Posts made in February, 2012
Love what you’re doing
It’s only been five days but I LOVE MY JOB. Is it weird to be so bold after such a short period of time? It feels weird but not really, if you know what I mean. While I just barely clocked in a full workweek, I am very happy presently. I am excited to wake up and get to work, I’m excited at work, when I’m heading out (not because it’s over, but because I had a great day – yes, it’s sickening), and I’m excited to be able to do it all over again the next day.
I’m so excited that I pick out my clothes the night before.
The first day was a little overwhelming but not in a scary “What am I doing here?” way, but more in an energizing “I can so do this!” way. Every day I learn a new aspect of my job responsibilities, which is almost like unwrapping a present every day, and I’m looking forward to the moment when I’m aware of what I’m supposed to be doing and can just get it done without direction. Sometimes, when I listen to my coworkers talk, I’m amazed at how knowledgeable they are about what we do and I’m kind of jealous that they can so easily explain things, but that’s silly because I know that with enough time, I’ll be able to speak just as soundly as they do.
And you know what? I cannot wait for that moment.
After being out of work for the past two years, I’m very grateful for this opportunity. I was just thinking on Friday how amazing God is. He provided me with the perfect job where I feel satisfied and challenged and one that I can grow into. I definitely risked it by being so picky but I have to say this was definitely worth it (even my Mom had to admit that she was glad I didn’t settle for just anything even though she was pressing me to). I work with a group of amazing people and I know that I can and will make a meaningful contribution. I’m not bored during the day (I’m actually too busy most of the time to even check my Gmail account for most of the day which is so radically different than my last job) and the time just flies by. Seriously, I get in, start my computer up, go through some emails and suddenly it’s an hour later.
What I really like is that I have a defined set of responsibilities and reports to create (I get to create my first one on my own next week. Yes, I am unapologetically excited by this) and none of it feels like “busy work.” I really like coming in every day and knowing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t have to worry about hovering around my boss’ desk sniffing out something, anything, to do. Right now I’m still in the training phase, learning a new piece to my job everyday, but in a short time, most likely starting next week, I’ll be released on my own to assist with client work (which includes billable hours. I’ve never had billable hours before!) creating those lovely reports and doing some data analysis, campaign management, search engine optimization and managing social media profiles.
Yes, I do kind of get paid to tweet and Facebook, granted, not my personal accounts (ironically, I don’t have much time to check my own accounts), but the company’s account. I have an uncanny knack of landing in some pretty cool jobs.
Now if I could only figure out what to say for my company bio.
Read MoreAll but typical
It’s no secret that I am an avid sports fan; something that is completely lost on the bf, who doesn’t really care for sports (even my dad was perplexed by this. Seriously, he once asked me what they were supposed to talk about!). Women sports fans aren’t aberrations either; I know a lot of women who are die hard fans. There is a growing number of women who tune into the NFL regular season and the Super Bowl (last year, female viewership accounted for 46%) but it still seems that advertisers are completely clueless to who is actually watching these games.
[Source: Mashable via BlueKai]
According to this year’s Super Bowl Advertising Infographic I snagged from Mashable, it seems to advertisers that the typical Super Bowl viewer is male, golfers, owners of SUVs, in sales, into sci-fi movies, are husbands, and in the market for Kindles, Sony and Vizio brands. Let’s see, and I am exactly none of these things. And you know what? It really sucks being overlooked like this. I have money too (well, I will have money soon) but it doesn’t feel like that matters. According to the subject matter of the ads, I have no buying power (okay, I don’t at the moment but will by next month). But that the fact that I do have buying power is simply inconsequential. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS MONEY?!
Look, I know that the majority of Super Bowl viewers are in fact male (last year they accounted for 54% but even that gap is slowly evening to an even split), but it would be so nice to have a couple of commercials that don’t use provocatively dressed women to sell beer, cars, or web services. Are women not buying cars? Or beer? Or Doritos? Or interested in fiscal independence? You know what women get?
John Stamos and yogurt. YOGURT.
Really advertisers? You think the only thing I could really care about is yogurt? And please don’t get me started on the farce that is the “New Adventures of Old Light Brown M & M.”
It’s time that brands and advertisers stop ignoring half of the population to shill their products during the biggest commercial event of the year. It’s not fair to barely be pandered to during the rest of the year, only to be systematically ignored on the largest platform known to business. I’m good enough to spend thousands of dollars on but not millions? That’s not a message you want to send to your potential customers.
I’m hopeful that, with the increased female viewership, brands and advertisers will finally wise up and begin to create commercials that appeal to both genders.
Because really, no one should be subjected to the nonsense that is GoDaddy.
Read MoreWorking Girl
I have really dropped the ball on writing about my job search escapades. Probably because there really wasn’t much that I could say. My days were filled with networking meetings, trolling job boards, employment agency boards, company boards, Craigslist, everywhere I could think of reading through job posting after job posting and I don’t think there was any way I could make that interesting to read. Can you imagine reading that post? Hey, I applied for another job today. The end.
Yeah, that would not have been good.
So I spent my days wading through job postings, stressing over making my cover letter as interesting and unique as possible, searching LinkedIn to try to find who would be receiving my application (you know, to personalize my cover letter. Yes, I’m thorough) and logging in my results on my handy dandy worksheet. I was called by an employment agency who raved about my work history and told me how they were looking for more people who had that kind of experience and right as I was about to reach the peak of my excitement, they asked if I was interested in Executive Assistant positions. My entire body deflated in a matter of seconds as I politely declined.
And here’s the thing with that. I know it seems stupid to decline an opportunity to work, especially since I was going on my second year of unemployment and was facing losing my unemployment benefits since I was exhausting them as I crept towards becoming a ‘99er.’ I really wanted to find a job but I wanted it to be the right job, something that would help jumpstart my Marketing career and honestly, an Executive Assistant type position was not going to accomplish that. I have been incredibly blessed to have the luxury to be so picky and yes, I did take advantage of my position but you know, I took a necessary risk.
Looking for work has not been the easiest thing ever. I placed a lot of pressure on myself to find a job and I broke from the stress a few times but I knew I couldn’t give up, even when I had several people telling me to just find something, anything to tide me over in the mean time. Part of me didn’t want to give in because I knew I would just stay there and be stuck in a less than ideal situation (it is not easy for me to up and quit jobs) but another part questioned whether this stubbornness was the right way to go.
Competition for work is fierce. I know for two of the jobs I applied to received over 700 applications and the other over 200 before they turned off the posting. Isn’t that crazy? I applied for 122 jobs in the past year, though it’s probably more since I didn’t consistently keep tabs until July when I was required to record my job search efforts, and out of those I only received two interviews. Demoralizing? Yeah, it kind of was, but I had to push past the overwhelming feelings of defeat and inadequacy and remember that it didn’t matter how many times I was turned down, I just needed to find that one person who’d say yes. And you know what? I found the yes!
I’m so excited about my new job. It’s the perfect job to get me started in my career and I get to learn more about Interactive/Online Marketing, which is what I really want to do. It’s the perfect situation for me, since they’ll be training me in online marketing and everything. I can really grow into this position and more. I was so serious about landing this job that when they invited me to the first interview, I spent the weekend cramming for it, reading everything I could about SEO and online marketing (many, many thanks to the bf for helping curate resources to read!) and spent another week cramming for the second interview. I hadn’t studied like that since high school.
Sidebar: Funny thing happened on the way to the second interview. There was a really bad accident on the freeway so it ended up taking an hour and a half to get to the BART station and I was cutting it really close to making it to the interview on time. I ended up running three blocks in heels to get to the office and then had to coax a janitor to let me in since I couldn’t wait for someone to buzz me in. I ended up being a couple of minutes late a little frazzled and noticeably flushed but thankfully I still got the job!
It has been such a relief to finally have a job so I can get on with life and earn a paycheck again. Everything worked out and I thank God that it has. People, I’m going back to work!
And I already know what I’m wearing the first day.
Yeah, I’m a little eager.
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