Shut the Door, Have a Seat November 10, 2009

Before the afterglow of vacationy goodness had a chance to fade, I was told today that my job is being eliminated at the end of the month. I am officially obsolete at the ripe age of 29.  The writing has been on the wall for awhile, so while I’m not shocked, I am *lots* of other things. I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m pissed off, I’m confused, and I’m kind of numb. People have congratulated me saying that this is a great thing and other people have said they are totally shocked. Me, I’ve been okay–decisive and calm…totally zen all things considered. If anything, I’m amused at how radically things can change over just a few months. I’ve gone from being the prize in a tug of war between different departments, all who wanted me on their team to being eliminated entirely with a change in leadership. My, my–how fickle the world of media is. I’ve decided not to take it personally, though there are a few reasons why I certainly could.

 

So I’m heading for California far sooner than I anticipated. I’m breaking my lease and heading down south to get my new home all set up a whoppin’ 20 days from now. I’m getting the hell out of dodge.

 

The weirdest part is that I’ve never been unemployed–not since I was 12…seriously. My grandfather once told me that my workaholic tendencies were the result of a Puritan work ethic encoded in my DNA. He may have been onto something there…I had a thriving babysitting business in our subdivision that kept me busier and wealthier than all the lawnmowing boys in the neighborhood combined. I’m not ashamed to say it, I was just *that good*. I parlayed my mad skills into an afterschool job at an in-home daycare and in the summers, I scooped ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  Then I started college and well, as a freshman I started with the organization I work for now. That was 11 years ago…I feel like I’ve grown up there and in spite of feeling root-bound lately, I always thought I’d get to leave on my own terms.  Turns out, not so much.

 

Last night I watched Mad Men, as I always do on Sunday nights. Here my favorite characters were faced with an impending disaster–the company was about to be sold to a big, evil, corporate douche bag company. And instead of being whiny little bitches or wringing their hands, they took control and said damn the man, stole some clients, and started their own agency. I felt kind of ridiculous that I was so sublimely happy to see these ficticious characters taking the situation by the cajones. I had a dumb girl smile on my face watching Roger and Don reconcile and then seeing the whole gang together again, doing what they do best out of passion for the work. There was something awe-inspiring about watching Don circle the wagons in preparation of sticking it to those who didn’t give them the breathing room to do great work. I remember great work…vaguely. I think the last time I had the breathing room I needed to do great work was August 2008 while my mentor was still leading the organization.

 

For 3 seasons of Mad Men now, I’ve watched the relationship between Don and Peggy and it has always reminded me of my relationship to my former mentor. I only say former because we haven’t talked in a long time. I would still do anything for him, if only I could. What can a rookie possibly do for a veteran? I’ve worked for only one great leader in my past and he was it. I learned so much from him and I haven’t spoken to him in awhile in spite of a recent recommendation he posted on LinkedIn; instead we just exchange Facebook messages like we were nearly strangers. Well before all this me becoming obsolete nonsense started, I’d been thinking about him a lot lately and last night I cried for the first time in months thinking about how I’ve missed his jokes, his guidance, everything.

 

I’ll admit, I was embarrassed by how much I cried when he first left. It had felt like the house of cards I’d been building based on his carefully strategized blueprint was swept away in a big gust of wind. The role he played in my career and in my life was and still is irreplicable and yet I feel like if I ever came out and told him all that, I’d disappoint him because I wouldn’t be able to do it without my emotions bubbling over causing me to shed tears like the wimp he taught me not to be. Pokerface, pokerface–that’s what he used to say to me when my heart was huge blinking neon billboard on my sleeve. He wouldn’t want tears; he’d want me to be as composed as he taught me to be. But I can’t be composed with all this chaos right now, so instead there is radio silence (or in my case, TV silence).

 

I hope someday I have the guts to tell him that he’s my Don Draper.

Job Lust: A Lesson in Telephonic Purgatory August 21, 2009

Up until last week, I’ve been telling myself that I’m “not emotionally prepared” for a job hunt and that it’s best to wait until after my fella is settled down in Orange County and we’re past the busy fall season at work before I get serious about job hunting and joining my sweetie in California permanently. You might say I’m hesitant to start a new job/work relationship before breaking off the mostly happy long-term relationship I have with my current organization. We’ve had a lot of good years together, after all.

Shockingly accurate visual representation of why I'm not "emotionally prepared" for job hunting.

 

And then I saw it, the job posting to end all job postings. It is beyond perfect for me—the veritable Mr. Darcy of jobs; a non-profit leadership position in marketing & communications located within a reasonable commuting distance to our new house—and it’s with an organization whose video on YouTube literally made me cry because I was so touched by the idea of working for them. This is, of course, a prime example of how sometimes the universe takes all the pretty stories and rationalizations you’ve been telling yourself and laughs maniacally whilst tossing your plans and pretty stories out the window onto the unforgiving pavement below. All I can do is smile and laugh as I watch the meager few plans I allowed myself to have during this heinously transitional period shatter into a million pieces below. Plans, schmlans, right? Maybe destiny has a better plan for me. It reminds me of that Julia Sweeney movie from years ago, God Said, Ha!

 

When I first set eyes on this glorious piece of Craigslist-generated job posting beauty, I got all starry eyed, dreamy and tingly in that special place–that “special” place being the ambitious part of my psyche that’s ready for the next challenge.

 

Finding a promising job post is totally like dating. I feel like I’ve met Brad Pitt in a dive bar, except that not only is he smokin’ hot, but he also has Bill Gates income, John Stewart’s wit, and Obama’s idealism all rolled into a perfect package. It’s enough to make a girl swoon like *real bad* and instantly start plotting an exit strategy for how to leave her cheap beer-swilling, stained t-shirt wearing, unemployed slob of a current position in the dust. And all of this infatuation sprung from the least likely place to find job lust–the dive bar that is Craigslist. Now, my current gig is actually *really* not that bad at all, I’ve just outgrown it. I love my current job, the people I work with are family and the job itself is mostly fabulous. All that said, I *really* want to see if things work out with Brad/Bill/John/Barack.

 

Ever since I sent in my cover letter, resume and writing portfolio that I slaved over for hours one end, I’ve become more and more smitten as I’ve researched the organization online. I’ve “liked” their Facebook posts, I’ve read their annual report, read press about them…all that. I’ve been in la-la land and only half paying attention to things that genuinely matter the last few days. There are literally a hundred other things that I could be thinking about right now–an endless list of things I have to get done at work before leaving town, not to mention laundry, packing, clearing out a room for my friend who’s moving in–all that. And yet, I keep thinking about getting that call.

 

I feel like I’m in my early 20s again and have just “connected” with someone I met at a bar, given him my number and now I’ve launched into the torturous purgatory of waiting for the coveted phone call to book a first date. Between obsessively checking my email and incessantly feeling the phantom vibration of my cell phone, it’s amazing I’ve made time to do much else–and not for a lack of things to do! Still, I can’t stop myself from planning what I’ll wear and what I’ll say on our hypothetical first date/interview.

 

What I really need to focus on is that in a mere 36 hours, we leave town for a trip that promises to be the Bataan death march of road trips—over 20 hours of driving from Seattle, WA to Orange, CA without air-conditioning in a packed to the gills 1990 Toyota Celica. My mom actually believes this car is kept running by voodoo because there is literally *no* earthly explanation as to why it still runs. I’ll be jammed into the passenger seat with room for nothing more than a Michael Pollan book, a Lucky Magazine, my ipod, and perhaps a coffeemaker on my lap for fear of the carafe breaking as a result of my partners’ notoriously haphazard method of packing. Oh yes, it’s going to be a *swell* trip.

 

If you have any good juju to spare, please send a bit of it toward my job hunting cause (or even towards keeping my sweetie’s car running for the next 1,172 miles—I’m not picky when it comes to good juju).

If they don’t call, it’s like I’ll resort to boiling bunnies in retaliation or anything, but if a whole week goes by without hearing anything at all from them, it’s going to take some serious self-restraint not to email them a note with a subject line that reads, “I will not be ignored!!”

 

I really hope they don’t ignore me. I hope Brad/Bill/John/Barack calls. We haven’t even had our first date, but I know we’d totally have cute kids together.

Putting Business Beast in Charge July 4, 2009

I’ve been wondering lately how things would be I took the passion and dedication I put toward my work and redirected it to the rest of my life. What if I take a project management approach to eliminating all the things making me sad, angry, frustrated and embarrassed about my life?

 

This may be a brilliant idea, but then again, maybe these are just the musings of a cubicle monkey on the verge of losing it—it’s hard to tell. I mean seriously, it has taken me years to learn how to leave work at work. Still, they do pay me for 8 hours a day for my skills, so that’s saying something right? Obviously I’m bringing something to the table so maybe I can use those skills for another purpose.

 

There have been a few times when my boyfriend will hear me on the phone talking to a colleague or a vendor and he always laughs and says, “that’s so cute-hearing my Cuddle Beast being all Business Beast” Behind closed doors we’re sweet like that; a diabetic coma waiting to happen. Don’t tell anyone though; it would totally ruin Business Beast’s reputation. Soooo…where do I start? Can I channel Business Beast and make it work to my benefit without having her overrun me?

 

I made a list this morning of all the things upsetting me right now, from my currently fat ass right on down to the fact that I’m embarrassed when people get in my car because it’s a goddamn mess…there are some big things on the list (my ass) and some small things, but they add up and weigh on me. I don’t think the list is complete by any means, but I’m going to mull it over and then, just like I would for any other project, I’m going to write a strategy for how to move things forward and solve the problem.

 

I know I won’t be able to do something about everything on the list and I may fall on my face trying for a few of them, but it’ll give me a start and at least I’ll feel like I’m doing something to better my situation.

 

For now, I’m taking the big goals and putting them into Joe’s Goals so I can see how I’m doing on a daily basis. Number one goal on the list? Stay positive!

 

Stay tuned for more on the list…

Regime change: 2, Brunette ambition: 1 July 3, 2009

It’s interesting to see how a leadership change at the top of the foodchain at work can either make or break a person. I never really thought about that until the last few months or so, but my short career has seen both sides of the spectrum and now I’m trying to figure out what comes next.

 
I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to launch my career in the last couple of years and for awhile, my hard work was starting to pay off.  Nowadays, not so much…

 
I spent my first couple years out of college being a human post-it note for an exec and using my journalism school education to take meeting minutes and draft reports. They call it paying your dues, but I think it’s more like Chinese water torture, watching all the precious knowledge gained in college seep slowly out of your brain with each passing minute spent in yet another fruitless meeting. Sometimes I think I should’ve tallied a price per minute of my college education so I could charge my employer for causing me to lose those precious minutes of knowledge. Well, they were giving me a paycheck, but still-can you really put a price on knowledge? I think not.

 

Then a new boss came on board 2 years ago; he told me that I was too smart to be doing the job I was doing and promoted me. Thank god for that; I was about to lose my shit with how frustrated and unchallenged I was. Under his leadership, I spent a year working ridiculous hours on a high profile project, busting my ass to prove myself and I succeeded. I was totally engrossed in a new, fulfilling position and then out of nowhere–the boss who had become my mentor (and was 2nd in command in the organization) up and quit after a year (this was last summer).

 

His departure pretty much changed everything for me professionally. I went from having someone at the top that saw me as an up-and-comer in need of new challenges to feeling well-pretty much ignored. None of my past accomplishments matter now and I feel like I’ve gone from being a Katherine Heigl-esque it-girl to being…ugh, Pauly Shore.

 

I had enjoyed some influence and my ideas were valued back then; I used to get engaging assignments and now, after a year of hoping and waiting for things to improve, trying to demonstrate my skills to the new leadership and navigate this brave new world situation, I’ve realized there may not be a place for me under this new regime. I just don’t see where I fit anymore. I want to get back to feeling like a dynamo, but I have no clue where to start.

 

So here I am a MVP who’s been warming the bench for months now and frankly, it’s intolerable. How can I ever score at the buzzer to win the game if I’m one step up from being a water girl? It makes it really hard to stay motivated.

 

One hit after another keeps coming, from having my entire budget cut, to having my conference travel cut (this conference representing the one shot I have at networking with a VP in Orange County who I would be working for in my ideal scenario). I’ve been sucking it up over and over again because this economy blows and were it not for this move to California on the horizon, I might even be looking for another job here. I know lots of people out there have it far worse than I do, but that doesn’t make me any less antsy to get goin’ and figure out what’s next. Being unbusy makes me bonkers.

 

It’s taken me awhile to get here, but I have some ideas about what to focus on in the present in lieu of mourning the past I used to enjoy.

 

My game plan to address workplace misery:

1)    Create some innovative ways to network with the Orange County organization…even if it means cyber-stalking their entire staff. God bless Linkedin.

2)    Gather some best practices info that will help my current employer and simultaneously get the inside scoop on how things run down there.

3)    Figure out how other people do long-distance networking.

4)    Organize my ingenious ideas into one file so that it’s ready at the drop of a hat, regardless of where I’m working.

5)    The new head honcho seems to be pretty focused on partnerships; brainstorm and cultivate some new ones that will build value for the organization. (and cross my fingers that he notices)

6)    Finish my strategy outline for next year so that if I can get some money for my department, the priority list is ready to roll.

7)    Determine what the OC branch is focused on and line it up with what I bring to the table.

8)    Figure out how to stay top of mind for the OC branch so that when the economy turns around, I’ll be the first person they think of…even if that means going to their public Advisory Board meetings to hear the latest happenings until they start to ask “why are you here exactly?”

9)    Spend my time focusing on creating a new sponsorship model for my current organization so that I actually have some money to work with.