Category Archives: Work

Babysitting=New Vacuum (or I’ve Got $0.49 To Spare)

Posted on September 30, 2014 | 2 comments

I’ve been doing some babysitting over the past few weeks. The last two Saturday evenings I’ve had new families to sit for and this past Sunday I had an interview with another new family (although I’m not sure I’ll get that job because it seems like their schedule and my schedule won’t work out).

I’ve been doing babysitting since middle school and while I didn’t do a ton of it right after college, I’ve been getting more into it lately.

I joined an online babysitting service (kind of like online dating but for finding babysitters and families) and I paid to have a premium profile on there because that includes a background check.

I’ve been getting contacted by families ever since I upgraded my profile, but often they are just asking if I am available even though my calendar on the system says that I’m not.

The family I sat for this past Saturday evening was a new family that lived not too far away (always a bonus). They had 2 boys and they were only awake half of the time that I was there (another bonus). And I was there for 8 hours, so I made a decent amount of money.

The next day, I had a plan to go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I still needed to replace my vacuum that died in my water heater flood. I had been doing a lot of research because I wanted a good vacuum but I don’t have a lot of money to spend on one.

I ended up finding a Shark vacuum that got almost all 5 star reviews on Amazon and it was available at Bed Bath and Beyond (thank goodness for all the 20% off coupons I’ve been hoarding)!

I got there and found it right away.

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I had only brought one 20% off coupon with me so I wasn’t going to shop around any more. When I went to the register, I was trying to figure out if the money I made the night before would cover the vacuum or if I’d have to pay a little more.

I got up to the register and she rung up the vacuum and my coupon and when the total came up, I laughed.

It was exactly $0.49 less than I made the night before. I have to admit that I feel like it was fate to buy that vacuum at that price so I wouldn’t have to put the vacuum on my credit card and have it contribute to my debt.

I happily paid almost all of my babysitting money to the cashier and took my new vacuum home.

And my quick review of the vacuum is that it is amazing!! I love it! My old vacuum was a very fancy one, but it was super heavy to move around (you could break a sweat while vacuuming). This one moves around super easily and I like that it is a canister vacuum so I don’t have to buy bags for it. Although it was shocking how much dirt it picked up (maybe my old vacuum wasn’t doing a good job anymore?).

I’m glad that I’m getting more families to babysit for. I enjoy the work and when I’m doing “date night” babysitting, it pretty much never is a conflict with other jobs or auditions so it fits into my schedule perfectly! I just hope that I get a few more families so I can stay busy!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Saving, Shopping, Work

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Awake for 40 Hours (or I Guess All-Nighters Aren’t Just For College)

Posted on September 16, 2014 | Comments Off on Awake for 40 Hours (or I Guess All-Nighters Aren’t Just For College)

So here’s the story behind my exhaustion on Sunday when I wrote my last blog post.

The graveyard shift coding job has pretty much moved to daytimes only. I’ve worked a couple of projects, but I’m only averages maybe 2 or 3 hours a week with daytime work from home. That should become more hours in the future, but to supplement that (and my income), I’m making myself available for graveyard shifts on the weekends.

I can’t do the weekdays because I’m working my new box office job, but if I’m available on Saturday or Sunday I let the company know that if they need someone to work, I can help out.

I found out that I was going to work an evening shift this past Saturday. That was fine with me.

I woke up that morning at 7am (my box office job starts at 8am on Saturdays) and worked my first job. Then I did some errands before heading into the coding job at 7pm.

Since the start time was 7pm (instead of 11pm like it usually is) I figured I wouldn’t be there too late. Even some of my co-workers agreed that we should be able to get the work done pretty quickly.

And the first part did move quickly. As a team, we finished it in about 2 hours. That’s not bad at all. Then our bosses had been told that there were a couple of other surveys that we could tack on to the end of our shift to get done and help out the other employees.

I guess there was some miscommunication between some higher-ups and my bosses because these extra surveys we worked on were not something to just “tack on” to our day (or evening as it was). There were well over 1000 surveys (usually we have about 300 or 400) and there were multiple parts to each one that needed to be worked on.

Even though as a team we worked as quickly as possible, these surveys never seemed to end! At 2am I was starting to get exhausted and tried to take mini-breaks to keep myself from going crazy. At 4am I started to feel nauseous. Probably because my last meal was at 6pm and I had a light dinner (I thought I would make it to a friend’s party that evening and wanted to save my calories). Finally at 6am after 11 hours of working, I was told that my part of the work was done. The sun was coming up as I was driving home.

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I was so tired from being up for almost 24 hours straight. And as much as I wanted to go home and go sleep for a long time, that wasn’t my reality. I had to be up at 8am Sunday morning for some things and appointments that I had scheduled before knowing I was working graveyard the night before (and I did cancel since I figured I wouldn’t be working too late).

So I had the option on getting an hour or two of sleep or not sleeping at all. I chose to not sleep at all because I was scared of not hearing my alarm to get up at 8am. So I just hung out and read until it was time for me to start my day.

Then Sunday evening, before I had time to write my post for Monday, my job emailed me and let me know that they needed me to work from home during the evening. I had plans to go to bed as early as possible, but I needed to take the job. So I worked as quickly as possible, wrote my blog post, and started to get ready for bed.

Then my boss contacted me again to ask me to work more. I was so tired that I could barely see straight. So I finally had to tell them that I had been up for almost 40 hours straight and I just needed to go to bed. They totally understood. Most people who work those graveyard shifts sleep in the next day until 2 or 3pm. That’s just not an option for me.

I’m still shocked that I made it 40 hours without sleeping. The last time I pulled an all-nighter was in college when I was preparing for my art history final (I didn’t do that well because I was too tired). I’m not planning on pulling all-nighters on a regular basis. If I go in for graveyard shift work and I know I have an early morning the next day, I’m going to let my bosses know at the beginning of the shift that I have to leave by a certain time (you can only do that at the beginning of the shift, not the middle). I need to look out for me, even though all the overtime pay is going to be really nice on my next paycheck.

But I made it through, and now I’m going to spend my week catching up on the sleep I missed!

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Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

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Feeling Like Normal In More Ways Than One (or Getting Better)

Posted on September 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Feeling Like Normal In More Ways Than One (or Getting Better)

I’m finally starting to feel better after my throat ulcer issue. I’m still having pain while drinking water and breathing heavily while working out, but the pain is not nearly as severe as it was when I went to urgent care. The doctor there told me to give it 2 weeks to get better and I’m just past the 1 week mark. Hopefully by the end of the weekend the pain won’t be noticeable anymore.

I’m still trying to take it easy while working out. My ear issues have not gone away as quickly as the throat issues. My dad suggested that I take some decongestants to make the fluid in my ear get absorbed. I haven’t tried that yet, but I think I’m going to start. I’m still getting dizzy a lot during the day (and especially during workouts where you go from sitting or laying down to standing a lot). As long as I’m sitting, the dizziness isn’t happening. So at least I’m able to drive and work without feeling like I’m going to fall over.

And speaking of work, that’s getting better too! I’m finally getting used to my schedule for the national box office job from home. There’s a lot of down time at that job (hence the low pay), so I’m trying to find the best use of my down time. I have done some survey coding between calls and online chats for the box office job, but there haven’t been a ton of surveys to work on lately (that should change soon).

I’m also looking into some other freelance type work that I can do from home between my work for the box office. I know that I can write and blog. I just need to find some gigs that pay for me to do that! If you know of any, please feel free to let me know in the comments.

I haven’t gone back to substitute teaching yet, but that’s mainly because all of my Mondays lately have been very busy. And since I can only work on Mondays, when that day is filled up, there’s no other option for me that week. But I’m checking for work each week and hopefully soon there will be a job for me to work.

And I emailed my old box office job. They claimed that they wanted me to come back in September when the shows were starting again. I’m a little concerned that they have decided that I’m not necessary since they haven’t had me work for a while now. But I did send them an email saying that I wanted to get back to work now that the shows are coming back as well. I haven’t heard back yet, so until I do I won’t know if they are going to keep their word about me coming back this fall.

I know I say this all the time with day jobs, but it’s feeling more and more normal now. I’m used to my schedule and I’ve created routines for myself each day that fit into the new schedule better.

If only I was making enough at one day job things would be perfect. But the struggle is worth it for me. And I know that I will find a way to fit in all the jobs that are necessary for me to support myself somehow.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Work

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First Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times)

Posted on September 1, 2014 | Comments Off on First Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times)

So even though my Orangetheory challenge is over, I still think I’m going to blog about my workouts occasionally (or maybe continue the tradition of blogging about my workouts on Monday?). The only thing is, now that I don’t have to post photos on social media after every class, I have no photos from any classes this past week! It’s just so much easier to leave right after class to go home and shower instead of struggling to think of a pose for a photo.

With few exceptions, I’ve been working out at the same time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I’ve only worked out on those days. But this week changed because life kind of took over.

This past Monday was the Primetime Emmys, and I knew I would be live-tweeting them. Since the show started at 5pm here in Los Angeles, I knew that going to my usual 4:15 class wouldn’t work. So I took the 12:15 class. That class was taught by Megan, who I had never worked with before. But JZ, who teaches the Wednesday afternoon classes I go to, happened to be working out during that class! So JZ and I worked out together during the strength section. That was pretty awesome!

Wednesday was a workout as usual during my usual time. Nothing special except that I was super sore from Monday’s workout and it seemed like all the strength exercises we had to do on Wednesday were working out the exact muscles that hurt. I struggled, but I pushed through as much as I could.

And this past Friday, I didn’t work out! Shocking, I know! I had a full morning of work and then an audition in the afternoon that I found out about on Thursday. When I called Orangetheory to move my Friday class to be later, they told me that the later classes were full and had full wait lists! This is why I sign up at least a week in advance for my classes!

But I did have some free time after my work shift on Saturday morning, so I had my Friday workout on Saturday. It felt pretty weird, but at least I got in my three workouts for the week.

What this past week proved to me is that I really am willing to find a way to get in my workouts, no matter what other scheduling issues that come up.

I know that this week will also be a little weird because of today being a holiday (there are only morning classes). But besides that, I think I will be able to make my other usual classes. And I know I’ll get in my three workouts!

After all, I’m still in the weight loss challenge and I want to win that!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss, Work

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Being The New Employee (or Starting Yet Another Day Job)

Posted on August 28, 2014 | 2 comments

I started my new day job this week. It’s box office/customer service work for a murder mystery theater group. They have locations all over the country, so we are considered a national box office.

Everyone started a week before I did (I’m not sure the exact reason, but it worked out well for me). So a lot of the kinks in the system were figured out before I started.

But since this is work from home, I don’t have anyone around to answer questions for me.

Thankfully, this is much easier than my other box office job (or the telesales job). There is a spreadsheet with all the information that we need to know. And if things get too specific or someone needs to know something about a particular location, we just email that location and they take it from there.

I have to answer questions over the phone and also on online chats, so that’s a little new for me.

My first day was Tuesday (this job is Tuesday-Saturday) and it was pretty scary. The phones are weird because they ring for all of us at the same time (there are 4 of us in different locations around the country). So sometimes I’d answer the phone but someone else got it a split second ahead of me. Then I’d hear a dial tone.

I was terrified that I was doing something wrong with the phones, so I kept emailing another employee asking her a million questions. Thankfully, she was patient with me and understood that it’s tough when you are working alone at a new job.

After my second day, I’m starting to get a hang of it, but it’s still a little scary. I’m worried that I’ll get asked some crazy question and have no idea what to do (it’s happened plenty at my other box office job). I’m just trying to remind myself to stay calm and not to be afraid to ask questions to other employees.

This isn’t my first work from home job, but it seems different from all the others. This is the first time that I have to wait for the work to come to me, instead of me initiating the work like I did with my headhunter assistant job. I’m learning that it’s ok for me to step away from my desk for a second to get a drink of water or something because I’m never more than a few steps away from my phone or computer (the benefit of living in a tiny house).

I’m so happy that I finally have a job with regular hours again. And I’m ok with feeling nervous. When I started my telesales job, it was my first telesales (or any type of sales) job ever. I was so scared and would hope that people wouldn’t answer their phones. But by my second year at that job, I ended up being the assistant manager.

I’m not expecting to get any sort of promotions with this new job (it really isn’t set up to be that way), but I keep reminding myself that in time I will be comfortable with this new job and it will feel easy to me. And having regular money coming in will be really nice too.

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Back To School (or Getting Prepared For Another Of My Day Jobs)

Posted on August 20, 2014 | Comments Off on Back To School (or Getting Prepared For Another Of My Day Jobs)

Somehow, even though it feels like I have 1,000 different day jobs, I really have it down to 4. I have working at the box office during shows at the theater company where I used to do telesales, I have the survey coding job (which is the graveyard shift one right now), I have a new box office job from home that will be starting next week, and I have substitute teaching. I also have babysitting and dog sitting, but since those are few and far between, I’m not quite counting them.

I’ve been a substitute teacher with a small public school district by my house since 2007. I used to work more often, but when I did telesales I really didn’t have any days that I could work.

Now that a new school year is starting up, I’m getting prepared to possibly have some sub days in the future (although right now it looks like I can only work on Mondays).

Since I’ve been with my district, they’ve never really trained the subs. We were hired and then starting working as soon as possible. But they are trying to change that and make communication better between regular employees of the schools and the subs.

So this past Monday, I attended my first substitute training class. It was a half day in the morning (and we got paid to attend!), and I’m really glad that I got to go.

I really don’t know any of the subs so it was nice to meet some new people. And they did have some really helpful hints and tips for being more effective in the classroom that I know I will use if I get a chance to sub this year.

The three hour training went by pretty quickly, and when it was done, I had a chance to speak with the woman who pretty much organizes all the subs for the district. Part of the requirements for subbing include keeping your certification up to date (I pay every year to keep things current) and having a current TB test on file (which needs to be done every 4 years).

For me, the TB test can get a little annoying. I can’t do the standard skin test. In 2001, I tested positive for exposure to TB. I never had it (or any signs of having it) and they put me on medication for a year just to be sure. But as far as I know, my skin test will always come up positive. And I don’t want to have to deal with taking the medication again as a precaution.

So I get chest x-rays to prove that I don’t have TB. Sadly, my private health insurance won’t cover those. Even though a skin test is free, the chest x-rays would be about $500 to do.

Fortunately, my district is willing to pay for me to get tested at a clinic near the schools. So as soon as my meeting was done, I got my paperwork to get my chest x-ray and headed over to the clinic.

I lucked out getting there when I did because there was only one person ahead of me. Before I knew it, I was in the x-ray room getting ready (you keep your shirt on but have to remove any metal which for me was my necklace and bra).

The x-ray was really quick and the doctor at the clinic was able to review it right away. As expected, my chest x-ray was negative so I am cleared to work for the next 4 years in my district (I do still have to turn in my paperwork from the clinic, but I have 2 months before it’s due).

School in the district I work for starts next week. I don’t expect to have any sub days for the first few weeks, but you never know. At least I feel more prepared than I ever have for the coming school year!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Health, Work

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Goodbye To July (or Looking Forward To Having Steady Work In August)

Posted on August 1, 2014 | Comments Off on Goodbye To July (or Looking Forward To Having Steady Work In August)

July wasn’t my best month for work. I lost a job and the only decent job I had been sporadic hours and during the graveyard shift.

Well, things should be changing quite a bit for me in August.

First of all, I might be done with graveyard shifts. This is still up in the air, but I was told at that job this week that this week should be my final week of nighttime training. From now on, I’ll be training on online data entry (which is what I was hired to do) and the training will be from home and during whatever hours I choose.

Next, some of my day jobs will be coming back in August. The box office job should be needing me again in August (or early September). That will be for evenings and weekends working during the shows. There are too many staff members in the box office who can work the day shifts, so I won’t be brought in for those (that’s ok).

Also, substitute teaching will be starting up again in August. I actually just got a letter from the school district that I work for saying that there will be a substitute teacher training half day (they’ve never done this before). So in the middle of August I’ll get paid a half day to get up to date on everything with the district.

But I won’t be able to sub teach too often because I finally got another day job with regular hours!

Starting in the end of August, I’ll be working Tuesday-Saturday doing customer service for a dinner theater company! The job seems very similar to the box office job that I already have. But this will be for a national chain of theaters. And I’ll be working from home!

I had a phone training this past week for the job and I’ll have another one next week. But I’ll have plenty of time to get myself ready before the job starts.

I’m so incredibly lucky that I got this job. A friend of mine, Robert, has worked with this company for years and he knew that they needed someone. So he gave the boss my information and recommended me for the job. And I know the main reason I got the job was because of Robert’s amazing recommendation. I’m so lucky to have a great friend who really was looking out for me.

While July was a real struggle financially, it looks like things will be looking up for me soon. I just have to make it through August, but since I have some fun things planned (like my birthday!!), hopefully this month will fly by and I’ll be making decent money again before I know it.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Work

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Underemployment Is Frustrating (or Trying To Find The Balance Of Flexibility And Work Hours)

Posted on July 17, 2014 | Comments Off on Underemployment Is Frustrating (or Trying To Find The Balance Of Flexibility And Work Hours)

I know that I can’t be too frustrated about my employment situation yet. I was just laid off from my one regular part-time job on Monday afternoon. But still, I’m getting really tired of what the trend is like now for jobs.

First of all, let me say that if I could find a “normal” full-time job that was open to letting me take some time off here and there for auditions (which means only having about one days notice about the time I’d need to take off), I’d be more than happy to take that job. I probably wouldn’t love working a job that much, but I would totally do it. But most full time jobs either need someone with a master’s degree or the ads are very specific and say “no actors”. I’m not going to lie about being an actor (and pretend that my auditions are doctor and dentist appointments like I know some people do). I’d rather be up front and honest, and most past employers have appreciated that.

But the situation I’m in now is having so many different jobs but none of them have guaranteed work from week to week. The box office job is the most stable, but even that one might only be 8 hours a week (if I’m lucky). When I emailed the box office about my open availability, they didn’t know if they could even get me on the schedule before September (which is what we agreed upon before).

The survey coder job is also not reliable in terms of hours. Right now it’s pretty decent because I’m in training, but once that’s done, there will only be work to do when they need the help. I have no idea what that means in terms of hours per week, but I’m sure that there will be some weeks with a lot of hours and possibly some weeks with no hours at all.

And that’s kind of what all my jobs are like right now. I guess there could be a long-term substitute teaching job at some point, but in all the years I’ve worked for my school district, the longest sub job I’ve ever seen was 3 days long. While that would be awesome, I need more than that.

And I just got hired with another job, but it’s kind of like an on-call position. There is hourly pay (although it’s pretty low) but it’s independent contractor work. So pretty much 30% of what I make has to be saved and paid during tax time (I’ve been told 30% is as high as I could owe so I’d rather save more money than not have enough).

I’m trying not to be a little crazy about all this. It took me a while to find the assistant headhunter job so I need to give myself time to find another day job that has some stable hours. And I did re-open my unemployment claim so I will hopefully have a little extra money (although with the hours I’m working graveyard right now, I might only get about $20/week from my unemployment claim).

The one thing that is going my way right now is my friends. I’ve been very open about how I need a new job and people are keeping their eyes out for anything that they see that I might be right for. While I’m not applying to everything they send to me (I know some of them either don’t pay enough or won’t be flexible at all), I’m so appreciative every time I get an email/text/tweet/FB message about a job that might be right for me.

There are so many people pulling for me right now, and that’s something that I’ve never felt before. It’s awesome and I know that I can’t let everyone down. So I have to keep searching and applying for tons of jobs and hopefully the next perfect day job will come my way soon.

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Happy Birthday To FMIB! (or 2 Years And Finally Taking Myself Seriously As A Writer)

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 4 comments

Today marks 2 years since I started blogging on here! I still can’t believe that I’ve been able to keep this up for so long. Even though there are plenty of days where I struggle thinking of what to post on here, I still have posted now every weekday for 2 entire years!

I really should stop being shocked at myself for being so consistent. And I’m also really working on taking myself seriously as a writer.

And that’s important to do now because I lost my one day job with steady hours.

So I’m down to 6 day jobs, but none of those have guaranteed hours. And some of them won’t have hours available to me until the end of August or beginning of September.

Since I haven’t been able to save any money lately (and I’m only able to make the minimum payments on my credit card), I’m desperately looking for new days jobs now.

I started applying for the usual types of jobs like receptionist/assistant/data entry type of work. But then some people encouraged me to pursue writing jobs. They said that I am a writer (I’m working on believing that myself). I have over 500 posts on here to prove that as well as over a year of monthly posts on two other blogs.

So I spent some time creating a new resume highlighting my writing experience (there really isn’t much yet) and started to apply for various blogging and copy writing jobs. I probably applied for about 50 or 60 jobs, but I have heard back from one already. They wanted to know my blogging background and I had to answer a dozen questions about how I would handle different job situations.

I’m so glad that when I responded, I could say proudly that I had been writing on here for about 2 years (I applied for the jobs earlier this week so my 2 year mark hadn’t hit yet and I wanted to be totally honest). I also was able to provide multiple writing samples about various subjects.

While the job hunt is getting me down a bit, I’m going to spend today in a celebratory mood. 2 years is a huge milestone! I should allow myself to be happy and proud!

And I know that there are a bunch of you who have been supporting and following me through the entire 2 year life of this blog so far and I have to say thank you! Every day I’m still amazed that there are people reading this and responding about things that are going on in my life! And if you are new to following me, thanks for all the support you’ve already given to me and I hope that my next 2 years on here will bring more fun posts to share with you all!

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Default Thumbnail4 Years (or Reflections On The Past) Default Thumbnail8 Years In (or Another Blog Anniversary) Default Thumbnail5 Years Old (or My Blog Is A Kindergartner) Default ThumbnailI Keep Hitting Little Moments Of Writer’s Block (or Not Sure What To Say) Default ThumbnailHappy 100th! (or Guess I Might Be A Writer) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Kate! (or Yay For My Friend Of 21 Years!)

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Working The Graveyard (or Starting Work When I’m Normally In Bed)

Posted on July 10, 2014 | Comments Off on Working The Graveyard (or Starting Work When I’m Normally In Bed)

I’ve had my first 2 graveyard shifts this week (my third might be tonight but I won’t know until a little later today). The graveyard shifts are for training for a survey coder job. Once I’m trained, I’ll be working from home and during daytime hours. But since all the good coders work the graveyard, that’s when the training is.

I’m pretty lucky that I live close to the office. It’s only about a 10 minute drive and there is metered parking in front. But since the meters only charge you from 8am-8pm, I get to park there for free!

I was pretty nervous going into my first shift on Monday evening. The shifts start at 11pm, which is my normal bedtime. And they could go as late at 6am, but we were guaranteed at least 4 hours of pay even if we were there less time. I tried to sleep in a little on Monday and take a nap to prepare for being up so late, but my body just didn’t want to. So after working 4 hours of my virtual assistant legal recruiter job and getting in a workout with Orangetheory, I waited it out in my house until about 10:45pm to go to work.

On the first day, we pretty much jumped right into the job. There are 5 new people being trained right now and we all worked with one experienced recruiter. My recruiter went over the basics of the job. It involves reading surveys that were filled out after people see a movie. You look at the responses to the questions and try to create categories for those responses. The first few questions I worked on were pretty easy. The answers were either one thing or another. There were no variables really. Then we moved on to some more subjective responses. Those were harder to create categories out of, but I learned how to do it.

That first night, I was done at about 2:30am and was in my bed by 3:00am. It was pretty uneventful getting home and I got to sleep pretty easily (I was exhausted).

On the second night of training, we started doing some of the same as the night before. We worked on slightly harder questions so I had some trouble, but it’s not a super hard job (the supervisor keeps telling us that). After coding the questions, we learned how to imput all the information into an Excel sheet. That part was pretty easy for me since I’m a fast typist and they had a keypad for us to type with (when I start working from home, I totally want to invest in a keypad to use). There were some minor errors when I finished, but the coder I worked with said that those were to be expected for someone’s first time trying the job.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty comfortable already with the job. I’m not comfortable with the hours, but I keep reminding myself that that is a temporary situation and hopefully this job will be long-term. While this job won’t have enough hours for me to have it be my only job, there’s nothing wrong with creating a collection of jobs if that’s what it takes for me to pay my bills.

If I don’t have to go back in tonight, I’ll be working again next week. And hopefully I’ll be fully trained within or before 2 months (which is how long they told me training might last).

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