Category Archives: Work

Feeling Secure (or Not Letting Past Jobs Make Me Feel Bad Anymore)

Posted on June 26, 2015 | Comments Off on Feeling Secure (or Not Letting Past Jobs Make Me Feel Bad Anymore)

I’ve always had confidence issues with my day jobs. I’m not quite sure what set it off to begin with. The after school jobs I had in high school and college were fine (although my high school job did expose me to TB but that wasn’t too much of an issue). And while it’s always tough to find good day jobs, I’ve found several that work out for me.

But for as long as I can remember, if a boss at a day job wanted to talk to me, I was so sure that I was being let go or I did something horribly wrong.

I have had some horrible day jobs, but nothing that made them horrible was something that I brought on to myself. I had one boss who was very verbally abusive and threatened me when I questioned something that turned out to be insurance fraud. I left that job after my boss said that I really should die (and sadly, I never reported anything because I didn’t know that I should). I’ve had bosses who were awesome for a week or two, but then required me to take a class at a place of worship for me to continue working for them. I’m fine with continuing education, but I don’t want to be forced to take the class inside of someone’s church. And I’ve had bosses who were just outright mean to me and talked about my weight loudly behind my back so I could hear it.

Even though I didn’t deserve any of those things to happen to me, somehow I have it in my head that it is my fault. I’ve compared myself to a puppy who came from an abusive situation and is now in a good home. I don’t know how to react with good things and I’m always assuming that I’m doing something bad.

I’ve been pretty lucky with my box office job. Even though I work alone in my house, I do get feedback from time to time. My manager lets me know when things are going well and when I have to email different locations about things, I do get praised for taking initiative.

With my new job, it’s a little more difficult and easier at the same time. It’s easier because I used to work for this boss before and she knows my confidence issues with work. She’s happy to reassure me that I’m doing the right thing and knows that I’m very paranoid about it all. But it’s more difficult because there is less feedback because so much of this job is creating the procedure to get things done. So there’s really no way to know if I’m doing things “right” or not until we figure out that it isn’t working.

Because I’m finally feeling more comfortable that I’m not going to be fired tomorrow at either of my day jobs (seriously, I’ve felt like that every day for forever), I’m trying to readjust my feelings and thoughts about day jobs. This is not just a situation where I’m working because I need a job. The companies I work for need me too. I’m a valuable employee and not disposable (although I have had people in the past say that I am always going to be a disposable employee).

Hopefully by rebuilding my day job confidence I can just do better in my work and be able to focus at the tasks I need to get done and not have to worry about if I will still be working tomorrow.

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Productive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time)

Posted on May 28, 2015 | Comments Off on Productive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time)

Ok, I might have been over-scheduling myself lately.

Only a few weeks ago I was trying to find ways to fill time in my life. I only had one main day job and I was hoping to find something to do while doing my job to keep me busy between customers. And I wasn’t doing as much as I wanted toward my acting career.

Then I got a new day job and found a wonderful online acting class. And sadly, I think I took too much on at one time.

Obviously, the priorities in my life are work and my health. So I need to make sure I work all the hours I need to each day. That’s pretty easy for my box office job since I’ve been doing that for almost a year now and they are set hours (although occasionally I work early hours to make up for hours I might miss due to auditions or other conflicts).

The new day job is much more fluid in terms of when I work. I’m supposed to mainly work during standard business hours, but that’s not necessary because much of the work I’m researching is online. And I’m getting ok with working both jobs at once. It’s not easy, but I’m finding ways to work between 3-4 hours each day during a 5 hour shift at my day job.

And I think it’s pretty obvious by my weekly workout posts that I’m not having trouble fitting in my 3-4 workouts each week. I schedule them up to a month in advance and having them on my calendar (and having friends in my class who I look forward to seeing each time) has helped make workouts a habit and not a chore.

But with all that productivity, my online acting class has slipped. As I’m typing this post, I’ve only completed the first class. That’s exactly what I had done last week when I blogged about it. My plan was to try to watch a class each night. But on nights that I work out, by the time I’m home and showered all I want to do is read or watch tv for a bit before bed. And on days I’m not working out, I’ve been scheduling lots of things to do.

I know that I need to schedule this class the way I schedule work and my workouts. I need to find a good time a few times a week that I can set aside about an hour to watch the class and work on the homework.

The problem is finding consistent time available. Maybe I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself because I want to keep up with everyone who started the same time I did. Dustin Hoffman will be doing office hours and critiques of online scene reads soon and if I was on schedule with the class I would have those ready for the due date. But where I am right now, I’m not. And I don’t want to rush doing them because hopefully there will be another office hours/critique time in the future and I’ll have more time to prepare and make sure that I submit the best video I can.

Adding so much to my schedule at one time is very overwhelming for me. It’s not the amount of hours it requires, it’s just changing my schedule so much at one time when it’s been like the way it was for almost a year. It’s almost like when I was on temporary unemployment at my old box office job. It took a week or two to adjust to the change in schedule.

For now, I’m hoping to find time once or twice a week to work on the online class. If I don’t do that, I’m not going to be so tough on myself. Yes, it would be best if I could do the class sooner rather than later. But if I do it this month or next month won’t make or break my career. And hopefully within a week or so the 2 day job life will feel like normal and I’ll find that hour or so each day where I can focus on the class.

I have to just keep reminding myself that this class (like life, fitness, my weight loss journey, and recovery from my eating disorder) is a marathon and not a sprint. Eventually I will complete it and I will be proud of myself for sticking with it and following through.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Positive Thinking And Putting It Out There Worked (or Working For Another Old Boss)

Posted on May 14, 2015 | 2 comments

I guess my slacking on job hunting wasn’t really me slacking but me waiting for the right job to come my way! Because now I have added another day job to my life and it’s exactly what I wanted to find.

I’ve been sharing on here and on various social media sites how I’ve been looking for a job and I’ve been asking for help finding something. While several friends sent me leads, none of them panned out or they were jobs that didn’t work with what I have already. I had started to get frustrated and worried that I wouldn’t find something, but I had to just keep looking and putting it out there how I’m looking for additional work.

Last week an old boss of mine got in touch with me. I had met this old boss years ago when she and I both worked out with Richard Simmons. She had a job opening back then for a company that she worked for, I interviewed and got the job. That was a credit card dispute job that I worked for over a year before going to my telesales job.

I had stayed in touch with this boss over Facebook, mainly discussing our mutual love for select reality shows. But last week she sent me a message saying that she might have a perfect job for me. And once she shared the details of the job with me, I knew it was perfect. I had interviewed over a year ago for this company for a different position but hadn’t gotten that job. But since I had done that and had worked for my boss before, I pretty much was just offered the job that day.

Basically, I’m now working as a research assistant for a social/health resource non-profit for LA County. I try to find events and services that are in the cities I’ve been assigned to and will be helping to create a calendar for the community.

It’s a little tough to explain and I’ve only been working at it for a few days. But basically it is doing research that can almost be done at any time (I do have phone calls at times that I need to make during business hours). I’m only allowed to work a certain number of hours (it averages to 12 hours a week), but the pay is much better than my other job. So even with limited hours this new job is allowing me to make almost the same amount I make at my box office job!

So far, it’s going pretty great. I’m able to get a lot of work done between customers. I need to work on balancing my time better with taking breaks, but I think that once I’m more set up in knowing what I need to do it will be better.

I can’t express how grateful I am to my old/new boss for considering me for this job. And it proves to me that it is so important to never burn any bridges. While there are some people who I’m not on good terms with at past jobs, it’s usually due to an extreme circumstance (like with one of my old bosses who called me fat and said that nobody would ever want to date me). I try to always leave any day job as positively as possible. You never know when someone who you’ve worked with in the past will be in a position to hire you again. This is the second time this year where that’s happened to me.

This new job is a contract job that technically ends in September, but there is a contact for another year after that as well. And after that second contract ends, who knows. I might not need a day job anymore at that point or there might be another day job that I can take.

But for now, I’m just so grateful that somehow things have worked out for me again. They always do and I just need to trust that it will happen at the right time.

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Getting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work)

Posted on May 1, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work)

I wrote recently about how I needed to get back into the job hunt more seriously. It’s never easy to find day jobs (or additional day jobs), but it is a necessary evil of life.

My unemployment ended recently. And even though I was only getting about $90 a week from it, that money really did help me out. And while I could reapply for unemployment, I don’t think I earned enough W2 money recently to qualify for enough unemployment to get money after taking in consideration how much I make at my at home box office job. I also don’t want to have to keep depending on unemployment.

After my WIF meeting, I was really feeling motivated. I had to really plan time every day to apply for new jobs and to expand what my job searches were like.

In the past, I really just tried to find data entry/virtual assistant type work that I could do in-between my clients at my current job. I like my hours and was hoping to keep my work hours similar to what they are like now.

But I’ve now expanded my search to include evening and weekend work. This might mean that I would end up working 50-60 hours in a week when you add up the time between the two jobs. While this isn’t what I want, this might be what I need.

And since I’m getting serious about looking for a job, I’m starting to turn down social events in order to spend that time job searching. I was supposed to go to a really fun event by AJ, who hosts the podcast I work for, this week. I had been looking forward to it because AJ was in town and wouldn’t really have other time to hang out. But because of other things, the only time I could dedicate to job hunting would be during the event.

I had to let him know that I couldn’t go, and while it made me pretty mad about the situation, I did manage to find 7 day jobs that would be perfect for me and sent my cover letter and resume to all of them. So the missed event was worth it for my job hunt.

I’m probably going to have to miss another event tonight that I wanted to go to because I need to spend more time searching and applying for more jobs and I already have a busy afternoon with work and then my workout.

Even with canceling a couple of events, I’m still living a very social life. I just have to keep reminding myself that I need to pick and choose what I go to and that missing these events will benefit me in the long run. And once I get another day job, I’ll have more money to go to better social events.

Let’s just hope that this job hunt ends soon (and successfully)!

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Job Hunt Time Again (or I Guess I Was Slacking On This)

Posted on April 17, 2015 | 1 comment

With so much going on in my life lately (workouts, eating right, family stuff, the 5K), my life has almost felt like it was on autopilot lately. I know when I need to do things and when I have to get in my car to drive to something. And of course I know when I need to focus on work.

For a long time, between customers at my day job I was applying for another part-time job. I know that this job isn’t enough to support myself on and I need to find something else to do either around my work hours or between customers at work.

The past two weeks, my between customers or before/after work time have been filled with other things. I kind of forgot about my job search. It just wasn’t the focus of my day and whenever I thought about it, it was when I was already in bed or while I was working and then I got a customer that needed a lot of help. It’s not that I was avoiding it, it’s just that life took over.

But I need to get back into that ASAP. While I’m doing ok for now with bills and things, my savings are getting smaller and smaller. And I am still collecting a little unemployment now (I’m technically underemployed and make less with my job than my unemployment claim is worth so I get the difference), but that is going to end in the next few weeks.

It’s not easy job hunting. Not only do I need something flexible, I want something to work around my current job because I don’t want to leave this job. Something like writing, editing text, data entry, or virtual assistant work would be perfect because most of those things can be done around my own hours.

So I’m back to searching online and trying to search through all the “work-from-home” scams out there (and there are a ton!). I’m also back to asking friends if they know anything that would work for me (just like how I’m asking on here if you all know something). I know that I will find something eventually, but this in-between time of waiting to find that perfect second job is tough and making me nervous.

So if any of you know of any good and flexible jobs (either based in LA or work from home), please share them with me. I really need to expand my searching and asking for help is one way to get more eyes out there on the job search for me. Thanks in advance for any of you who comment or contact me with any job ideas!

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Another Festival Done! (or My Weekend With The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival)

Posted on March 10, 2015 | 1 comment

This past weekend was the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. It was my second year as co-director of the festival. It’s still a little scary to me that I’m in charge of running a film festival, but I know that I can do it.

Our festival was going to be held at the same location as last year. That made me happy because I know the venue well and at the last festival we didn’t really have any technical issues.

On Friday, we had our opening night party. That is a good way to ease into the festival. It’s a fun party and everyone seems to have a good and relaxing time. I tried to figure out what to wear as a film festival director, and I think I came up with a good outfit.

Opening Night Party Outfit

My job at the party is really to be the hostess for the event. I tried to have fun while I had some amazing volunteers who helped to put together programs and check in our filmmakers. And as I went around the room, it seemed like everyone was having a great time.

Opening Night Party

The next day was the first day of screenings. When I got to the venue, I had to take a picture of their sign promoting our festival.

Busbys Sign

We screening in the ballroom again. The employees there were able to set up the chairs, couches, and bar stools in a way that it was almost like stadium seating.

Empty Theater

On the first day of screenings, it went pretty smoothly. We had some issues with sound because of the noise in the other areas of the venue, but nothing too horrible.

Sunday was our second day of screenings we had our biggest glitch. One of the movies playing was sticking and freezing. While inside I was freaking out, I had to remain calm and handle the situation. I had the employees pause the DVD and I walked in front of the audience to apologize for the technical issues. Then I let them know that we had a backup DVD for that particular film (many of our films didn’t send us a backup so I’m glad this one did) and that we could start the movie over from the backup or to just go back to where we paused it.

Once we got the backup DVD in, things seemed to work better. While I probably looked fine on the outside, I was holding in tears inside. I just want the festival to run smoothly and have all the filmmakers happy. But when I talked to some of the audience later, they all said that they appreciated me coming out to speak about the technical issues and that it was fine. The filmmakers for that particular film didn’t attend, so that probably made things a little easier for me.

We have 7 screenings over the weekend (4 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday). And it pretty much all ran the way that I wanted it to. We also had our awards ceremony on Sunday. And while I don’t love speaking on a microphone in front of a crowd, I love giving out awards!

Before I knew it, the weekend was done and all the filmmakers were thanking me for putting on such a fun festival! I’m still coming down from the adrenaline rush of the festival (and lack of sleep over the weekend). But I had so much fun being co-director again!

I am hoping that the other co-directors can come out to the festival next year because it is way more fun being there with them. But now with 2 festivals under my belt, I feel pretty confident that I can do it again!

And now, I’m going to work on catching up on my sleep!

Post Festival

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Temp Job Time (or Feeling Like It’s An Old Job Again)

Posted on March 3, 2015 | 4 comments

I finally started my new temp job last week. And it’s definitely a temp job. I’ll probably will only work 4 shifts for the job, but anything is better than nothing.

I like working for my old boss. We had a good working relationship at my old job and he gets how I need to have my things organized. And I’m the only person working on this particular job, so it’s nice that I don’t have to worry about who is dealing with which customer.

The job itself is pretty basic. It’s much simpler than my old telesales job and even simpler than my current box office job. I’m just following up on invitations for a gala event that is happening in a few weeks.

I’m actually very grateful that the job is basic. There isn’t much time for me to learn or get used to things, so I had to jump in right away. And I only need to know a few points of information to make my job successful, so I worked on those for the beginning of the first shift.

It’s a little nerve-racking starting to make calls again. But after the first few, I got right back into the swing of things. It was such an old habit that I started to do things that I had to do at my old job. I was dialing 7 to dial out (but at this new job I have to dial 9 so there were a couple of unsuccessful calls). And I was taking notes the way I had to before with tracking my name on the callers (but since I’m the only caller, that doesn’t matter anymore).

I’m working in 4.5 hour shifts, which is a nice amount of time. I don’t really have to take too significant of a break. Which is a little downside because I’ve gotten in such a routine with my eating. My shifts at this job are from 4-8:30pm. I ate a snack before work and was hoping that I could make it until 8:30/9pm before eating dinner.

It’s wasn’t too horrible, but I was starving by the time I got home. And I don’t like feeling that hungry. But since I only have 3 more shifts I might just have to deal with that. Or maybe bring a snack that is easy enough to eat between calls. But again, since it’s such a temporary thing I don’t know if it’s worth worrying about.

But honestly, right now I’m just super happy to have another job even if it is only for a little bit. Extra money is good, and because there are commissions at this temp job, there is potential to make some nice money. I didn’t make a ton of sales on my first shift, but I think that that is to be expected.

But at least for now, I’m making more than I was last week.

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Making My Acting Bold (or Feeling Great From An Audition)

Posted on February 4, 2015 | 2 comments

I made my word of the year “bold” and I’m working on applying that to all aspects of my life. It’s easier said than done, but I’m trying.

This week, I had my second audition of the year.

My first audition of the year didn’t go so great. I was very nervous because the type of project that it was had changed without my agents being notified and it was unclear if the project was union or not (as a union member, I can only work on union projects). I thought about backing out because even though someone told me the project was union, there were many signs that it wasn’t. But I went in anyway and I’m guess that I didn’t book it since I haven’t heard back (I’m almost relieved I didn’t book it because if it ended up being non-union I would have had to turn it down).

So that first audition didn’t give me a great opportunity to be bold. But this second audition was totally different.

First of all, the audition was for a tv show that is very popular and well-known. I’ve actually auditioned for this show before, so it was a very good sign that I was brought in again. When you don’t necessarily book the role but you book the office, this is what it is like. They will continue to bring you in for parts that you are right for because the reason you didn’t get the job before wasn’t due to your acting skills.

The next thing that made this audition different was that there were lines (the first audition was for a print campaign so no lines). It was a small co-star part with only 2 lines, but I was determined to be bold with my choices without going over the top.

I always try to make a strong choice in my auditions, but I chicken out a lot. I’ve heard horror stories from casting directors about actors who go way over the top for 1 or 2 line parts and I never want to be one of those stories. So I tend to end up a little muted in my choice when I eventually get into the audition room (it’s also a little nerve-racking being in the audition room).

This time, I felt really good with the choice that I made. I thought it was funny without being too crazy or attention grabbing. And when I walked into the audition room, I did it exactly how I wanted to. I did get a redirect in the room to do a slightly different physical movement, but I was not told to change how I read the lines. So I think the casting director liked what I did.

While I would love to book this part, I really don’t care about that now. Because when I left the audition room, I felt amazing! I didn’t have any regrets about what I did and I’m not obsessing about how I could have done it better. I’m completely satisfied with my read in the room.

I’ve never been able to completely feel this way before. I always wish I had done something more/better/bigger/stronger. But right now, I know I did exactly what I wanted and hopefully what I did is exactly what the show wanted. And if not, that’s ok with me.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Work

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Having Water At A Wine Bar (or Getting A Temporary Job)

Posted on January 28, 2015 | 1 comment

Continuing my attempts to not become a hermit during the cleanse, I went out to Bottle Rock, one of my favorite wine bars this week.

While everything on the menu is amazing (I love their mac and cheese), because of my limitations on the cleanse, all I could have was water. While staring at the menu drinking my water, I did decide that Bottle Rock will be a place I go to for happy hour soon after my cleanse ends.

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My reason for going to Bottle Rock was a good one (not just to drink water). I was meeting my old boss from my last telesales job. He is now working at a new theater company and had something to discuss with me.

It turns out, they need someone to work for a few weeks to help sell tickets for their gala this year. It’s a similar job to what I did for this boss before, but instead of selling show tickets, it would be gala tickets. And I would be the only person doing this, so all the commissions would be mine!

Of course, I said I’d take the job! It should start in a week or two and the job will probably only last a few weeks, but anything for extra money is great right now! And since it’s another commission job, there’s no limit to how much I can make in those few weeks.

And if I do a good job selling gala tickets (which I think I will) there might be another opportunity for me toward the end of spring to work for that theater company again and help them work on their renewals for their ticket holders.

The best thing about this new job is that since I am the only person working and it’s my old boss running things, he’s super cool about my current schedule. I’m probably going to work for him in the evening when I don’t work my current box office job and only on evenings when I don’t go to Orangetheory.

This is exactly what I need right now. While I wish that it was a longer job than a few weeks, anything that I can get right now will help. I feel so grateful that of all the telesales staff that worked at that old job with me, my boss chose me to come and work with him on this campaign. It proves to me that I am a good salesperson and that I will always be able to use this boss as a job reference if needed.

Since it doesn’t start for a few weeks, I’m still looking for other jobs that I can do either while I’m working my box office job or outside of my work and workout hours. I’m going to meet someone who is a friend of a friend who needs some organizing work done in their house. That might turn into something, but they are about an hour drive away from my house, so I have to see if I can devote enough time to it to make a 2 hour commute each time worth it.

I don’t want to get too optimistic and think that my job situation is getting to where I need it to be, because it isn’t. But these are all steps in the right direction and gives me hope that it won’t be long until it all works out.

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Being On Hold With A Job (or Not Quite A Quitter)

Posted on January 16, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve talked about my day job situation a lot in the past. I’ve got my main day job doing the box office work and that’s the only one with regular hours. Everything else is as-needed status and nobody seems to need me right now.

For babysitting, personal organizing, and substitute teaching; I don’t mind that I don’t work right now. I know that clients for babysitting and personal organizing will come and it’s a situation where I am my own boss and I don’t feel guilty when I’m not working.

And for substitute teaching, I’ve spoken to my boss there about how right now I don’t have the time to work but I wanted to stay on the roster since they aren’t hiring. I’d be scared if I left the roster and then needed the work and couldn’t get my job back. So I’ve been honest and they know my situation. That’s fine with me.

But for my data entry/survey coding job it’s been a different situation. I worked a lot for them at first, but once I started my box office job, I could no longer do graveyard shifts (or I could, but I found out that my body does require sleep so I don’t want to do them). And while I thought at first I could do the work from home in between my customers for the box office job, I never knew what to list as my availability. I didn’t want to say that I was available the entire time because they might assign me a job that takes 5 hours when I only have 3 hours in chunks.

And because my availability was so limited, the company wasn’t using me for work. In the past few months, I worked about 2 or 3 hours for them. And while some money is better than no money, I felt like I was leading the company on.

So yesterday, I sent an email to my 2 bosses at that job. I explained my situation and gave them the two options that seemed right to me. Either they could keep me on as an employee and understand that I have extremely limited availability and perhaps one day that would change and they could use me again. Or we could end our work relationship.

I don’t want to quit, but at the same time I felt so guilty about not being honest to my bosses about my situation. I don’t want to quit, but I would understand if they didn’t want to keep someone on staff who couldn’t work as much as they would like.

I heard back from one of my bosses within an hour of sending the email. She thanked me for my honesty and decided that she’d like to keep me on in case my schedule changes and I become more available for her.

I’m so grateful that that is what her decision was. It was exactly what I was hoping for by sending that email. I haven’t heard back from my other boss, but he is the one who runs the graveyard shifts and technically I’m only on that schedule as a backup (my main job is the work from home part).

I still need to find something else to do, but at least some of my guilt that was associated with this job is gone. And hopefully with less guilt, I will be able to focus more on finding the perfect job to fit into my schedule.

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