Just fucking write.

So, in the last couple of weeks I’ve sucked at blogging. Things have been busy and I started a new job that’s amazing and came to me in a totally roundabout way and it’s great. I’ve also started to not like Tumblr. None of my friends actually write on theirs anymore, so I don’t like scrolling through my feed. But I never actually sit down at my laptop to actually fucking write either.

And I’m a little bit annoyed about it. With myself for not just writing. So, I thought I’d post a list of the blogs that are not on Tumblr that I read on an almost daily basis:

Laurie Ruettiman – Love this chick. She’s an HR pro-turned-pro HR writer. She’s a really cool person IRL (or at least on Slack) and she’s a badass. And she has, like, 5 cats. So, she’s basically living my dream life. 

H(OM)E – The lifestyle/yoga/food/whatever blog that my yoga teacher Chrissy writes. She just re-designed her entire site and it’s awesome. And she’s awesome. If you like food or yoga or just good writing, it’s a good place to be. 

Inspiralized – I love my Inspiralizer and I love reading Ali’s daily blog posts about recipes, and eating healthy in general. I also like her lifestyle blog a lot, too. 

The Balanced Blonde – Written by Jordan Younger, who used to be The Blonde Vegan, is super cool. She recently finished up her 500 hours with YogaWorks in California and she’s an awesome, verbose writer. She’s teaching at PureYoga one day in April and I have my ticket ready to go. Super psyched. 

Diary of a Yoga Teacher Trainee – I actually happened upon this lady in the comments section of the above blog. She’s going through the same intensive training at YogaWorks that I went through, although with a different teacher. She’s from England and she’s a great writer. 

Ramshackle Glam – I’ve been reading Jordan Reid’s blog since she started in 2009. I love some of her stuff and some of it not so much (style posts?! Nahhhh).  

Melanie Murphy – I follow ONE YouTuber in the entire world and it’s this lady. Does that count as a blog? It’s a vlog, so YES. I have no idea how I found her channel but she’s hilarious and insightful and lives in Ireland. I’m a fan. 

That’s about it. That’s most of what takes up my time. I can’t be bothered with Facebook anymore as everyone is running around, screaming like deranged child on it about how the world is ending, and nobody got time for that. I’m also really contemplating hiring help to switch my blog over to WordPress to get off Tumblr because that’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. Thoughts? 

Is there an awesome blog that I’m not reading? Let me know!

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That Job Offer I Declined

You know those job offers that you regret declining? This isn’t one of those jobs.

Back when I started teacher training, I was still a little bit in the mindset of “OMG NEED JOB STAT.” Meaning, I thought I’d need to have a job lined up when training was over, no matter what it was. So, I applied to a couple of jobs here and there.

I went on one interview for an entertainment(ish) company that was located in LIC. That was mistake #1. I shouldn’t have applied to a company in Queens. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I was feeling desperate and like my options were scarce. 

It was a new position that was being created because their finance department was growing into a full time position (as opposed to one part time person). I listened as the executive spoke and he was a nice guy. The offices were very nice, but I left feeling like it wasn’t for me. He said they’d be making a decision by the end of the week. This also made me nervous. I immediately went online and started looking at other job postings. I had to know what else was out there. There was lots. And a lot of other positions called to me much more than the one that I was likely going to be offered.

I didn’t need to wait for Friday because I was offered the job the next day via email. When the offer letter came, I was excited by the salary but that’s about all. I had interviewed for one job and the offer letter came back with an entirely DIFFERENT job than the one that I’d interviewed for. I took the weekend to “think it over” and then declined on Sunday evening. The executive came back to me and said they’d offer me health insurance, too.

Uh, WHAT? You wanted me to run finance and HR and you weren’t going to give me health insurance from the get go? I said no, for a second time, and that was that. I wanted to say, “Are you fucking insane? Not only is it illegal, but how could you possibly even think that hiring someone full time and not giving them health benefits is RIGHT?” But I didn’t want to engage, so I didn’t say anything. 

Thinking about having to start that job next Monday gives me hives. I’m glad I turned it down. When I find the right gig, I’ll know. And they’ll probably offer health insurance from the get-go. 

One Post

I haven’t written very much in the past month because I’ve been in my yoga teacher training intensive which means I was busy from 9am until 6pm, Monday through Friday, then another hour or so for my commute each way to and from SoHo, so between the actual class and the homework, I had zero time to write.

But it was a transformative experience. It really was. The week before the training started when I saw my kundalini teacher for the last time, she told me I’d have a transformative experience and she wasn’t lying. I truly did. We all did. Every single person in the training with me is going to be a friend for the rest of my life. There were so many tears during our closing ceremonies. 

Today felt like the first day of the rest of my new life. It sounds so cliche but I’m just free writing right now to break the silence on here. I’m not sure what exactly I want to do next, but I know that applying for every-and-any job is no longer a good option. I have savings and I don’t spend a lot, so I can take my time. I’ll teach where and when possible. I have insurance, albeit not very good insurance, but insurance nevertheless. (At least until the ACA is repealed!)

Fear can fuck off for once. I’m going to try this my way. 

A Leap of Faith

Ever since I was surprised by a layoff in early November, I’d been contemplating doing a 200 hour yoga teacher training intensive with one of my favoriteeeee regular teachers (the inspiration Chrissy Carter!) for the month of January because it just so happened to be almost perfect timing. I just need a way, other than unemployment, to sustain myself until then. 

But then I’d been woo’ed by a recruiter to take a temp HR Generalist position at a tech start-up. The pay was pretty low, but it looked like a cool company, so I said I’d do it. The recruiter also said it had potential to be permanent and as soon as I saw the office and they gave me a bag of swag, I was like, “OMG I’M STAYING FOREVER,” and my yoga teacher training dreams disappeared faster than the color from my cheeks from the 4 AVENUE WALK from the subway to the office that the temp job was in. 

After about two weeks, I started to get pretty miserable though. It became clear that this wasn’t becoming a permanent thing in addition to the pay being stupidly low, and despite my “boss” being a lovely person who I had things in common with (meditation! rose water spray! rolfing!), she arrived late every day (her own schedule, whatever!), spent most of the day in meetings, and couldn’t answer my questions as she didn’t know a whole lot about HR – she had been thrown into her role with no flotation advice just as I had been. She gave me projects to do with no instructions and she wasn’t there to answer questions.

As I sat at my desk last night, I realized I was miserable. I knew I didn’t want to stay and I definitely wanted to have another plan, which was a surprise to everyone, including myself. Ever since college, when I interned and/or went to classes during the day and worked selling merchandise at Broadway shows at nights and on weekends, in addition to volunteering to do other production related things, I looked forward to the day when I’d be able to have a “regular” 9-5 job after which I’d be able to have my life and see shows, do yoga, and whatever else I desired. 

But after the last couple of weeks, I started to kind of admit to myself that maybe that’s not what I want to do after all. Maybe, as much as it kills me to say it, a “regular” job isn’t what’s right for me. Or maybe I was just in the wrong field. But instead of trying yet another job, I decided to sign up for yoga teacher training. I input my credit card number, submitted my application, forwarded the confirmation to my yoga teacher, and left for the day after offboarding someone.

I arrived, as previously scheduled, at my yoga studio that night for class with my teacher and when she arrived she gave me a hug and told me congratulations. Shortly after, I received a phone call from the recruiter telling me that my assignment was over because they’d hired a generalist. The universe had my back and things all synced up. I’d found a job for the interim weeks before training and now I was free from it. 

I’m really excited for the training. It’s a big step and it’s a big commitment, for sure, but it’s better than sitting around and taking another job that I might end up hating. All of the reasons that I didn’t think I should do it are still there (I don’t really want to be a yoga teacher, per se; I’m not flexible enough; I can’t even do a handstand!; It’s expensive!; My arms are short!; I’m not fit enough!) but they’re at least fading into the background now that I clicked the ‘confirm’ button.

If you’ve done 200 hour yoga teacher training before, I’d love to hear some tips and insights, if you have any. 

Stay Put

I’ve jumped around in terms of jobs for the last couple of years. It all started when I was laid off from the job that I was kicking ass at for 3+ years in 2012. I took advantage of my severance and got back into theatre with an internship that led to a job that worked me to fucking bone. Were there free theatre tickets? Yes. Were there lots of We’re Curing Cancer attitude? Oh, fuck yes. And BTW, we were not curing cancer. What would’ve happened if I had just stayed put and taken advantage of the comps? Who knows. I’d probably have burnt out after another 6 months of that schedule. 

So I left for a job at another theatrical ad agency that was numbers-related but not sitting in the dark back dungeon of the finance department. Unfortunately, this meant more We’re Totally Close To Curing Cancer attitude. Which, despite our best efforts, we weren’t doing anything close to that. My manager, who was basically my age, had hired incorrectly and they scrapped my role, and me, completely after 7 months. 

After that gig ended, I immediately transitioned into my favorite role to date, where I stayed for 10 months until I was woo’d away from the prospect of more money. I kind of wish I hadn’t left, though there was just a huge round of layoffs there recently (every internet media is coming to terms with the fact that you can’t sustain a business off ad click revenue alone). But fuck regret. “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

In between that was the Job From Hell which only last 3 months before the company’s merger and overall business strategy tanked. Good riddance, assholes. 

But as August transitioned into September this week, it occurred to me that I’ve been at my current office of employment for 8 months. And I was like, “Wow, I’ve been here for a while.” And I started to get itchy and make a switch again (there are so many exciting companies out there!) but I decided that I should do something different and stay put. 

Having Many Jobs on your resume is something that baby boomers are having to come to terms with right now. The next generation, apparently, isn’t satisfied to stay at the same job for 35 years for just a paycheck. And good for us. Money is only worth so much. Having to switch jobs is an inconvenience but it hasn’t all been bad. I thought recently about what I’ve learned in the last few years and I came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t trade the knowledge that I’ve gained for a steady job anywhere. (Not to say that there aren’t perks to having one job for many years – security! comfort! – but job hopping isn’t as bad as all the olds say it is.)

First Ad Job:
I like process. I’m really good at process and I kick a job’s ass when I get into a good groove. I don’t like sitting in a closet from 8am through 6pm/7pm though.

Second Ad Job:
Digital media planning is not for me. There’s no process. It’s basically just guessing. I also realized I didn’t like being client-facing. Let me do my job and not have to deal with the clients. And again, I don’t like working 10-11 hour days.

Internet Media Company:
I realized I’m good at the finance stuff and that I really liked HR, too. I like the process that goes along with both finance and HR. I like being involved in the interviews and the onboarding. I realized I didn’t like being bored, though.

Temp Job:
After the last job imploded (not my fault), this was about to become permanent before I realized I didn’t get a flying fuck about bookkeeping for the 1%’s ridiculous weddings/anniversary/birthday parties. The people I worked with were great and the work was easy, but it also wasn’t enough work. Bored AF doesn’t begin to describe it.

Current Gig:
I’ve realized all over again that I like the tech and internet world. I like working with engineers. I like HR and operations. I love recruiting. And I shouldn’t let a period of downtime at work make me want to jump ship. I like working for a company that’s doing something useful.

So, I’m staying put because I like my work and the people I work with. I’m trying something different because as things at any job become routine, I realize I’ll get bored easily, so I just need to sit tight while the company grows. 

Just couldn’t.

I’d been temping as a bookkeeper at an event planning agency for the last (almost) two months in midtown and on Friday, that time came to an end. I was placed here by a staffing agency and the company was sold me as a marketing agency but it very much isn’t. I realized that when I sat down to review budgets my first week and saw that every other event was a wedding. And not just a wedding, a $1 million+ wedding.

I know: people are free to spend their money as they see fit. Fine. But I can’t wrap my mind around how some people spend more on a single day than most people make in a year (or ten years). Some were on far-away private islands. Some used private jets to get there. Others purchased iPads for all of their 200 guests. Yeah, it was those kinds of weddings. The “My Super Sweet 16″ of weddings.

Maybe I couldn’t stomach it because I’d love a courthouse wedding, with chicken wings and beer at a bar alongside friends and family afterwards, while wearing a cream dress that somewhat resembles a nightgown. Who knows.

I also learned that I’m not really good with hospitality. You know: pandering to the 1% of the population who think they’re special because of their upbringing or what the number in their bank account reads. This is partially why I’ve always liked bookkeeping/finance/accounting.
You get to be on the back end of the company and you don’t have to
bullshit with clients all day. My inability to be hospitable is important because I also did the bookkeeping for the child company of the larger company which sells mixers for margaritas and bloody mary’s, among other things. When I said I was sending out emails to stores who were delinquent in their payments (I’m talking about 3+ months), the other girl who works on the company immediately sought me out after the first one went out and asked me to, maybe, be a little softer. My initial reaction: Um, what? Why? They’re 3+ months overdue on a $70 bill. They need to get their shit together and pay us.

So: hospitality isn’t for me and I’m glad I learned that.

I digress.

Around the holidays, I’d sent out a few resumes because I was afraid they a) weren’t going to hire me full time (that was the plan) and I’d be jobless, or b) they would hire me full time and I’d have to do bookkeeping for the 1%’s ridiculously extravagant events for the rest of my life (#dramatic).

Believe me, I see the paradox there, too. I want a job, but I don’t want that job.

I was also bored as fuck, after only two months. Don’t get me wrong, the people I was working with were lovely and my boss was fantastic. It just wasn’t the right place. Luckily, an opportunity to work at a start-up that really excited me came up last week and I couldn’t say no, so I didn’t. This opportunity came along just after I’d convinced myself that the current role would be fine for now. I’d gotten over the initial disappoint of being at a place that plans million-dollar weddings. The flattering thing was that when I told my boss, she asked if she could make a counter offer. I politely-as-possible declined though. 

Anywho: I’ll be doing HR and operations (what I wanted to segue my career back into anyhow) with a dozen or so awesome, passionate people (including a good friend of mine).

I’m excited and I’m leaving the old job in great shape, better than it was in when I came along. I guess that’s all they can ask for. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to continue to refine my bookkeeping and people-managing skills at this company, though and not be broke during the holidays. That was cool too.

On/Up.