Just in case you thought you did well....

I had another interview. It was for a pretty good job, not the greatest pay, but you can't have everything.

I aced that interview. Three women firing questions and I had all the right answers. I amazed them with my knowledge of Microsoft Word and my suggestions about their newsletter publishing problems. It was good.

I was smiling my way down the steps, wondering when they would want me to start when I realized I left my purse in the conference room.

What a maroon.

But everything happens for a reason, so it must not have been the right job at the right time for me. I mean, seriously, I'm sure they'll have other good candidates, smart, young, ambitious people, so how do you eliminate? Kick out the dummy that can't remember to take her purse with her. She probably had a tape recorder in it.

Ya gotta laugh.

Learning is not child's play....

...we cannot learn without pain.   -Aristotle

Welcome me back! Yay!!!

I've been approved for a grant from AEP to attend classes at Wayne College, part of the University of Akron. I will be earning a Small Business Accounting Certificate.

Most of what they are teaching is review for me, it is the work I have been doing for thirty years. But since I never went to school to learn it, I am at a disadvantage in the job market. So now I will be able to add formal education to my resume, as well as the part I will be truly learning - QuickBooks software. This will all be very helpful.

Plus I like school. Now. Too bad I didn't like it when I was a teenager.

This issue of education and having initials behind your name has long been a sore spot for me. With what I know about accounting I can do the job of most CFOs, but because it's been all on-the-job training, I cannot convince employers to take a chance on me. They would rather hire the person with the diploma. Either that or they checked my references. (insert smile here)

But I am feeling more hopeful.

Step by step....

Inch by inch....

My first job interview. I was very prepared, thanks to my friend at Job and Family Services. She assigned me the task of writing answers to the fifty questions you should expect at a job interview. I think they might have asked three of them.

But it did go very well, and I expect to be asked back for the second interview. They are doing three interviews. Wow. Never been through 3 interviews before, especially for a receptionist/customer service position, but I guess they want to get it right.

Okay, you've got one minute to convince me why I should hire you. Go.

It is such a nerve-wracking and demoralizing process. I sometimes want to ask them if they'd like to check my teeth before I sing and dance. I think there should be a law that all people should be hired based on their resume, sight unseen, no interview.

Life is so happy in my rose-colored world.

Moving Forward

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. -Proverb


We have the above quote posted on our refrigerator (the repository of favorite sayings and cartoons). For a long time I've harbored the misconception that it referred to the deeper side of life - the big issues like war and hunger and ending disease.

But I've come to understand that it is a perfect mantra for every action and goal, especially now while I am looking for work. At my age, I want a job that I can keep until I retire, not one like the last three that have downsized me to the street.

To make this happen I see now that I need vision, I need to create a plan of action that will put me in the right place, instead of flooding employers with my resume in hopes of landing the same type of job, in the same type of place, which would more than likely create the same result.

John Dryden said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So it's time to create a new vision before I take action, time to turn my daydream into a reality so I avoid another nightmare.

A life unexamined is a life not worth living. Where in my resume and history can I find room for expansion and improvement? These are the questions with which I wrestle in order to trample this new path.

My "vision without action" mantra has worked its way into my head and I know that my job-hunt is not the simple thing it was years ago when I could mail out resumes and wait for a phone call. Our unbrave new world has changed that. Looking for a job has become my job. It requires organization, tools, goals, plans, and strategy. I have to make schedules, financial plans and keep records. It's a family buiness with my husband as the other team member. He works with me to develop our vision for the future and keep our mission and values statements on track.

Despite all of these challenges, I am not fearful. I have good skills and I'm a fast and willing learner. Possibly my biggest obstacle is convincing someone else of that. But it will happen eventually. That's part of my vision.

Ramblings

I am not inspired to write today. My mind wanders, searching for that gem of truth that will spark a fire of wit to fill this block. Sigh.

Maybe I am bored. Or tired. I worry that you are not sufficiently interested in all of the things I want to tell you. I want to write about truth and tolerance and love, and in the writing perhaps make a difference in the world. Hah!

I wanted most of all today to write about vision, and somehow couldn't find any.

So if you are not a writer, you don't know what writer's block is like. If you are a writer, you know what I'm going through. It's painful and frustrating, and to lay it out in front of all of you is embarrassing, but I'm doing it to myself to work through it and move past it.

Forgive my meanderings and look for better stuff coming soon.

Forgiveness - a Hot Topic

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." -Buddha.
I watched Oprah yesterday. Yes, my unemployment has already reached that point, at least until it gets warmer outside. It was a horrific story of abuse I won't share, but there was a profound moment. Oprah spoke a definition of forgiveness she was given on a previous show.

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different."

I thought about this a lot overnight, and then Frank and I talked about it this morning at length. What an interesting way to describe what we have been trying to teach our grandchildren.

Most of us go through the world thinking that forgiveness is a two-way street. If I have been betrayed or wronged, then to forgive is to let the other person off the hook. Since we are flesh-and-blood human beings with egos, this is a nearly-impossible task for most of us, even when we realize that there is nothing we can do to punish the evildoer.

So we are doomed to let the resentment fester, pretending to the world and ourselves that we have reached some sort of peace, which is usually nothing more than an acceptance of our powerlessness over the situation. And only late at night, in the dark, we allow ourselves to play the "if-only" game, and then we put it away for the daytime.

So imagine how it would feel to truly drop the hot coal and let go of the anger. Give up the hope that the past could have been any different because the truth is this: You cannot change the past. Take a breath now and think about this: You cannot change the past. Give up the hope that the past could have been any different.

If you have done what you can to rectify the wrong, if you have done what you know is right, then what else can you do? It is no longer within your power to punish the other person. It is your choice whether to punish yourself.

The Buddha also said, "we are not punished for our anger, we are punished by our anger."

Forgiveness doesn't have to be about letting the other person off the hook. It's about setting yourself free. It's about not giving your power away. It's about not picking up the coal to begin with.

Choose for yourself. Forgive because you are worth it.

Change is Inevitable

"Some people change when they see the light, others when they feel the heat." -Carolyn Shoeder

Haven't you worked with both of these types? I would say there are a couple of more types - one who changes as needed, whether there is a light or a reason, and then there's people like me. I change things for fun, whether it's needed or not.

I've always had problems with those who resist change. The fatal words in any organization are "because we've always done it that way." It is not until these individuals or departments feel the heat of layoffs or falling profits that they realize change is inevitable. Even then you have to force it on them. Hopefully you can find creative ways to do this, such as convincing them it was their idea.

There is only one thing I can say for certain: everything will change eventually. Even those things you think are carved in stone. Nothing stays the same forever. I can remember my mother telling me many, many, many years ago that the only truth that is certain is that truth is always changing. That seems paradoxical, but the older I get the more true it is.

I hear you saying it - what about the old adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same?" That is a good question and it bears pondering in this treatise. My answer to it is this: Those things that seem to be the same need to change. My mind immediately goes to Washington, DC. We change administrations, we change politicians, we change the ruling party, we change policy, yet nothing seems to change.

Hello?

Obviously something needs to change. I have a few ideas; some of them actually wouldn't land me in jail. The first one would be for every registered voter to vote instead of allowing 1/3 of our citizens to make the decisions for the rest of us. Radical idea. That would be a real change.

Maybe someone else has thoughts on change/lack of change. I would love to hear them.

Fear of the Unknown

"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby."
-Ruth Renkal

In times of uncertainty, I examine my fears. I have few. I often think I am one of the most fearless people I know. The most obvious fear currently is being unemployed, and whether I will be able to find a new position.

This is a fear that hides in shadow - it's an unknown. I can't predict the future. So why dwell on it? The truth is I am doing everything within my power to find a new job. If what I am doing is not good enough after a reasonable period of time I will do more - expand the length of time I'm willing to drive to get to a new job, lower my standards for salary, even take yet more classes to put on my resume.

But dwell on the fear? That is a useless exercise. They say it is like sitting in a rocking chair - a lot of movement that takes you nowhere. Set the fear aside, it doesn't help.

There are irrational fears in my life. As I've gotten older I've developed a fear of heights. I don't let it stop me from doing things - I've climbed onto our roof to help with repairs. That doesn't compare to replacing windows on the Arcade roof 7 stories up when I was 21, but now it stops my heart. Back then it was just a job. I also have a lifelong fear of physical conflict, and I don't mean the perfectly reasonable fear of someone beating me, I mean if I hear people arguing, even in another room - my heart starts racing, my breathing is shallow - I'm heading for the door. Who can say what buried trauma sets this off? I don't want to unearth it, I just avoid those situations. My rational brain knows I'm safe, my reptilian brain sets me into flight.

Fortunately I don't have your typical girly-girl fears - I actually like spiders and snakes. They're the good guys in my house and yard, the ones that destroy the germ and disease carriers.

I used to fear public speaking, one of the most common fears people have. But I don't have that fear anymore. How did I overcome it? First, I tried it. Secondly, I realized that most people are so much more concerned with themselves than they are with me, that it doesn't matter what I do. It's the same with dancing. No matter what you think, people are not looking at you on that dance floor, unless you are a gold-medal winning dancer. Otherwise, you're just one of the crowd.

Probably the biggest fear in the Judeo-Christian world is the fear of death. Do I fear it? I have to honestly say I don't know. The clearest answer I give is that it doesn't matter. That is then and this is now. I hope it's not painful, but otherwise how can I possibly fear something that absolutely no one can tell me anything about? I can refer you to my opening quote, that a shadow simply  means there is a light shining nearby. However you perceive that light may be the peace that saves you from a fear of death. If you have read my previous blogs you know that I believe that light is Love - so when I die I know that I will be welcomed into the arms of universal Love.

So obviously I'm starting to ramble, but only because I find fear an interesting subject, one that can play too big a part in our lives. I think we can examine our fears and learn how to make peace with them.

Or remain ignorant and terrorize the world.

Winter Wonderland

Icicles hang from my spruces, the original Christmas decorations. Sun is shining here, teasing from inside the house, all looks beautiful. White fields of snow, impossible to look at in their searing brightness. My trees are encased in clear coats of ice, sparkling in the daylight, glowing in moonlight; I know I can't capture it on film but I'm tempted to try.

We drove to Killbuck today and saw trees overhanging the road, we wondered, is it safe? Do we dare to drive under them? Is this the moment they break? The forests look like they have been ravaged by tornadoes or war, broken trees helter-skelter. The snow is like a filter to cover the worst of it, make it seem not so bad. In spring it will look like hell.

And we feel so blessed in our life. We have had a sign on our kitchen cabinet since the ice storm of 2004 that says "This too shall pass." We smile at it. This will pass, spring will come and all will once again be green and warm. In July we will complain about the heat, forgetting the ice and snow and how we huddled under blankets through the ice storm and darkness of early February.

Life is good, and all the better for the balance.

Keep the home fires burning

This is the kind of day when one is glad to be unemployed. I went outside to deliver a message to my neighbor and found a world of ice. I stopped to get my boots from my car and had to chip a layer of ice off of it to open the door. It's a good day to be inside my home.

There seem to be more jobs available than I expected. I have applied for four within the past two days. Feast or famine? Eight days with nothing and then seven applications in six days.

I have expanded my options. I'm not so concerned with staying within my chosen field. After being downsized out of it three times, I have to wonder if it was a good choice. The truth is that it was a good choice in its time, but we live in a different time now. President Obama spoke directly to me in the State of the Union address when he described a time that people could walk into a factory or an office and fill out an application with no education, just experience and on-the-job training, and have a reasonable expectation of being hired. You could even expect to keep your job until you retired, if you chose. Most people actually did choose to stay in one place.

He is right, those days are gone. Despite the fact that I have a knowledge level commensurate with full-charge bookkeeping and even some accountants, I don't have the initials after my name, and in this new age that puts me at a disadvantage.

But I don't dwell on this, I have only analyzed it in interest and preparation. I have let go of the idea that my next job will be at a desk on weekdays with holidays off. I might be one of those people who puts books and cards in stores. Or I might be an inventory scanner. I'm practicing those magic words, "Welcome to Wal-mart, y'all need a buggy today?"

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

My routine goes on, daily I check the bookmarked sites, sometimes I even find jobs to apply to, weekly I report my news to unemployment. I haven't yet met my goal of daily reporting to my blog readers, but I try.

Today I'm listening to CNN report on the unrest/horrors that are going on in Egypt. I'm also aware that there is a war waging in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that terrorist bombs are going off in places, mostly far from here. The economy sucks, and many of my friends and family are out of work. Sometimes I feel like I want to scream, then cry, tuck my  head under my shirt, roll into a ball, lock the doors, turn out the lights and check out.

But I come to my senses. All that is different is the location, the date, the regime, the faces. We live in an ever-evolving world of chaos and the only truth you can count on is that truth always changes. These negatives are more significant only because I'm now unemployed and have to worry more than usual.

What do I do, how do I care? I'm only one of many billions. I have to care, but realistically I am physically powerless to solve the world's problems. But if you know me, you know I have strong feelings about political action, even if I don't  always live up to my own rhetoric. I have to live my life in a way that promotes my beliefs.

If each person lived in the way they believed, it would be a better world. For one thing, maybe we would have 95% voter turnout instead of allowing 30% of our citizens to decide who will run the country. For another, maybe we wouldn't allow people to beat their children in public, and if that happened enough times perhaps they would think twice about doing it in private. Who knows? I'm an optimist. Maybe we would step in when our children are being bullied instead of expecting them to 'stand up' for themselves.

Yes, I can hear you all snickering. But the lettuce and grape boycott  brought about unions. The advertiser boycott helped get Lou Dobbs off CNN. We have choices. We have power. We should use it.

Where do we go from here?

"Waste not fresh tears over old grief."    -Euripides

Part of the process of job-hunting is resolving the loss of old jobs. It doesn't matter whether you liked the job. Or the previous job, or the one before that. The fact is, you were laid off, or downsized, or organized out, or whatever nice words they want to put on it - it still says rejection. And rejection can make you angry if you let it.

The first time it happened to me it was from a job that I thought I would have until the day I retired. Talk about throwing a wrench in the works! I was completely unprepared and for that I say shame on me. So on top of looking for a new job I had to deal with a lot of anger, disappointment, surprise and even shame.

But I got a new job, found my place once again and made new plans. For nine months. And out of the blue it happened again. This time I dealt with not only the new anger, but it brought back the grief and anger from the previous loss.

We tend to think of grief as being associated with death, but it's true that we go through the same stages of grieving with any loss in our lives. If we recognize them and deal with them from that viewpoint, acknowledge the seriousness of all losses and their effect on our health, both physical and mental, we can move through these phases more smoothly and not let them mire us in self-pity and frustration.

This third job loss was not a surprise. I was prepared and recognized the signs. I'm not even angry, at least not at the employer. Perhaps at our government and Wall Street and those vague entities we like to call "them" that have pushed our middle class toward poverty.

But I'm prepared now. I know how to job-hunt, I know how to survive. And I'm finished with the grieving.

Knock three times....

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." -R.E. Shay

Through all my job-hunting forays, I've always looked for the ad that says, Vivian, we're looking for you! It hasn't shown up yet but I'm an optimist.

So I keep honing my resume, tweaking it for each job application. My skills are great, too good for most of the jobs I apply for, which can be a problem. How do you say to a potential employer, "I have everything you need and more, and I am really NOT interested in being your boss. I just want to be in your office and help it be a great, smooth-running operation."

They don't buy it.

I dislike the idea of "dumbing-down" my resume, but it's what I do. I take the fact that I'm an advanced user of Microsoft Access that can design and maintain complex databases and put it on my resume as "database maintenance." I play down these kinds of skills as things I just do, and don't reveal my training and the years of employment that have led me to advanced usage.

I don't buy it.

But I do it.

But I digress.....

"Every path is the correct path for the person walking on it." -Vivian Ashcraft

It's Sunday, once a day of rest for most of the country, so I'm not blogging today about work or goals or job-hunting. Today I am thinking about tolerance because of a conversation we had with a visitor a couple of days ago. Of course tolerance is one of my favorite subjects.

I believe there is only one higher power in the universe, and its name is Love. As imperfect, physical beings with egos we are not capable of practicing unconditional love, but I try. It's not easy when public vitriol is the order of the day, but I remind myself of what one of my heros, Dr. King, said (paraphrasing), that we can't teach love by showing hate. And that makes sense on paper, just not always in my heart when people are being hurt.

But Love loves everyone, no exceptions. Love doesn't think Rush Limbaugh is a jerk. Love doesn't pick sides in the fight, it just holds and comforts and tells all of us that we are loved and valuable and worthy. It knows much better than I do that it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, it matters only that we live in the way that we know is right, and we teach our children what is right, and that we love.

All major religions have the ultimate lesson of unconditional love*. I cannot exist within organized religion, even the non-major ones, because I believe that once you put rules on your beliefs you have already distorted them. The evidence, to me, is pretty clear on that. But on paper they are beautiful in their teachings, and if people could actually live the teachings instead of the buildings and organizations, perhaps we could have a more peaceful world.

So if I could impart a lesson to the world, it would be this: Love one another. Make no exception.

*I confess I know little of the Islamic religion, but I have been told that the Koran includes lessons on methods of beating your wife, so they may be excluded from this statement.

The Job Dearth, I mean Search....

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. -Thomas Edison

Here I am, one week and one day unemployed. I was so excited on Monday, having applied for four jobs already. But that was it, nothing since. I checked 14 job sites today and didn't find anything to apply for.

But I am not disheartened. Yet. The last time I was between jobs it took a year, and the time before that it took six months, so 8 days is nothing. I continue to analyze my talents and resume, review my goals, and start each day with a renewed sense of what is important in my life.

My Goals? No, I didn't walk today and probably won't for a few days. The snow lies deep outside and rather than clear it the county just puts out advisories and cancels school. They tell us don't go out there or we'll arrest you unless it's an emergency. Okay. I build a fire in the woodburner, make a pot of soup and settle in with the Encore Westerns channel.

I worked on one of my projects. We are papering a small corner of our home with old magazine pictures from the sixties and I spent time today selecting and cutting out pictures for that project.

So the soup is ready, the living room is warm and I feel like a nap. Ah, the joys of unemployment and snow emergencies. Life is good.

Goals? What Goals??

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. -Sydney Smith

As is often true when we approach goals, I disappeared from here when I approached the subject. Yeah. Don't wanna do it. But I'm back. Also note: I haven't done a darn thing you could call constructive. Not surprisingly, I haven't gotten around to writing down the goals I have in mind for this idle period. So here they are.

1. I will walk, outside, in the village, six days a week, unless the weather is just incredibly awful.
2. I will take on a household project, over and above the usual house cleaning, six days a week. These projects will improve the house, and no project will necessarily takemore than one hour from my day.
3. I will write something in this blog every day.

So. Are these goals reachable? Absolutely. In fact, they're pretty puny, to be honest. But I've been pretty idle for a few years, so I have to start small.

Are they measurable? Yes. I think I'm able to tell if I walk, work, or write every day.

Are they relevant? Absolutely. Walking is essential to my health, physically and mentally. Household improvements are needed, and I've been putting them off for longer than I care to admit. Writing is needed for many reasons: I've been writing a book and suffering from writer's block, so I hope this blog will help to break it. Also it is suggested that I can refer a potential employer to a blog, showing that I haven't been idle during my time of unemployment.

So now that I've put them in writing, I guess I have to own up to myself and get busy.

See ya later....

Got Goals?

"If you don't know where you're going, you might wind up someplace else." -Yogi Berra

It's important to set goals, if you expect to get anywhere. But even more imporant is the nature and construction of your goals.

First, your goal must be realistic. If you are just starting a walking program, your first day should not be 5 miles. If the goal is unattainable or overreaching, you will feel defeated or be defeated at the beginning and this will lead to feelings of personal failure.

Goals should be measurable. You need to be able to say, "I started here and now I am hee." If you have made progress you will feel good about yourself - a sense of accomplishment. If you haven't made progress, you can analyze your goal and rework the steps needed to meet it.

Goals need to be relevant to you. If you are on an exercise program to lost weight, don't choose an activity you hate. Don't set completing a marathon as your goal if you despise running. You will not only stop running, you will stop exercising.

There have been numerous studies that have proven those who write their goals, revisit them and track them, using the above ideas and others, are far more successful than those who merely wing it through life.

Stay tuned and maybe you can help me set some goals....

And the hunt begins....

I'm surprised to realize that I've already applied for 4 jobs. Then I realized that in the past 3-1/2 years I've been unemployed for 1-1/2 years. So I guess you could say I have a lot of practice.

I've already set up a folder in my Favorites list called Jobs and begun to fill it with web-sites to check regularly - two newspapers, two sites that combine ads from a lot of sources, two temp agencies, the federal and state government hiring sites, and companies for whom I would like to work.

I updated my resume, both the one I print out and the online versions on the various sites. I have contacted people that have agreed to be my references.

I started a spreadsheet to track the jobs I've applied for.

I'm practicing questions with Frank so when an interviewer asks me something unexpected, hopefully it won't be unexpected.

This is my new job.

Arrival in the Old Country

On January 12, I once again arrived in the Land of the Unemployed. It's not my favorite place, but it is familiar. I'm three days in now, and the routine is taking shape. I've already applied for three jobs.

It's not all bad. If I could find someone to pay me for not working, life would be great. I'm not one of those people who can't find anything to do when I'm stuck at home. It's not easy to be bored, unless you're a boring person.

But there is a downside. All the time I was working I put off household projects. "I worked all day, all week, I don't want to clean that, fix that, do that." Oops. Now I have no excuse. So I've decided to take one item a day, get it done and only then am I allowed to have fun. It's a good plan.

Stay tuned and find out how to look for a job. I have lots of experience in this area.