Connections and Results

With the whole recent fun of being on the search for a new place to while away the daytime hours, I’ve been debating whether to include my theater experience with my regular work experience. The end result of my debate was to list it as a quarter time position which illustrates my seven years experience of project coordinator with various companies. It’s been a tough call, because in some places it could be viewed as me having a life outside of my job that might occasionally conflict with my entire mental capacity being on the job that they would be hiring me for while others would realize it showed me gasp having a life.

Today, I felt vindicated on having it listed with my resume. A week ago I shoved my way into another temp agency for an interview and testing to prove I know what I’m doing. This testing series was actually quite thorough. I still did well, according to the coordinator that is handling my resume. She was going to submit me for two long-term positions and let me know what would happen. I called this past Tuesday and she hadn’t heard anything, but she gave me a buzz today with news before I got a chance to give her a follow up call.

She mentioned that she had heard back from the contact at one of the locations. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. She said that in the contact’s email that I came with excellent reviews from the contact’s niece, who I might know. The name finally made sense - the niece was someone I’ve worked with on a show about a year ago. She and I had crossed paths a couple of times as she was one of my “Daddies” in Oak Tree and we’ve seen each other at various theater things.

We’ll see how things go next week. Hopefully this goes somewhere.

 

Feeling a little dirty…

Part of the joy of the job hunt is that you get some very odd emails (want to be an Account Executive? have a bank account you can cash checks? Then you’re for us!). Occasionally, you’ll get phone calls as well. I just received one of those from a company called Bankers Life & Casualty.

Oddly, the woman wasn’t put off when I asked for more information about the company saying I’ve seen a few of these insurance/bank companies that just look like well set up pyramid schemes. She gave me the company’s website and told me they’ve been in business for over 120 years and that her father retired from there with over forty years of experience.

Now, she described the job as a management trainee where I’d be overseeing the hiring, training and motivation for sales folks under me and I’d have to do some selling as well. Honestly, I hate selling anything. I feel like I’m telling people to spend money that should be better spent on anything than what I’m telling the to spend it on. Apparently though these are all people directly interested in the product already, so I’d just have to explain the ins and outs and take there money. Sure. Can’t be that easy though.

Oddly, I’m feeling insane enough to want to get out of the house with any excuse that might lead toward employment. I don’t want to hate myself at 5p every day, but I don’t want to not be working much longer. So come Monday morning at 10a, I’ll dress up sharp and go see what the folks at Bankers Life have to say.

Sigh.

 

Feeling undervalued

This is probably very small of me, but lately I’ve been feeling undervalued. Every time I go to an interview lately, they’ve been telling me that while my test scores are amazing and I have the rarely seen thing of longevity with a company I’m asking too much for what they could possibly get for me. Granted, these have been staffing agencies which will charge about fifty percent more to the company to have them handle my payroll and such, but really…being unemployed sucks enough without people telling you that you’re not worth what you think you’re worth. The salary I’m asking for is actually less than I was making, since currently I’d have to pay for everything in benefit land on my own, unlike my last employer who paid for everything. I have a masters degree. I’ve been working in databases and advanced administrative work for six years in a non-profit and they were able to pay me that kind of salary…I think I can find something similar, but I’m tired of being told I’m not worth it.

I think the big fuck-you this week has been just living with my husband.

 

Cleaning House

I’ve been feeling…stagnated. Part of it is this whole lack-of-job thing. Which leads to the lack of meaningful employment issue. Neither of which is going to be solved overnight, and I’m doing everything in my power to change that. Well, maybe not everything. I haven’t tried any ritual work yet. That’s next on my to-do list.

But a friend’s reading got me thinking about a few other things. And some other thoughts have been bouncing around in my head. So I’ve started working on a few things around the place.

There’s a website called FlyLady that several of my friends online havediscovered and confessed a deep abiding love for the simplistic and directed paths do cleaning and balancing life. While some of it drives me insane (some of the Christian motivation, the simplistic colorings, the life-coach style pep talks), she does have a fabulous way for breaking down the house and trying to keep it ordered and sensible methods of attack if you’ve had a house get out of control. I just can’t attack it the way she does…but the lady makes great lists. Sure, I can do a fifteen minute fling where I run around and quickly pick up…but what I can’t do is take the babystep approach to getting my house clean. It first has to be cleaned from top to bottom and then kept there before I can start de-cluttering. And I can’t do both at the same time. My brain doesn’t fire that way.

Oddly, this approach works for me. It’s very calming to surface clean and then look out on the clean surfaces knowing that there’s chaos lurking just below those surfaces, being kept in my clean counters. And once the house has been restored to its dust free, vacuumed state of being, then I’ll be traveling with my trusty timer to sort, toss, store and sell various parts of our house. Things that have been moved and displayed because they should be instead of we want them to be. It’s too warm to work outside, so this is helping me redefine who and what I am. Figuring out the places and nooks makes me feel centered. Odd, but it works.

And while I’m doing this, I’m putting my thoughts in order. My mental self is sorting, tossing and storing various thoughts and processes. The whole state of being unemployed (or actually, under employed since being an independent contractor does bring in money - just not a lot). I’m figuring out what I like about myself, what these objects tell me about myself and why I’m keeping some things that make no sense to me but yet seem fit to take up space in my home/my self. Who am I? Why am I clinging to that definition of self? is it really who I am?

But right now, I’m just cleaning house.

 

T13: What’s my next spot?

Right now, as you’ve seen, I’m looking for the next place I might call my “day job.” Unlike the first time around almost seven years ago, I’m looking for something rewarding and meaningful to spend my day doing instead of just a job that took me years to make interesting and meaningful.

13 places I’ve applied to work

 

selling yourself short

In my short working lifetime I have had only two positions with a non-profit agency. Both of these positions were through temporary agencies for rather large Fortune 500 companies. One was with General Electric, pre-Jack Welch retirement and mainly because my father worked for their lighting division and I had the abilities to work for a marketing group as a admin/intern with two others. The other was with Tyco’s SimplexGrinnell division, pre-Kozlowski scandals in their engineering research & development segment. I was the lucky one who made the travel arrangements for the gentleman to come from London to tell everyone on staff that by the end of the year they wouldn’t have a job. Good times, I tell you.

What this gets me is a lifetime of experience knowing that I’m a valued member (most of the time) to an organization but unable to be compensated monetarily to an appropriate amount. Sure, non-profits make up the difference in extra holidays, slightly more security in working, better hours, less obvious pressure and excellent benefits…but it’s hard to know what you are actually worth when confronted with this as normality.

Of the four completed interviews I have been on, one was a bust for both halves, one was with a temp/placement agency, another with a non-profit and finally this morning a for-profit consulting agency. I’ve never worked for one, but the idea has definite appeal. You’d work on a project for a while, hopefully do a good job and finish it up then you’d be off to another job with a new set of problems to figure out and solve to the happiness of the client.

When asked, at the end of a lovely interview over crepes and coffee, what I was expecting as pay scale, I responded that I’d like to stay where I was but was willing to go a little lower if need be. She looked shocked and asked me why I’d be willing to go lower? Mainly because I know my skill set is a hard sell and some people don’t want to pay that initially because I don’t have the education that matches my experience until after you talk to me combined with the fact that I had only been at that pay-grade for three months. She looked at me, looked at her notes and all the information I had filled in on their forms plus remembering things from my resume which made her call me and then put down that she’d put me in at a 25% raise. Don’t sell yourself short, you should always want to go up.

Good reminder.

 

Well, I think

This morning was my second interview with UL. I met with the man in charge of the Standards Documentation group for all four sites. Very low-key feeling of an interview, which was nice, I’m sure I was babbling by the end of it though. People don’t want your life story, even when they ask for it. Course, with a background in chemistry and theater, you almost always get asked how the heck did that happen? and now it’s usually followed by and how did you end up here?

Both of these questions were asked, which led me to the babbling idiot phase of my interview. It’s hard for me sometimes to know when to stop talking. This can be a good thing, with ungodly complete answers, or a bad one, such as revealing your life story while intoxicated. Interviews tend to be more good rambling then bad, but every once in a while I feel like I’m overwhelmed afterwards.

 

Round One: complete

The hunt for a new day job entered phase two yesterday - the interview phase. So all of you living in central NC, blame me for the hot days. I had to wear suits, so of course it’s going to be toasty.

There were three interviews scheduled for me over two days and that finished up right around Noon today. Yesterday morning was with UL, yesterday afternoon was with BM (marketing) and finally, this morning was with FS (a placement agency). Going from least likely to hopeful puts BM first, followed by FS & then UL.

UL was fabulous, except for the fact it was 8:30 Monday morning in the Park. Let’s just say that often, that isn’t a fun commute. Luckily, I planned for that and got there with a bit of time to spare. The interview was two women who proved I was way overdressed in a suit compared to their khakis & nice knit tops. They asked many questions about how I’d deal with different situations in project management - difficult people, getting to consensus, whole nine yards. I actually had situations for every case that came up, with about half of them theater stories and half industry stories. After the questions from them, I got to ask a few on work environment and so forth. Then, I was left with one of the two women to see the tech side of what I would be doing. It’s similar to some HTML programming plus working in a web application setting. Shouldn’t be difficult once I learn the language and formats. After that, it was lunch with the Bald One and home to do a bit of follow up via email (checking on benefits, pay scale and where to send thanks).

The afternoon interview was definitely not a match. The agency is increasing in size dramatically and was hiring a bit of everything. However, they’re very much a small organization that goes to clubs & events, tries to get people to buy or hands out something for a sporting club (ticket sets, usually) and then the agency reports back how it was doing. I’d be typed an account manager. I wasn’t terribly interested, but I was polite. I was hoping, honestly, that it was a larger scale thing and they needed project managers…but no such luck.

This morning was with the placement agency. I was assured that I have a good set of qualifications & skills, but they don’t have anything right now that would be worthy of my abilities and would pay me what I’m worth. Nice to hear that from someone else that I’m worth what I think I’m worth. The woman I spoke with said she’d keep an eye out for something challenging for me and that was that. As with most agencies, I did all the silly testing that they want you to do (getting in the 85-100 percentile groups on all of it) and my phone rang. I let it go to voice mail while I was working and took the call later.

The message was from UL, asking me to call back when it was convenient for me today. I called and left a message for the HR representative who had stepped out of her office at that time. They wanted to set up an second interview, which is now on for tomorrow morning.

So far, so good.

 

hope springs eternal

I’ve lived my life very often by the whim of fate. If you ask me today how I got to where I am, I can answer truthfully that it probably all stems from being a residential security aide in college. Which, you can blame on the fact I play piccolo, if you want to be real annoying.

I now live in a suburb of a major city I couldn’t have even picked out on a map if you had threatened me. And it probably all stems from pure dumb luck. See, I chose my college based on two things - one, it looked nice on paper when I had to pick five to apply to and the fact that it had a marching band I could play in. By choosing that college, I was offered a chance in a summer program to get me started early. Because of that, I met J who eventually introduced me to M & B. B is responsible for me finding theater again and having a name for what I enjoyed doing so much. M is responsible for me finding out that there was theater in small backwoods Southern cities.

 

back on the horse that threw you

Thursday I was called into my boss’ office for a mini conference with her & the CFO. I was handed a loverly envelope and told that it wasn’t working and I was out. After I got over my stupid shock, packed up the boxes and called my dad I was doing a lot better.

My dad had a similar thing happen to him six months after I completed my bachelors degree. He wasn’t doing his job because he was expected to do the equivalent of three different positions. He laughed when he figured this out, as they hired four people to replace him. Oh, and they still have to hire him in his new job as a consultant on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, he’s more relaxed and happier than I remember him through my entire high school career. He has more interesting work, more entertaining time outside of work and the only downside is he’s driving an hour each way to work and (in my mother’s opinion) working with low class heathens who enjoy shooting and hunting way too much.

My situation is a little different.