It's Boxing Day -- not Kickboxing Day

Quote du jour: Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.
- Kin Hubbard

I've never found a good explanation for why the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. Even Scopes found it hard to explain. All I know is that it means I have to clean up wrapping paper and do some extra dishwashing.

Wait. It also means I have to go back to work tomorrow? Already? Jeez.

Something tells me that if I found a job that I loved to do and looked forward to every morning, I wouldn't have that reaction. Just a hunch.

Job hunt update: Got some nibbles, but most employers aren't really interested in hiring between Christmas and New Years. Still, I've updated the résumé, dusted off the interview outfit, and posted my latest info up on Monster. (Surprisingly, that's still a highly popular job site. I'd have expected a more tech-specific site, but that's where a lot of employers still look.)

Exercise update: I've been Suzy Slacker all week. Luckily, this blog is a guilt-free zone (or I'd have a lot to say to myself on this subject). Instead, I'm going to focus on getting something done exercise-wise every day this week. It's not that I'm incapable. I'm just totally unmotivated. Pretty sure I don't need to be motivated to exercise; I just need to be capable.
Plus, if I get up and work out this week, I'll end the year on an up note, which is always a good thing.

Can't go forward, don't want to go backward. Will tread.

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Quote du jour: Nothing will work unless you do.
- Maya Angelou

Feel a bit up in the air. Can't concentrate on exercise because I'm spending a lot of my time focusing on getting a job or fixing the one I've got. Going to see the manager of the department today to see if something can be done. Sent 5 résumés out last night. A couple of the jobs were pretty good fits for what I can do, another was a long shot, one was 'meh' and the last one was sent to a former co-worker whose new company might need somebody.

Exercise du jour: I will aim for 4 miles of walking a day. I know, I know, it's not pushing myself to do this. This week, maintenance is all I am asking of myself.

It's a crazy idea... but it might just work

Narrated by Steve Jobs

Quote du jour:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

- Steve Jobs in Wired, February 1996

Me: I'd like a rich husband, a new car, and a roast chicken.
Woman behind the Deli counter: I can get you one out of three.

Was it the new car?
Did she find me a rich husband?
Nooooooooo.
Sheesh. Service, these days.

Okay, this is the end of the first crazy week at work.
It's Friday.
Therefore, I have Friday night and then two whole days wherein I might slip some exercising.
It might just work.

It's a trend. I'm going to start it today.

Exercise du jour: Me. Elliptical. 45 minutes. It Will Happen. I don't care if I have to put up a gold star at 11:58:58 pm, I will make this goal. I have spoken. (And indeed, typed.)

Watch this space for a genuine (if virtual) gold star.

Ending the month on a good note

Good: This is the last day of my goal of doing 3 hours of daily exercise for 30 days.

Better: This is the last work day wherein I will be able to collect an unemployment check, since I start a new job on Monday.

Best: My shower still works!

Hey, don't knock it. You try going for months without a working shower. It really affects the mood. Okay, yes, I am happy/nervous about the new job, too.


Summary du 30 day push: The first two weeks were good. After I wrote a status post summarizing the good stuff I did, things went down hill. In short, I got distracted by all the hoops I had to jump through to get my new job (for example, I had to read 45 pages of paperwork and fill out, sign, and send back 20 pages) and all the things (chores, road trips, etc.) that I needed to get done before becoming a wage slave again. Still managed to get some exercise in, but not nearly as much as I hoped.

If my math skills are functioning, by the end of today I will have done a total of 66 hours of exercise this month. That's only two-thirds of the exercise I'd planned (90). Even so, if I hadn't aimed that high I would not have worked out nearly so much. So I'm tossing the calculator out the window and calling this a win.


Video clip du jour: This cracked me up. If you've ever seen A Game of Thrones (or read the books) then you'll know that whatever else the story is, it is not a comedy. And yet, a selection of carefully edited clips and a smooth-voiced announcer can make it sound like hilarity ensues.





Exercise du jour: 1 hour elliptical
Did 45 minutes before the hole-in-the-wall contractor showed up. Damn Knee is complaining again. Methinks it's time to be flexible and try something else for the rest of today's stint.
Done! After the contractor left for a while.




1 hour gardening
Done! After the wasp-killing contractor left.




1 hour gentle walking, stretching
Done! Finally. At 9:49 p.m., but who's counting. It's done. Fini. So long and thanks for all the exercise. That kind of thing. Feels very good to be done.







Photo courtesy of ravenU.

Binary Gods and stray comets

Quote du jour, from the I Hope He's Kidding department:
Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.
- Bill Gates

The Toastmasters thing went okay. It wasn't a typical meeting. They were holding a contest where people had to get up and make impromptu speeches and get judged on their performance. I didn't see any evidence of ritual human sacrifice; everyone looked ordinary and friendly. Could all be an act, I suppose. I'll need to attend a meeting during ordinary time to make sure.

It was odd, but I felt nervous for the people who'd been put on the spot to get up and give speeches, even though they'd volunteered to do it. The idea of doing this myself feels like trying bungee jumping when I'm not too sure about the bungee cord.

Another interview today. This time, I'm going to leave extra extra early, in case of traffic/earthquake/tsunami/tornado/stray comet falling out of the sky.

Exercise du jour: Um... I might cut this a bit short. I don't want to show up at the interview hot and sweaty, so I might only get in a couple hours of exercise in in the afternoon and evening. (Yes, I did say "only a couple hours of exercise" and yes, I know how that sounds.)
Done. 2 hours of light walking and DVDs to work the arms & core muscles. Might have enjoyed it if I weren't so tired. Been tired all day. The interview was quite pleasant, and there was a complete absence of Unlikely Occurrences to delay me.

Random thoughts, not to be confused with whining

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Quote du jour: Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.
- Charles F. Kettering

Site du jour: I take back every sneer I ever sneered at eHow. If this works, I'll be a happy (or at least alimony-happy) woman: How to marry a millionaire.

Day 13 of the 30-day push. Not feeling enthused about this month's goal of 3 hours daily exercise. I don't think it's the exercise itself that's causing this feeling; I think it's the fact that it's been too damn hot to sleep at night. Miss enough sleep and nothing looks good to me.

Maybe I should put Sleep on my To Do list. Have another interview tomorrow. Need to look alert, or something approximating alert.

Argh.

Exercise du jour:
Morning - 1 hour split between walking & elliptical. Gotta get that blood flowing somehow.
Done. The elliptical is better than coffee for kicking me into gear.





Noon - 1 hour elliptical. Got a new (to me) DVD that I'd like to watch. Pretty much the only time I watch TV/Videos now is when I'm on the elliptical.
Done. Not a quick & peppy pace, but done. This lack of sleep is kicking me back out of gear again.


Night - 1 hour gardening. I suppose it's a good thing that my weed-rich yard affords me so many opportunities for exercise. I suppose.
Well, sorta kinda done. I cheated and ellipticalled for half an hour. It's mindless, I can listen to music and watch TV (yes, simultaneously) and time goes by faster. I still have to find time for another half hour of exercise, but I'm going to take a break to study for my interview tomorrow too.
Update du 8:42 pm: finished. 3 hours, all elliptical. Hey, I go with what works. Wish me luck tomorrow!

Confidence (or, How I Learned to Love Aplomb)

Torture device or feeding utensil? You decide.

Quote du jour: A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.
- Sydney Smith

As part of the Learn To Sell Myself^TM campaign, I've decided I need to work on being less introverted. (Less introverted in "real" life, as opposed to the fool who's always blabbing on her blog about her most recent exercise obsession.) In real life, I don't talk so much. A few years after high school, one of the guys who'd been on the staff of the high school yearbook told me that the only reason I didn't win "Shyest" in my senior year was that more people knew the other girl. Background, that's always been my strategy. Not so much a wallflower as wallpaper.

Turns out that approach isn't the best one to adopt when job hunting. Who knew?

So I decided to Do Something About it. I am gulp going to go down and investigate a Toastmasters club. Given my past experience with clubs (e.g. Weight Watchers), this might be a horrible less-than-useful thing to do. On the other hand, it might not. Only one way to find out.

Exercise du jour: I'm still feeling tired & fed up & not in the mood to exercise, but I've decided to ignore that. Well, half-ignore -- I'm still going to exercise 3 hours today, but my definition of exercise will include stretching, gentle walking, maybe even gardening if the wasps are amenable.

The schedule will probably go something like this:

Morning -- walking
Done. Got the muscles warmed up, even if it wasn't a heart-pumping knock-down drag-out workout.



Noon -- exercise DVD
Done. 90 minutes of stretching and belly dancing. I kept the curtains drawn, didn't want to frighten the neighbors.



Night -- gardening
Done.


Toaster courtesy of imago.

The Kung-Fu/Jesus approach to a job search

Quote du jour: Most self-made men worship their creator.

One way to tell when a man thinks he's God is if he speaks to you in parables.

The job search consultant guy is trying to be helpful, I know. And he's got a doctorate in Psychology, so I'd expect him to try to respond to questions by starting with the psyche of the questioner. The disconnect is that I expect straight answers to my specific questions, while his responses are most often in the form of stories.

I suppose I should be grateful that he's not calling me "grasshopper" and telling me to go chop planks with the edge of my hand.

Exercise du jour: I want to do a whole hour of ellipticalling. No martial arts.
Done. Now off to set up an interview between Damn Knee and Mr. Icepack

And while I'm lying on the ground being kicked, maybe you could take care of my wallet?

Quote du jour: You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
- Lou Holtz and John Heisler, The Fighting Spirit


So I submitted a résumé to a job site, as I have done many and more times before. This time, I get an email a few hours later. Not from someone who wants to hire me. This email is from someone on the job site who has been "assigned to review my résumé to see if it comes up to their standards."

Sadly, it does not. While it is clear that I have loads of experience in technical writing and editing, my résumé "does not have the sparkle and pizazz that one would look for in someone of my experience."

On the plus side, for a mere $350 they would be delighted to rewrite my résumé and make it stand out so that I would surely get hired by anyone with a pulse or a brain.

To me, this is like kicking someone when they're down, and then offering to take their money from them so that no one else will want to kick them. Purely as a kindness. Gosh.

Exercise du jour: 50 minutes on the elliptical
Done! And without any complaint from Damn Knee.

In search of Serenity

Quote du jour: Life isn't boring, people are small and let life escape them.
- Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

Something about a job interview gives me the urge to get the hell out of Dodge. I'm going to be good and do the job hunt/exercise stuff this morning. This afternoon, I'm heading off somewhere shady to get out of the heat.

Is it sad that I need to schedule in time to relax, or am I being active and proactive and all that kind of stuff?

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical before it gets too hot.
Done!

Good Interviewer, Bad Interviewer

I realize that job interviews are a mixed bag; people are a mixed-up species. Even so, some established conventions of behavior are generally observed.

For example, in an interview one does not usually see the interviewer:
a) sigh deeply
b) clear their throat meaningfully
c) shift from side to side impatiently

Granted, all of this behavior occurred when her co-interviewer was talking, and he was talking most of the time. Equally, it could also be read as her impatience with this interview taking so long, if she'd already decided to write me off early on. Since I don't know the woman, I have no way of knowing.

The male interviewer, on the other hand, was really easy to talk to. I found him nice, intelligent, relaxed and with a sense of humor. Him, I could work for.

Honestly, looking back it was like a case of good cop, bad cop.

Exercise du jour: I managed a whole 10 minutes on the elliptical before it became too damn hot and sticky to work out. This weather has got to go. I took two baths today before the danged interview. I was ready to throw myself at the interviewers' feet and offer to work for air conditioning.

Pictures from Glen or Glenda courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

High heels, fishnet stockings & resume

Quote du jour: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
-Anaïs Nin

Site du jour: An article on what to do if you don't have a job, or at least don't have the job that you want. I thought this article was the typically chipper/blithely depressing type of article: "Can't find a job? Well then, do something you love instead!" But actually, upon reading it, the author made a few good points.

Got a job interview tomorrow, so I thought I'd spend today productively, i.e. going into a tizzy, dithering, blathering, panicking, and rushing around trying to make myself look good. (The first four activities aren't going to make me look good, but I like to get them out of the way before the actual interview if possible. Doesn't add confidence if the interviewer watches you dither.)

In addition, I want to put together the interview outfit and see if I can make myself look like a respectable, confident, hard-hitting go-getter employable woman. If I want to sell myself, I suppose that means I should try wearing high heels and fishnet stockings.


Exercise du jour: I'm getting really tired of typing in "Elliptical" in here. At the same time, I don't want to try stressing the knee out and limping into the interview tomorrow. I think I'll try 30 minutes on the elliptical and add a couple miles of walking. See how Damn Knee feels about that. Fail. Too much to do! Maybe I should make the To Do list a bit shorter in the future.

Ever feel overqualified?

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Quote du jour: Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.
- Aldous Huxley

Site du jour: Save the Words. Adopt a word today -- take it out, give it a run. The experience will not be vappous.

The job hunt continues.

Spoke to a recruiter yesterday, another one this morning. I'm definitely getting my name out there. This last recruiter was a bit disconcerting to talk to. Every time I made a comment, she would laugh uproariously, as if it were the funniest thing in the world. I don't think I'm that funny.

Well, not every single thing I said. I exaggerate slightly. She didn't laugh when I mentioned salary. Just mentioned that it was out of the range for all the positions she had available. She did ask if I wanted to apply for a job that was a two-hour drive away from my house. Was I supposed to laugh? I'm not sure.

Exercise du jour: Going for 30 minutes on the elliptical. This time, before Midnight.
Done! And with almost three hours to spare. Proactive, that's me. Sorta.

"Sell" myself? My mother warned me about that...

Hey, everybody! Look at me!

Quote du jour: Welcome to Sales! If you haven't been in Sales before, you are now.
- job seminar

Apparently, the "in" thing in Today's Job Search^TM is self-marketing. It's counter-intuitive, to put it mildly. Basically, it's taking the information from my résumé, reformatting it, then showing this to people who are not in a position to hire me, and asking them for their advice. It's supposed to increase my networking ability. What I'm thinking is that if I showed this to some former co-workers, people who are emphatically not up to the latest in Job Hunt Techniques^TM, they're going to feel like they're being put on the spot, that somehow I'm expecting them to help find me a job.

I'm sure it's a good idea to put together a marketing plan to showcase my skills, but frankly I'm not sure it would be a good idea to try to sell myself with it. I think it would be most helpful just for organizing my strengths in my own mind. That way, I would have the information readily available in case I were asked about it in a job interview, which is the place where I'd really be trying to sell myself. (Sorry, Mom.)

Yes, I know I can't just sit by the phone and wait for someone to lift their damned magic wand and flourish the ideal job into existence.

It would be nice, though...

What's that? Hugh needs a shoulder-warmer? Move aside, Nicole!

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical. It's not romantic, but it seems to be about my limit as far as Damn Knee is concerned.
Done! With only 20 minutes left in the day. Why is it, when I had 24 hours to get this exercise in, I waited until the 24th to get it done?


Peacock courtesy of Hypergenesb.
Hugh and what's-her-name courtesy of Gandalf (and you thought he was busy making movies).

Wow... this company could probably tell some tales...

All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt - and so on, through as many stages as you please.

But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Applied for a job online. After I submitted my résumé, I wound up in a site where I had to answer page after page of questions about myself. At the start of the questionnaire, I was warned solemnly that I had to be careful to answer every question honestly, as they "were able to tell if someone was being untruthful." After I'd answered a few questions, I started to notice a trend. See if you can spot it:

Page 1 - Do I use illegal drugs (for example: meth, crystal, ecstasy, heroin, morphine, crack, etc.) other than marijuana [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 2 - Do I use meth [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 3 - Do I use amphetamines [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 4 - Do I use cocaine [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 5 - Do I show up at work after using illegal drugs [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

I mean it went on and on like this. If they'd just asked once, I would have thought nothing of it. But they went on at such length that it became first insulting then absurdly funny. I learned a lot of new slang words for meth (crank, speed, crystal-meth, ice, chalk, glass). After a while, the trend of the questions changed.

Page 6 - Do I think that people who are being disrespectful to me deserve a punch [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 7 - How frequently do I punch people at work [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Um... y'know... I don't think I want to work at this company after all. Never mind, guys. Thanks all the same.

Exercise du jour: 20 minutes with Michael Rhoda-Bhote. See how well Damn Knee likes that instead of the elliptical. Fail. Turns out that getting onto the rower involves a certain degree of knee bendiness. Who knew.

I AM smiling

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Cranky? Why the heck should I be cranky?

Just got off the phone with a recruiter who wanted me to take a position... pretty good fit. Except for the fact that he wanted me to take a 40% pay cut for a job where I'd have to pay for my own benefits. That makes me cranky.

Damn knee is making me cranky as well. All I did was try to kneel down for a minute on a hard surface, and it hurt for two days. My body wants me to take a 60% reduction in exercise, with no benefits.

Argh.

Exercise du jour: Working out on the elliptical.
Done! Did 40 minutes on the elliptical. Thank goodness for drugs (i.e. pills I took to keep the swelling down, not narcotics, dude).

The trouble with being unemployed is the unreasonable boss

Quote du jour:

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

Now that my official job is stalking the wild and wary job opportunity in its lair, I notice that my manager has turned into a thoroughly unreasonable woman. Spent most of today in "job consultant"online seminars -- no, correction: spent most of this week in seminars on how to spruce up my résumé, shape up my networking, and in general find some kind of gainful employment.
In between the online seminars, I've been getting in a few sessions on the elliptical, ten or fifteen minutes at a time. In the evenings, I've been working on creating a kick-ass website that will sparkle and shine and knock the socks off anyone who cares to glance at it.
The pertinent phrase in that last sentence is "working on creating." It's not there yet. I've had to reach back for skills I haven't used in seven or eight years, plus it turns out that the tools have gone and went and changed while I wasn't using them.
It's a good thing this doesn't happen in other fields; I mean, what would a gardener do if he picked up a shovel one day and found that it had transmogrified into Shovel 2.0^® with Newer, Flashier Features that he never needed in the first place?
If I had been working at a "real" job (i.e. one that someone else paid me to do), then I would have taken lunch breaks & the occasional rest break to stretch my legs & hang around the coffee in the break room to chat with passersby. As it is, my boss feels like any break time is a Waste Of Time, What Do You Think I'm (not) Paying You For? Get To Work!!!
Yes, my new manager does think in initial capitals and use multiple exclamation points. It's sad.

Exercise du jour: I only managed 15 minutes on the elliptical. However, I am pleased to report that the knee hardly complained at all. (Probably was afraid of what the boss would say.)

Branding: it's not just for cattle anymore

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Things have changed. I know this, because everyone tells me so.

One older woman (i.e. older than I am, yes it's all about me) confessed, a bit wistfully, that all she was familiar with were the days when you sent out a résumé and sat by the phone.

Even since the last time that I went a-hunting, things have changed. Nowadays, apparently, you cannot hope to get a job unless you have Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. I'm hoping that I don't actually have to go on FaceBook as well.

So far, I'm not impressed with this "job consultant" guy. Either he's too busy to respond to my emails or all my emails are going into his spam filter. I would expect someone in his position to be able to handle a minor issue like that. I am frustrated with him.

Today I have a seminar on Job Search Communications. I have a feeling the word 'branding' is going to come up.

[Courtesy of Thomas Hawk]

Exercise du jour: More ellipticalling. The doctor used unfamiliar words like "patience" and "lots of time," but he also agreed that I should be exercising. So today I'm going to go a little longer on the elliptical. And I'm going to feel grateful that I have an elliptical machine to use.