Posts Tagged ‘work’

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Thanks for the Heads Up

January 8th, 2010 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, What is wrong with people?

>A minute ago, an email popped up on my BlackBerry. It was from an organization that I interviewed with in early November. The email thanked me for recently interviewing with them.

Since they had told me at the time of my interview that second round interviews would take place in mid-November and then no one called me, I used my finely honed logic to deduce that I was not a finalist for the job. It wouldn’t bother me if they had just sent an email two months later thanking me for coming in and informing me that I didn’t get the job but for the fact that it said “recently.” Two months ago – not recent. Either send a timely rejection, or don’t bother. Yeesh.

Incidentally, I accepted my current job once I left that interview. All’s well that ends well.

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The Eyes Don’t Have It

December 10th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in fuck

>Decrepitude at the age of 33 (almost 34, and yes, I got my age right this time) is not good. In the few months that I was at my previous job earlier this year, vision in my left eye declined. It turns out that staring at a computer screen for hours a day made my eyeballs and their components really angry. The left eye went on partial strike.

My left eye continued to bother me after I left my hob, even though I no longer spent all day staring at a monitor. I had to get a stronger prescription lens. This fixed the situation. I could see! Hurray!

Now that I am staring at a computer screen all day again, my left eye has decided it is back to partial strike. I’m faster at responding to its demands, though. Lots of eye drops and a much more concerted attempt to look at other things every 15 minutes or so. And I bought computer glasses. Supposedly these will help because the coated lenses will reduce glare, and like reading glasses, they have a slight power. Unlike reading glasses (which made me ill when I tried them at my last job because they don’t come in powers below 1.00), these new babies are only 0.25.

My fingers are crossed. I doubt disability insurance covers this type of problem…

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Venting

November 24th, 2009 by Suzanne | 6 Comments | Filed in random

>The air circulation in my new office is not very good. For the two days I’ve been there, I’ve used my special ugly office sweater* in the morning, and sweltered in the afternoon. Weirdly, this was also how it was at the job I left in 2006. I was just cold all the time at other jobs.

The reason I was always cold at my various places of employment is because I am inevitably seated directly under or just to the side of the air condition vent. Today I was pleased to think about how this new job was different in that respect. Then I craned my head all the way back and looked at the ceiling. Yep, I’m under the vent. It’s gonna be a cold summer. (And winter, if like at my other jobs, the building blasts the heat so high that each office runs the air condition to counter balance the inferno. Yeah, energy efficiency at its finest.)

*At every job I’ve ever had, I’ve left a cardigan on the back of my chair in case I get cold. Since the sweater lives at the office, I don’t want to waste a nice one, so I bring the ugliest sweater I own. This job’s ugly office sweater is the one I obtained for free at this summer’s BlogHer conference. Hideous, especially in navy & “Aztec gold.”

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More Butt Humor, Butt (ha!) Not Gross

November 22nd, 2009 by Suzanne | 1 Comment | Filed in hilarity, random

>While Dr. P was in Vermont with her family, she noticed a product at a general store called “Anti-Monkey Butt Powder.” We watched two hilarious ads on YouTube for this excellent product, which I thought I would share:

Anti-Monkey Butt Powder: The Jogger

Anti-Monkey Butt Powder: The Biker (as in motorcyclist, which is even better than bicyclist)

I hoped to embed the short videos in CUSS, but no codes for embedding were available. Boo. Well worth clicking on, and safe for work!

Speaking on work, my first day at my new job is tomorrow. I’m nervous, but excited. I wish I had not down enormous quantities of Indian food last night, though, as my stomach doth protest. I need to quash the rebellion ASAP if I want to continue to have a job after my first day. No one wants to work with a gas bag.

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>Third Time x Third Time = Triple the Charm

November 6th, 2009 by Suzanne | 7 Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

>As a kid, I hated math. Hated, hated, hated it. I was often absent from school due to illness (in the early years, asthma; in the later years, depression), and so the lessons I missed created a big gap for me to overcome. My junior year of high school, I explained to my math teacher that “I’m going to be a lawyer, so I don’t need math.”

Fast forwarding to the day I dropped out of law school and decided to get a public policy degree… Shit, all the public service programs have stats and econ in their curricula. But I suck at math. Oy vey iz mir! Much hand wringing.

Fast forward to my second job after college, which required me to use Excel for lots of number crunching, which was something I rather liked during a college internship but dismissed…Math is fun!

Ok, now that I am completely off topic, the point of my little subject line formula is to ponder whether the adage, “The third time’s the charm,” is truer if you multiply the third time by three. All of this comes up because, the 9th organization that interviewed me for a job offered me a position! And I accepted. So I’m very excited.

As long as I brought up numbers, here’s the rest of my job search in digits:

  • Number of resumes sent: over 60

  • Number of organizations that interviewed me: 11 (12 if you count the place that called last night)

  • Number of interviews: 15 (some were two step processes)

  • Number of offers: 1

  • Number of places that contacted me to request more info (like salary request or writing samples) and then never contacted me again: 2

  • Number of times I freaked out and got a manicure: 1

  • Amount of money spent on “respectable interview watch:” $40 at Filene’s Basement
    Amount of money spent on lipstick: $1.99, when I realized that I forgot to put it in my bag and bring it with me, so ran to Duane Reade Pharmacy

  • Level of anxiety about the whole situation: Immeasurable

So I’m very happy that I found a job in what I think will be a great place to work. My policy is to keep work out of my blog, so I’ll just say that it is a position that requires writing and the organization works to increase economic and social justice in disenfranchised American communities. I’m psyched. Now I’m off to clean my bathroom…

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>Notes on the Economic "Recovery"

September 23rd, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Damn, fuck, random

>Several times in recent weeks, I read blurbs in newspapers about how the economy is recovering. It’s not like economists are all gung-ho about it, but there are supposedly glimmers of a happy smiley sun peeking through the rain clouds of economic woe. Let’s take a moment to sing:

Hey la, hey la Wall Street’s back!
It’s been gone for such a long time
Hey la, hey la Wall Street’s back!
Now it’s back and things’ll be fine
Hey la, hey la Wall Street’s back!

Didn’t that feel good? No? Well, there’s good reason for that. As the 99.9% of the time right on NY Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote last week, Wall Street may be be on the rise again, but so is unemployment.

When I resigned from my job at a nonprofit organization in May, I joined the ranks of jobseekers. I knew that the economy was bad when I decided to leave, but there were other considerations that were stronger. It was a scary and tough decision, but I noticed that the various places that advertised jobs in my field offered lots of interesting opportunities.

I saw many positions that interested me, and I cast my net far and wide. I went to interviews. I took consulting jobs. I worked on my thesis for my master’s degree. It was difficult, but busy. Then mid-August hit. No one ever advertises on mid-August, so I only worried a little bit. Things did not pick up after Labor Day. I worried a lot. Classes started again, so I went to school and continued writing. I worried more.

I’m far luckier than most unemployed people – Husband works and we can live comfortably on his income. Still, I thought I’d contribute my anecdotal evidence that the overall economic situation is getting worse in some parts, not better.

Hey na, hey na – bring the job market back.

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>WWCRD: Salary Histories

July 30th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in What is wrong with people?

>Welcome to the latest edition of What Would CUSS Readers Do? Today, the royal we here at CUSS seek feedback on salary histories. The issue came up yesterday when I decided to apply for a job that required a salary history in order to consider the application complete.

My feeling (and Husband’s) is that salary histories are bogus. An organization that seeks to hire someone has an idea of what the job is worth. If they find a candidate that they like, they should offer them that salary. What the person earned prior to that job is irrelevant, as they did not perform that job at that company. Further, it is no one’s fucking business what I earned at other jobs. Until the search committee is prepared to tell me what they earn, I am not sure why it helps to know what I earned.

Yesterday, a friend argued with me, saying that she used the information to determine whether or not a person would even consider the job. Again, I think that is a strange way to determine one’s interest in a job. Perhaps for a variety of reasons, a candidate would accept a different salary for doing a different job. How would a recruiter know that unless the candidate was asked directly? If a company does not want to waste their time with a candidate who would not be interested in the position based on salary, and they do not want to reveal in advance what that salary is, then why not just contact the person and ask, “Hey, what salary do you require?” instead of playing guessing games?

What do you think? Do salary histories help employer’s find appropriate employees, or are they merely ways to (potentially under)pay people based on past jobs that may have no bearing on the job that is to be performed? (Yeah, loaded question, I know.)

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>So, What Do You Do?

July 15th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in writing

>”So, what do you do?”

It’s a common question. I just no longer have a good answer for it. A few years ago, it was easy. I puffed up my chest and told people that I work at a nonprofit agency on public policy and programs.

Now I could also answer that I’m a writer, although I don’t feel like a writer. Writers are people who write every day, whether or not they earn a living from it. Sometimes there are days when I don’t write a word other than what is on my to do list. I was thinking about how much like a poser I feel when I tell people that I’m a writer, and then I realized that I was narrating what scene in my head. Maybe constantly thinking like a writer to qualifies me as a writer, even if I don’t write daily?

The funny thing is that I still think of myself as a policy person even though I don’t do anything policy related on a daily basis, either. But just as I narrate things in my head on an ongoing basis, I think about policy every day. I certainly don’t feel like a pretentious douche (scent: Summer Rain) when I tell people that I’m currently unemployed and looking for a job in public policy or program management the way I do when I say, “I’m a writer.”

The difference, I’m thinking now, is that being good at your job as a writer is a lot more subjective than as a policy person/program manager. In the latter, it is obvious if you understand what is going on in the world and whether you are good at it or not. Obviously, there’s a baseline for writing, but it is a lot more subjective as to whether one is good at it.

Just thinking while suffering from insomnia for no discernible reason…

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>The Stressed Out Tante

May 13th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

>Between the unexpected early arrival of my adorable nephew, school wrapping up for the year, and my job implosion, things have been rather hectic lately. While I am very happy that my nephew is here and healthy, the other things thrill me significantly less. I realized that the only thing worse than a job that goes awry is not having a job at all. I sort of figured this out last semester, but it is really hitting home now. I can’t say that I like working in general, but I definitely enjoy being employed and feeling like a productive member of society. I forget how closely my sense of self-worth is tied to my work. Bah.

On a more positive note, I just love this picture of me and Marcus:


On Friday, I am flying into Chicago, seeing my friend, her partner, and their kids (an almost four year old and two month old twins), then my parents are picking me for for a roadtrip to Iowa with Bubbe. Fortunately, Dana’s friend from high school will also be with us, so I think Bubbe will tone it down a bit.

The reason for the return trip to Iowa? Dana’s baby shower is on Saturday, and Marcus will be the guest of honor. I can’t wait!

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>Adoration and Resignation

May 6th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

>Unexpectedly, I have an additional 35 hours a week that are now free since I left my job this week. (it wasn’t a good fit for a variety of reasons.) The good news is that I already have an interview elsewhere on Monday, and I can use the time to fawn over photos of my nephew* now that I found our camera.

Here I am, the proud but exhausted tante (I only had a few hours of sleep the prior night), holding my nephew with the excited father behind me:

The happy grandparents holding their progeny’s offspring:

Since Marcus was not due until June 9, my sister’s co-workers had planned to hold a baby shower for her on May 16. Now Marcus will be the guest of honor! I already bought a plane ticket for the event, so I am pleased that I will get to see everyone again in less than two weeks. Of course, that assumes that I survive the four hour car ride from Chicago to Iowa with my parents and Bubbe. I think Bubbe will be on her best behavior, though, since my sister’s friend will also be in the car with us.

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