Category Archives: Work

Loving Air Conditioning (or A Bonus To Babysitting And Working)

So, on Friday I complained about the heat. I know I probably sounded whiney (even in text form), but I was honestly miserable. On Friday night, I got my pjs soaked before going to bed so when my fan blew over them I cooled down (my bedroom was in the high 80s when I went to bed).

Fortunately, this weekend was much better.

First of all, on Saturday I went to spin class. Somehow, the steamy studio still felt cooler than my house. But not only that, I got in a good workout and it really made me feel better. I hadn’t been to spin for about a week, and I really did miss it. It’s feeling more and more like a place I want to be all the time (and yes, I have applied for a job there).

The only thing that frustrated me at spin was after class when I checked out the new shirts that were for sale. Each month, SoulCycle does a new collection of workout clothes. The larges tend to sell out super quickly so I normally can’t find a tank top in my size. I figured since the month had just started, I should be able to find one. But nope, all the larges were sold out in 2 days. I might wait for them to restock in the studio because I’d rather try it on first before buying it, so buying it off their website isn’t really the best option for me.

Then, on Saturday evening, my friend Erin asked me to babysit. I’m always happy to babysit her kids so I was excited to say yes. And when I’m going over there to babysit, I always ask Erin if I can do laundry at her house. It saves me money and I always bring my own detergent so I don’t take too much advantage of her. And this Saturday, besides getting to do free laundry, there was another bonus to babysitting! Erin’s house has central air conditioning!! It was so great being able to relax in a nice cool house.

Babysitting was relatively easy. Erin’s daughter and I get along super great. We watched a movie and she tried multiple hair styles on me. Erin’s daughter recently broke her leg and has a cast from foot to hip, but she’s doing awesome! And Erin’s son isn’t the biggest fan of mine (he knows that usually when I come over that means that his mom and dad are leaving), but he was pretty easy to watch as well. He just chilled and watched his own tv show and went to bed. Easy peasy.

While the weather did finally start to cool down on Sunday, I had another opportunity to enjoy air conditioning yesterday. I worked a 4 hour box office shift. It was a pretty standard box office shift so nothing too stressful. And this might be my last shift there for a while. After the season ends this week, there won’t really be any evening or weekend shifts for me to work. So I might not have too much work until the new season starts in the fall. But I’m not trying to stress out about that (yet).

Overall, even though I technically worked both days this weekend, just the air conditioning alone made it totally worth it!

Double Time (or 2 Days Of Split Shifts)

First of all, a quick update on my audition from last week. I heard back from my agent because the show wanted to check my availability for the filming date! This could be a very good sign. Normally they only check the availability of 2 or maybe 3 choices. But you never know when things aren’t done as normally, so I might not be in the top 3 yet. But it’s still a positive sign and again, I promise to update you all on any news.

Thursday and Friday last week were both double job days. I worked from 10-2 for my recruiting job and then headed over to the box office job and worked there from 4-8. I need more days like this if I don’t want to have to get day job #3. Although I did talk to my bosses at the recruiting job about potentially getting a higher hourly rate once I’ve been there for 90 days which could make it possible to only need 2 jobs.

But even though I need more days like those days, I have to admit that it was pretty tough. I’m used to working 8 hour days when I worked in the telesales office, but somehow doing 2 jobs in that same amount of time is more exhausting. It could have something to do with the craziness of working in the box office. It’s pretty calm for the first hour or so, but once people start showing up at the will call window (which is what I do there), it’s non-stop work. And people are constantly asking me for better seats or some other sort of favor that I really can’t do. And this particular show that’s going on right now doesn’t allow for late seating (at all!), so we also have to deal with angry people who show up 10 or 15 minutes late and aren’t allowed in the theater (everyone is warned about this when they buy their tickets).

I’m sure in a week or two the box office job won’t feel as crazy or stressful and I’ll get used to it. But once I’m used to it, I might not be working much more there for a while.

Right now, I’m working evenings and weekends during the shows since I work my recruiting job in the mornings and early afternoons. The season is over in about 2 weeks at the theater and there won’t be any more shows until the fall. They will still need people at the box office, but it will only be until 6pm.

I have some ideas on how I can try to work both jobs even without evenings or weekends, but it won’t be easy. I’ll probably have to start earlier than I’d like to at the recruiting job and then rush over to the box office to work 3 hours instead of 4.

I also heard back from my old boss and he’s running a short fundraising campaign this summer and wants to talk to me about joining that. I’m hopefully going to meet up with him next week so I’ll have a better idea of what those hours would be like.

Either way, these double days need to become a more regular occurrence. I just don’t know how to make that happen quite yet.

Craziness Of Auditioning (or How I Spent A Day Getting Ready For A Minute)

This week I had my first audition in a long time. I know my agents aren’t to blame. There just isn’t much out there right now. And not just for my type, lots of my friends are in slumps right now. Plus, it’s a weird time for auditioning for tv. The new pilots have already been cast and shot and most shows already airing on tv have wrapped up for the end of the season already.

But I lucked out into auditioning for a cable show that airs in the summer (so they are just starting to film their season). I can’t say much about the show I auditioned for (that’s super frowned upon),  but I can say that I had a great time in the audition room!

The part was a co-star, which means that it wasn’t a big part of the episode. In fact, my audition only had about 10 words.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do my prep work! I found out about the audition the day before so I had plenty of time to do some research on the show. Normally for a show that hasn’t aired yet, there isn’t much you can research or find out about the tone of the show. But for this show, I lucked out because I had a small connection to it. I know someone related to the real-life person the show is based on. And she had been sharing information on Facebook about the new show.

So I went back through Facebook and found everything I could. I also made sure that even though there were only 10 words, I knew those words. When there aren’t a ton of words on the page it really stinks to not have them all memorized. I didn’t go over everything too much (it can sound stale and rehearsed sometimes), but I definitely spent time with my research and memorization.

The audition was at CBS Radford (where I was for 4th of July last year) and while I walked up the gate, I noticed a sign for Sarah Jones.

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If you aren’t familiar with the Slates for Sarah movement, take some time to check it out. The short story is a young crew member died on set because of some careless (or lazy depending on how you look at it) choices in cast and crew safety. Nobody should have to die while working in a preventable accident. I’ve seen these signs at a couple of different studios around town and I’m glad they are there so people who don’t know what happened go to look it up and get educated.

I had some time to kill once I signed in at my audition, so I ran though my lines again and tried to relax. I try to think of each audition as not an audition, but the chance to perform and do what I love. If I happen to get the job, that’s a bonus.

I think the audition went well. It’s hard to tell with so few lines. I know that I did the best I could and I made an impression on this casting director. Plus, it was the first time I got to see this particular casting director so that’s awesome too! It’s another industry person who knows who I am and has seen a bit of what I can do.

If I get the job, of course I will share everything on here. But for now, I’m just super happy that I got to spend even a small part of my day doing something I love so much.

Busy Time (or Scheduling Again)

I’m really starting to get a hang of having 2 part time jobs. It’s not easy, but it’s starting to make more sense in my life.

The recruiting job is going well. I’m still pretty much working from home all the time, and I’m starting to have more success at it. My boss is pretty happy with my progress, but I’m hoping I get much better at it pretty quickly. The money that I earn from successful calls would be really nice.

The box office job is going pretty well also. I’m still waiting on getting my own login information for the computer systems, but I’m able to borrow another person’s login for now so at least I’m able to do all the work I need to do. It’s still a bit weird to be doing some of the same work I’m used to doing but it’s still pretty different. I’m not pushing ticket sales as hard as I used to and there’s no pitch to join as a member. I’m also not feeling the same motivation to try to get people to buy more (or fancier) ticket because none of the sales in the box office are commissionable. But I’m sure that the box office will feel like normal very very soon.

And finally, my money situation is getting better. After taking my NYC trip, my savings account was pretty much wiped out. My unemployment was ending (because I was still using an old claim and it was almost done) and I didn’t know how much I’d be making at either job. At the beginning of this week, I didn’t know how I was going to manage to pay my rent at the end of the month.

But I got paid from my recruiting job (I missed the cutoff for the mid-month payroll at the box office job so I won’t get my first check there until the end of the month), I got my new unemployment started, and my tax refund came in. This all happened in 2 days. And I finally had my rent money in place (and was able to pay it early which I like to do).

I always say that somehow things fit into place for me. And I’m starting to have more hope that that is really how it will work out. I’m not sure how things will be next month, but maybe I’ll get more successful calls from my recruiting job or more hours in the box office. It’s all a little up in the air but it looking like a much more realistic lifestyle now.

Sorry if this is a somewhat boring post, but that’s where I am in life this week. But to add some excitement, here’s a set of photos my dad just sent to me. The top picture is Tucker when we adopted him and the bottom photo is Tucker yesterday (about 4 months later). He’s getting so big!!

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Full Day At The New Job (or Seeing My Old Workplace Abandoned)

On Saturday, I worked a full show shift in the box office. The day before, I only worked a few hours. Saturday was an 8 hour shift (technically 7.5 since I had to take a 30 minute lunch).

This was my first full work day away from home since I was laid off. While it was weird trying to get everything together before I left for the day, since I was going to a place I’ve worked before it wasn’t too bad. I even remembered to pack a lunch (something that I had trouble with when I worked in telesales).

I also got a better idea of what the workday would be like for me in the box office. I’m happy to see that there is downtime because when you work the will call box before a show, it’s a little crazy. Especially when you can’t find the tickets for people.

But again, the people in the box office are being super patient with me and are more than willing to help me with all the weird stuff I’m trying to get used to. I really feel like people there are happy to see that I’m back, and that is really helping with coming back to a place where I was laid off.

During one of those downtime moments, the box office manager and I were chatting about something random and she mentioned how they use magnetic to stick notices to the box office door. I said that I was pretty sure that I left some magnets at my desk in the trailer that I worked telesales in. So the box office manager handed me her keys and sent me over there to see if I could find any.

It was very very weird to go back into the trailer. I had been there one time after being laid off when my boss was still there (I think it was only a week after being laid off). The last time, everything was still there but there were boxes everywhere. This time, it looked like a ghost town inside.

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I actually texted that picture to my ex-boss because it seemed so sad inside. They are tearing down the trailer soon so this was probably the last time I was going to go inside it.

But I did find my magnets still stuck to my whiteboard above where my desk used to be!

I showed everyone in the box office that picture and they all agreed that it looked very sad inside the trailer. But it was a nice closure on the telesales job. I’m actually enjoying working in the box office and being able to interact more with customers and my co-workers. I’m still hoping to get more hours there so I won’t have to worry about finding yet another day job (and when would I have time to fit that in?!?), but that’s being worked on.

Overall, I’d say my first full day shift in the box office was a success! And yes, I dressed properly for the job this time.

2 Jobs 1 Day (or What My New Normal Might Look Like)

On Friday, I had my first shift back at my old job (but in a new job position). I also worked my new job in the morning. It was a lesson in how I need to start managing my time a new way (again).

On Friday, I actually had to go into the office for my first job. I was doing some personal organizing work for the business so I spent my 4 hour shift going through files and throwing out paperwork that was outdated or able to be found online. Not the toughest job to do, but it seemed endless (I got one drawer done in 4 hours and there are 2 more to go still). I was able to start earlier than I usually go in so I would have enough time between my jobs. I wanted to give myself more time than I would usually have because I wasn’t too sure how it was going to work out.

I had about 2 hours to get changed and ready to go to job #2. It was a little weird feeling going back as an employee, but everyone who works in the box office was so happy to see me again. I was greeted with a lot of hugs and people saying how much I was missed.

I didn’t get started on the best foot in the box office. First of all, I was dressed incorrectly. When I used to work at shows, the dress code was dressy. So I guessed the box office was the same. I wore nice black pants and a dark blue top. Turns out, black tops are kind of a requirement. So I was told that it was ok since I didn’t know better, but I needed to dress properly for future shifts (after working on Friday, I ordered a couple of dressy black tops on Old Navy so I would have something appropriate to wear).

While working in the box office is similar to what I did in telesales, it’s pretty different. Orders are taken a different way and things that I was used to doing have to be changed because the box office is the final step in order taking. In telesales, we used to turn in our orders to the box office so I didn’t have to do all the steps. There are also side work things that I’ve never had to do before. I’m trying to remember it all, but fortunately everyone understands that the box office is different from what I’m used to so they are all very patient with me.

I ran the will call window at the show, and I was lucky to start on a slow night. It still seemed pretty fast paced to me, but I will get to ease into the craziness that is working a box office during a show.

I also had the chance to talk with the box office manager about what types of hours I need so I don’t have to look for a third job. She’s going to try to accommodate my schedule, but that won’t happen for at least 2 more weeks since the schedules have already been set (unless someone is sick and I will fill in).

My first shift in the box offices was a short one, so it went by very quickly. And I have to say that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. It can be a bit more low-key than telesales since I don’t have to think about making phone calls every second of my shift. There’s a little downtime between calls from customers or handling will call so that’s nice.

I’m actually pretty optimistic that I will be able to handle the two job days without too much stress. Hopefully that is how it all works out.

New Routine Time (or Time Management At Home)

Now that I’m spending 4 hours each day working from home, I’ve gotten into a bit of a routine. But this routine isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Because I’m still dealing with some hip pain, I’m not out doing a lot of stuff each day. I also haven’t returned to spinning yet. I know that I need to get that back into my schedule soon.

I’m pretty much working from 10-12 and then again from 1-3 each day. After 3, I try to go out and do something, but that’s not always working out. I tried the other day to drive over to Griffith Observatory (not to hike, just to be out and enjoy the view), but traffic was so horrendous that after driving for over an hour and not even being half way there, I just turned around.

Soon, I’ll start working back at my old job again for some evenings and weekends (I’m working this Friday evening and Saturday all day). This will be a sporadic thing, so I’m still looking for job #3.

But the part of my routine that I need to break now is the fact that I’ve found out that if I don’t make an effort, I can spend my entire day at home and not go out at all. This happened yesterday in fact.

I need to start making more plans for my afternoons and evenings. I won’t necessarily be able to have regular plans since my hours at my old job will be random, but I will know my schedule a week in advance so I can try to go out and have some (hopefully free) fun.

I’ve gone through the issue of getting into a good routine a lot in the past, and I just have to do it again. It’s not a horrible thing, but I’m glad that I noticed as soon as I did that the new routine that I’ve gotten myself into isn’t a good one (or at least one that I should be doing on a regular basis).

I’m still hoping to get back into acting classes soon, but money is beyond tight right now. Because of all the unemployment I collected last year, I owed money on my taxes. I had enough to pay it, but after paying a few of my monthly bills, I’m almost out of money. I will get paid from my new job next week, but it won’t be enough for my rent. I’m not sure how I’m going to figure this all out, but just like before, I know that somehow it will.

Maybe before the end of the month I’ll be able to find another new job and then I can add that into my new routine.

In the meantime, if anyone has any fun and free things that they like to do in LA (and hopefully are close to the westside so I don’t have to drive super far), I’d love to hear your suggestions. I need to start booking up my afternoons!

Gaining Confidence (or How Spin And My New Job Are Going Along The Same Path)

Things are continuing to go well with the new job. I’m getting more and more work done each day and my work continues to get better. I’m getting more information from each lawyer that I’m speaking to and I’m getting more comfortable talking to them as well.

I’m super excited about this progress. I’m not where I need to be yet, but my boss is extremely happy about how much better I’m getting each day. On our phone call at the end of my shift yesterday, he even told me that I earned my first bonus. I get a bonus if a person I talk to meets the qualifications for the job I’m searching for. I have to get each piece of information to confirm that. And yesterday, I did it! This doesn’t mean the person is going to interview for the job opening. But I found a perfect candidate. In the future, my bonus might be something more like a percentage of the salary if we get someone in a new job. But since that can take up to a year, right now I just get a little bonus for each exact candidate I find. The amount of the bonus hasn’t been decided on yet (I don’t think my boss expected me to earn one already), but it will be something similar to an extra hour of pay.

While I’m making good progress at work, I’m also making good progress in spin class. You may remember that I just tried doing some of the standing on the bike work recently and discovered that I could do it for a portion of a song. I’m still building on that progress, but I took another big step this past weekend.

Not only did I stand on the bike during the hill portion (like I did the past time), I did it multiple times in class and was able to do several of the dance moves on the bike. Even the instructor, Heather, seemed to notice that I was doing more standing than I had before.

The best part about that particular class was in the morning, I didn’t feel like working out (I slept really badly and was dealing with weird hip pain). But since it was too late to cancel the class without being charged for it, I went anyway. And it ended up being such a great thing for me.

I also burned a lot of calories in 45 minutes.

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All this good stuff happening to me is really helping me stay more positive and keep looking forward to more progress in my life. The next step is to go back to my old work and work in the box office. That will be on the same days that I do my recruiting work. I’ll just do one in the morning and one in the afternoon/evening.

But that hustle will get me to a point where I’m making enough to pay all my bills again. And I need that because my taxes were just done and I owe a little bit!

Guess I’m back to the grind in more ways than one.

The New Gig (or Going From Vacation Mode To Work Mode)

After taking such a crazy trip, I’m super lucky that I didn’t have to start at my new day job the next day. In fact, the day after getting back from the trip was spent recovering from it.

I had some pretty crazy jet lag (taking a 5 hour nap when I finally got home really didn’t help) and for the first time ever, my feet and ankles swelled up like crazy after being on the plane. Maybe it’s because the guy in the middle seat was a big basketball player and I spent the flight squished in my seat (I balanced one foot on top of the other on the side of the plane because that’s the only room I had). So my Monday was spent with my feet up so the swelling would go down (which it did in about a day).

Tuesday was my first day at the new day job. I’m working as a recruiting assistant for lawyers. Basically, my boss tells me about a job opening that we need to fill and I cold call lawyers to see if any of them meet the requirements and if they do, try to get them to go for an interview. Basically, I’m a headhunter (or at least an assistant headhunter).

My first day was pretty much spent learning about the business and going over legal terms and how law firms work. It’s a lot of totally new information for me to learn about, and I’m still working on feeling confident using legal terms.

All my legal knowledge that I’ve had before has come from film and tv (like watching “Legally Blonde” and “Drop Dead Diva”). Fortunately, it turns out that legal shows are a bit more accurate than medical shows, so my film/tv legal knowledge was actually pretty useful.

My second day was similar to the first except I got to listen in to some phone calls and hear what I’m supposed to do. The company that I’m working for is a husband and wife team (and now me, I guess) so I’m learning from the boss. At the end of my shift that day, I made a few calls on my own.

The third day was all phone calls at their home office. I got more comfortable on the phone and started to get some good information out of people. I’m shocked how easily people will tell you how much they make on a first phone call.

Finally, on Friday this past week, I got to work from home. This is what I was told I would be doing once I was trained, and my new boss decided that we should test it out and see how it goes. While I was nervous to not have the support of the boss sitting right next to me, it was also nice to not have the pressure of having the boss right next to me as well.

Since pretty much my entire shift is spent on the phone, I got my iPhone headphones out and tried to make as many phone calls as I could in my four hour shift.

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I think it went really well. I checked in by phone with my boss after I was done, and he was very impressed with what I got done. I’m going to be working from home again this week. We aren’t sure when I will have to go in to work in their home office, but I know that if the search changes, I’ll have to go in to learn about the new search parameters.

I’ve worked from home a bit before, but for some reason this time it was different. I made an effort to make it seem as much like a workplace as possible. I did get dressed (no working in pjs for me) so that helped me feel less casual. Although I did skip shoes, doing my hair, or putting on makeup.

So far, I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made with the new job. I feel like it has the possibility to be a great day job, and my boss and his wife love the idea that I’m an actor.

It’s funny. For a while, even before I was laid off, I put it out in the universe that all I wanted was a job that worked from home, had very flexible hours, and had bosses that were excited that I was an actor not annoyed by it. While I did get exactly what I wanted, I probably should have specified that I wanted to only have to have 1 day job. I’m still going to also have to work part-time at my old workplace (working in the box office), but I think that between my 2 new jobs, I should be ok soon.

Lots Of Good (or Maybe Karma Is In My Favor)

Wednesday was already going to be an awesome day because of my stand-in job at WB. I knew waking up that day that is would be a good day (and would give me something positive to write about). But I had no idea how good my day was going to get.

After my lunch break, I was back on the set getting ready to do some stand-in work when my phone rang. It wasn’t a number a recognized, but since the number was a LA number, I guessed it was a call I should answer.

Turns out, it was the boss at the job I was waiting to hear back from. They wanted to hire me and have me start right after I get back from my NYC trip! I was so excited to get that news! It isn’t going to be full time to start, but it can lead to that. Plus, after being trained, it will be work from home! It’s exactly what I wanted!

I had a mini-celebration by myself on the set, but my focus had to stay on the job I was hired to do that day, so I didn’t really celebrate until I got back into my car after being done.

If that wasn’t good enough, I got a very interesting phone call while driving home. It was from my last job. The COO of the theater company called and asked me to come back to work with them! It won’t be the telesales job I had since they got rid of that department, but in the box office.

The work from home job is pretty much only during business hours and the box office job would be evenings and weekends, so I can do both (although I will make sure that I have at least 1 day off a week)!

I went from no jobs to 3 jobs (although 1 of those was only for that day) in 24 hours! How crazy is that?!?

It is also going to allow me to stop working the film recruiting job. I’m still not getting good results and I can’t survive on the minimum wage that they pay. But at least I have 2 new jobs to do to pay the bills!

And finally, some somewhat frivolous good news. There is a purse that I have been wanting to get for a while, but it’s not in my budget. I told myself that if I got the new job, I could use my final unemployment check to buy it (since I won’t have to use it for bills). Well, I was planning on buying the purse in NY (I figured it would be an amazing souvenir).

But I randomly went to Nordstroms Rack yesterday and the purse was there! And it was 50% off! I figured it was meant to be and I bought my dream purse! Now I’ll be super stylish when I start my new job!

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I’m so glad that the universe has decided to send a lot of good things my way. It is a reminder that as long as you can tough it out, eventually it will get better and things will turn out right.