Category Archives: Work

Back To Back Work Fails (or Attempting To Be Productive)

Posted on February 19, 2020 | Comments Off

Considering how long I’ve been working from home, I’ve been pretty lucky with my work systems and not having too many issues. From time to time, there have been some glitches, but for the most part, I can log in and do my work when I need to. The only big issue I remember is when our website went down for an entire day for my customer service job.

But lately, I’ve had some more work issues and it’s frustrating since I want to be able to work. For my customer service job, it’s not as bad since I am paid for the hours I’m logged in, no matter what. So even if I can’t do any work, I still get paid. That’s nice, but it’s also frustrating when all I can tell customers is that I cannot help them and that I’m sorry. For my other job doing data entry and event updates online, I only get paid when I can work. And being able to work has been tough lately.

Some of the issues with being able to work have been my issue. I couldn’t work the data entry job last week because it was so busy with my customer service job. I usually do my work between my customers, but there was honestly no time between customers. I was on the phone with one customer and using our chat feature with a few others for almost the entire shift each day. We know that Valentine’s Day is usually one of the busiest times and I think it was made even busier because of it being on a Friday and the start of a long weekend. So I just didn’t have the time to work and I was exhausted by the end of my shift and didn’t want to sit at my computer any longer. I explained the situation to my manager at that job and she completely understood.

And I think part of the reason she understood was that there have been so many things preventing me from working that job that were out of my control. I’m helping to enter events on a new version of a website and that website wasn’t built until recently. Then, once it was done we couldn’t enter any events because it wouldn’t accept any way we could enter times in the form. That issue was finally corrected at the beginning of last week, but I wasn’t working last week due to the craziness with the customer service work. I finally got back to it on Monday, and now it looks like I can’t log in to enter events and there may be an issue with my access to the backend of the site. I’m still waiting for an answer on how I can do my work, but I really hope I can get back to it soon so I can get some hours in.

And if that wasn’t enough, yesterday I had to deal with the website for my customer service job being down. Fortunately, it was resolved within the first few hours of work, but it was still frustrating that whenever a customer called we weren’t able to tell them much. We couldn’t even tell them if there were shows on the nights they were asking about because we couldn’t see the schedule. Most customers were understanding when we said our website was down and we couldn’t tell them much, but there were a few that questioned how we could be a legit business if we couldn’t answer basic questions. I understand why they wondered about us, but it was hard to try to explain why we need our website to see information when they refused to believe that I didn’t have everything printed out and updated or something. I’m just glad that the issue didn’t take the entire day like it did last time and we were quickly able to get back to normal.

I guess these issues are things you encounter when you work from home. But I’ve been spoiled with not having issues that often. I am used to my work systems to be working exactly how I need them to work and I don’t have a lot of options when they aren’t working. I don’t have somewhere that I can go in to do my work or a workaround that allows me to bypass the issue. I’m stuck waiting for someone to fix what I need to be fixed and I don’t have any control over it. I guess it’s a good lesson in letting go and not freaking out, but because it’s my job and I depend on the money it’s not easy to stay calm.

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Tagged job, work

A Frustrating Morning At Work (or Working But Not Working)

Posted on January 15, 2020 | Comments Off

I’ve written in the past about how sometimes during the slow times at work that I can get really bored. I hate saying that I’m bored at work because I know there are things I can do to be productive with my time. But it’s tough to spend 5 days a week stuck behind a computer when you don’t have anything to do. I’ve tried to find things to keep me busy and that helps. And whenever it’s the busy season and I’m going crazy with customers, I try to remind myself that I will miss having work to do when it gets slow again.

But yesterday, we had a very different type of slow day at work. We are still in our busy season so we have a ton of customers we need to help. But when we opened yesterday, we discovered that our website wasn’t working. And it wasn’t just the public website that was down, all websites that we use for work that aren’t public were down too. We pretty much had no way to do anything related to work. We found out later that this was due to a huge attack on our website host and so many websites were down.

We do have a quick reference sheet to look up some basic information for all of our locations, so we could answer things such as the price for tickets or the venue for each city we have a show in. And there are lots of standard policies that we don’t need the website for. So we could explain our age requirement, dress code, and date transfer policies. But so many of our customers were calling for things such as checking availability, changing entrees, or having an email confirmation resent. And we had no way to access anything we needed to do any of those things.

We have had some customers in the past that have gotten very upset with us when we couldn’t help them with something specific. For example, the box office cannot authorize any exceptions to company policy. If a customer is asking for one (such as bringing someone younger than our age requirement), we pass that on to the producers at that specific location so they can make that decision. Sometimes, customers don’t like that we are just passing information on, but we don’t have another option. And when the website was down, I was afraid that customers would be upset that we couldn’t help them.

It was sometimes funny when a customer would ask for one thing and they would understand that we couldn’t help them with that because our system was down so they asked for something else that would require the system to be up to help them. There were a few calls where the customer asked for 3 or 4 things and all I could do was keep saying that I couldn’t help with that because the website is down. And yes, there were a few customers upset that we weren’t helping them or we couldn’t tell them the exact time the website was running again. I really couldn’t say more than that our IT person was working on it and the website would be up as soon as possible. But sometimes a customer would ask if I thought that would be within 15 minutes or if it would be more like an hour. I just kept repeating that it would be as soon as possible.

Fortunately, that didn’t end up being the case most of the time. So many of the customers I spoke to understood that the website being down was out of my control and that I wasn’t doing it to make things tough on them. And they also understood that I couldn’t tell them when things would be back up and that I had no way to assist them with whatever they were asking of me. It was nice to see how many customers were polite and felt bad because they assumed we had a lot of customers upset that the website was down. I think after having some very difficult situations with customers that I needed this morning of good customers.

But I will say, this made my work pretty frustrating. We had so many voicemails that we needed to return that we couldn’t do because we didn’t want to call people back only to say we couldn’t assist them. We waited to return them until we actually could help. And I know that most of my customers understood why I couldn’t help them, but it was frustrating to not be able to answer some of the simplest questions we got. It was almost like this was a horrible mix of the boredom of the slow season with the chaos of the busy season. And I couldn’t do much about either.

I’m actually writing this post in the middle of my work shift. We’ve gone through half the shift with the system down and because it’s a big outage affecting more than just us, we have no clue when it will be back up. And it’s not any easier telling customers that I cannot help, but at least I’m better at saying it and I have more eloquent ways than I did right when it happened. But I’m just hoping that before today’s shift ends that things will be back up so we can actually do the work we were supposed to do several hours ago. If not, then hopefully it will be up as you are all reading this post and we can finally assist all of the customers from Tuesday.

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Tagged work

The Longest Week (or Having A Regular Work Week Again)

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Comments Off

The holidays are a bit odd with my job. Since so many holidays fall on a Monday and my work is Tuesday-Saturday, I don’t typically get days off. The only holidays we get off are the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. And it’s really bad when the 4th of July or the December holidays are on Sundays or Mondays since those are the days we don’t work. That happened in 2017.

I know I’m really lucky with my job and I’m incredibly grateful for it, but it was annoying when I didn’t feel like I got extra time off for the holidays. But this year was different. I got extra long weekends because the December holidays were on Tuesday/Wednesday. And I took advantage of having those and really enjoyed my time off. I didn’t do much, but I relaxed and spent some time catching up on life. I didn’t always know what day of the week it was and I occasionally mixed up what day or what time my shift was, but those moments were brief and didn’t really affect things too much.

Having 2 weeks in a row that had short work weeks were amazing. I felt like I had a real break from things and I was feeling refreshed and ready to start the year off right and work hard. And that feeling stayed there until this week happened.

This was the first full work week back since the holidays and it has felt like it lasted a month. I feel like this was because of a few different reasons. Obviously, having work each day felt weird when I had probably gotten used to having those short work weeks. I also haven’t been sleeping well so I’ve been tired in the mornings. And I haven’t had much I have had to do after work (I kept my schedule open on purpose) so I think my time has been blending together a bit. I usually try to step away from my computer as soon as I’m done with work, but the past few days I’ve had to stay on my computer for one reason or another. Sometimes I’ve been on my computer for another 3 or 4 hours after my work shift ended. That is just too long to be sitting behind a computer and I am to blame for those scheduling issues. But it also makes it feel like my workday lasts a lot longer and I don’t have as much of a break between one shift ending and another shift starting.

It only took 2 weeks to get used to a shorter workweek, so hopefully, it will only take 2 weeks to get used to my normal schedule again. So that would mean that next week or the week after I shouldn’t be feeling like the week is lasting longer than normal. And I’m trying to do a lot better with my sleep now and I know that it will take a few days for that to be felt in my body. Having to stay on my computer might not be something I can completely resolve, but it’s something I am aware of and trying to figure out what solutions I can find.

I will say that it does make me feel a bit better that I’m not alone in this feeling. Lots of my friends have mentioned how this week has felt really long and they couldn’t believe we were in only the second week of the month. I think because I’m so aware of how I’m feeling that sometimes I think I’m the only one going through something and I stress a bit that I need to fix it. But hearing that other people are going through the same thing right now makes me feel like maybe this is just something random that is affecting a lot of people and not something I need to work too hard to fix. But I still want to find solutions on my own because I know some things affect me longer than they affect others.

At least I’ve got my weekend coming up. I don’t mind working on Saturdays because they are shorter shifts and I don’t feel like I really spent a weekend day working. The only thing it really affects is that I don’t usually go out late on a Friday night since I have to be up so early on Saturdays. But that is definitely a normal feeling for me and I’m looking forward to my weekend and having some relaxing time. I don’t have much planned yet, but I hopefully will figure out something fun to do. And that fun should get me ready for next week’s work and I’m hoping that next week feels like a normal week and not an endless week.

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Tagged scheduling, tired, work

2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2020 | Comments Off

Happy New Year! Even though I know that the start of a new year (or a new month or week) doesn’t have to mean a lot, I like the idea of a fresh start and kicking off the time with something new. And that’s exactly what I’ve been able to do for the past few years.

And just like the last several years, I’m going to be using a Volt Planner to do my goal tracking and monthly challenges. They are really beautiful planners and they are laid out perfectly for what I want to. They do keep me organized and I spent some time this past week working on what I wanted my goals to be for 2020. Some of them are new ones, but there are several that I feel like I have tried to do multiple times. But just because I didn’t accomplish a goal in the past doesn’t mean I can’t get it done this year.

My first goal shouldn’t be much of a surprise. I want to do at least 200 Orangetheory classes this year. This goal is one I have been setting each year (or at least I would have a target number of classes I wanted to get to) and it’s a goal that I know I don’t have to think about much. I typically go to 4 classes a week which will easily get me to 200 classes. It also allows for a bit of flexibility if there are a few weeks that I can’t do 4 classes. Of course, something could come up that would prevent me from working out, but I’m not expecting anything to do that so this goal should be one that in a year I can say I was able to do.

My next goal is that I want to cook more often. I have had this goal several times and the reasons for it have always been the same. I know that it is healthier for me to cook at home plus it is a good way to save money. I have the ability to cook, I just don’t have the motivation. I need to work on finding the motivation because I know that it’s the main thing holding me back. I also want to work on finding recipes that inspire me and can become something I cook regularly.

The next goal is one I already have started. I want to continue to work on my home organization and be able to maintain it. I have slowly been going through my house and seeing what I really need and what I might be able to get rid of or donate. I’m also getting things that help me organize what I do keep. For example, my bathroom is tiny and there is no storage space. But I finally found a little basket I can use to keep my cleaning supplies together so they don’t look as cluttered. It’s not necessarily organized, but it looks that way. My big challenge will be organizing my desk, but I’m giving myself plenty of time to work on it.

Next is a bit of a combo goal. I want to get back to my job hunting as well as working on my budget. I’ve been doing ok with my budgeting work. The app that I use has made huge changes and I finally had to switch to the new system. There is a bit of a learning curve with it, but that’s why I want to make budgeting one of my goals. I can see how easy it would be to let this slip, and I don’t want to do that. I do not want to get back into credit card debt and the best way to do that will be to budget carefully. And along those lines, budgeting would be easier if I had more income. And that’s why I need to get back to my job hunting. I am so lucky I have the job I have right now, but it’s not enough. It’s never made me enough money and I can’t keep ignoring that fact.

Another combo goal is to be more social and to have more fun. I have a tendency to be a bit of a homebody. And even though that is something I choose to do, I get a bit lonely when I do that and I crave going out. I need to be more productive in making plans with friends and seeking new ways to go out and have fun. And part of this may be working on expanding my circle of friends and finding different groups to be a part of. It’s not easy making friends at my age, but it’s not impossible either. And I can’t make an excuse to not do it because it might be difficult.

And the last two go together even though I consider them very separate goals. I want to be more active in union service and I want to focus more on my acting career. I have gotten very involved in union service and it has been an amazing addition to my life. I love what I have been able to be a part of and how much more I understand my union. But I know there is so much more I can do and I want to work toward that. I have more ways to be involved and I want to get more people involved. And along with that, I need to focus on my acting career. That is my goal in life and I need to get things back in order because I didn’t prioritize them enough in the past year. Some of the things I need to do cost money and that was holding me back, but I need to find ways to make it happen because my career is important to me and I don’t want to waste time not doing it.

I think I have a good variety of goals for 2020. Some of them I know will be easier to do than others, but they cover a variety of areas in my life. And even if I only get half of them done this year, my life is going to be so much better with them accomplished.

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Posted in Acting, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving, Work

Tagged 2020, goals, volt planner

Feeling Useful Feels Good (or I Need To Be Productive)

Posted on December 18, 2019 | Comments Off

I’ve written a lot about being bored or not being productive in my life. I have had a lot of issues with being productive while working since I don’t have to focus on my work all the time. I have done some things to cure my boredom that I know are very unproductive like watching a lot of random things on YouTube. It’s not easy for me to find things to do between customers at work because they need to be things that are easy to stop doing and pick back up where I left off.

That’s why the other job I’ve been doing has been good for me. It’s a lot of data entry or online searching so it’s easy to put the browser window that I’m working on behind my customer service browser when I have a customer. And I’ve been able to do that work most days in the past week or so because there was a new task to start on. This contract hasn’t been as steady as my past ones were because the work is a bit in flux. But I did just sign a new contract to extend this one for another few months (there were several delays in my work and there was no way to finish the hours by the end of the year).

Obviously, having my other job to do it most than just a good way to spend my time between my customers because I do need that income, but I love that it helps me stay focused on doing good things when I’m stuck at my computer for so many hours a day. And for both the income and the work, I hope that there will be another contract for me to sign when the extension for this current contract is up.

But I also have discovered that being productive is something I crave other times of the day. When I’m dealing with a lot of pain and nausea (like I am right now), I don’t really leave my house much. If there’s something I have to go to, I’ll do it. But if I can push something to another day I usually will. All I want to do is stay home and be in comfortable clothes and get through the discomfort the best I can. And when there is a lot of tv to catch up on, I admit that I spend a lot of that time at home watching things on my DVR. But when there aren’t new episodes to watch, I don’t want to be mindlessly going through different streaming services to find something to entertain me.

It’s not easy to find something to keep me busy when I feel as badly as I do right now, but whenever I find something it really does improve my mood. If someone asks me to help them with research online or another task I can do, I feel so accomplished when it’s completed. I don’t forget about how I feel, but it can be a good distraction. And when it’s something that I can pause when the pain and nausea get too bad to focus, even better.

Lately, I’ve been doing lots of random tasks around my house during that downtime. I have gotten a lot of organizing done (I still have a lot to do, but it’s a work in progress). And the holiday cards that I ordered a while ago finally arrived at my house (they were lost in shipping and had to be resent to me which delayed them a lot). So I have about 50 cards to write and address. I can’t put off getting stamps for them as long as I’d like since I need them to be in the mail soon, but I have to finish doing the cards before I go to the post office. So writing those will likely be my afternoon and evening work for today and tomorrow.

I won’t have much busywork to do next week and I have even more downtime because of the holiday schedule. But I think when it’s the holidays I can be lazy and not feel as bad about it. I do want to have a few tasks on my to-do list that I can work on just in case I feel the need to get something done. And if I don’t get everything done, then I can just work on them between customers when I don’t have the other job to do or after work if I don’t have anything planned.

I’m not going to wish that I was busier because I know that can backfire. But it is nice to know that I’m being helpful or productive when I know that it’s easy to be lazy. And that feeling of accomplishment when I’m not feeling overwhelmed is really great and I want to find more ways to get to that point.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged productive, scheduling, work

Another Observer Opportunity (or Watching The Local Board)

Posted on November 7, 2019 | Comments Off

When I went to the SAG-AFTRA local board meeting recently, one of the things on the agenda was when the next local board meeting would be. I made sure I wrote that date down because I wanted to make sure I didn’t accidentally schedule something else that evening. I really am trying to make an effort to go to all the board meetings that I can. First, because it will help keep me informed about what is going on in the union. But also because I want to get an idea of what my responsibilities would be like if I get elected to the local board in the future. Even though I was prepared to be on the local board if I was elected this time, I’m glad I’m getting this time now to truly understand what it would require and the work I would be doing.

Many of my friends are thinking the same way as I am with wanting to go to observe to understand the union more. So when we had the local board meeting this week, several of my friends were signed up to go as well. There were so many members signed up to be observers that they list was full and some people couldn’t request a spot ahead of time. They also have a walk-up list, but with so many people signed up, it was unlikely that everyone would get into the boardroom. There is an overflow room for people to watch the board meeting on a closed-circuit tv, so everyone who showed up did have a chance to observe.

I got to the union early because I wanted to guarantee I got a seat inside the room. Only the first 40 or so people to check-in get a ticket that allows them in the room. I was the 3rd or 4th person in line, so I felt a bit of relief when the check-in started. I knew I was going to be in the room and I could relax. They also provide some food for us, so once I was checked in I got some of the pizza and hung out with my friends in the holding room for observers.

I’m now getting used to the routine of observing meetings, so when it was about time to go inside we had a quick review of the rules and policies. Mainly, as observers, we cannot speak or contribute to the meeting. We just observe. We can take notes, but we cannot take photos, videos, or audio recordings. Since I had friends there as well, I knew that I didn’t have to stress out as much about taking notes since we could share. And the information I heard wasn’t confidential to members, so I could also ask people I knew on the local board to explain something or clarify something I heard.

I ended up sitting in the same seat I was in last time, which was good. I like being in the last row since sitting for too long can make my hips hurt. This way, I could get up to stretch if needed without disturbing too many people. And because the last meeting went long, I was prepared for this meeting to do the same.

But I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly things moved during the meeting. There were disagreements and things to debate, but much less than the last meeting. And there weren’t as many things on the agenda so even if they were taking time to get through something, it wasn’t delaying a lot of other things. Also, having fewer things on the agenda made things easier for me to follow. I was so prepared for things to run long that when there was a motion to conclude the meeting I was thinking that I was hearing it wrong. I thought maybe it was to conclude discussion for one thing and not the entire meeting. But the meeting ended almost an hour early after accomplishing everything that was on the agenda! It was a very nice surprise for everyone in the room.

Since we ended early, I went to a restaurant next to the union with a few people from my slate to hang out and discuss a few things. But most of our talk was about silly things and it was nice to get a chance to do that. I’m usually in work mode and serious when I’m with those people, but this gave us an opportunity to relax and have fun. I had a few moments where I was thinking “how is this my life?” because it’s still so crazy to me that these amazing actors are my peers and that they wanted to hang out with me. But it also gave me a confidence boost and made me think that I am in the right place and pursuing the right career.

The next board meeting is next month, and it’s already on my calendar. Unless something crazy happens with my schedule, I’ll be signing up to be an observer again and trying to make sure I get into the room. I will keep encouraging other members to do the same because I feel like this is so important to do and not enough members take advantage of this chance.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, meeting, SAG-AFTRA, union, work

A Little Job Update (or It Was Silly To Be Scared)

Posted on October 31, 2019 | Comments Off

Even though I’ve had the same jobs for a while now, I still am always terrified that I will be fired. I don’t know if I will ever get over that feeling. I wish I could, but there is just something in my head that makes me think that I’m always a moment away from being fired. I feel much more secure in my customer service job, but I think that’s because it is a much more consistent job and I have constant communication with my manager (but when my boss needs to talk to me, it scares me so much).

With my research/data entry job, I have a little reason to be nervous. I shouldn’t be scared that I will be randomly fired, but I never know if I’ll have another contract. It started out much more stable, but now I am on temporary contracts when they can have me working. I’ve been lucky this year with the contracts I was put on, but it’s still a bit scary.

The one thing that helped me with the fear with that job was that I knew my boss well. She and I met in a workout and then I worked for her with another company. When she had an opening with the company she moved to, she hired me. So I didn’t have to worry too much about what my boss felt about me since I knew her well and knew that she would talk to me if there were any issues. For example, there was an issue a while back with my work on the website not showing up. It turned out that there was an issue with how the data was being saved and we were able to fix it. To her, it might have looked like I wasn’t working. But she was able to ask me about it and I could clear up an issue before she felt like I shouldn’t be working for her.

That boss has now left that company. She was offered an amazing opportunity with another company in another state. I’m sad she left, but I’m so happy for her because I know this is really great for her and her family. And she will be working with me a bit still because she is going to be put on contracts as I have been. So even though she won’t be my boss, I can still ask for help from her from time to time.

I’m currently on a new contract for that job, and it’s doing work that I’ve never done before. This is more about website design work and eventually some writing/blogging work. When I was offered the contract, there wasn’t a lot known about specifics because the website was still being worked on. There were ideas of what I would be doing, but not the date that work would start. Until I was able to start that work, I was told there were a few random tasks I could help with to get some hours. So I started working on those and when I finished I was waiting for what was next.

I realized last week that a lot of time had passed and I didn’t have an update on any new work. And because I was working with a different boss, I was terrified to email her to check in. I finally had the courage to do it and didn’t hear anything back. I was so scared that because I hadn’t been able to work that they were ending my contract or something. But I decided to try to stay positive and sent a follow-up email a few days after that just checking in.

I’m so glad I stayed calm and positive because my second follow-up had an almost immediate response. My first email hadn’t been received and that’s why I didn’t get a response. And my boss completely understood why I hadn’t been working because things had been delayed on her end. We had a big catch up call last week to figure out some things and I have been able to work a few hours here and there since then.

My lack of hours was not because I was being flakey or slacking on work. It was just about not having assignments to work on. And I’m so grateful that my boss understood that and didn’t assume something else about me. I hate that my mind was telling me that she would be thinking something bad about me and that was making me worry about sending an email. I know how silly it is that I think like that, but I have come to accept that I might feel like that forever with work.

Fortunately, now I feel like I can email my boss more and check in without fear of her thinking I’m not working hard enough or enough hours. I hope that it will make working on this contract easier and hopefully she will be happy enough with my work to put me on another contract after this one ends. It’s a little scary that my old boss isn’t there because I know she pushed for me to get work there. But I just need to work on making sure I have my new boss in my corner so she will think of me as a hard worker and someone that she wants to have working as often as they can hire me.

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Posted in Work

Tagged fear, job, work

Gearing Up For Another Temp Job (or At Least It’s More Work)

Posted on August 22, 2019 | Comments Off

When my temp job ended with my old boss, she let me know that there may be another temp job coming up in a few months for me. It wouldn’t be the old contract that they used to offer me (I don’t think that contract is ever coming back), but it would be something similar. It would be creating content for the website like I used to do for them. But instead of creating content within the events section of the website like I did on my old contracts, this would be more writing work. My old boss wasn’t too sure when the work would start, but I knew that she would tell me as soon as she knew.

And it wasn’t that long after that last job ended that I got an email that it should be starting up pretty soon. Things were still being finalized, but she knew it would be in the next few months and that I should expect to get a contract soon and at least have an idea for how much the contract was for (my contracts are for a total funding amount and then we base the hours on that). I did get my contract and I was so happy to see that it was for more money than I was expecting! I really expected just a little money, but this is enough to help me get through the rest of this year (which is how long the contract should last for).

I had a meeting with my old boss and the woman who will be my direct supervisor for this new contract. I don’t have my exact start date, but they wanted to go over some of the basics with what myself and the other woman doing the same work will be doing. Fortunately for me, the work is actually very similar to writing this blog! The subjects will be very different, but the technical work will be familiar to me which will be helpful. And hopefully, I will have either a list of topics to write about or will have lots of inspiration (I’m not completely sure on how that part of the job will work just yet). With most of the jobs I’ve done with this company, the job is still a little abstract to me and will be like that until I can start playing around with the work systems. But they know that’s how I work and I should have a chance to start working with things soon. And since this work isn’t with a very strict deadline, I should have time to get comfortable and not feel rushed and risk making mistakes.

And even though this job isn’t permanent, I’m still so grateful for it. Any temporary work is good because it brings in money that I know I need. And I do hope that somehow there is a more permanent contract they can find for me. Even if it’s just another 1-year contract like I used to have. Knowing I have a job for a year would be a huge relief for me.

I’m still doing my job searching like I’ve been doing for a while, but it hasn’t been as intense as it could be. The election has been taking up a lot of my time and energy lately. After next week, that won’t be that way so I should have more time to job hunt and I am looking forward to that. I don’t like feeling like I’m slacking on doing something that I know I should be doing.

But I’m also slacking a bit because I have another job opportunity that could be something good. I don’t want to share too much just yet, but a friend of mine offered me an opportunity to help them with their business. It would let me work from home, but it is commission only. I know this sounds like an MLM or a pyramid scheme, but it’s not. It’s more sales type of work, but I’m being vague because I don’t want to share too much about a job that I haven’t started yet. We both have agreed that it would be something to try out because we don’t know how it would work out for both of us. But I told them I had to wait until after the election to try it out because again, I have no time just now.

I don’t want to say things are turning around for me just yet, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Being hopeful is a nice thing and I’m glad I can feel that way.

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Posted in Work

Tagged job, work

Time Flies (or I Didn’t Realize I Would Be Here So Soon)

Posted on June 18, 2019 | Comments Off

I’ve written about time moving quickly multiple times. I know that’s part of getting older. Someone once said that it happens because each year you get old a single year represents a smaller portion of your overall life. That makes so much sense to me even though it doesn’t help with making time go by slower. I try to be mindful every day so time doesn’t slip away, but it seems like that still doesn’t help all the time.

Sometimes it’s almost embarrassing when I realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen a friend or talked to them in person or on the phone. Texting and social media do help me stay in touch with people, but I know I need more than that to maintain my relationships. I recently texted a friend to say happy birthday and mentioned how we were very overdue for a catchup phone call. Then I realized that it might have been almost a year since we talked on the phone! We’ve texted and messaged in the past year, but I should be better about having more regular phone call routines.

Another place where time has just flown by has been with the temporary job I have been doing for my old boss. This has flown by in a few ways. First, I can’t believe that I’m in my last 2 weeks with the job. I have been working very hard since it started because there was so much work that I had to do. I think being that busy has made things fly by and I didn’t really focus on more than just getting the work done that day. I didn’t think about how it’s been a few weeks or a month. I knew that it was going to go quickly because it was a temporary job, but I guess I didn’t think it would feel this quickly.

And because the time flew by, I made a mistake that I said I wasn’t going to do again. I stopped focusing as hard as I should have on my job hunting. Fortunately, I am in a better spot than I was before because the money I made with the temporary job will hold me over for a little bit. But it won’t last forever. And I told myself I wouldn’t wait until the job ended to work on job hunting. But that’s exactly what happened. And now I’ve got only a few more days of work without a clear plan on what to do next.

I am grateful that I have a lot of job hunting sites that I was using before so I don’t have to worry about finding where to look for work. That doesn’t make finding a new job easier, but at least the prep time won’t be needed again. I just have to find the time to really focus on job hunting so I can find something soon.

But the other problem with time flying by with this job is going to affect my ability to job hunt. I knew how many hours my contract was when I started it. I obviously want to do every hour in my contract so I earn all the money I can. And I thought I had a good plan with how to split up the hours each week so that I would be able to finish them all. I know there were a few days where I couldn’t work due to how I was feeling, but I honestly thought I had made up for what I had missed. But when I looked at the hours I have to do for this final paycheck, it’s significantly more than I expected. I will be able to get them all done, but I need to work more hours than I have ever done for this job and I may also need to work on the weekend. It’s not what I expected to have to do, but it’s what I would do.

Because of all the hours I need to work, I know that I won’t be doing the job searching like I should be doing (and should have been doing this entire time). I guess I can’t be too upset since I haven’t really been doing what I said I’d do. So missing another week or so it’s going to ruin too much. But I am upset that I didn’t do it this entire time and now I know I’ll be worried about work again. I’m putting my feelers out again and I also hope that maybe there will be another temporary job I can do. I’m trying to stay optimistic that I won’t have a huge gap in work, but I also know I can’t depend on my optimism and that I have to put in the work.

With time going so quickly, I just have to hope that it won’t be a long time before I do find that new job. I don’t want months to fly by and I realize I’m out of money. I don’t have as much control in this situation as I would like, but I know that I have more control than what I have been doing so far.

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Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged job, money, work

A Job Hunting Update (or Making Sure I Don’t Repeat My Financial Year Again)

Posted on March 29, 2019 | Comments Off

Even though I haven’t been writing about looking for a job lately, I’ve still been doing that on almost a daily basis. My job hunt isn’t quite as intense as it was before because I do have the temporary job with my old work. And through that temporary job I will actually be making more money than I did all of last year with that job, so I should be ok for a while as long as I budget correctly (which is why budgeting again is so important for me).

I would love for there to be more temporary jobs for me to do with this old job throughout the year because it really is a great job for me. I can do it between my customers at my box office job (both bosses at both jobs are aware that I do this) and it’s easy enough for me to do. It does take a bit of time because of the work I have to do to confirm the data, but it’s not difficult. I feel very confident that I can do the work well and quickly and that always helps me feel better about work.

And of course, I love that this temporary job as well as my main job are remote. There are lots of benefits for me to work from home and I will admit that I have gotten spoiled by being able to do so. It allows me to work from another location if I’m out of town so I don’t have to miss as much work as I would when I leave LA to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I don’t have to worry about a commute or the cost of gas and wear and tear on my car. I don’t have to worry about planning for lunches because I’m home and can make whatever I have in my fridge. And of course, I can work when I’m not feeling well.

Working while sick isn’t always fun, but I’m grateful that I can do it. I don’t get sick that often, but when I do get sick it’s usually pretty bad. And I know that I shouldn’t be around other people. So working while sick is a benefit to me. But it’s not just when I’m sick with a cold or bug of some type, it’s also a benefit when I’m nauseous.

I honestly don’t know what I would do if I had to work at an office while nauseous. I’m sure that I would find some way to deal with it, but with how I feel now I just don’t want to think about it. I like having all my medications and remedies nearby when I need them. I don’t have to worry about using a public bathroom when I’m sick or that there isn’t an empty bathroom near me. And I don’t have to explain myself to anyone who sees me at my worst.

Just for the benefit of being able to work without worrying about others when nauseous makes me really focus my job searching on remote positions. I’m aware that finding a remote job is not as easy as finding a job working in an office. But it does feel like it is an important thing for me to find so that I don’t have to worry about what will happen when I’m not feeling my best.

And for right now, I can be a little bit picky. I am good for at least the next few months. Of course, making more money is better because I can put it toward things like paying off my credit card or building some savings. So while I’m being choosy, I’m still looking for a new job every day. It’s something I spend time doing each day, but I don’t stress about it the same way. I’m probably spending 10-15 minutes a day searching on various job hunting sites and applying for anything that seems right for me. I do still look at non-remote jobs, but I don’t apply to them as often as I do with remote jobs.

I’m hoping I find something before my temporary job ends so that I don’t have to stress about things. I’m trying to remind myself that even if I don’t find a new job by then, I should be ok as long as I am careful with my money. I don’t want to be in the same position as I was at the end of last year, and I know there are things I can do to make sure of that no matter my job situation. But it will take a lot of hard work and staying on top of things. And if I find a new job before I have to worry about it, then all this detail work will just benefit me with budgeting the new job.

Comments Off on A Job Hunting Update (or Making Sure I Don’t Repeat My Financial Year Again)

Posted in Work

Tagged job, money, work

Category Archives: Work

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2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

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A Little Job Update (or It Was Silly To Be Scared)

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Gearing Up For Another Temp Job (or At Least It’s More Work)

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Time Flies (or I Didn’t Realize I Would Be Here So Soon)

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