Tag Archives: work

3 Months At My New Job (or Having Another Job Review)

Posted on March 24, 2021 | Comments Off on 3 Months At My New Job (or Having Another Job Review)

It’s been just over 3 months since I started my new customer service job. While I’m still learning things, I’m feeling more and more settled with work these days. At the beginning, it was a bit overwhelming with everything that I was trying to learn. But it did eventually sink in and now I’m feeling pretty comfortable with most things customers are asking me about.

I haven’t worked too many jobs that have set check-in points, but with this one there was. I had a check-in about a month in (which was a little bit past a month because of the timing of holidays) and that went really well. But that one felt a bit more casual than what I was going to be expecting with the 3-month review. I had no reason to be nervous or worried, but I always feel that way about work. It’s been a long time since I’ve been let go from a job for a reason other than the pandemic. I shouldn’t be worried about that, especially when my manager has been very open with communication about my job performance. She hasn’t been hiding things as she sees them. If I make a mistake or do something that could be better, she lets me know. That can be a little scary, but I appreciate it so I can improve on my performance. But even with all that, knowing I was having my 3-month review coming up made me worried that it was all going to change.

But as I think anyone could have guessed, that wasn’t the case. I had my review last week and it went pretty much how I expected it to go. And we covered quite a few things in the meeting.

The first thing was something that I asked for. For the past 3 months, I’ve been doing 2 different jobs at the company. I’ve been doing the customer service work as well as outbound engagement work. And while I could continue doing both, I knew I was experiencing burnout with the outbound engagement work as I have been doing that for other jobs now too. And when I was hired, they were very open to me saying if I was feeling overwhelmed by both jobs. So I wasn’t afraid to mention it to them. I’m going to still be doing that work until a replacement is hired, but it probably won’t be too long before that happens. I also wanted to take this part of my job off my plate because I’m hearing more news about when I might be asked back to my old customer service job. I won’t be doing both jobs at the same time, but I don’t know when I would have time for the outbound engagement work when I’m working with my old job again too.

We also went over what has been good and what could be better. And for the most part, things have been awesome. I have previously said how things might have been harder for me than for most new hires because I started and then had time off for the holidays. That made things tough on me. Also, because of the holidays, the typical schedule for how things go each month has been a bit different. So the way things went while I was in training isn’t exactly how they normally go. It’s not a bad thing, but something I’m very aware of. And the only other thing that could be better was something we were able to fix on my check-in call. There’s something within our system where we enter new clients that wasn’t working the way I thought it should. We had to copy and paste things from old forms when I thought there was a way to make a template. And there was a way to make that happen and it was fixed at that moment! It wasn’t a huge problem, but it would make us much more efficient when we work. And efficiency is important.

And at the end of the call, I was told that I would be getting a raise! It’s not a huge raise, but it’s not insignificant either. And having that raise is going to make things a bit easier as I won’t have as many hours of work when I’m not doing the outbound engagement work anymore. I’m not sure if my hours will increase in the future right now, but I’m open to the possibility. And I am very happy with this job and feel like it’s a great fit for me, so I’m hoping that I will continue to grow with them!

I don’t know when I have another check-in call like this one, but I also know that I can always reach out to someone if I’m having concerns or an issue. I don’t need to wait for an official check-in to see if something can be fixed or changed. And knowing that is a great feeling and something that I haven’t experienced with all the jobs I’ve had before.

I’m still so grateful for my friend who helped me get this job. It’s been better than I could have expected and I’m excited to see what will be in my future with the company.

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An Afternoon With The Headshot Truck (or Doing Some Work Photos)

Posted on March 23, 2021 | Comments Off on An Afternoon With The Headshot Truck (or Doing Some Work Photos)

It’s been a while since I’ve had some new headshots taken. I know I need to do some new ones soon, but I’ve been putting it off for a bit. Before the pandemic, I was hoping I would have a different enough look to need them (like if I changed up my hair or lost weight). I know you don’t have to wait until you look different for new photos, but that was the excuse I was telling myself. And then during the pandemic, I’ve been telling myself that I wanted to wait until it was safer. I know several photographers have been doing headshots and have found ways to stay safe, but I was still using that as an excuse.

But last week, I had to get some photos done for my social media day job. We all needed official work photos done. Some people had some that were taken before, but everyone was getting new photos taken even if they had them done in the past. These photos are going to be used on the company website, in our work emails, and when we are doing something where we are representing the company. But because many of us who work there are also actors, they wanted the photos to be great for work and also possible to use as headshots.

The photos were taken with The Headshot Truck. I’ve known about The Headshot Truck for several years now and I hadn’t shot with them before. But I loved their work and was really excited to get a chance to shoot with them. Because of safety issues, the photos would all be taken outside but I knew that they were going to be great no matter what.

Since these photos are primarily for work-related purposes, there were a few things we all had to do. The main thing was that we all had to wear blue since that is the company color. That was fine with me since I think I photograph well in blue. So I wore one option and brought a few others in case I needed to change. We all only had 15 minutes for our shoots, so there wasn’t really time to do multiple looks. But I wanted to have options just in case I needed to change before we started shooting. Fortunately, the outfit that I wore to the shoot was perfect and I didn’t have to change.

One other difference between other headshot shoots was that I had to do my own hair and makeup. I almost always have someone to do my hair and makeup, but since this shoot was a mini-shoot and mainly for work, I wasn’t going to hire someone this time. So I did my own hair and makeup and hoped it would look ok.

The shoot itself was really fun and easy. There were 2 outdoor locations were did the photos in. And halfway through the shoot, the photographer let me look at the photos so I could see if there was anything I wanted to change. I’m glad I did look, because there was something odd with how my hair was going over my shoulder. It wasn’t anything bad or something anyone besides myself would notice, but I’m glad I could fix it because I know it would have bothered me looking at the photos. I will also likely do retouching (since you always need to do that) so I could have fixed it in retouching too. But I am glad I could change how my hair looked so I could feel better about my photos.

I haven’t gotten the images back just yet, but I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. I’ve only seen a few shots from their computer screen after the shoot was done, but they look great!

I know my photo of their screen isn’t the best and it’s not easy to see the photos, but I was happy when looking at them. And I’m sure I’ll have a few different ones that are my top choices and I’ll ask friends to help me pick the best one. And maybe I’ll find one that I love for my work shot and another that I love for a headshot!

I love that I had this chance to take some new photos. Even though the main reason for them is for work, this is another thing I was able to do to get ready for being back to auditioning again. I’ve been doing self-tapes over the past year, but I know in-person auditions will be back in the future and I want to have myself in the best spot possible for those when they happen.

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Hitting A Bit Of Burnout (or I Took On A Lot At Once)

Posted on March 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Hitting A Bit Of Burnout (or I Took On A Lot At Once)

For so much of last year, I didn’t have much to do each day. I was struggling to fill my time and not be bored. So once I got a new job, I was grateful to have something to do plus I needed to start making money again. And it seems like getting my new job was the kick-off for other things starting up again or being a part of my day. But I also think that because of how empty my schedule was not that long ago, I added more things than I should have done at once. And now it’s getting a bit overwhelming.

I’ve struggled so much in the past with finding a balance between having free time and being overscheduled, and I’m aware that this is a privileged problem. I know many people would love to be overscheduled and working a lot. And I’m not saying I’m not grateful or understand that I’m lucky. But I also know that sometimes I can either take on too much or go too hard with things.

And lately, I’ve been noticing more and more signs of burnout. I’m glad I can recognize it earlier than I have in the past, but recognizing it doesn’t fix the feeling. I started to have some signs I was getting closer to burnout last month, which is why I made my monthly challenge in February about planning out my day each day. And that did help a bit. I noticed where my days were being overpacked and where I had almost too much free time.

But this month, things seem to have gotten busier for me. I’m not going out and doing things that often, but I have more things I need to do that are at a specific time. And the things that I do that aren’t time-specific are usually being fit in between those scheduled events. So sometimes, it feels like I’m going non-stop. For example, yesterday I had work, then I had to drive somewhere for a work-related thing (more on that next week), then run an errand that I had been putting off, and then I had a Zoom meeting I need to be on. From the time I logged into work until I logged out of Zoom, I was scheduled for about 11 hours of my day. I also had to fit in the other job that I can do at any time, so I was doing it in chunks between everything else. By the time I was able to sit down and write this post, I was exhausted.

And I am happy to be exhausted and feel productive again, but I also know I can’t keep this up. Fortunately, not all days are like this. They usually don’t have so many things back to back so I have some decompression time when switching from one thing to another. And they also usually have more fun things scheduled so I look forward to something. I don’t know if the burnout is harder now because I don’t have much else in my life and I can focus on it more, but something is hitting me harder than I would expect when I compare this time to burnouts in the past.

I’m taking some steps now to make sure that I take care of myself and my mental health. I’m looking at how I can plan each day a bit better so that I don’t feel as stressed to get everything done. Obviously, there are some things that I don’t have a ton of flexibility with because they are not on my own schedule. But I know I have plenty of things that I can find ways to adjust and move around. And I need to keep working on creating a daily schedule each day since that does help me feel better about my day. When I can see it written out, it helps me know that there is a time to do everything. I’m not trying to cram everything in when I might have some flexibility to do some work later.

I’m sure finding the balance of free time and being overscheduled will continue to be an issue for me. For all I know, in a week or two I’ll be writing about how I’m bored and want to do more things. In some ways, it’s nice to have this as a problem again because it does feel a bit normal to me. But I also know that I will move things around to make them better and things will be better for me for at least a little while. And maybe I’ll figure out the perfect way to start adding more things back to my schedule as they open up. I’ve been looking forward to things being safe again and I know I need to find the time to take advantage of those when I can!

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Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

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Another Work Meeting (or Starting To Plan How Work Will Go For Me)

Posted on February 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Another Work Meeting (or Starting To Plan How Work Will Go For Me)

Not too long ago, I had a meeting about my data entry job and what this year would look like for my work. Last year was a very weird year for that job. Because most of my work was centered around finding in-person events, it was very difficult to do. I also had to balance my job and unemployment because I needed to be at a certain level of work to keep my eligibility for unemployment for my other job. And the end of the year is always a bit weird for that job because I am only on temporary 1-year contracts, so I have to hope that I will get a new contract offered to me right away. Sometimes there is a gap in time between one contract ending and a new one starting, but they really try to keep it so there is no break in my work.

In my meeting, we discussed the issues I was having with finding events as well as work expectations for 2021. That’s when I officially found out I’d be getting a new contract right away, but I had assumed that would be the case. And we talked about increasing my hours again as well as changing up my work. And t the end of that meeting, I was feeling really great about things. My work was still going to be partially focused on finding in-person events and I’ll be doing about the same number of hours doing that as I have been doing. But I will be adding more hours doing some social media work that happens to be very similar to the work that I’m doing for my new job! It really worked out perfectly for me because they were looking for someone to do social media work and I just happened to get a new job doing that right before they asked me.

So I have known this change was going to come for a little bit, but a few things had to be set up before I started the new work. And last week, I finally had my mini-training meeting about the social media work. Fortunately, it’s not anything too different for me. It’s almost like my data entry work and social media work were mashed together and created a new job. So it’s the type of work that I’m already used to doing but with a different type of social media account. And we did discuss a bit more about expectations for what I will be able to get done each week, so I feel a bit better about making sure that I don’t feel like I’m slacking off with work.

And this week, I will be starting the additional work for that job. I’m always a little nervous about new work or work tasks, but I know I will ok doing this. I just have to get a few systems set up for myself so I can work efficiently and maximize my time. And once I’m in a routine with the new tasks, then I am going to start doing some more planning with my work life in general. While I don’t have the option right now to go back to my box office job, I have been told this may be coming soon. It depends a lot on when more shows will reopen. And I’m still trying to see if I can fit that job in now that I have other work.

But between my new job and the additional hours for my data entry job, I’m almost back to what I was making before everything shut down. I’m a little shocked that’s true because it almost felt like I couldn’t be back until I was back at my old job. But I guess getting my new job and the hours I work there have really helped me. I still feel like I’m dealing with unemployment even though I’m not.

And because I’m almost back at where I was before, that means I need to get more serious about budgeting again. I’ve slowly been working on getting back into my budgeting habit, but it wasn’t easy without feeling secure in my income. And that’s finally changing for me. And I need to start planning things forward instead of waiting for things to go back to how they were before. There aren’t a lot of things moving forward in my life these days, but this is one and I have to make sure I don’t ignore planning ahead just because other things are stagnant.

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Seeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now)

Posted on January 13, 2021 | Comments Off on Seeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now)

Last week was my first week with my normal schedule at my new job. I am glad I was eased into the new job since there was a lot to learn. So many things were similar to my old customer service job but just different enough that I had to be aware of what I was doing so I wasn’t doing what I did at the old job. It was good that I had a lot of time with training and a shorter schedule at first. Having a full week off for the holidays was a bit tough, but I took that time to work on reviewing everything I learned.

I’m not feeling totally confident with the new job, but I’m getting closer each day. I understand different processes and policies and the questions I have for my manager are becoming the more rare and specific things and not the general questions. I feel like this is progress and I’m proud of it. And while it’s not as many hours as I’ve worked before at my old job, it’s been a long time since I’ve worked this many hours so I’m getting used to not having my time be mine as much as it was for most of last year.

I also got an update from my data entry job and what the new contract would be like. The new contract is still being worked on, but I saw what they were thinking and my job is going to be transitioning a bit. I will be getting 4 times the hours I’ve had recently (although the reduced hours were partially at my request to deal with some things with unemployment), so I will be closer to the number of hours I had when I started years ago. But most of my hours will be moving away from the data entry work and going into doing some social media work.

This was something we discussed in our recent meeting about my new contract, so it’s not unexpected. How the hours will be split was slightly more unexpected because I thought it would be more focused on the data entry work. But I’m good with this idea and how it will be for me when I am working with the new contract (for now, I’m doing work as it was listed on the old contract, so I haven’t started the social media work yet).

Between the 2 jobs, it won’t add up to exactly 40 hours a week, but it will be close so I feel like it will still feel like full-time work. And while there could be some overlap with the hours I work, I feel like it won’t be as much as before. At least not at first as I need to pay more attention to my new job than I did for my old customer service job. At my old job, when we didn’t have customers to help, I was just sitting and waiting. With the new job, there are other tasks I need to work on when I am not assisting a customer. There is a bit of free time, but I am pretty busy during my hours each day.

And I know this is normal. Working and having a ton of free time is not normal and was a luxury that I got spoiled with. I planned my days in the past assuming that in a 7-hour shift I would probably have about 4 hours when I could do anything I needed to do as long as I was still at my computer. I would try to be productive during that free time working my data entry job or working on writing blog posts, but occasionally I would just watch videos online while waiting for a customer. Most people do not get to relax while they are working. Often they have to work after they are supposed to be done. I just got spoiled with how things were for me for so long.

But it’s not that bad. This is just something I have to get used to and I know it won’t be a huge struggle once I figure it out. I just have to work on my time management again with the new schedule. I have to plan out things during my before and after work time that before I might have done during work. I will still be able to fit everything in, especially since there is nothing I have outside of work right now. If I have to work on other things for a few hours after work, I’m not missing anything I had planned. I’m not going out to see anyone so all that time is mine. And it will be good to work through this plan while I have nothing else to do. Hopefully, by the time things are reopening, I will have a better idea of how to manage all my time, and my after-work time will be more stable from day to day.

I know how lucky I have been in so many ways. I am lucky with how my old job was with allowing me so much free time. I’m lucky I was able to do both jobs together because of my free time. I’m lucky that I got another job that is remote and pays well. I’m lucky that my other job is able to increase my hours so I should be making enough to be ok soon. And I’m lucky that I have the luxury of time right now and I don’t have to worry about taking care of others and I can be a bit selfish with what I do each day.

Just like with so much I’ve done lately with my schedule, I will figure out how to make it work and I have the time to slowly do that. I will need to get back into time management planning again, which is something I haven’t had to do in a while. But soon enough, I will have it down to a consistent plan and hopefully, it stays that way for a while.

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Feeling Optimistic About My Jobs (or Working This Year Has Been Weird)

Posted on December 24, 2020 | Comments Off on Feeling Optimistic About My Jobs (or Working This Year Has Been Weird)

When 2020 started, I was feeling like my job was pretty stable. Even though my box office job didn’t pay me enough to have it as my only job, it was a steady income that I could count on. And I did have my data entry job to help add to my income. I wanted to do some job hunting this year to find something better, but I also knew how lucky I was to have a job.

Then the pandemic hit and at first, my box office job wasn’t affected. Then it started to change. At first, I was working reduced hours but it was still bringing in decent money. Then it became 3 hours a week and almost no income. And then in August, I was officially let go from that job. My main income (and the job that felt most stable) was done for now. And there is no timeline for when my job will be back because it’s based on the pandemic ending. I had hoped earlier this year that things would be back by now. I still want to hope that they will be back by the spring, but I have also learned that things are so unpredictable.

And my data entry job has been a bit weird since the pandemic as well. Because so much of my work is based on adding events to a calendar, there was a sharp decrease in work for me. Some other factors changed my hours too, but they were things that were a bit more in my control and I was ok with the changes. I’m grateful that at least I had this job plus my unemployment this year. I don’t know what I would have done without it. But I also knew that I couldn’t just sit around and hope for the best.

And that’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful that I got my new job. While I won’t be working my full hours until January and I actually have the next week off, it’s been great! I’m feeling more and more comfortable with the work and what I need to do. And it will almost make up the income that I lost when I lost my box office job.

Plus, I’m really having a great time with this new job. Some of the work is stuff that I can apply in other parts of my life, which is fun! And it’s been awesome getting to know my new co-workers. It’s been all virtual stuff, but that’s ok. There was a work Zoom holiday party and it was nice getting to have time to meet everyone and get to know more about everyone outside of more professional and official stuff. And the best thing is that I feel appreciated. That’s not something you always have at every job. I feel so lucky that they appreciate my work and understand that I am a part of the team. I felt even more appreciated when earlier this week a gift basket arrived with a holiday present from the company!

I was not expecting a gift considering that I haven’t been there for an entire month yet. But it made me smile so much!

And the positive things continued when I had a meeting with my bosses from my data entry job. Technically, my contract ends on the 31st, but there will be a new contract that starts on the 1st. Things still have to be figured out and finalized, but it will be done and that’s a big relief. And in my meeting, I was able to be very honest about how I have been feeling about the job. Lately, I have felt like I was not doing my job because there aren’t things I can add to the website. I feel like I am almost wasting money. It was good to hear from my bosses that they don’t think that about me, but it also opened up the conversation to figure out the best way I can work on the new contract. I think there will be new jobs for me to do that are much more specific goals so I can have things to work toward and have a better way to do time management.

Hopefully, between my new job and the new way I will do my data entry job, things will be much better for me in 2021. And when my box office job comes back, I do hope that they offer me my job again. I don’t know how I would balance everything, but I would at least like the chance to try. But I’m in a much better place now to wait for that job to open than I was before. If it doesn’t come back until almost the end of next year, I will be ok. And I can look into managing all the jobs then. For now, I’m just focused on the jobs I have now.

This year has been such an up and down year for my jobs. It started in a pretty ok place, got bad, and it seems like things are going to end better than the year started. Even though I wanted to find a new job, I’ve had that goal for a while and never accomplished it. And I thought if I found a new job, it was going to be something that wasn’t interesting or that made me happy. This year has been full of so many surprises, and most of them have been bad surprises. So to have a good surprise to end the year is so nice!

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Getting More Used To My Schedule (or My First Full Week At The New Job)

Posted on December 16, 2020 | Comments Off on Getting More Used To My Schedule (or My First Full Week At The New Job)

Last week, I wrote about my new job and how I now have to work on maintaining a schedule again. And last week was a big whirlwind. Just from the time that I interviewed to the time that I was hired was crazy. And jumping immediately into the job was a bit overwhelming.

I told the people training me that’s how I was feeling and fortunately they understood. It’s a lot to take on and I had some assumptions about the job that were wrong. Most of the work in customer service is very similar to things I’ve been doing before, it’s just the method of the work that is different. For example, I’m used to helping customers on a chat system that runs through a website. It’s like instant messaging and the type of customer service chat that I think most of us are familiar with. But the new system is actually a text-based system. This does have a lot of benefits to it, but it changes how I will work and I will have to adjust to the idea that I won’t have customers sitting on a website as I help them. The assumption that the chat system was based on a website was completely on me, so it’s not like I was misled. I just didn’t think to ask and it’s been a bit switch in my thought process.

And of course, with any new job, there are new systems to learn and new protocols to follow. I’m very grateful that everything does seem to make sense and they are based on sites I’m familiar with. Even if it’s not the exact website I’ve used before, they have a lot of the same elements that I’m used to. That has made my training a little easier. At this point, I feel like I understand the job much more than before. I’m just working on putting together the pieces and the workflow of how things go. But that’s possibly something that I just have to jump into (with supervision) and start working through. And that will likely be happening this week.

I also got trained at the end of last week on the other part of my new job doing outbound engagement. Again, this is similar to something I have done before but different enough that I have to remember specific things. And it can be a bit scary starting something new that doesn’t have as much of a chance for starting with supervision, but I also feel confident that I can handle it. I know that I will likely be getting feedback and need to make some adjustments to the work I’m doing, but I’m expecting it so hopefully it will be easier when it happens. I just want the clients to be happy with my work and to have my work seem similar to what others do so they don’t realize I’m the new one doing this.

Because I’m still training for the customer service part of my job, my schedule is still not completely stable. Each day I work different hours as I learn different parts of the job. But this is just for training and soon I will be doing very steady hours for this work. It will likely be about 3 hours every morning, which might increase eventually but I accepted the job knowing it was probably only 3 hours a day. But I do also have 90 minutes of work for the outbound engagement side to do every day and I still have my data entry job that I do a few hours a week. I will eventually figure out how I want to schedule all my time, but for now, I’m just taking it day by day. I’m hoping once my schedule is regular, I can split up my outbound engagement to be partially before my customer service shift and partially after (doing 90 minutes in one sitting is actually harder than I expected). And I will try to fit in my data entry where I can. And if I find out that I can return to my other customer service job, I will figure it out at that point. But for now, I don’t expect to be asked if I want to come back for at least a few more months.

Right now, I am not making what I was making before, but it’s much closer than what it’s been for most of this year. And making any money is good these days. I will be losing my unemployment because of my work, but I’m ok with that. When we had the supplemental unemployment, things were different and I was doing ok. But since that ended, I was making only a fraction of what I was before. And if you make more than what you would get in unemployment, you don’t get it anymore. But I’ve been working with less money for most of this year, so I will be fine without it.

I know that the world is still far from normal, but things are finally starting to feel a bit more normal for me. I know that it’s not completely there and I cannot live this way the rest of my life, but having a regular schedule is something that I know I’ve needed. As much as I’ve tried to do this on my own, it’s nice to have something to actually work on every day. And any issues I’m having with figuring out how to schedule things are not that bad. It’s more about just getting adjusted to the new schedule and I know I will be ok before I know it. And because this is how things always work, as soon as I’m used to the new schedule I bet things will change again (hopefully, a change because I get my other job back). And then I’ll be back to figuring out my schedule again and I’ll have to just do it.

But for now, I’m just getting through my training and being really excited about my new job. I know I jumped right into working and it was a little much at first, but also I think I started at a good time because soon I will have shortened weeks because of the holidays. So hopefully that little break will be time for me to relax and be prepared to fully jump back in and make 2021 a much better year for me.

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Default ThumbnailGetting Myself Back On Schedule (or At Least This Is A Slow Transition) Default ThumbnailAnother Job Through A Friend (or Excited To Do Job Training) Default ThumbnailBack To Back Work Fails (or Attempting To Be Productive) Default ThumbnailA Little Job Update (or It Was Silly To Be Scared) Default ThumbnailGoodbye To July (or Looking Forward To Having Steady Work In August) Default ThumbnailTemp Job Time (or Feeling Like It’s An Old Job Again)

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Getting Myself Back On Schedule (or At Least This Is A Slow Transition)

Posted on December 10, 2020 | Comments Off on Getting Myself Back On Schedule (or At Least This Is A Slow Transition)

For most of this year, I haven’t had too much of a schedule. Once I had my work hours reduced, most of my days were free. When I lost my old customer service job, I did continue to log into our chat systems a few mornings a week to check in with my manager and to see if she needed me to help with anything. I wasn’t being paid to do that, but I also wasn’t really working. I mainly did it so I had something that I needed to do each morning. I didn’t want to get into a bad habit of sleeping in and not doing much each day. So those mornings helped to keep me on track.

Even when I’ve mostly been out of work, I rarely sleep in. There are 2 days a week that I can, but I don’t sleep in that often. Sometimes I’ll sleep in one of those days, but I have been pretty good about making sure I keep my sleep schedule somewhat consistent. The issue has been that I haven’t been going to sleep at the same time that I used to, so that was making me tired. I’ve been working on getting my sleep more on schedule, and I’m slowly getting there.

And now, I actually have a schedule to work with again. It’s not too crazy because  I’m only working a few hours each day, but it’s still something. And my schedule right now isn’t the same every day. It may get that way when I’m done with training and fully working. But right now, my schedule shifts each day to be a different time so I can be trained with different things.

Even with my old work schedule being slightly different each day, having a schedule that isn’t consistent from day to day is still tough to get used to. And because I’ve also been dealing with having almost no schedule for a while, I haven’t been great with time management. I only have had a few things I need to do each day and it didn’t really matter when I did them. So I got pretty lazy with when I was doing stuff. If I didn’t get to something until late at night, that was fine. I could put some things off for a day without it being an issue. I could do the things I wanted to do when I wanted to do them without worrying about a scheduling conflict.

Now, I still have a lot of flexibility, but I also have to be mindful about my schedule and making sure that I don’t start working on something right before I have to focus on something else. It’s not a big deal, but it’s enough of a change for me to really pay attention to what time it is and what I have to do each day. And I’m sure I’ve had this feeling before when I went from being unemployed to having a job, but it’s also a bit different because I’m still not going out to do things and most of the things I’m doing are in my home. So it feels a little less like a schedule than when I would have to go out for things and plan for traffic.

If I got my old job back before I started this new one, I would guess I would struggle almost more. Especially if I was brought back to my full schedule. It’s not easy to go from having almost all the free time in the world to a set schedule. At least with my new job, my schedule is only a few hours so I can still have a lot of the flexibility that I’m used to. I’m easing into the idea of having a schedule again. And I think I’m going to build upon it even more than I need to. While I don’t need to blog at the same time every day, I’d like to have that as a part of my schedule. I’ve also been doing my workouts at different times based on when I get up and going and I know that having a set schedule would be better for me. Especially if I think I might start trying the outdoor workouts. And I want to make my time to watch tv or do other lazy things set times instead of accidentally wasting away most of a day because I’m not focused on making sure I do other things.

I know that it might be a while before I need to have a more set schedule like what I’m thinking of doing, but I have the luxury right now to take my time to get back to that. I don’t have to worry about being on a schedule immediately. I can play around with things and see how it goes. Right now, it’s not a lot that has to be done at a specific time, but there are things that need to be that way. And I need to make other parts of my life work around it. But I see this as a positive thing. I’ve been a bit aimless lately and this will hopefully get me to feel a bit more grounded. Maybe this will help me get other things on track in my life. I don’t know if it will and I’m not expecting it. But it would be something nice if it did happen.

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Default ThumbnailWorking On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season) Default ThumbnailMaking Up A Schedule (or What To Do With My New Free Time) Default ThumbnailScheduling Without A Schedule (or Hoping To Make The Most of My Unemployment) Default ThumbnailReadjusting (or I Guess I Forgot What It Felt Like To Work My Work Schedule) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Default ThumbnailBeing Grateful To Have A Bit Of A Schedule (or Trying To Not Waste My Days)

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Another Job Through A Friend (or Excited To Do Job Training)

Posted on December 9, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Job Through A Friend (or Excited To Do Job Training)

My job situation has been not great since March. Even though I was still working my customer service job a bit from March until the beginning of August, I was only working limited hours. There was a point where I was only checking the voicemails and not doing much else with work. And since August, I’ve only been working my data entry job and that is already limited hours.

In normal times, job hunting is tough. Especially for me with trying to find a remote job. But job hunting during a pandemic is another thing. In one sense, almost all jobs are remote so that helps me a bit. But so many people are out of work so it’s been hard to even get to a job interview. I’ve been spending time every day looking for jobs and applying, with no luck. But then recently, a friend let me know about a job opening at their company.

They work for a social media management company and there was a position open to help with customer engagement. It was only about 1 hour a day, but any work right now is really good. So I sent in my resume and had a phone interview with the owner of the company. I’ve actually met the owner before through my friend, so the interview was pretty casual. I felt pretty good that I would be offered the job because of my background in other social media work. But in my phone interview, the owner and I started talking about my job situation and I mentioned how I was pretty much out of work. The owner had mentioned there might be an opening in their customer care department and I shared some of my stories from my job. He asked if I’d be interested in interviewing for the other position as well, and I said yes.

Last week, I had a Zoom interview for the customer care job. I made sure I was sitting in the spot in my house with the best lighting and I propped up my laptop so that it would be a better angle. I don’t have a stand or anything for my laptop, so I just stacked some books and mail and it worked.

The interview was with their customer care manager and my friend, so it ended up being pretty casual. But I felt really good about things after it and just hoped for the best. And on Monday, I found out I got the customer care job!

Between the 2 jobs, it will still be part-time work, but that’s ok with me. I still have my data entry job and there might be more hours for me in the future. I also still hope that I will be back to my other customer service job once theater shows are safer to go to. But for now, going from pretty much out of work to having a regular part-time job is amazing!

This week I’ll be doing training every day and I’m not sure when I’ll officially be starting with my hours. But I’m not worried about that. I’m just excited that I have a new job since this is something I’ve been working on for a while. And like all the other jobs I’ve had recently, this is another job through a friend. I don’t know why it’s ended up that way, but it is true that you have a better chance of getting a job. And I’ve been lucky that my friends have been referring me to jobs that are perfect for me.

Having a new job is a great way to end this year and start next year. I hope that is a sign of other positive things to come my way! And I’m so happy that not only do I have a new job (which I needed), but it’s a new job I’m excited about. That makes things even better.

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On Hold With Work For Now (or It’s Now A Waiting Game)

Posted on August 5, 2020 | Comments Off on On Hold With Work For Now (or It’s Now A Waiting Game)

When the pandemic hit, I knew my day job doing customer service was going to be affected. And it was affected in stages. First, my hours were cut in half (same as my salary). That went on for a little while. And when that was happening, it was only me and my manager working. My manager did work a little more than I did, but we still pretty much were working together as a team.

Then, my manager had to take leave. I’m not going to go into why because that is her business, but she let me know that she wouldn’t be working and it was going to just be me. And when that happened, my hours and pay got cut even more. I was down to working only 3 hours a week (1 hour a day for 3 days a week) and my pay was cut even more. It was less than my hourly pay would be for 3 hours, but I also understood that the company wasn’t bringing in any money because all of our locations were closed down. So any payments that I could get was nice. And it wasn’t too hard because we also didn’t have a lot of customers. But even though my manager wasn’t working, she would still log in to our chat system to keep me company and to help me out when I needed an extra set of eyes to do some research.

And that’s what my life has been like for the past few months. Minimal work, but I also was collecting unemployment (you can collect to make up what you aren’t earning if you have reduced hours). It wasn’t ideal, but it was what it was and I was grateful to have some schedule and sense of normalcy.

Then things changed again.

Last week, I was put on hold from my customer service job. My manager was going to take over the hours that I was doing (which does make sense as she is the manager and there are some higher-level things they are going to try to work on now). And I was technically out of a job. I do still have my other job doing research, but that is limited hours to begin with. Fortunately, I’m not going to be losing money since I will get it in my unemployment now instead of my paycheck (although we did lose the $600 bump which is something I really needed). And I am going to log into the chat system for the hours I was working to be there for my manager the way that she was there for me. I’m technically not working when I’m logged in, but I’m there so she’s not alone and if she needs help looking something up in the ticketing system I can do so. And just like I was grateful for the limited hours I had to make things feel a bit normal, I’m grateful to be logging in so that I feel like I have a schedule and responsibility.

The owner of the company did tell me that the plan is to hire me back as soon as they can. But we don’t know when things will be back to normal again. It’s hard when our shows are large crowds in a room sitting at tables together. It’s exactly what you aren’t supposed to be doing right now. There are a few cities that are open and have shows because their case numbers are low enough, but it’s a fraction of what is normally open. But I do feel grateful that the owner said that he was planning on bringing me back. I don’t feel like I was fired. I’m just on hold until I can return to work. I still consider myself an employee of the company and there is no reason for me to think that when work starts up again that I won’t be coming back.

I’m really hoping that the unemployment bump returns because that will make me feel much more comfortable about my situation right now. I am much luckier than most people because I do have some money saved that I was hoping to use for something fun or for a future down payment on a condo, but I can use it for rent and bills if necessary. I also know I can ask my parents for help if I really need it. I’m so grateful for those options, but I hope that I don’t have to use them.

I did work on my resume and update it (and used a new template to make it look better) and I probably will look into other remote jobs that have openings right now. I don’t necessarily want to find a new job, but unless I know the unemployment bump is coming back I will need to figure out how to make money. Maybe I’ll luck out and find something that is remote and temporary and I can go back to my customer service job when that is back. I know there are jobs right now for grocery stores or delivery services because those are needed, but because I do have a higher risk of getting sick I don’t feel like taking one of those would be the best thing. So I’m only looking at openings for remote work.

I know I will get through this time. This is temporary. Things will be reopening again and my job will be coming back. I would love to know exactly when that would be happening or to have an idea of how long this will last, but we really don’t know. I doubt any of us expected to still be in this situation in August. Especially with it being worse than it was before. But eventually, it will be better. And I’ll be back to work and so will my co-workers. I do miss working with them and I can’t wait until we are virtually reunited and back to what we are used to.

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