Tag Archives: work

Work Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs)

Posted on July 21, 2017 | 1 comment

Work has been pretty busy for me lately. Busy can be good sometimes though. For my research job, I just finished working on the big database update we do each year and doing that job means I get to make more money (it’s on a different contract than my main job). And extra money does always help out with things. My main box office job is the same as always, although we are getting back into the busy season again so things have been a bit crazier. And I’m still doing my occasional in person box office job and might be working a few shifts this fall.

I’m in a pretty stable place with my day jobs right now and that’s something that has been hard to get to. But of course, nothing ever stays stable with work but this time it seems like the change might be all positive.

With my research position, there is a chance there will be a job opening that I would be right for. It would be a full-time position so I’m assuming I’d be making more money. It would still be a remote position so I could work from home. And depending on what the pay would be like, there is the potential that it could be the only main day job I would need. I don’t plan on quitting my main box office job any time soon (I wouldn’t do that until I have paid my credit card off completely), but it would be nice to have the potential to only have one main day job.

I don’t know when this job would become available or if I would get it. But it is nice to know that my boss knows that I am always looking for better opportunities for myself and thought of me. But even if I don’t get that new position, I’m very happy in the job I have now and the flexibility I have with it. It’s a luxury that I appreciate so much.

And there are more potential changes with other work. My occasional box office job is a job I got through my old boss at my telesales job (that’s the job I was working when I started this blog). I rarely see him since I work the job when he can’t be at the venue for the shows, but we still stay in touch pretty often. And he let me know about a job possibility that is actually at the old company I used to work for.

This job would be a temporary telesales position for the next month or so. I would be able to work from home and it would pay only commission (no hourly pay). But the commission would be much higher than any job I’ve had and the potential is there to make a pretty decent amount of money in a short period of time. I do miss commission jobs a bit since it was always nice to have a paycheck that was double or triple what I had the paycheck before. It always felt like a nice present!

My old/current boss is passing my information on to the people who are running this telesales campaign and they are supposed to get in touch with me soon. But from what I understand, it’s looking very likely that they will hire me to work this gig because they remember how much I was able to raise when I worked the old telesales job.

It’s good that this job would be temporary because if I do it I’ll be getting close to working 80 hours a week. That’s a lot, but since most of my jobs can overlap it’s not really 80 hours a week. But I don’t think I could maintain that sort of schedule, pace, or balance for more than a month or two. So hopefully I can make a lot of sales in that job and then when it’s done I’ll be able to relax and know that I made a nice amount of money.

If I do get that telesales job, I would love to put all the money I make from it toward my credit card. If I could cut my credit card debt in half, that would be incredible and I would be so happy! And there is a chance that this job would actually allow me to do that! I know that I’m not just working as hard as I do right now to pay off debt, but to have that weight off my shoulders would be so nice and is a goal that I’ve been working toward for a very long time.

As of right now, both of these new work possibilities are only maybes. Hopefully in the next week or month I’ll have a better idea of what might be coming up. But I have to say that I’m feeling really optimistic about work stuff right now and it’s been a while since I’ve felt that way. It’s nice and I’m really feeling like things are turning around for me in this aspect of my life. It gives me hope that more things will change for the better for me soon.

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Default ThumbnailBusy Busy Busy (or Triple Job Day) Default ThumbnailDouble Shift Days (or Hoping To Make Enough Money By Payday) Default ThumbnailUnderemployment Is Frustrating (or Trying To Find The Balance Of Flexibility And Work Hours) Default ThumbnailGoodbye To July (or Looking Forward To Having Steady Work In August) Default ThumbnailWork Work Work (or Another Very Part Time Job) Default Thumbnail2 Jobs 1 Day (or What My New Normal Might Look Like)

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Adventures In Banking (or More Customer Service Stories)

Posted on October 14, 2016 | 1 comment

Since I work in customer service, I know that sometimes someone is having a good day and sometimes someone is having a bad day. As a customer service rep,  I can’t make every customer happy (I just got in trouble yesterday by a customer who called me rude to the owner of the company I work for because I refused to do things that I either have no authority or legal right to do). I’m aware that because of my job in customer service, I can be a tough customer from time to time. I do expect a lot out of customer service reps since that’s the standard that I have for myself, and I really hate when I have a bad experience.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of customer service people from banks lately. After setting up my DBA for work, I’ve had to do a couple of things and one of those things was getting a business bank account set up. My first stop was my current bank since it would be easiest to have everything in one place. Unfortunately, I would have to pay $15 a month to have a business bank account until I had a minimum balance in the account which was higher than I’m comfortable with.

Even though I couldn’t do the account at my bank, they were so nice to me there. They looked into some possible loopholes that might be able to get the fee waived for me, they tried to find other options, and they really did everything they could to try to find a solution that would make me happy. I’m sure that they also want to keep my business, but any bank should want my business whether or not I’m already a customer.

I ended up doing some searching online for business bank accounts with no monthly fee and found a bank that happens to be one block away from my current bank. My first attempt to go there to talk to someone was not a success because I forgot it was Columbus Day and the bank was closed (totally my fault for not looking into bank holidays). But I was able to go back the next day and that’s exactly what I did.

When I arrived nobody greeted me or asked me what I was at the bank to do (they do that at my current bank), so I waited in line to talk to a teller to find out what to do. They directed me over to some chairs and said there was one person ahead of me needing to discuss business accounts. I took a seat and got my book out to read.

The person ahead of me went back and before they did, a bank employee came to look to see if I had the paperwork I needed to open a business account. They quickly glanced at everything, said it was fine, and said they’d be back soon to help me. I ended up waiting almost 2 hours to be helped. By the time they got to me, the bank was closed. But since I had been waiting since before they closed, they weren’t going to send me away.

They started to look at my paperwork and process things and then told me that I needed $100 to open an account. I’m aware that this is my fault, but nobody told me how much I needed to open an account and I didn’t have $100 in cash (or a blank check) with me. I asked if there was any way I could run over to my bank and get cash from the ATM, but they said that since they were already closed that if I left to get money they couldn’t let me back in.

I left that bank feeling pretty annoyed. In the 2 hours I was sitting and waiting, I easily could have gone to my bank and had the cash that I needed. When they came to check my paperwork to see if I had what I needed, they could have told me that I needed $100 or they couldn’t open the account. But instead I wasted 2 hours sitting on my butt in a bank with nothing accomplished.

I put a bit of a rant up on Facebook that evening because I decided that even though they seemed to be the best option for a free business account, I didn’t want to give them my business. I deserved to be treated better than how they treated me. I never should have waited as long as I did because my time is valuable. And I wasn’t going to be devalued again.

A few of my friends recommended a credit union that they believed had free business accounts. So yesterday, I headed over to the credit union to talk to them. First, I have to say that doing business in a credit union that is housed in a building owned by a major studio is pretty fun. In the entryway there were a bunch of props and other things from movies the studio has done before. And in the credit union, they’ve got a lot of movie themed stuff (sorry that I didn’t get any pictures of it!).

I wasn’t able to get my account set up while I was there because I actually need some more paperwork that I will be getting from the LA County courts in the next few weeks. But once I can do that, I can set up the account (and while it’s not always free, there’s a low enough balance requirement that I can handle it).

Even though I couldn’t do the bank account at the moment and that was discovered within minutes of sitting down, I couldn’t have asked for a better customer service experience. The woman helping me was more than willing to answer all my questions that I’ve been coming up with. I’ve never opened a business bank account so this is all new and sometimes overwhelming to me. But she was patient and took her time making sure that when I left there that I had all the answers I needed and that I knew exactly what I needed to bring with me the next time I come in.

Hopefully my paperwork from the court will come soon so I can set everything up, but there is no question that I am going to go with the credit union (as long as everything works out for me) instead of the bank. I want my money to be a place where I feel comfortable going in to talk to a banker or where I know that they won’t waste my time. It’s important to feel good about where you are giving your business, and clearly the customer service experiences that I had influenced me.

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Looking Forward To Some Big Spending (or Needing New Technology)

Posted on September 30, 2016 | Comments Off on Looking Forward To Some Big Spending (or Needing New Technology)

I’ve written before about how I really need a new computer soon. This realization hit me hard when the new iPhone came out. I discovered that the new iPhone (at least the most expensive one) has more storage on it than I do on my computer. The fact that a phone could have more room on in than my computer is sad and a sign that I’m getting desperate.

I’m still waiting on the announcement of the new MacBook Pro. I’m not going to buy an old computer which is my only option now. So I have to wait until whenever Apple decides to release a new one and I’m sure that there will be an insanely high demand for it so I will possibly have to wait before I can get my hands on one. I’m still hoping that a new computer will be released in the next few months because there are more and more projects I want to work on that will require a better and faster computer that has more storage than what I have now.

When the new iPhone came out, I thought that maybe I’d look into it since my phone has been acting a bit off lately. Nothing was too bad but I’ve had this phone for 3 years (sadly, that’s pretty long in iPhone life) and it was something I was thinking about. I was hoping the new iPhone would be a smaller size (like my 5s), but the new ones are still pretty big and I don’t really love them. Plus, since next year will be the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the iPhone, everyone is saying that one will be a huge overhaul compared to what we have now.

A few days after the new phone was released, my phone started acting up more. Now, I have an average battery life of 3-6 hours (that’s with only using it for maybe 1 hour total). The standby time on my phone should be much longer than that and it’s pretty bad. My phone battery will show that it is at 70% and a second later it goes down to 1% and shuts down. This isn’t the end of the world, but it is an inconvenience. I have one external battery that gets me a full charge on my phone, but I just bought another external battery that should get me 2 full charges. I’m also looking into battery replacement as a possible fix.

I also have an older iPad that has not been able to upgraded to a new operating system in a while (I think I’m using an iOS that is 2 or 3 versions ago). But I’m totally fine with my iPad for what I use it for right now so I’m not too worried about it.

I’m aware that I probably sound really spoiled and should be happy with the technology I have now since it is more than what many people have. And I am so grateful for everything I have and in no way am upset that I don’t have the latest and greatest. I don’t care for the best, I just want stuff that works.

If my phone was able to hold a charge for more than 6 hours on standby, I’d have no concerns and would probably keep the phone for another year or more. If my computer wasn’t flipping out on me on an almost daily basis, I would keep it because I love my computer. It’s just that technology doesn’t last forever and it seems like all of my stuff has decided to reach the end of its life at the same time. I’ve got the money saved up for a new computer and I’m ready to spend it the second I can on the new one when it is released.

I’m not sure I’m totally ready to spend money on a new phone (nor do I have that money really available to me right now), but I’m realizing that it is time to start saving for that and for possibly a new iPad. I don’t love the idea that I’ll potentially be spending a ton of money on new things when I know that any money I save for them should really be going toward paying down my debt. But I guess this is what I get for working from my phone and computer and needing everything to work in order to be paid.

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Default ThumbnailLetting Go (or Technology Really Is Important In My Life) Default ThumbnailUnexpected Birthday Present (or I Love Having Technology That Works!) Default ThumbnailHoping To Fix My Computer (or Can The New MacBook Pros Please Come Out Soon?) Default ThumbnailBudgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier) Default ThumbnailRestoring My Computer (or Glad For A Backup) Default ThumbnailSplurging On Technology (or I Guess I Had To Get A New Phone)

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Posted in Saving, Shopping, Tough Stuff

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Being A Business (or Making Things Official)

Posted on September 29, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve been running this blog for a pretty decent amount of time so far. I’ve gotten packages delivered to my house with my address and the name as “Finding My Inner Bombshell” with no issues. I haven’t made any money on this blog so I haven’t had any issues with checks coming in with the blog name. But I’ve known for a while that it would be smart to create a fictitious business name for the blog, I just never got around to it.

I also started a production company a while ago. I really haven’t done much with it, but it will be listed as one of the production companies for “Single Parent Date Night”. I had another project in mind for my production company, but it fell apart when another project with the same concept came out and had a lot of positive press. But many people produce their own work so having my own production company is a good thing for me. Again, I haven’t made money in my production company name, but I figured creating a fictitious business name would be a smart thing to do.

A few weeks ago, I found out that with one of my day jobs they will not be able to pay us as individuals anymore. It’s a long story, but basically we all needed to have a business that they could pay us through. We had the option to create a sole proprietor or a LLC, and after doing research (and realizing how expensive a LLC would be each year), I decided it was time to make both the blog and my production company official.

Fortunately, there is so much stuff online about how to create a DBA and it’s not a horrible process to have to go through. I had to submit some paperwork to make sure that neither the blog nor the production company names were taken already (neither were but I had a moment of wondering if I had screwed up for not doing it sooner). Then there was some paperwork to fill out online and I got a bar code to bring with me to the county courthouse to pay and complete.

The county courthouse was a pretty easy step and I was prepared with all my paperwork and money (possibly over prepared because I did more forms that was required) and I was out of there quickly. Another step I had to do is to get my DBA announcements into a newspaper for 4 weeks. Fortunately the county website lists dozens of eligible newspapers and their prices so I went with one of the cheapest ones (that actually price matched so it became the cheapest one) and my announcements will be in the paper soon.

This is all very professional and official, but because it was so easy for me it’s a bit hard to believe that I’ve officially created 2 businesses for myself. I’ll be setting up a business banking account in the next few weeks (I need that for the day job) with my DBA names on it so I can start being paid as my blog or production company if I ever make money off of either.

This was a step I had to do to keep my day job, but I’m glad I was forced into doing this. I needed to do it eventually and I didn’t have a good reason to do it so I was procrastinating. But it was really a simple process and it’s pretty much all down so I’m officially a business owner now of 2 different businesses! I think that’s pretty exciting!

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Day Job News (or Things Are Getting Better)

Posted on September 8, 2016 | Comments Off on Day Job News (or Things Are Getting Better)

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my day jobs. For the most part, things are the same as always. I’m still working my box office job plus my data entry/calendar management job from home. I’m also working for my old boss time to time with in person box office work and I still babysit on occasional weekends. My hours each week range from 43 to 68 hours in a week depending on how many hours I work my occasional jobs, but even at the lowest number a week I’m finally making a more livable income.

What I’m making isn’t making it easy to pay off my credit card debt. I was recently able to pay off about 5% of what my remaining debt is, but that’s less than I was hoping. I really felt like I’d have it paid off by now, but I think it’s going to be a bit more time before it’s gone. But each of the jobs I work adds to my income and adds to what I can pay off each month so I’m grateful for each work hour I get.

But while I’m not making as much money as I would love to make, I’ve gotten some pretty awesome news with all of my jobs in the past few weeks. It started with my occasional box office job. I’m going to have the opportunity to have more shifts in a month now. There needs to be some coverage for the box office at other shows than the ones I typically work, so I’ll get a couple of extra shifts. Each of the extra shifts will only be 2 hours, but I might be able to get 3 of those in a month. 6 extra hours isn’t a lot, but that money will pay off one or two utilities bills at a time so it adds up!

I also got some good news about my work from home box office job. A few weeks ago I got an email from the owner of the company asking me to call him. My first thought was that I was fired (even though there was no reason I should be fired) so I called him back immediately. The stuff he needed to talk to me about was only about how our pay system works (he needed some information from me that he didn’t have) so I didn’t have to worry about anything. And during that call, he asked me if I was having any issues with the job that he should know about.

I told him that while I love working this job, it’s not giving me all the flexibility I was expecting when I took the job. Since I don’t get scheduled for full shifts each day, I have the potential to work an extra 2 hours each weekday if I had to make up hours. I’ve made up hours in the past when I go out-of-town or have a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day. It’s never been too big of a deal, but I’ve always had to go through both my boss and manager.

Fortunately, the owner agreed with me that flexibility should be fine since I do have those hours each week that I usually don’t work that can be used as make-up hours. I just have to go through my manager (which is easier since we are both on chat together every work day) and I can make up the hours based on when we feel it would be best. Now I have the flexibility for auditions that I’ve been needing and hopefully as I get more auditions this arrangement will continue to work for us all.

The last day job I got great news about was my data entry/calendar management one. When I was hired, it was just under a 2 year contract. The end of that contract is coming up at the end of this month and I’ve been stressing a bit about if that contract wasn’t going to be extended. That job is over half of my income each month, so I need that money. I just got the email this week that my contract is going to be extended for at least another year! The budget is still being worked out so the number of hours each week may change (I don’t know if that would go up or down), but as long as I’m still working that job at least I know I’ll have some more regular income coming in.

But since I was so worried about that job not getting an extension on the contract, I’ve been spending time over the past month looking for another job that I could do. I focused mainly on jobs that I could do along with the jobs I already have, but I was also open to finding a full-time job that had the flexibility I need. There really aren’t a ton of full-time jobs with flexibility (more people who have those either start as part-time or start with no flexibility), but then I was listening to a podcast that had an interview with a woman who owns a virtual assistant company.

In the past, I’ve tried to get jobs as a virtual assistant. But so many of those companies require you to use a PC and I have a Mac. I didn’t want to have to buy a different computer just to work a job with, so I never applied to them. But when I found out that the company that was interviewed loves people who have Macs, I applied immediately! Because of my schedule and when they could do Skype interviews it took a bit of time before I could interview for the company, but I finally had my interview this week and it went really well! The next step is to wait to see if they have a client that needs a virtual assistant that matches my skill set. And things tend to start at 5 hours a week, which I feel pretty confident that I could do.

Eventually, the virtual assistant job can be more hours (and you can take on more than one client), so over time it may become one of my main day jobs. I’m not thinking that far in advance right now, but it doesn’t hurt to have some potential plans in mind when I’m looking at new day jobs. Of course, I hope that sooner rather than later a day job won’t be necessary as I will hopefully make all my income with acting. But I also have to be realistic.

Considering that not long ago I was completely out of work and feeling hopeless with my day job situation, I’m pretty happy with how things are going right now. They can always be better, but I think the path I’m on is one of the better ones that I’ve had lately. I’m finally feeling some stability, I can make some plans for purchases I’d like to make, and I’m making steps on my debt reduction. I can’t ask for that much more than that.

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Default ThumbnailTime To Make A Game Plan (or Guess I’ll Be Doing Some Job Hunting) Default ThumbnailStaying Super Busy (or Another Job) Default ThumbnailWork Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs) Default ThumbnailEarly Days (or 2 Weeks Of Long Shifts) Default ThumbnailMaking Ends Meet (or Needing a Side Job to My Side Job) Default ThumbnailJob vs. Career (or Being Undercover At My Day Job)

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Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

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Missing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management)

Posted on May 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Missing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management)

This week has been a pretty crazy busy week for me. I’ve been very busy with the day jobs, including learning how to do a new task for my research job. I now have 4 extra hours a week plus a new aspect of my job that takes up 50% of my hours. I’ve done some phone training, but we’ve also had a bunch of technical issues and it’s required so many phone calls and emails back and forth (I’m so grateful that my boss is chill about all this).

I’m very happy to have the new tasks and the additional hours because the extra money helps and I want to make sure that this day job continues beyond when my contract ends in October. But learning new things and trying to balance the hours split between the two jobs for one job has been a bit much. I’m finally starting to get into a good groove with the new work and things are much more normal, but that definitely affected the beginning of my week.

And the beginning of this week was supposed to be pretty packed with social events. But because of the stress I was dealing with from the job, I had to make the decision not to go to them.

I’m not too happy about missing the events. Both of them were actor events. And I know I’m been slacking a bit with my acting career lately. I need to make more of an effort to make my career a priority. But that’s not easy when the money-making jobs need to happen too. I thought I had figured out a good balance, but all the technical issues really made me have to reorganize my time and figure out what things had to be sacrificed. And sadly, the free acting related things had to be sacrificed over the money-making jobs.

Time management isn’t usually my weakness, but I’ve realized that flexible time management is. I get my schedule set for the week (or day), but I don’t allow for issues to come up. I have to get from one thing to another really quickly at times, and if there is a delay it can affect multiple things at once. The delay isn’t usually traffic (I typically give myself double the time I’m expecting it to take to get somewhere), but something in my life that stops me in my tracks and requires my attention before I can move on. Sometimes, these things aren’t avoidable like health issues (panic or gallbladder attacks can easily ruin an entire day). But I need to be aware of other issues that might need extra time and to build that into my day at some point.

I am glad I stayed home to work on the things I had to do, but I can’t help but feel that there may have been another way for me to deal with them and still make it to the events that I want to go to. I’ve been looking at my upcoming calendar and the fun events I have planned. I want to make sure that I can add in some flexible time in there to help make sure that I can do whatever needs to be done without missing out on the events.

I think the reason why this has never really been an issue for me before is that I’ve never been as busy as I’ve been lately. I miss the days where I only had 1 day job and that was it. It was super easy to schedule around that because my hours were pretty set and nothing would change. While my box office job hours don’t change (unless they need me to cover for someone or I have to make up hours), my research hours can be at any time. I try to do them around the same time as the box office job, but sometimes they have to be done late at night. I try to keep things as stable as possible, but life happens and since my job isn’t restricted to certain hours I can’t say that if I miss work at a certain time that I get to skip it. I have to find the time to make it up.

I can’t go back in time to fix the scheduling issues so that I could attend the events that I wanted to go to. All I can do is learn from the mistakes that I made (or the issues that I experienced) and try to make things better for me for the future. Hopefully, I can find a great way to balance out life and work and I can make acting events a priority in my life again.

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Default ThumbnailStaying Super Busy (or Another Job) Default ThumbnailBack To Normal (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailI Got A New Day Job, Sort Of (or Maybe I Won’t Be Unemployed For Long) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Default ThumbnailGetting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work) Default ThumbnailFitting It All In (or Getting Better At Time Management)

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Posted in Acting, Tough Stuff, Work

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Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Comments Off on Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Even though I was only gone to Santa Barbara for a couple of days, when I got back to LA it felt like I had been gone for a lot longer. I’ve done other weekend getaways before, but for some reason it felt like this one was different. I’m glad I was out-of-town as long as I was (I had time to relax and see my family), but I’m also happy to be home.

The first thing I had to catch up on was work. I did miss work on Saturday last week (which was fine because I had worked extra hours not too long ago to cover for a co-worker), so I had to see what had happened while I was gone and if there was anything weird that I needed to know about. I ended up logging into my work email on a day off to see what went on while I wasn’t working and I looked at some of the issues that my co-workers had to make sure I was ready for any customers with the same issues. It didn’t take too long, but since my brain was in vacation mode a bit it seemed to take longer.

Also, in my other day job, I’m getting more hours soon. I can’t start the new hours until I have some training (and they might have to set me up with some work computer stuff), but since I know that it’s coming up I want to make sure I’m prepared. I’m trying to do as much as I can now with my current responsibilities because I know that when I get my extra hours my time needs to be split between my current work and the new work that I’m being trained on. I need to figure out a good time management system to split up my hours and I’m trying to look at that now before I have the extra responsibility to deal with.

I’ve also been busy working on the short film my friend wrote for us to star in. We have our director and our director got us a great producer. We’ve had a couple of phone meetings to work on budget and other things and we are all hopeful that things will be ready to go at the end of May when we are hoping to shoot. Even though I’ve produced a documentary before, working on a narrative (scripted) film is very different and there are things to think about that I didn’t have to worry about with the documentary. Fortunately, everyone else is much more experienced than I am so they can help guide me to what I need to help with. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m so excited to be working on this project and seeing what ends up happening with it after it is done.

Besides all of that work plus the usual stuff that I have to do every week (errands can get annoying and time-consuming!), I’ve been running around like crazy and I’m finally starting to feel caught up on life. I have some really fun adventures coming up over the next few weeks and I don’t want to have to stress about not having a ton of free time to catch up on other things. It seems like I have weeks where everything is overbooked and crazy and then weeks where I’ve got nothing to do. I wish the weeks would be a bit more mixed up, but I’m dealing with the craziness (and lack of sleep) just fine for now and I know soon enough I’ll be wishing I had more stuff to do.

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Default ThumbnailMissing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Default ThumbnailEvil Twin Brunch (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailThe First Mentee Meeting Of The Year (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailGoing From So Much Excitement To Normal In A Few Hours (or Life As An Actor) Default ThumbnailFeeling Like Normal In More Ways Than One (or Getting Better)

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Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

Posted on March 10, 2016 | Comments Off on Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

It’s really tough as an actor when you feel l like you aren’t making any momentum in your career. I haven’t had an audition in a while and that’s a bit frustrating. Right now there are no improv classes at a time that works for me, so I can’t enroll in the next level of classes. I’m not really losing weight so I don’t need new headshots or other things like that. And there’s not too much I can do about those things.

I know that so many people say that actors should focus on creating their own roles and projects, but I’m not a writer. I can write on here and on other blogs, but it doesn’t translate to writing a script. I’ve tried writing even little sketches and even those are difficult for me and I get really annoyed I can’t translate what I want to say to paper.

But I’m lucky that I’ve got several friends who are writer types and want to collaborate with me. And over the past week I’ve been able to find time to meet with a couple of them and now I finally feel like I’m moving forward again

I hate that I have to be really discrete on these projects, but they are all in the super early stages so I don’t want to say too much. I’m not trying to be cool by not sharing things.

With one of my friends, she and I are working together on a non-acting idea. We’ve got an idea for an event we want to do that is somewhat entertainment industry related, but it’s not an acting thing. We came up with this idea super randomly and it snowballed from there. We are coming up with plans and logistics and I really think that this could be something really cool and easy to accomplish this year if we get the right people working with us. Even though it’s not acting specific, because it’s something that seems fun to me it still activates the same creativity side of my brain. She and I are also talking about how we should work on an acting project together, but that’s not the first priority right now.

I also met with a writer friend of mine recently. She and I have discussed doing a project with a bunch of friends in the past and I think that we can finally start working on that idea more. We don’t have an idea for a script or characters, but I think this would be the type of project that we need to be inspired to do and not just write it because we want to write something. Hopefully something soon will inspire us and we will have something fun to work on together this year.

And finally I’ve got a friend who is a writer and just wrote us a short film. He and I had talked on the phone and I guess he got inspired to write a 2 person short film and had me in mind for the other character (he wrote it for me so there are aspects of it that fit me perfectly). He sent me the script as soon as he wrote and I read it, loved it, and emailed him back with a couple of notes. He sent me another version and we decided to meet up to work on it together.

We met on Tuesday after work and discussed ideas and plans for the short film (I’m always a “think big” person so I’ve got big ideas for it). There are a couple of things in the script that could be changed to make a bit more sense (they are all minor things) and we came up with some really funny ideas for the beginning and end of the film to make it a more well-rounded script that would be a great showcase piece for both of us as actors and for him as a writer. If he and I could find a crew to help us shoot this short, I think we could have it done and edited by the summer to share with everyone.

It’s so nice that I’ve been able to have so many friends who are self-motivated like I am but are in the parts of the industry that I’m not so great at. If I had to write my own projects, it would never happen. I would be endlessly frustrated and never finish anything. Or I would just make little improv-based movies which can be fun, but they aren’t always that great without a decent outline to keep the plot on track. Having friends who are strong where I am weak and want to collaborate really is awesome.

I’m hoping that by the end of 2016, whether or not I have another audition, that I’ll have at least 2 projects that I’ve been in this year. It’s totally possible, but I need to just focus on who I know who can work with me and not the fact that I can’t write. If I focus on the positives and work on creating work with others, there’s no reason why I can’t have new credits to my name this year.

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Default ThumbnailCast and Crew Read Through (or We Get To Make A Movie!) Default ThumbnailTable Read (or Spending My Saturday Acting) Default ThumbnailA Lunchtime Meeting (or Feeling Very LA) Default ThumbnailWorking On A New Plan (or Self-Producing) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting) Default ThumbnailTweetup Time (or Back To Acting)

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Tax Time (or Happy To Owe The Government Some Money)

Posted on March 8, 2016 | 1 comment

I just had my taxes done last week and it was a totally different experience than I’ve ever had. So I wanted to share it with all of you in case you are still looking for a tax preparer.

In the past, I’ve always had my parents’ accountant do my taxes. When I lived at home (when I was working in high school), my parents just brought him what I made and to be honest I have no idea if I ever owed anything. Those jobs were pretty part-time and if I did owe something, maybe my parents helped me out. Once I moved to LA, I got a tax preparation packet from the accountant in the beginning of each year. I’d fill it out, make a list of my deductions, and stick all of that plus my W2 and 1099 forms in an envelope and mailed it to my parents. They brought it in for me and everything was done. I’d get a letter in the mail a few weeks later either saying how much I owed or how much I’d get back.

It was fine, but I realized last year that I needed to be a much more active participant in my taxes. 2015 was the first year that all of my income was 1099. And while I did pay estimated taxes (although I’d learn not enough so I still had a penalty), I knew I’d owe more money. I was prepared to owe money and had been saving about 1/3 of every paycheck I got. But I was still worried that it wasn’t enough.

So many of my actor friends recommended going to Chuck Sloan and Associates for taxes, so I made an appointment there. They are cheapest if you go in January or February (although they are always pretty affordable), so I made my appointment for the last day of February. Even before my appointment, I became a fan of the office. I had to change my appointment time a couple of times due to conflicts that came up, and they never seemed annoyed or bothered by that. They just gave me a new time and seemed happy that I’d be coming in.

Since I work from home, I wasn’t sure what the rush hour situation would be like on the freeway (the office is in the valley). I gave myself a little over an hour to get there, but made it in 20 minutes! So I sat in my car and listened to podcasts while I waiting for my appointment time.

Chuck Sloan

I was assigned Daphne as my tax preparer. And even though I know I was assigned to her randomly, I felt like it was fate that she was helping me. She totally got how nervous I was about everything and we chatted a bit about our mutual love of podcasts before getting down to business.

I had explained to Daphne that while I had saved money and paid estimated taxes that I was so worried that I would still owe more than I could afford. So instead of doing everything at once, she entered all of my income, unemployment information, and health insurance information to show me the absolute worst case scenario I could be in.

And even that was less than what I had saved!

I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to figure out where to get extra money to pay my taxes that I burst into tears. I was crying out of relief from the stress I had felt from the past year and from the joy knowing that the first time I tried to be more involved in my taxes that I did do something right.

Daphne was happy to explain all the deductions that she entered for me. I was terrified to put down a home office because I’ve heard that is often a red flag for the IRS. I do work my jobs from home, so it is totally reasonable for me to put down a home office on my taxes. It still makes me a bit nervous that I did that, but Daphne reassured me that when you work as a virtual employee (like I do), it’s expected to have a home office on your taxes.

After everything was entered, explained, and double checked; Daphne showed me my total tax bill. And it ended up being less than half of what I had set aside to pay my taxes! While I wish that I was getting a refund or owing even less than that, anything less than what I had saved is awesome! I don’t have to worry about borrowing money or figuring out a payment plan with the IRS. I just sent in my checks and it’s done.

I really cannot thank Daphne and the rest of the employees at Chuck Sloan and Associates enough. They worked together as a team to make sure that I was getting all the deductions that I deserved and that everything was perfect before it was sent it. They dealt with my craziness, my stress, and my tears without looking at me weird. And they made me excited to get my taxes done! I doubt most people could say that.

When Daphne was working with me on my taxes we went over a couple of ideas of how I could organize things better for 2016, and I’m working on implementing those now. It mainly has to do with organizing things by type and not by month since the IRS doesn’t care about when things were purchased or paid for, just what category all of that money goes into.

I know that I’ll be going back to Daphne next year for my taxes since she was the first financial type person I’ve worked with who didn’t look down on me for how little money I had, got the weird things I spend my money on for work, and totally got my organizational system. And having someone like that on my team is invaluable for me.

Taxes By Daphne

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Default ThumbnailIt’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off) Default ThumbnailDouble Shift Days (or Hoping To Make Enough Money By Payday) Default ThumbnailTax Time Again! (or It’s A Taxes Miracle!) Default ThumbnailIt’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update) Default ThumbnailNot Quite Winning At Taxes This Year (or Owing Money And Seeing Car Accidents)

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Helping Out A Friend (or Getting To Act)

Posted on January 15, 2016 | 1 comment

I didn’t get to do as much acting as I would have liked in 2015. I had some really great auditions and got to take class, but there weren’t any bookings. And as much as I love the brief moments that I get to act in the audition room or in my classes, I missed working on a fun project. There’s something special about working on a project that you don’t get in auditions or in class. It’s like how being on a studio lot feels magical somehow. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just is that way for me.

I had been really excited about an audition that I got the first week of January, but right after I got the audition notice I got an email from my agents that the audition was now for a non-union project. And as a union actor I agree to not work any non-union things. I was so excited for a second and then felt really sad that the audition wasn’t something I could go to. I don’t blame my agents at all because they don’t always find out something is non-union until the audition is scheduled. I’ve even had to leave auditions in the past because they lied about the union status. But that’s just the way it is sometimes.

So I was feeling like my year wasn’t getting off to a great start for my acting career. But then a friend of mine asked me if I’d like to play a small part in a new media project that he was doing. And of course I said yes! He sent me the script right away and I got prepared to work with him.

We shot the project this past Monday (I’m so glad that it was on my day off from my day job!) and it was really fun. My part wasn’t too big so it was a pretty easy shoot for me. I got to where we were all meeting at 8am and it was my turn to film at about 8:30, so I didn’t have to wait that long (sometimes you are on set for hours before it’s time for your scene).

My scene took place in my car and my character had been pulled over by a cop. It was really funny and I had a great time performing. We did each setup maybe 2 or 3 times and there were a couple of different shots that they needed to get. But after it was all said and done, I maybe only worked for an hour. Easy peasy.

It was so wonderful to be in front of a camera again. I love getting direction from the director and knowing that my work is being captured and others will be able to see it (in auditions, the directors might get to see it but it’s not seen by that many people). I got some really great feedback from everyone working on the project and that was a nice little confidence boost for me.

This wasn’t a paying project, but that doesn’t matter to me. It was a union project (my friend made sure of that so I could be a part of it), I got to act, and eventually once it’s edited it will be out in the world for people to see. That’s all I really need (getting paid occasionally would be great too). And that hour of acting made me crave acting even more.

That’s how I know that this is the right career path for me. I love getting to audition, I love ever second I get to act, and I love anything I get to do that feels like I’m furthering my career. Nothing feels like a chore or a task. It always feels like a reward and a benefit.

Hopefully this project will be the start of an amazing year for my acting career. I haven’t had my first audition of the year yet, but the regular start of pilot season is coming up quickly and hopefully I’ll have at least one pilot audition. And of course now that tv is back there are all those co-star and guest star parts I could potentially audition for. While there aren’t as many opportunities for someone of my type as there might be for a super skinny hot blonde girl, I know those opportunities are out there and it’s my job to be prepared for when they come my way.

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Default ThumbnailMaking My Acting Bold (or Feeling Great From An Audition) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting) Default ThumbnailBeing Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me) Default ThumbnailDoubling Up On Friend Time (or It Feels Like We Just Saw Each Other) Default ThumbnailWorking On A New Plan (or Self-Producing) Default ThumbnailAnother Day Another Audition (or This Is The Life I Love)

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