My Last Day of Freedom

Today is my last (week) day of freedom. I return to work full-time on Monday, 7/15.

As excited as I am about the new job and about getting back into a regular routine, and in spite of the occasional stress of not having a full-time income since early September 2012, I'm feeling a bit sad today for the loss of my free time that will come next week.

All this past week, Mr. 42 and I have been doing fun stuff that we won't be able to do when I'm working full-time again:

Mr. 42 and a fresh pitcher of Pimms and Sunshine, National Mechanics

• Leisurely lunches at off hours that included beer
• Getting tipsy in the late afternoon before Happy Hour even starts 
• Two karaoke nights
• Our first trip to the King of Prussia Mall, which is America's largest shopping center. It ended up being a seven-hour ordeal for which we had little to show but a couple of shirts from a clearance rack. Three of those seven hours were spent on buses to get there and back. The mall was huge but just a typical mall, which means 85% of the stores are ones I'll never set foot in--clothes for kids and teens, baby goods, home furnishings and decor that are not my style, etc. Another 2% were large department stores, all of which had many of the same things. The other 13% were stores that we have here in Center City within walking distance. Neither of us see any need to revisit the KOP anytime soon. (If we can't find something here in Center City, it probably means we don't need it.)
• Boring but important errands I ran on weekday mornings and afternoons that can suck up entire weekends, like getting haircuts, going to the drugstore, grocery shopping, etc. 

Still on tap: a weekday movie matinee today; walking up to my new office in order to time the walk and see what interesting shops and restaurants are in the area; painting or crafting of some kind.

I wouldn't say I've made particularly good use of my time off. I didn't complete any major projects people always say they will do, like writing a novel. I didn't establish a regular exercise routine. My apartment is not organized from top to bottom nor free of any specks of dust. 

A series of miniature paintings I completed in June

I haven't entirely wasted that time, either. I got some arts and crafts done that were very satisfying. I did lots of writing, both here and for my freelance job. I read some great books and saw some amazing movies. I went to some concerts that were fantastic. I learned how to code in HTML, as opposed to just not goofing up the existing code. I learned basic Javascript and Prezi. I explored my new city and learned how to get around in it, on foot, by train and by bus. I have new favorite restaurants, bars and museums I will visit again and again. I met lots of people and made some new friends. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want and don't want in my life.

One of the best books I've read in a while

A Prezi I created as a demo for potential employers

To be honest, there was not as much "leisure time" in there as I expected. Hunting for a job really is a full-time job. Some online job applications take an hour or more to complete, even if you already have all your past job info, salary history and reference contact info lined up. Phone interviews and face-to-face interviews require a great deal of preparation. Plus, I still had (and will have) my part-time/freelance job, seven days a week.  

In this last month and a half, I was just getting to the point that most people probably won't see until retirement (and maybe not even then), where time itself was becoming meaningless. I was waking and sleeping when I felt like it, eating when I wanted to and giving my days only the loosest of structure. I would think a lot of time had passed and discover only 30 minutes had passed. I would think it was still early in the afternoon and discover it was somehow 4:00 PM already. I remember my late MIL could never recall what day it was, not due to dementia or absent-mindedness, but because her days had no structure after she retired and she stopped looking at the calendar. Birthdays and holidays went by and she didn't always realize it, so they were celebrated (or not) when they were remembered. I am unsure how much longer it would have taken me to get to that point, and whether or not that would be a good way to live. 

Overall, I'm calling the time between September 2012 and mid-July 2013 a brief period of semi-retirement, filled with fun and adventure and a little anxiety. It looked a lot like my own parents' retirement has looked so far. To some degree, I regret not spending that time more wisely, but I realize, too, that it was a luxury I probably won't get to enjoy again for a long time. It has definitely taught me the value of time as I go forward. 

Time to take a nap before we catch that movie. 

I Saw It In Philadelphia: Cryptic Arthouse Cinema Graffiti

Not entirely sure what this means, but it was cool nonetheless. 

Graffiti on a construction scaffold, 7th and Chestnut. 

If You Come to Philadelphia ...

If you come to Philadelphia, I promise we'll have a great time!

Come now (or soon) if you want to have more of my time available during your visit.

Come after I get a job if you want us to have more spending money to go and do things. (Mr. 42 will likely still be available to meet your plane or pick you up at your hotel and take you around during the day).

I suggest an itinerary that includes a "First Friday" (i.e. the first Friday of a new month) as there are tons of fun and free or inexpensive things to do on those weekends:  Art crawl. Gallery walk. Bands. Drinks. Food.

Some awesome things are always free:  the Liberty Bell and Independence Park, for example. People-watching on South Street. The Edgar Allan Poe House. Elfreth's Alley. Reading Terminal. Love Park. Penn's Landing.

Penn's Landing, Sculpture

View of the Ben Franklin Bridge from Penn's Landing

South Street funkiness

Mosaics on South Street

Some other cool things don't cost much and are worth the small amount they do cost:  Philadelphia Art Museum (complete with Rocky statue); Philadelphia African American Museum (The Supremes exhibit is here through June); The Franklin Institute; The Constitution Center.

If you want to shop, we're within walking distance of H & M, Macy's, Lush, Sephora, Buffalo Trading, Marshall's, Ross, two malls, trendy little boutiques in Old City, big designer stores in Rittenhouse, funky head shops and bookstores and XXX-product stores on South Street. We'll ride the subway somewhere just to give you the experience, or maybe to visit destinations a little further away. If you want to do serious shopping, we can ride the train and bus to great big ol' King of Prussia Mall, but honestly, if we're going to ride trains and buses for 90 minutes (yes, it really takes that long to get there by train and bus), why don't we ride them to New York City instead?  Trains are $24 to $40 and get there in 1 hr 15 minutes, or the Yo! Bus is $12 and takes 2 hrs.

We know tons of great places to eat. Including vegetarian. Including cheesesteaks. Including cheap (we just found a fabulous Indian place today that sells their food for $4.95 a pound). Including places with cool decor and moderate pricing. Including fancy-pants restaurants and high dollar menus if that's your game.

We live around the corner from a great dive bar and five decent restaurants that cover five ethnic cuisines and every price point. We're also just 4-5 blocks from two really good restaurant/bar districts.

If you want to sing karaoke with me (or just watch me sing), there are fun places to go every night, esp. Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. All are within walking distance.

You can stay with us if you don't mind a sofa (or an airbed if there are two of you coming) and don't mind one or two cats trying to sleep with you. If you want a hotel room, there are four within walking distance of us (big city prices, sorry) or we can Priceline and try to get a better deal, though it may be a little further away.  We don't mind walking or riding the subway to get to you, and cabs are plentiful and cheap here in Philly.

Who among you will be the first to visit us? Mr. 42 and I have placed our bets. Prove me wrong, or prove me right! Hope to see you soon!

Random Updates. Really Random.

The Stuff We Lost In the Move

One of our missing moving boxes from the move has been found, or some of it, anyway. It DOESN'T appear to be the box with the photos, but we're waiting for a little more info. If it's the clothes and shoes, we have already replaced 'em and don't have room to store much extra, so we probably won't worry about getting it back. From what we know so far, it's a partially-full box only, which means someone probably picked through it and took whatever they wanted already.

The Job Hunt

Still hunting for a job and trying not to panic. Still have a little time, too, before I have to panic, but not much. I didn't start job hunting until the end of October, due to the move trauma and needing some time to get settled, so I've only been at it four months, but still. Ugh. My daily routine nowadays consists of going through all the job boards and LinkedIn each day to see if anything good has been posted, then going through the career sites of my "target" companies and seeing if they have anything new, or if I can find any new target companies to add to the list. I usually find two or three worth bookmarking or applying for every day, but not always. I keep hearing about how you're supposed to network, all these ridiculous bullshit guerilla job search tactics you can try (sending a package with a coffee mug AND your resume to the recruiter, etc.) and I just cringe. That is so not me. I also think how annoyed I would be as a recruiter or HR professional if people did that. Granted, HR pro's usually have a different personality and goals than I do. Maybe they truly are not annoyed by those tactics somehow. Or maybe those tactics work if you're in some creative field like Advertising, or you're in an industry that thrives on entrepreneurs, like a tech start-up. The financial services and insurance industries are notoriously conservative in many regards and I suspect they are in this one, too. I'm adding Philly contacts to LinkedIn as I can find them, but without working, I honestly haven't met that many folks here yet. My handful of karaoke friends are it, pretty much, BUT ...

Friends

... Two friends I have known for awhile just moved to Philadelphia this week. Yes!  :-)  One is an old friend from Lincoln, and the other is this person's sweetheart, whom I met for the first time in 2011. And you know the old shampoo commercial from the 1970s:  "They told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on ...?"  Umm, no details I can share yet but something like that is possibly in the works.  If nothing else, it is nice to have a few more friends here.

Coding and Networking

And in other professional developments: I have thoroughly ramped up on my HTML skills and am taking a class this weekend to learn JavaScript. I hope to make some new contacts there and meet a few other cool folks here in Philly. The coding knowledge couldn't hurt, either. I'm sure I won't know enough after that to get hired as a website developer (though I already know enough to be able to maintain some corporation's blog or update their website), but what I'm hoping is I'll learn enough to decide if I am interested in a change in career direction, and have an aptitude for it, which could prompt future educational choices, too.  I live very close to an ITT tech school if I want to get a certificate in something technical, plus there are all the other great colleges here (Drexel, Temple, Penn, etc.) if I want to pursue a Master's in something.

Complacency and You

Which brings me to another important point for everyone, but especially my friends and readers who still work where I used to work: don't get complacent.

Part of why it's taking so long for me to find a job out here is due to the high unemployment rate.  Philly, at 10.1%, is higher than the national average of 7.8%, and much higher than Nebraska's 3.7%.

Part of it, too, I have to accept responsibility for because I let myself get comfy in a job that I thought I'd probably work at for the rest of my life, and that was the wrong thing to do. We've all seen the firings and layoffs as jobs move overseas and lines of business get dropped.  There is no guarantee you'll have a job there in the future, and you don't want to wait until you get laid off to start preparing for your next job.

I didn't put much emphasis on my own development the last few years there, and I know many of you also are not doing this. I am thankful I already have a college degree, and I can't emphasize this enough: if you didn't finish your degree yet, make plans to get back in school as soon as you can, especially since the company offers tuition reimbursement. If you find yourself without a job, you'll be competing against many other people who are also looking for a job but who also have at least a Bachelor's Degree, and guess who won't make the cut? These days, employers want a Bachelor's even for non-skilled positions like being a receptionist at a dentist's office, for pete's sake! Check out a few job postings if you don't believe me.

For those of you with a degree already: step it up in other ways. Get that resume dusted off and ready to go. Build your network on LinkedIn if you haven't already. Get trained as a Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt. Start sitting in on technical meetings and learning project management. Learn Access and Brio and SAP Business Objects and any other technology you can get your hands on. Learn another branch of the business (Life, Annuities, Variable, etc.). Take any opportunity  you can get to learn something new at the company's expense, or even your own if you can afford it. (Wanna learn some programming skills? I do recommend Code Academy to start and it's absolutely free. Learn some basic HTML and you can start adding web parts to that lovely SharePoint site we used!)

Cute Cat Photos

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. Umm ... how about some animal cuteness to lighten the mood here? Girlcat and Boycat say hello!

Never Say Never: Observations from a Mid-Life Job Hunt

Hunting for jobs in my early 40s has not been a pleasant experience. When is job hunting ever a pleasant experience? Probably never. I recall it being pretty unpleasant when I was 22 years old and fresh out of college, too.

I'm starting to wonder if we shot ourselves in the foot not bringing a car to Philadelphia. The greater metro area isn't as well-served by public transportation as I expected. As I commented in an earlier entry, I've seen some great jobs for which I probably would have been a shoo-in (life insurance companies offering jobs almost exactly like what I did in my last two jobs at the insurance company), but they were out in suburbs that I can't access by public transportation. And even the suburbs that I can access, I kinda sorta don't want to. If I wanted to live downtown and have a lengthy commute to the suburbs for work every day, I would have stayed in Omaha. I'm not at the point yet where I'm so desperate for a job that I'll take something that involves a lengthy commute by train or bus, but if the time comes I certainly will do whatever is necessary. Never say never.

But ... here's to hoping that time doesn't come!

I feel a bit out of my element in today's job market. Friends who work where I used to work, take note: that place is not adequately training and preparing you for continued advancement in your career if you ever leave the company. Most of the places offering positions similar to what I did before also want someone who is a CPA, some even want a JD (yes! and they're not willing to pay any more than what I was paid!) or who is able to program and run their own reports in SQL or other database technologies. They'll want project-management experience in methodologies like Agile and Scrum, and maybe a PMP certification to boot. (Go look all that stuff up if you don't know what  it is. If you have a chance to get trained on any of it, DO IT!)

My four industry certifications and hard-won product and process experience are not as useful outside of the old workplace, and I find I'm having to market myself as a potential employee based on a lot of general skills that may have made up just a part of some of my previous jobs.

Something that has paid off in more ways that I can count: my job at the perfume website. First off, they just gave me a 25% raise.  :-)   Second, having visible proof that I am a published writer, that I have extensive editing experience, that I have basic HTML skills and CMS experience is proving more valuable than I would have guessed (for all kinds of occupations), and all I will say for now is that it is prompting some possible changes in career path for me that I wouldn't have been able to consider before. (Never say never!)

In an effort to increase my visibility as a job candidate, I've had to face the reality of today's tech-driven world. I'm networking on LinkedIn. (And you all should be doing this, too, if you're not already.)  I had previously thought Twitter was a waste of time, but now I have a Twitter account, which I'm not doing much with at the moment, but never say never! I tweet when I have a new story on the perfume site, when I come across something interesting to share or when I have good coupon codes for perfume shops. I troll Monster.com, Careerbuilder, Dice, MediaBistro, indeed.com, insurancejobs.com, Greatinsurancejobs.com and Craigslist every day for possible job leads. (Those merit their own entry one of these days, oy!)  I have specialized resumes prepared emphasizing my general business experience, my experience as a writer and in corporate communications and I can tweak either one to emphasize certain skills to better match a job posting. I have a series of cover letters that go with each one and are easily tweakable, too.

All of this was extremely difficult for me to do, being a humble Midwesterner and an Introvert--selling myself is not my strong point. But it's getting easier. Never say never!

67 Days

It has been 67 days since Mr. 42 and I last drove a car, which was the date we arrived in Philly and returned the very expensive one-way rental Mitsubishi Gallant we drove here.

That is without a doubt the longest I have ever gone without driving a car since I got my learner's permit at age 15. (Technically speaking, I started driving at age 14--not uncommon for rural Nebraska, where many kids learned to drive at even younger ages if they grew up on farms, which I didn't.)

During these 67 days, we have used the "leather express" (aka our feet) to get almost everywhere. We rode in a taxi to and from the art museum, and that was the only time we've been inside a car since our move. We have only used the subway three times. We rode a bus to and from Ikea.

An ATC I made in 2010. Watercolor and ink on Yupo.

We thought we would be making more use of public transportation here (and we might, someday) but we've also been pleasantly surprised at how many of the things we need to go/do/see/buy are within walking distance. My definition of "walking distance" has expanded a bit, too. If it's within a 30 minute walk and it's not raining/snowing, it's worth the walk.  It is possibly worth the walk up to 45 minutes. If we're talking an hour or more away, we look for some other way to get there or we just don't go (King of Prussia Mall, I'm talking about you)!

The day we gave our car to my niece and her husband--just a couple days before we moved--was one of the happiest days of my life. I've never been one of those folks who regard cars as a status symbol (though I'm not judging those of you who are this way, and I acknowledge that having had constant access to a car or even multiple cars since age 15 puts me in a relatively privileged position to begin with). Once I began my lengthy commutes between Omaha and Lincoln, I came to view cars and driving not as a privilege, but instead as a necessary evil and a pain in the butt. I am so excited to finally be living somewhere that doesn't require you to have a car in order to complete the most basic tasks of life. (Omaha had a bus system, sure, but let's be honest--it sucked.)

Life without a car here has proven challenging in some regards, especially for buying groceries and job hunting. I've had to let several good opportunities slide because they're in a suburb of Philly that is not accessible by public transportation. Plus, I did the lengthy-commute-between-cities thing for five years and I'm not eager to repeat the experience anytime soon.

I am firmly convinced, though, that all this walking is improving my mental and physical health and will trim some pounds off me. Eventually. As soon as I learn to resist the Spanish fries with Whiz...

Sweet and Sour

Sour:  The three boxes that went missing in the move could not be found.  After extensive searches at both the point of origin and point of destination, the moving company has officially confirmed that they're lost.

They were unable to explain how or why the boxes the moving company packed themselves and labeled with a large label that had our last name and order number, as well as the little orange sticker with our lot number, and which were logged on their official inventory and bill of lading as both received and shipped, just disappeared. (They think it occurred in the Omaha warehouse somehow but no other details beyond that.)

Someone stole them? They accidentally got packed into somebody else's crate? Who knows? 

Sweet: We got our settlement from the moving company today. Apparently, they can put a value of some kind on things like pictures which have mostly sentimental value. Plus, we had a definite value on the more practical items like clothes, shoes, etc, that were lost. At this point, I've accepted that the photos are gone and that we can't get them back, and I'm just glad to have it over with. Things could certainly be worse. I'm counting my blessings. At least the two of us, our two cats and most of our things arrived safely in the move. At least Hurricane Sandy didn't wipe out the photos plus everything else we had and leave us shivering in a cold, dark, wet apartment for two weeks.  

Sour: I found out today a job I had applied for and been really hopeful about was given to someone else.

Sweet: A recruiter from the same company contacted me about another job opening they have, and while I'm not interested (it's in a different city and I'm in no hurry to repeat the move experience anytime soon), at least someone is noticing my resume and I have a contact in HR at that company now.

Sweet:  A surprise bottle of expensive and beautiful perfume arrived in the mail today.  (On top of the Tauer bottle that already arrived!)

Sweet and Sour: I ate a hot dog topped with baked apple slices and cheddar cheese for lunch.  ;-)

Sweet: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Woo hoo! (This is the street our apartment overlooks.)