Issue #44 The Lisabury Tales
Are you sitting down?
No, really. Are you sitting down?
(I would also not have a drink near you.)
I got a job.
An honest to goodness job that while I will not be working as a librarian but I will be using my MLIS.
I. Got. A. Job.
It happened quickly enough my head is still in a tizzy. I was head-hunted in June for a gig as a "Knowledge Management Consultant" at one of the largest companies in Louisville. I agreed to the recruiter to submit my resume and then nothing. Of course nothing. Recruiters have quotas to fill! Eventually, I forgot I even applied.
Then the day before I am to head to Michigan to see Def Leppard / Journey (\m/) I get a call from the recruiter. Did I remember that job I applied for last month? Yes. They want to interview you. When? Today. 4PM (It was almost noon at this point.) We go back and forth on how (video, phone, or in-person) and it will be by phone. Sure, fine. I've done a zillion interviews, I expect nothing to come out of this.
(I need to add, because if I don't, hell will be paid, Kate and TEH convinced me to take the interview. I was "meh" on the whole situation and once I got the job, both were like "See!" Fuckers.)
The interview goes off without a hitch and it lasts about 20 minutes. We talk about my organizational skills and how I do time management. I feel like I did OK. Not fabulous but you know, fine. They tell me they will be making a decision ASAP since they want to get people rocking into the job as soon as possible. Sure, fine, I say.
We hang up.
8:56 the following morning, the recruiter calls me to tell me the company wants to hire me and did I accept the offer? I asked if I could put the recruiter on hold and ran into the bathroom where TEH was pooping. He looked at me like I was crazy, take the damn job. Back I run to the phone and say (sans the word "fucking") Of bloody fucking course, I accept the offer! The location of my new job is a SIX MINUTE WALK from the condo. The pay is decent for Louisville. I can wear jeans to work and the office is casual. I will stop being a feral dog, will start wearing a big girl bra, and finally have an excuse to wear my new lipsticks.
Jesus lord, I cannot believe this is happening.
My life is always saved by hail mary passes. After library school, I spent months looking for a job. TEH and I had just gotten married the week I graduated, in May, and we made the adult decision to move from Detroit back to Grand Rapids if I could not find a job by the end of the year. We had no interest in living in Detroit in our crummy apartment longer than necessary.
In January of 2011, the very day we are moving into Throbbing Manor, the very day!, GRCC calls me to offer me an interview as an adjunct librarian. I happen to apply on a lark. I agreed to come in a few days later and within a day I had a job offer in hand. The money was beyond fantastic. It was close to the house. I could wear, mostly, whatever I wanted. It was pretty fucking perfect. (Except for the gaslighting from one of my colleagues and the toxic work environment created by my boss, but hey, nothing is perfect.) Eventually, the part-time gig turned into a full-time gig I kept for 3.5 years. Then I left because it was either me or the job and I choose me.
This new adventure has all the trappings like the GRCC gig in that it is almost too good to be true. I owe about $10K in credit card debt from nearly $40K a few years back. I can feasibly pay off the remainder in nine months. Nine months. I could, hopefully, knock my student loans out in about seven years if I am kept on at the gig. I could pay TEH back. (Just so we're clear, he's never asked for repayment. This is for my own pride.) In about ten years, TEH and I could conceivably be debt free with outright owning the condo, cabin, and the car.
My schedule is now routine. I get up about 6:30, walk the dog, read the internet while I have breakfast, do yoga, get ready for work and I'm out of the house around 8:10. Walk to work, get my morning coffee, and I've unpacked and ready to rock by 8:29. I take a 15 minute break in the morning, have lunch around 12 or 12:30, take another afternoon break about 3 and I'm packed up and walking out the door at 5, arriving home, with traffic hiccups, around 5:10. I've joked to several people this week I am not sure what to do with my after work time. I mean, sure, prep lunch and the following day's workwear as well as eat dinner and walk the dog one final time, but that still leaves hours and hours for the evening. I dug up my planner again and started plotting daily chores so I know what I'm doing after work now. Well, give or take.
"If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."
TEH, my brother, and a few other people are trying to convince me to be pragmatic as I plot my wishes. "Just let me have this," I ask and they usually grumble and shut up.
It wouldn't just be paying off my debt that excites me but that I could buy things with my own money. My laptop is nearly four years old and I'll be due for a new one next year or so. My iPad is aging soon it will no longer take the software updates so that'll need to be replaced. I'll have other expenses like saving up for Fluevog shoes and buying my clothes from Boden. I can stop lusting after items at Sephora and just buy them.
It's the little things that make me happy.
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I have now finished my first week on the job and I am giddy. "Knowledge Managment Consultant" means I am clearing up XML files, the backend of their, for the sake of description, wiki site (it runs on SharePoint). I will also be archiving no longer needed files and doing some tech writing. The job does indeed require attention to detail, style guides, some knowledge of XML, and spelling expertise. Thankfully, I have most of those things and if I don't, the software will do it for me.
Do I like it? Yes. I asked one of the people around me what the job was like and she said it was tedious. I can see why she would think that but it's not mind numbingly boring. The day goes by fast. You can learn a lot about the health insurance industry but you have to be on the ball to correct the things that need to be corrected. Besides, I always intone my knowledge of arcane topics makes me a good addition to trivia teams.
I CAN wear jeans to work, along with my Chucks. I was afeared, at first, of the tut-tutting of my tattoos so I wore long-sleeved shirts and cardigans for the first few days, sweating in the 90F+ heat when I walked to work, until one day, when I was down at the company's Sbux, I saw several people with not only visible tattoos but also whole sleeves. I am a liberated woman.
You can listen to music while you work, the hours are flexible in that if I want to work 9-5 or 8-4 or whatever, I can as long as it is consistent. I am paid hourly which means taking off time for doctor's appointments and the like is easy since no one is dependent on me to fill some capacity. I am not on call.
The barista at the building's Sbux knows my order by heart and it's only been a week.
Since it's a health insurance company, they are super keen on wellness and health. There are signs posted all over the building that if you do X this many times around Y, you'll have walked Z length. On my 15 minute breaks, I've started doing laps around the building with music in my ears so I'm not glued to my desk staring at the monitor. The company sends out daily emails on taking breaks and doing yoga at your cube. For my lunch, I head down to the building's cafe, grab my Coke Zero, and eat at one of the tables while I read the internets or a book on my phone. The company also built a brand new gym down the street from our house, closer than the Y and it is also cheaper than the Y with better, and newer, equipment. We are going join once the TEH gets off his arse and cancel our Y membership. There is a possible option to eventually work from home. The people are nice and super helpful with questions because there is so much to know! I like everyone I have met and so far this job is everything I have wanted.
I asked TEH if he missed me being at his elbow seven days a week and he said no, he finds it refreshing. But he also said give him a few weeks and then he'll start missing me. The dog wags her whole butt when I come home.
The catch, because there is always a catch, is this is a six-month contract, however, it's not a firm six months. It could last for months and months after but the guarantee is six months. There is a possibility to be hired directly into the company which is currently the dream. My goal is to get hired in and make even more money and have better benefits.
A friend recently asked me if this is the career path I wanted? As a little girl, I did not dream of man-handling XML files all day long but the careers I have chosen have masticated my desires and spit me out. Right now, I need a job. I need a steady income. I want to be able to make enough money that if something happens to TEH (or he dies or whatever), I can stand on my own two feet.
We know the adage when it rains it pours, and this has been true since I accepted the offer at MPOW. Two university libraries reached out to schedule interviews for gigs, one in Georgia and the other in Washington state within a week of my acceptance. I answered both with profesh "Nos" and they thanked me for my time. One of the search heads wrote on my impressive background and when I thanked her, her response was encouraging me to check back when I was ready since they always have new positions coming up for grabs. WHERE WERE YOU ASSHOLES MONTHS AGO?
Now. Now I have a job. This is what matters. This is what is important.
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In the few weeks leading up to the interview, I've been hustling for content writing jobs. Content writing is the material you see when you land on a website about X product or service. It's the informational stuff whose purpose is to engage and entice the reader. Typically there is no by-line for this work. The pay is often shit and jobs sporadic. I was to take a writing test last weekend for one particular site on 1500 words on whether or not home remedies for gingivitis were worth following. (Holy shit how many sites advocate coconut oil pulling is insane. FYI, it's junk science.) I had to reschedule the test as I was caught up in the prep for the new job not give this test some time. Once I get done writing this newsletter and I do a few other things, that is what I'll be working on this afternoon. (The new topic "Best Way to Learn a Language Online for Free." Easy peasy.)
But it's not only this particular site but there are other sites who've already accepted my
"tests" and I'm invited to publish and join small controlled networks looking for jobs. The opportunity to make extra cash is there. The question is, and one I've been wavering on for at least a few months before really starting this hustle, is if I want to spend the time and energy doing this work because it can be brutal and difficult?
I follow a few FB groups where women (the groups are geared specifically for women) debate this topic every day. There are a zillion ways to make money writing on the internet: content work, editing and copywriting services, regular columns in named publications, articles/essays for named publications, ghostwriting and editing, ebook writing, white papers, and so forth are a few examples. Some of these women make good money for their hustle while others, like me, are in the beginning stages and we're discouraged and frustrated at breaking into the industry. Any industry. Earlier this year, I was of the mindset of "no, I don't want to do this because it's too hard" but not long before I got the tech writing gig, I knew I had to eat crow and start the hustle myself. But that process to just get your foot in the door takes ages. I was constantly rewriting my examples, updating my writing site, and taking the tests. I don't want to say I swallowed my pride but I should say I had enough, finally, of coasting. Either shit or get off the pot.
I started to proverbially shit.
Now that I have the job, what do I do about my writing? I've had four years to make this a go and we know I did fuck all. I wrote here and there and submitted this, that, and then some, but I didn't really put effort into it. I didn't really work hard. I know this. I've known this for a while which is why I started the hustle a few months ago.
What do I want to do with my writing?
I know I'm not a bad writer for flash fiction. I've had some pieces published and I know I can do better. If there is one thing this tech writing gig can teach me is how to be a better writer. Tenses, adverbs, and all the other bad things are not relegated to just fiction. I have a list of places I can send work to. A friend hooked me up with another site to publish graphic novel reviews to which could lead to more jobs in writing pop culture but most of those are unpaid. So, in my downtime and after work, I'll be working on those things and see where they take me.
(Before I forget, my most recent flash, "we are/i am," was published over at The Free Library of the Internet Void a few weeks ago and I also have a review up this month over at No Flying, No Tights, "Misfit City Vol 1," which I'm SUPER excited to recommend and that I ran out and bought Vol 2 with my own money to find out what happened (and which will also be reviewed). You can always find my complete list of publications at my writing site.)
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This post is super long today but I got a job so I'm allowed. I want to also write about the physical panic attack I had Friday night after work. You'd think after having some of the stress sorted out last week that I would be far from that but my body apparently thinks otherwise. A conversation was had on my FB post of the same thought and friend in the medical field said:
it's a epinephrine/norepinephrine thing. has to deal with a screwed up fight or flight response to break it down into simple medical terms. most people who react like this tend to do better when dopamine levels are elevated - usually after physical activity.
Which explains so much.
I'll write more on panic later on this week!
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pookie bear industries: a librarian | a writer | a newsletter | effing mindful | excessively diverting