Say Goodnight Gracie....

There are many unforgettable closings and goodbyes that are etched in our memories from decades ago. George Burns' "Say Goodnight Gracie", Carol Burnett's ear tug at the end of each show, and who could forget the series finale of the Newhart show, when Bob wakes up next to Emily, (lusty low-voiced Suzanne Pleshette from "The Bob Newhart Show") and tells her he had the strangest dream...he was an inkeeper in Vermont, with a cast of crazy characters, including Larry, his brother Darrell, and his other brother Darrell.

Since the day I started this blog, November 3, 2008, I have dreamed of this, my final blog entry, and I don't need to tell you what that means:

The nightmare is over!!!!


I've been trying to figure out how I could summarize this moment for you that would be hilarious and unlike anything I have written before.

I came up short.

You see, I've spent almost 3 months documenting this "journey" as a way to release some stress and to keep you AND me laughing.

And it worked.

And here I am, at the end of this journey. You would think that this would be the entry I had prepared WAY in advance. It should have been the FIRST one I wrote. Of course, that would've been bad karma probably, or as I like to call it, bad "ju ju".

While I have not run out of material, I feel like cutting to the chase. (If you need me to make you laugh in the future, just call, we'll have coffee!)

Here it is, "by the numbers"...
(and for those of you who got our '08 Christmas letter, yes, "by the numbers" is stolen from there, and if you didn't get our Christmas letter, I'm sorry, I'm just not that into you...) ;-)

~Days since my notification of downsizing - 142

~# of weeks in job search - 12

~Hours spent in job search activities - 263

~Number of networking contacts I made - 68

~Number of contacts with three eyes and claws - 1

~Number of jobs I applied to - 53

~Number of companies I actually got an interview with - 4

(actually, make that three, Apex Printing doesn't count...)

~Ounces of coffee consumed and home and out and about - 7,128

~Conversations with God - I lost count

~Number of interviews with the ONE company that finally had the brains to snag me, (oooh, sorry, my ego flexing has been on hold....not anymore!) and the ONE company that would be at the very TOP of my list to work for:

3.5 - (That last one was a "technicality", hence the .5...)

The company that believes in me as much as I believed in myself (most days!):

LifeTime Fitness

My title:

Manager of Member Relations

My life:

Changed forever

My worries:

Over

My gratitude:

Immeasurable

My desire for coffee:

Still off the charts

My dream job?

Yes (until my 24 employees start crabbing at me, but then I'll just describe the last 142 days to them and then they'll shut the hell up...)

Do I think getting laid off is the best thing that could've happened to me?

Last Thursday...no. Friday...where is the "Hell Yes!" button?

My commute:

14 miles to the LifeTime Corporate Headquarters in Chanhassen MN

My passion for health, fitness and wellness:

As enormous as my passion for finding a job

Was it a rollercoaster ride?

OMG YES!!!

LifeTime and me?

The perfect "fit".

My days of grinding the beans:

Over

Do I care?

Hell no

Did I ever get those windows washed?

Dang...

Feel good inside?

Yes. I do.

:-)

"Sometimes through the winds of change we find our true direction..."

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be"

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Bank...

There is a fine line between persistence and being a pain in the ass. I was walking that line the last few months on a job I had been feverishly following. It was for a bank branch manager job RIGHT HERE in Shakopee USA! (And it's a little known fact that Shakopee MN truly IS its only namesake in America).

How much better could it get? Working right down the street? The ability to come home for lunch or a quick snooze? Heaven.

So when I saw this job posted back in October, I knew I had to go for it. I applied, and of course, heard nothing. This is not surprising to me, because in job search, it is just assumed that whenever you apply to a job on-line, expect to hear nothing. Sound frustrating?

Oh, it is.

The job kept showing up on various job boards on the Internet. One of them listed some poor guy's NAME, and I to this day don't know if that was a mistake or really meant to be. A name? Jackpot.

Time to go into stalker mode.

So I stalked the guy down, coming across his e-mail address by doing a little sleuthing, and quickly sent my resume and cover letter directly to him. "That'll do the trick!" I thought.

I thought wrong.

His name could have easily been "Black Hole". Frustrating? Yes. (That is now MY middle name).

AGAIN the job appears at the end of December. What the???!!!! So I go to the company website where I applied the first time, and it said "You have already applied for this job, would you like to apply again??"

If there had been a "Hell Yes" button, I would have pushed it.

So on Friday, January 1, I applied for the second time. On Monday, January 5th, Mr. "Black Hole" called me up.

Uh oh. He's going to tell me to leave him the hell alone already. I was ready for his shots at me. After all, I likely had crossed that fine line.

With hesitance in his voice he proceeded to ask me some basics, and by the end of our 10 minutes, he had me coming in for a face to face interview later that week.

Persistence is not futile.

So the interview goes great and he said he would get back to me within 5 days. 5 days came and went so I gave old Nick a call.

A woman's voice: "You've reached the voicemail of Nick ____________. Nick is no longer with the company. Please press 0 for another member of the bank human resources department".

Again, had there been a HELL ZERO button I would've pushed it.

It was the episode of Cheers where Rebecca finally makes it to the head cheeses office, tells her all the reasons he should hire her, he's about to give her a job, and WHAM, the Feds rush in and arrest him for tax evasion.

And thus, in a flash, Nick is gone, and I later learned my dream job so close to home has been put on hold.

Not knowing the sequence of events that led to the demise of Nick, but knowing his quick departure was likely not on his own terms, what I do want to know now is:

Is Nick's job available????

;-)

Grab a Cup of Coffee and Read On...

If you don’t like coffee and are unemployed, you are, well... screwed.

And likely tired I surmise.

I love getting jacked up on coffee. The coffeemaker in my house is far and wide my most used appliance. Way more than the hair dryer, and more than the vacuum? Please. Last time I vacuumed thoroughly I was still employed. Sometimes when I get up on a Saturday to go have coffee with my posse, I have “coffee on the way to coffee”. I have not yet succumbed to eating the grounds straight from the bag, but don’t think I haven’t pondered if they’d taste good sprinkled in some vanilla yogurt. I have.

That I am unemployed and like coffee is a good thing. You see, for a job seeker, coffee is not just a drink; it’s a “concept”. It’s an “event”. If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation I am in, you will be asked out for coffee. A LOT. We don’t have jobs. Going out for a beer "after work” is not an option. If we smoked I suppose we could huddle outside some random office building somewhere while our _____'s get frostbitten (you fill in the blank), all the name of a good nicotine fix.

I’ll stick to my caffeine addiction thanks.

It will start something like this: A fellow job seeker will approach you and say, “Wanna grab a quick cup of coffee?” It’s like code for “I need to dump on you I’m having a bad day.” But before I get into that, let’s break down that initial question. First, “grabbing” a cup of coffee. Who grabs a blistering hot cup of anything? Wouldn’t the act of grabbing lead one to believe that it was done quickly and with force? Please. I never GRAB coffee. I do move toward it quickly and with tremendous anticipation, yet I can seemingly still never reach Mr. Coffee fast enough. When I do get a job, I’m getting a moving walkway ala MSP International installed in my kitchen to get me there faster.

So “grabbing” with my luck would likely involve 3rd degree burns, skin and tissue graphs, (hey, can they take that from my a**?) and THEN how would I drink my coffee??? Not worth it. The only coffee physically able of being grabbed in my eyes is the cup I left in the car that is now frozen because it hasn’t been above 15 degrees in months.

The next part of the whole deal that is whacked is the “quick” part the equation. Again, the act of DRINKING 200 degree liquid is anything but quick. And in the concept of time, a “quick” cup of coffee with a fellow job seeker is quite the opposite. It is NEVER quick. Isn't the usual "coffee break" say, 15 minutes? Not so here. A “quick” cup of coffee for me these days is a freaking 3 hour event.

And what if you don’t like coffee? Get a hot chocolate. But from what I hear, coffee house hot chocolate is like sipping Hershey's syrup straight from the bottle. In theory that sounds pretty lip smacking, but that’s because if you ask me which I love more, chocolate or my kids, I’d have to ponder that for awhile… In reality though, sipping on chocolate syrup might be a little vulgar, so order a coffee and fake it is my advice.

So let’s move on to the “whys” of this event we call Coffee. As I mentioned, asking or being asked to “grab” a cup of joe with your fellow job seeker falls into one of three reasons: a) I haven’t been out of the house in 3 days so would you PLEASE be so kind as to entertain me before they haul me off to an institution b) I’m at the bottom of my roller coaster ride today and could you kindly bring some amusement to my life, or c) a combo of both a and b, which is usually the case. Oh, and with any luck, we’ll talk about our latest successes in the world of job search.

You might ask a prospective employer for a “quick cup of coffee” if you have arranged a networking meeting with them, but if you’re like me, you’re going to make it as painless for them as possible. (And as I've stated, coffee can be chock full of physical pain...) You’re going to MapQuest their office, get in, get your message across, and GET OUT. While they were nice enough to agree to a meeting, you still don't want to waste their time, (and in the case of a networking meeting I had last week, she DID have 3 eyes and claws.) Get out indeed! Yikes!

Next we get to the “where’s” of the event. Since we are unemployed, of COURSE we are budget conscious. This however does NOT mean we hang out at the SA next to the hot dog roller sippin’ our joe. “Hey cashier lady, need another pot of Shockwave over here!!!”

While McDonalds does brew a good cup of java, it is a not gathering spot we unemployed liken to either. Somehow sitting in the plastic booths next to the big, freaky, creepy plastic Ronald McDonald is just too traumatic in these tough economic times.

So, despite our frugality, we pilgrimage to the “elite” of the coffee slinging houses, “grabbing" our "quick" cup at (if I’m doing the inviting) Caribou, or sometimes, the S word…

We feel so special sitting on real furniture, surrounded by moose, the waft of the beans filling our noses. We order our poison, in its logoed cup and cardboard sleeve. The stir sticks made of wood, not plastic. Not a hot dog or polish sausage in sight. The whole set up feeling so special I want to take my cup home and hold on to the memory.

And why is it those cups have some sort of paralyzing effect on people?? My former boss buys hot tea from the S word every morning JUST because the cup “looks cool”. Like the paparazzi are going to come and hound him because he is being seen with a paper cup wrapped in cardboard? $2.50 a day for that? And he runs a million+ budget? No wonder I don’t have a job.

Anyway, so there we sit. My fellow job seeker and I. We’re all set.

Holy Crap! Now what???

We gossip, we vent, we talk of our victories. There is no grabbing. Nothing is quick.

I’ve had more coffee in the last two months than I would care to admit. Funny, I still manage to sleep 9 hrs a night. Yeah me!

I’ve drank coffee in Roseville, Woodbury, South St Paul (and I do miss that just killed cattle smell…), Minneapolis, Golden Valley, Bloomington, and Shakopee, and a few more places in between. The coffee all tasted the same, and I’m happy to report, it all tasted good.

However, I surmise that the best coffee I’m ever going to taste is the coffee I pick up soon, on my way to work.

;-)

A New Year, New Hope

My high school classmate who died of breast cancer in August 08 always remarked on her Caringbridge site that if she didn't post for awhile, it was because she never had good news, it was always bad bad bad news about her health and she didn't feel like talking about it.

Thus is the case here for the past few weeks. I haven't had much to say, and I really didn't want to talk about it. I went on hiatus for the holidays, and I loved it. I loved not worrying about looking for a job, attending networking meetings, applying on-line, blah blah blah.

I loved not talking about "it". (I didn't love that Leah has turned into a whiny monster right before my eyes, but that's a different story...)

I'm bored with the whole unemployed thing. I'm sick of it. I want to go back to work. I wanted a job for Christmas but alas, it was not meant to be. I want some company to believe in me again, but until then, I will have to continue to believe in myself.

A new year, and with that comes new hope for me and all my fellow job seekers.

Time again to get down to business. And as the wind fell out of my sails, two e-mails this morning from people I talked with weeks ago, with offers for informational meetings with them.

Then, the phone rang. An interview. (and this time, for a job I actually applied for....)

Thank you God. 2009 is here with a vengeance.

;-)

PS - Humor returns next post

Party of One

I am unemployed. I have no boss except for….me. I report to myself, set my own hours, take breaks when I want to, eat lunch when I want to, answer the phone when I want to, and clean the toilet if the mood strikes me, (which is not often). I have two co-workers. They are hairy with saggy jowls and bad breath. That however does not distinguish them from previous co-workers I’ve had in corporate America.

I am the CEO, CIO, CFO and of course M-O-M. I am also the sole guest at the… office Christmas Party.

My Christmas Party is just that. Christmas. It’s not a “Holiday Festival”, “Seasonal Celebration”, “Winter Gathering” or any other asinine politically correct name for a merry-making event celebrating the birth of Jesus. It’s a freaking Christmas Party.

Let’s get this party started by decking the “halls”.

My company, as most companies do, banned appliances big or small, lamps, electric staplers, radios, and the like. This was not an issue for me until I wanted to bring in my 30-cup coffeemaker and become the office barista.

Fire hazard? Please. Like my cell phone charger was going to spontaneously combust.

And Christmas lights? Forget it. Wanting to truly buck the system I shall opt to violate every standard OSHA has in place for workplace safety. Open flames everywhere. Candles, kerosene lamps, and flood lights marked for “outdoor use only” will grace and illuminate my party.

Tiki torch anyone??

Now, what to wear? Being my rebel self, I suppose I should go for the completely inappropriate office party attire. I shall don a blouse with a plunging neckline, a micro-mini skirt ala Paris Hilton, and stiletto heels. Now where did I put those fishnet stockings…

Actually, I own none of these. Sorry honey.

I’ll just wear….jammies! Yes! Elastic-waisted jammies and my running shoes which should make for easy maneuvering around the buffet table…

Now then, on to the menu. Office party food usually consists of say, sliced ham, buns, pasta salad, and a fabricated sorry ass excuse for a cheesecake. BOOOORING! Not this party, oh no sir-ree! I’ve come up with a delightful menu sure to please anyone who has longed for an all alcohol-laden meal at work:

Stuffed Meatballs with Vodka Sauce
Spinach Salad Flambé w/Bacon and Brandy Dressing
Beer Bread Buns

And for dessert:
Fuzzy Navel Upside Down Cake (boy, if that doesn’t conger up a good “morning after” story, I don’t know what will…)

There will of course be an open bar, tips accepted, and since I work in my own home, sober cab is not necessary. Yeah me! And for my narcoleptic
co-workers? Red Bull and Tic-Tacs.

Let’s move on to music. For everyone’s entertainment, I shall dance on the table in an inappropriate way (because I can) to the likes of “O Holy Night” and “Away in a Manger”. (Probably should’ve skipped the second helping of Flambé…) There will be no PC “Jingle Bells” or “Frosty the Snowman”. I’m giddy with political incorrectness! (It’s that, or the fact that I’m on White Russian #3….) We’re gonna get a little Jesus/Mary/Joseph action going on here. I shall sing of Angels I Have Heard On High, and Silent Nights (which I’ll be having later after I pass out…) Religion fills the air! And I will not even be banned to diversity training! PRAISE JESUS! (Ooops, there I go again!!)

And as long as I’m on the subject of Christmas ditties, I’ve got some news for the Twin Cities radio stations: Karen Carpenter and Elvis are dead…. Move ON!

After a few more hot toddies, being kept warm I might add by 5 roaring sterno cans, I decide on one more dance and call it a day. (A day that is, for it is not yet 3pm…). I lose my groove after falling flat on my face from the kitchen stool, another spot from which I chose to buck the system and dance inappropriately at this, my version of the office Christmas Party. Damn. As I come to, I get wind of the Red Bull Mint Cosmo they’ve whipped up for themselves… “Beloved” co-worker is licking my head, not to help me regain consciousness, but because I have remnants of Fuzzy Navel Upside Down Cake in my hair. A good story indeed!

Ok, now it’s REALLY time to call it a day.

As I extinguish the 47 sources of open flames and drag myself up the stairs for a quick nap before school lets out, I look back on my party escapades and am pleased. What could be better than a completely unorthodoxed office CHRISTMAS Party done my way?? (Besides
co-workers that don’t, er… sniff each other’s butts?)

Oh I don’t know, a REAL job maybe??

;-)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Adventures in Laundry

There are times, not many, but some, where I can honestly say, “Thank goodness I’m not working today/this week/this month”.

Case in point? Traffic. I now get to sit back from the comfort of my own home and “watch” traffic on tv rather than participate in it. This week especially has allowed me to boast about my long commute from the house to the mailbox. Haven't the shmucks learned that if you leave at 7 and get there at 9:30, maybe the next day you should leave at 8:30 and get there at 9:30??? It really DOES work that way! Hello!!??

Another good reason to be unemployed? When black smoke starts pouring from the washing machine, and the fear of being without said appliance takes precedence over say, getting smoke inhalation, well, there you go. Who has time to work when a major appliance nearly starts on fire???!!! Surely not I!!!

Replacing an appliance is no small feat. This would not be a quick fix. Need professional advice. Call repairman. Repairman says poor washer is DOA. I suppose I should have suspected that when I saw the black smoke rising from the clothes like fog over a cemetary...

Damn. It just cost me 70 bucks for his little bit of “advice”… And to make it worse, I had a sopping full load of laundry sitting in poor deceased washer.

I am a self proclaimed laundry maven, but no amount of creative ingenuity was going to solve the problem of the sopping wet clothes, and the mounds of still dirty laundry waiting in the wings. I do not own a washboard, and the only thing I can ring out effectively is the neck of the beast in the house that vomits on my living room carpet with every-other- day frequency.

The only immediate solution to my laundry quandary? GASP! CHOKE! GAG! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, say it isn’t so!!! I have to go to the…..the….laundromat!!!! (Psycho music plays in the background…)

The laundromat? I’d rather clean up dog barf.

I agreed to suck it up for the sake of keeping my status as “domestic goddess”, even in the face of adversity. (But the question begs to be asked, isn’t being unemployed punishment enough????)

I toted the 150 lbs of sopping wet mess, as well as the rest of the smelly stack to the car. If it appeared dirty in any way shape or form it was going with me, for I was going to make this journey ONCE and only once, come hell or high water, (or lack thereof as the case may be).

A mile down the road it dawned on me. DETERGENT! Damn. Back I go. (For the record, this would still only count as ONE trip to the laundromat, for I shall never admit to more than just one in a 5 year period).

Being the optimist I am (!), I had a vision in my head of what this place might have in store for me. “It will be clean” I thought. People go there to wash their clothes so that’s a good thing right? It will be bright and clean and there will be people there like me who suffered near death experiences due to exploding appliances and we shall…bond.

That was WAAAAY too optimistic on my part. Damn washer. Why couldn’t it have been the DISHWASHER that died? I can wash and dry dishes with ease. Hell, the three year old can wash and dry dishes with ease. (My apologies if I insulted anyone who is "dishwashingly challanged"...)

Strike One, location. Oh, so THIS is what Purgatory looks like! Who knew?!

I held out hopes for the inside. Strike Two. Despite the blaring streams of sun in the western sky, the place was dark. Very dark. If my kids had been along I’m quite sure they would’ve feared the Boogie Man. Hell, even I was fearing the Boogie Man.

And finally, I surmise that the cleanest part of the whole place was the “inside” of the machines. The rest of the place looked like, well, you know when you pull your washer out from the wall (I did) and observe the 5 years of dirt, dust, dog food, coins, hair and general nastiness? Yeah, imagine that on a much LARGER scale, like say, INSIDE THE WHOLE DAMN LAUNDROMAT!!STRIKE THREE and I wanted OUT!!!!

I pumped my coins into two machines, which was a pricey little maneuver to the tune of $7.50 for two loads, dumped in my detergent and painfully watched the timer on each count down from 20.
20 minutes. I can do this. The “King of Queens” was on the dusty TV. I can do this.

Other “domestic goddesses” in my midst were the platinum blond 60 something woman missing one heck of an important tooth, and the Latino man, bless his heart, washing what I observed to be kids sized pink undies. (I prayed that they belonged to his sweet little kid and not say, er, uh....never mind...)

Oh geezus, not only do I have to be here for 17 more minutes, I’m now taking an interest in others dirty clothing. And underwear no less.

My timers finally hit zero. Thank you Jesus.

I throw my wet, albeit “spun out” clothes into my car and race off. My dryer is still, after all, in working order. For now. As a precaution I decide to sprinkle it with Holy Water.

The next day I make fast tracks to Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. I float through the appliance departments, noting price, financing, delivery and recycling options. 3 stores in 45 minutes, and a plan is in place! I shall have a new washer by the weekend and never again be banished to “Giant Wash Coin Laundry” !!!!

And again, back to why being unemployed during this little roadbump on the highway of life was kind of “nice”…. If I was working, getting the laundry done, getting the shopping done, and sitting around while they deliver “sometime between now and Easter” would’ve had to be done in a, shall we say, “creative” way. The excuses to my boss to leave work early would go something like this:

The laundromat visit before the kids get home:
"Uh, daycare called, she has to close early due to a, ah, family emergency!"

The shopping trip:
"OMG our DOG died, choked to death on her own vomit...yeah, so sad, I'll see ya tomorrow if I'm up to coming in..."

The waiting for delivery:
"Ugh. I have the stomach flu. Must've been something I ate, yeah, I'll feel better tomorrow"...

Then the next day: "Kids are sick with it, yeah, hopefully I'll see ya tomorrow, yeah, nasty stuff…."

Ah the joy of being unemployed, no more lame brain excuses why you can’t “work” today.

;-)

I have to do WHAT???

You cannot be shy when job hunting.

Damn.

When the outplacement service told us that 65% of jobs were gotten through “networking activities”, I had two words for that:

“Oh Sh*t”

I am not an extrovert. I am, and forever shall be, a shy person. Oh sure, I’ve had to fabricate some “outward” moments in my life, but happily I report, those stomach turning bouts of gut wrenching nervous anxiety never resulted in outright vomiting. I’ve recently given our two hounds nicknames: Sleepy and Dopey. How fitting then that I will dub myself…Bashful.

I could blame my bashfulness on being the youngest of six. I presume that for every child born into the clan, and the bigger the clan, the youngest always has less of a voice, (especially when your brother holds a pillow over your face most days...)

I’m sure that when Mom took me out shopping or wherever, there were always the hushed whispers, “Is she mute???” or “Oh look honey, that little girl must’ve been victim of a freak tongue amputation incident. Poor thing.”

Later in my early teens, I actually managed to branch out into using the phone. It went something like this: “Hello? Yes, this is Edna Weiers. I’m calling for Bridget, she…” (fill in the blank).

I hated talking to people. Getting a job helped a bit, as the average joe doesn’t understand, “you want fries with that?” in sign language.

So, I survived my early 20’s, “getting by” with as little human interaction as possible. I e-mailed people in the next cube.

Okay, okay, I was just lazy.

Given that I do now consider myself a pretty good manager/leader, I suppose I have gotten over my shyness. Mostly. That, or I ‘m one hell of an actress. (Is that a new career calling???)

There are many cures to shyness. The biggest and best? "Cliff-diving" as I call it.

Just do it. Just call. Just knock. Just TALK for God’s sake.

At some point, I had to take over those calls, lest they would have sounded like this: “Hello Dan? Yes, this is Edna Weiers, Bridget’s mom? Yes, well, she thinks you’re hot and wait, I can’t see this, let me get my glasses…Yes, I’m back…let’s see here, she was wondering if you’d like to.… Hello? Hello? Are you still there??”

Marriage. A triumphant cure for shyness.

Another winning strategy?? Child-birth. The second they say “stirrups” you’re done.

I longed to overcome ALL the hurdles that were keeping me from TRUE EXTROVERT-NESS!!! What is it!? What is the key to my destiny?? !!!

Then it hit me like a brick one day while in front of a crowd of 50 at work. (How the hell did I get myself into THAT situation??? Was I being punished??? Did I violate some Code of Conduct????)

The answer –> Make ‘em laugh. Make em think you’re as freakin' funny as they think you are.

DONE!

So. Back to 65% of jobs gotten through networking. Still thinking, “sh*t, I don’t want to do this”.

I couldn’t see myself going into a networking meeting, with the hopes of “making myself known” to these people with a pocket full of sarcasm and a few jokes. But if THIS is what is supposidley going to land me a great job, I didn’t really have a choice but to go meet with "those people", sans the funnies.

So I cliff-dove this week. Not once, but twice. Didn’t even have to get Edna involved. Got two contacts through former colleagues, called them up, requested a meeting to discuss their company. And to my surprise, they did not have three heads, 7 inch claws, or growl at me.

I expressed much interest in THEM and THEIR careers (people love to talk about themselves…we are after all, innately selfish SOBs…) and then the little voice inside me made sure I told them how FABULOUS I was and how they couldn’t live without me. (Not quite, but you get the idea...)

They were nice. Very, very, nice. And from that very EXTROVERTED act on my part, I have 5 more contacts in my target companies to reach out to. And I will! I AM NOT AFRAID! TELL ME WHERE THE POPE LIVES AND I’LL GO NETWORK WITH HIM TOO!!! (Oh wait. “Married” and “Female” leaves me with limited job opportunities in the Catholic Church ;-)

So I have two new words:

“Yeah me!”

Another highlight for the week: MAJOR GLOBAL INSURANCE COMPANY called me to do a phone interview, and it went well. Hoping for an "in person" one in a week or two. I didn’t even apply for the job, they found me on CareerBuilder.com. VERY cool position, VERY much more $$.

The only question I have now is, why the hell am I working so hard???

The irony is, well...funny.

;-)