchers-gender-imbalance/

Von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General System Theory:  Foundations, Development, Applications. George Braziller.

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Checking our informational interviewing data

Just because we have undertaken study in a particular field to prepare our entry, it does not mean that we necessarily have fit in the field; or that we know the arcane nature of gaining our first position within that sector. Lun notes that our "career-focused majors might not [give us] adequate understanding about [our] career path choice and real-world job opportunities" (2020, p. 1).

In a couple of recent posts we have looked at informational interviewing (here). What we have not yet talked about are some questions we can ask ourselves to ensure that we have had our questions answered by our informational interviewee. However, Lun has done some of the grunt work for us (2020) in studying students undertaking an informational interview assignment. We can apply Lun's methodical approach and can ask ourselves to what degree we can answer the following questions:

1. "I am able to identify the kinds of tasks that could be done in a typical week
2. "I am able to identify the characteristics a person needs to have in this job
3. "I am able to identify the types of advancement opportunities available for an entry-level worker in this career
4. "I am able to identify the hours typical for most jobs in this occupation
5. "I understand how this career could affect my lifestyle
6. "I understand the preparation needed for people in this career
7. "I am able to identify the specialties that are available in this career" (Lun, 2020, p. 3).

They're pretty useful questions to ask. Even better, a list of more reflective questions are provided which we can ask ourselves later; once we have had time to mentally process and digest our interview. We need our "boys in the basement" (King, 1998, p. 120) - our sub-conscious - to work through our impressions, while we get on with other things. Then, once we have enough distance to look back, we will be better able to to understand the tone, the gaps, and what wasn't said. Those questions we work through are (Lun, 2020; NB: "assignment" is edited out):

1. "What is your overall perception of the interview?
2. "How do you think this informational [interview] has helped you to understand the nature of the career in which you are interested?
3. "What aspects of this [interview] were most helpful in guiding your questions and thoughts that added to your increased understanding of the career?
4. "After conducting the interview, how would you say [this] shaped your attitude toward this field?
5. "What was your education plan before this interview [...]? After this [...], what educational goal have you planned?
6. "What was your career goal before this interview [...]? After this [...], what career goal do you have?" (pp. 3-4).

These too are very helpful. 

Sam

References:

King, S. (1998). Bag of Bones. Scribner.

Lun, M. W. A. (2020). Informational interview: Broadening helping field professional students’ perception of employment opportunities in the real world. Journal of Social Service Research, 46(1), 124-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2018.1532943

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Changing image size in Excel print headers

There are some things which I do so regularly, I never need to write myself an instruction: the process is rehearsed again and again. Then there are other tasks which I do so rarely, that when I come to do them again, I have little recollection of how to do it.

While I have written before about using Excel for marking before (here), this particular post is on something slightly more technical: how to change the size of images which have been embedded into Excel print headers.

Why would we have an image in a header? Each instruction or feedback document which I pass to my students is 'led' with an organisational brand image. Not only does it make the documents look more professional, but it reminds students who is providing the training. It never hurts to do a bit more marketing! And when the organisation's branding changes, we need to be able to replace the old logos with the the new version. 

While inserting an image is pretty easy, adjusting the new image to show in the header at an appropriate size is more problematic. Hence the need for this post. 

OK. So there are two parts to the instructions. Firstly, we need to insert the raw image:

1. Open the Excel workbook, and navigate to the sheet. Go to the Page Layout ribbon, and in the Page Setup section, click on the bottom-righthand corner expansion arrow
2. In the Page Setup dialogue box, click on Header/Footer. Select your Header from the dropdown list
3. In the Header dialogue box, click in the section containing your image (usually shown as "&[Picture]"). Click the image button. A message box will appear saying that "Only one picture can be inserted into each section of the header". Click replace
   
   
   
   
   
4. A second message box may appear, saying "The service required to use this feature is turned off. Check your privacy settings". If this appears, click "Work offline"
   
   
   
   
   
5. Now an insert file window will appear - navigate to where your desired logo image is stored, select the file, and click "Open"
6. Click OK, and OK. 

Our new image should now be present. If we do to print preview, we should now see how it looks: and it may or may not be the right size. I tend to find that the images will be shouty-loud and huge in the print area, so usually want to down-sample them by at least 50%. And that brings us to the second part of the instructions, where we reformat the image size, as follows:

1. In the Excel workbook, on the sheet you wish to adjust the header image size, go to the View ribbon. In the Workbook Views section, select the Page Layout view
   
   
   
   
2. Click in the header area containing the image
3. Go to the Header & Footer ribbon
4. Select the Format Picture icon
5. In the Format Picture dialogue box, change the image size to the desired percentage, and click OK
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click out of the header and check the size (repeat to adjust)
7. Once happy, change back to the Normal view
8. Save.

I hope this is helpful!

Sam

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The NICEC Journal

There are often barriers to improving professional practice, and one of those barriers is the cost of accessing knowledge. 

So, continuing the series (here) on how we can stay professionally updated, this post looks at the NICEC - National Institute for Career Education and Counselling - journal. NICEC is is an open access journal, which, while based in the UK, contains articles submitted from a broad range of nations; for example, the first issue in 2024 contained articles by writers from Scotland, England, Australia, Norway, and Malta. The second issue; England, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

NICEC as an organisation began as a research institute in the mid-70s, but is now a "learned society" (isn't that a lovely phrase?) for career practitioners spanning "career education, development and practice, including the specialties of "research, policy, consultancy, scholarship, service delivery [and] management" (NICEC, 2020). Part of NICEC's role is creating career conversations and sharing innovative ideas... and that is where the journal serves a vital role. The journal "seeks to integrate theory and practice in career development, stimulate intellectual diversity and encourage transdisciplinary dialogue", "to develop research, inform policy, and enhance service delivery". Worthy goals.

And the best thing is that we can read it online at no cost, and improve our practice knowledge. That is a wonderful thing for career practitioners around the globe. If you haven't yet had a look at the journal, check out the home page at https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/index, and go here for past issues: https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/issue/archive. Full issues or individual articles can be downloaded.

Sam

References:

NICEC. (2020, December). NICEC Journal Scope and Author Guidelines. https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/nicec/redactor2_assets/files/151/NICEC_Journal_scope_and_author_guidelines_12_20.pdf

NICEC. (2025a). Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling. https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/index

NICEC. (2025b). Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling Archives. https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/issue/archive

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Keiretsu

So what is keiretsu? Well, Dagogo Altreide defines it as being "like a cartel, but nicer" (Cold Fusion TV, 2024, 5.19). Keiretsu is a Japanese concept, relating to a "system, series, grouping of enterprises, [or an] order of succession)", which is built around "a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings" (Wikipedia, 2024). Think an informal alliance of producers which collectively produce cars: chip suppliers; glass manufacturers; hub and wheel assemblers; paint and coatings specialists; wiring and loom manufacturers; car plants; seat and trim makers; die cast makers; handle and lock technicians; heating and cooling plants; rubber and tyre factories; technical writers; shipping companies; car design firms; and marketing companies. 

Keiretsu could be thought of "as a club where independent [Japanese] companies banded together to share resources and protect themselves from outside competition". This "created a strong co-operative relationship" (Cold Fusion TV, 2024, 5:17). While some of these elements may be done in house, specialty work may be outsourced with an informal arrangement - i.e. handshakes rather than contracts - in Japan (McGuire & Dow, 2009). 

Organisations may be horizontally (supplied component assembly) or vertically integrated (i.e. ore, steel, moulding, welding, car body), with keiretsu too also being horizontal or vertical (McGuire & Dow, 2009). There are three horizontal keiretsu: "Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo" which "are descend[a]nts of pre-war zaibatsu, while the other three (Dai Ichi Kango, Fuyo, and Sanyo) developed around major banks during the post-war period" (McGuire & Dow, 2009, p. 334). Vertical keiretsu are "major automobile manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda" (p. 334). 

This type of alliance has dominated Japanese industry since William Deming in the 1950s (Best, 2005) and - though this type of arrangement is now waning - keiretsu remain important for the economic powerhouse that is Japan (Wikipedia, 2024).

Sam

References:

Best, M. (2005). W Edwards Deming: father of quality management, patient and composer. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 14(4), 310–312. https://doi.org/10.1136/qshc.2005.015289

Cold Fusion TV. (14 May 2024). Japan's Lost Decade - An Economic Disaster [Documentary] [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/lmnVP35uZFY

McGuire, J., & Dow, S. (2009). Japanese keiretsu: Past, present, future. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 26(2), 333-351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-008-9104-5

Wikipedia. (2024). Kieretsu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu

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