Be Bold...

...and Mighty Forces Will Come to Your Aid. -Basil

I've been called an idealist by almost everyone I've ever met. Like expecting the best (or at least hoping for it) is somehow the most misguided thing I could do in the world.

My mother wants me to settle into some semblence of job(not career) stability, find myself a no-good-nick and pump out a rugrat or two like she did. Nothing in the world would make her happier. It would probably validate her choices in life.

The only problem with that scenario...I refuse to pretend like what she wants is going to make me happy.

Sorry Mom,I cannot, for the following reasons:

+I will not let someone else tell me how much my work is worth.
+I will not let someone else dictate what kind of relationship I will be in.
+I refuse to have children with someone I cannot depend on. (Every relationship I've been in so far.)
+I will not settle for good enough.

Even if the best career, relationship, or whatever takes me forty years to find.

I've worked hard, damn hard to get where I am. I will not let it all slide through my fingers.

Dreamers only fall hard if they lose their balance.
Steady on...

Druthers

I never liked the word druthers.
The meaning is simply preference.
It sounds like what birds leave behind after they molt their feathers.

Nevertheless, had I my druthers, I would be a writer.
Argue my merit as you read my blog. That's fine.
I think that's the point.

I want to be like David Sedaris. Writing essays and making people pee themselves on public transportation between my trips to France and Italy.

I want to verbosely detail my visits to the worlds eating hotspots and obfuscate my opinions by both lavishing the food with compliments and particulating the country's horrifying political unrest. Anthony Bourdain, eat your heart out.

Basically I want to be on permanent vacation while fulfilling the part of me that yearns for artistic expression.
Apparently I want to be a white male too.
Possibly gay and thorny.

Oddly enough, this all makes me perfect for sales.
Not the sexual or racial confusion part.

I make people laugh.
I'm curious and resourceful.
I'm extremely personable.

If I can get behind your product, if I'm passionate about it, I'll sell the shit out of it through fits of laughter and curious personability.

The End.

Say Yes to Everything...

This might be a rookie mistake. I admit that.
Right now, I'm taking every offer I lay my grubby little fingers on. I have back up plans for my back up plans.
I guess it's like a numbers game.
One of them has to pan out.(fingers crossed)
It's a schizophrenic existence. Absolutely.
One day I focus my attention on one thing.
The next day another.
I don't always remember what day it is. But I know what I'll be working on the moment my eyes first catch daylight.
I try to plan out my day's strategy the night before.
It helps me keep sane.

Sometimes I wake up as early as 4am. For no other reason then I have severe anxiety.
So much so, my hair is falling out.
It'd be pretty awesome to be a bald 28 year old woman.
Pretty awesome.

Nevertheless, I pursue all kinds of leads.
My main focuses right now are wholesale gas contracts, selling ad space in a local neighborhood guide and the "big deal".
The one I have more doubts about everyday.

Business to business. No real focus. I would like to focus on restaurants primarily. But at this point, I'm just not picky.

Tempered Excitement

So I start work on a new project tomorrow.
It looks like it's going to be fun if nothing else.
It is temporary. (4 weeks)
The pay is going to suck.
(You really know the pay is going to suck when they wait until the verrrrry end of the meeting right before you leave to talk about it)

It will be fun but it's more of the same. I do all the work, they make 90%. I make 10%.
No time is invested in training.
My expenses are my own.
Blah, blah, blah.

I'm grasping at straws here. I think it will be funish.
It will certainly not solve my problems long term. It might help me in the short. Just a little.

When it rains...

I have an interview today.
Might almost be 100% sure that this is another opportunity to be mediocre.
There probably isn't a salary or benefits.
I'm certain this is a part time gig.
Either way, I guess it's better than nothing.
It might be fun.

On another note, this deal that I've been working on, sigh...
Who knows? I have no hope.
Sent someone else a resume.
Someone I trust.

The Future Conan?

In the year 200000000000.
In the year 200000000000000000.

Aside from the common middle 20s angst and loss of idealism, not knowing what you can do let alone what you want to do to earn a living for the rest of your life is extremely limiting.

You focus your energies on the day to day struggle to survive in lieu of planning your future. You can’t relax with debt looming and you can’t pay off your debt when you’re simply trying to survive. Not in any significant way. It honestly comes down to a decision of whether to eat or keep the utilities on.

So what do we do?
You’re supposed to go to college to advance your education.
To establish yourself as an educated person.
I think we all know plenty of “educated” people who can’t string together a coherent sentence.
Then there are the loans.
Few people, save those who were smart enough to go to a CUNY or SUNY school, graduate (or drop out for that matter) without tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.
If you live in a major metropolitan city like New York, you might be able to get a job that pays the bills if you have a roommate and meager expectations as to what constitutes a life.
The debt remains and you scrape by.
If you’re lucky and you know someone, you may get a chance to change your circumstances.

My ex, who dropped out before completing undergrad, met a girl who worked for the standard of journalism. He happened to have been the EIC of his college paper and had a prestigious editorial internship one summer.
These meager qualifications didn’t get noticed when he applied in the years after dropping out.
When he started a relationship with someone who worked there, he was suddenly hired.
It’s not about what you know. It’s about who you know.
It’s the George Bush brand of cronyism, nepotism and the lack of merit based hiring and promotion that keeps most qualified people from gaining the success they may rightly deserve.
It also discourages people from actually trying to achieve. What is the point of accruing the actual necessary experience if I don’t know anyone who can put my resume under someone’s nose?
What are the chances, of the hundreds of people who respond to a job listing, that my resume will even get a glance before anyone else’s?

Are we doomed?
Who do you know?

What will become of me?

I often wonder where I'll be next month.

What will the very near future have in store for me?
Will there be success?
Satisfaction?
Fullfillment?
Resolution?
Releif?

Will there be failure?
Despair?
Frantic scraping?
The hatching of new plans?
Further uncertainty?

Will my life take a turn for the better?
If it doesn't, am I prepared to deal with those circumstances?

Can my heart take this kind of anxiety?
Does it have a choice?

Survival...

Things you will need to keep sane:

Canned sustenance
Hope and or a good plan
Good friends
Patience
Low standards
An active imagination
Negotiation skills
Laughter
The knowledge that talking to yourself is not a symptom of anything

With all of the above, you can survive. Whether you're on unemployment, part time employed or living off of savings.
Good luck.
You're not alone.

Hey, work on your six pack. Low caloric intake plus targeted excersize equals sculpted waistline.

Attempts at employment...So to speak. Vol II

It was 2009 and I heard a call to action.
Black Jesus had spoken and it was time to get off of the couch.
By this time, the recession was in full swing. Every month, the unemployment numbers were worse.
Layoffs were detailed in headlines on every channel.
I watched my savings dwindle. I had been on a few interviews but no one was calling back. I would occasionally talk to friends who would tell me they were out of work also.
I got the New York Times and scanned the two inch by two inch classified section.
There it was.
Like a shining beacon in a sea of black and gray. I circled it with a red pen and dashed for the computer.
“Send your resume.” I chanted loudly until I was finally all ready, cover letter written, email open, resume attached. I clicked send and crossed my fingers.

The next week, the phone rang. I had landed an interview in the energy industry. I looked the company’s website up and wondered what I was in for.
Ten people sat in chairs that lined the perimeter of the wall street office of a Canadian originated energy service company. Insiders call them escos. I was basically in a cattle call interview for the next Enron.
They blew smoke up my ass about the average income of their sales representatives for the rest of the week. I was happy to bend over for it too. I knew that as much as they were speakking theoretically, that you really can capitalize on any opportunity if you bust your ass. I started to think of who I could bully and cajole into doing business with me. I had a list compiled in my head and I was ready to hit the ground running. I had learned my lesson.

Then, I hit a snag.
They pulled me aside one afternoon after the group had been dismissed from training. There was a management position they were hiring for and wanted to know if I was available and interested. My ears perked.
The recruiter was leaving. She had been the most professional person I had encountered in my short time there so far. The manager, who had been running the “training sessions”, was clearly out off his depth. The man was an idiot. So when I heard that the recruiter was leaving, I was slightly concerned that a lot of responsibility must be on her shoulders and that she was probably carrying this guy.
I had been out of work for so long, I didn’t care if I literally had to carry him around the office. I needed money.
I was interviewed, my resume scoured and then invited to dinner. The regional manager was in town from Canada. Dinner was a tradition.
Three of the top sales reps and I sat in the lobby on a bitterly cold night, waiting for a car service. After we got in the cars and drove the three blocks (not kidding) to the restaurant, I found myself sitting in front of an old haunt.
In the years between real estate and my current unemployment, I had found success selling wine in the restaurant industry. This was a restaurant that I had sold to. I knew the owner.
Unfortunately, the top sales rep for the energy company knew him also. He was already a client.
Booooooo.
I was the only woman at this soiree. We were served generously and I realized quickly that the oatmeal I had eaten more than six hours ago wasn’t absorbing the vodka I was drinking at a satisfactory rate.
I stopped. The rest of the party kept on drinking. And drinking. And drinking.
By ten, I was ready to hop on the subway home.
“You’re coming to the club with us, right?”
Suddenly, everyone was asking.
I had no idea there was an after party. I looked around at the group of men I was with. None were under forty.
Some were married and wore their rings, some were married and I only knew because someone else told me. I was younger then these men by a range of fifteen to thirty years.
I rain checked on the club offer. They wanted to go to a club I hadn’t been to in two years.

Why would I go to a club with a bunch of old, drunk, loud men who were clearly looking for action?

I was given cab fare and was happy to leave.
The next morning was an important morning. I had set my mentor up with an appointment at a restaurant. He was supposed to meet with the owner at 10 am to discuss his energy bills. They assign you a mentor so you can learn from them. Obviously.

This is how the process was supposed to go:
The first week, you make calls and set appointments for your mentor gathering as much information as you can so they can hit it out of the park.
Once the two of you collaborate to close five accounts in this manner, you start making appointments and accompanying your mentor so you can learn how it goes once you’re out in the field.
This whole time, your income is totally dependent on your mentor being successful.

It was 9:45 am and the last thing had I said to my mentor before jumping into the cab the night before was, “Don’t forget about your appointment in the morning.”
I sat anxiously hoping he would call me with good news within the next thirty minutes. I was tired of eating oatmeal.
Five minutes later, a strange commotion stirred in the office a few feet away. My attention was drawn to a sound emanating from under one of the desks.
To make a pathetic story short, my mentor, in all his infinite wisdom, had decided that it would be a better idea to come back to the office to crash for the night instead of going home to sleep.
I was mortified to find him snoring under a desk.
The next series of events will shock you further.
I promise.
The discussion over dinner that fateful night in the restaurant was in great part, about me taking over for the recruiter. When word started swirling around the office that the recruiter was leaving, I assumed no responsibility for the rumor. I hadn’t brought it up at dinner and I hadn’t told anyone in the office that hadn’t brought it up to me.
Somehow, it got back to both the recruiter and the manager that I was told I had the job already.
I scratched my head. I had asked a few people if they thought it was worth it to lose my freedom. I guess that was a little presumptuous of me. But if I’m going to take a job, I wanted to know if it was worth it. Regardless of whether I actually had it yet or not. These were all people who were sloppily discussing me taking the position over dinner the night before.
I was tremendously confused.
I was summoned to the manager’s office. Here is what this ignoramus said,
“Gabe is just a sales representative. I am the manager here.”
I shook my head in agreement.
“I don’t know where he gets off telling you that the job is yours. I make that decision.”
Ok. Now it was starting to crystallize.
The quick back story is that Gabe was meant to be in this man’s position but because he was the top earner in the nation, he could not be taken out of the field. So Gabe let his presence be known as the top rep and threatened this man’s, well… man-ness.
I was caught in the cross streams of a pissing contest of the likes I had never seen before.
“Can I say something?” I interrupted.
He obliged.
“Gabe never told me I had the position. I don’t even know who told him it was offered to me. We had a discussion about whether or not it was worth it to chain myself to a desk and possibly cap my earning potential.”
Apparently this bit of information washed right through his brain and latched on to nothing. He continued his tirade about Gabe and his lack of authority. He confirmed with me that I would be working with him, not Gabe. I sat there and listened.
The meeting capped off with him letting me know that I still had not been selected for the position.
I was astonished.
I gathered my belongings and went to the ladies room to compose myself.
It was nearing time to quit for the afternoon and not being on the clock and having little inclination to sit back down at my desk, I walked from the bathroom to the elevator bank and exited the building.
As I rounded the corner to walk to the subway, I saw the manager, holding court with a bunch of the other employees from the office.
I read his lips as I approached. My name was flying out of his face as I gained proximity. Someone alerted him to my presence and he turned to face me.
“You wonder why people are talking about this? Do you? Go on and continue your conversation. Have a good weekend.”
I walked away not caring.
The next week, I sat down in the recruiter’s office and told her what had gone down. Until this time, we had gotten along just fine. She was warm and willing to share the drama of the office outright. She told me the perks and the pitfalls in prepping me to take over for her.
Now she was scowling and seemed cold.
She then gave me a pep talk and asked me how I was doing on the phones. I said I was doing fine.
Then she dropped the bomb. She wasn’t leaving after all. I sat there awestruck and dumbfounded.
She extolled the virtues of the company and told me to concentrate on my sales. I then asked her how she could expect me to go back to scheduling appointments for a mentor who slept off benders under his desk. She had no answer for that question.
I grabbed my belongings and left the office. Never to return.

I later found out that my mentor had been the person spreading the word that Gabe told me I had the job. I also later learned that he was arrested and remanded to rehabilitation for substance abuse.
Months after that, I was working for a different energy company, a less scummy one. I tried to do business unsuccessfully with a young man who was deeply connected in the “industry”. He coincidentally, represented a hotel in Manhattan that had just signed on with my new company but through my mentor. (The industry doesn’t require fidelity or non compete clauses. Many sales representatives worked with different escos at the same time.)
“No, it’s not possible. They‘re my client and they have not signed anything.”
There was an investigation. It turns out that my mentor had been forging signatures the entire length of his six month tenure. All of his accounts were fraudulent. He is now being sued for thousands and thousands of dollars.

What... a mentor.

Attempts at employment…So to speak. Volume I

For some, this unemployment game is new. For me, not so much.
I’ve been marginally “employed” for four years now.
When I became an independent contractor, leaving the stability of a meager biweekly paycheck and benefits, I would have no idea what I was in for.
As much as I loved the idea of earning my keep, of being responsible for my successes and failures, of trusting my abilities, I would never have guessed the degree of difficulty.

I spent many years toiling away at the daily drudgery of selling a number of things.

First, real estate. I picked the wrong year to get into real estate. 2006 was the beginning of the end.
I started in the summer.
The hottest summer on record.
Everyday was in the low 100s.
I wish I were exaggerating.
I also didn’t do enough research to find out that the way the business model in most real estate firms is set up, doesn’t really aid in the development of new agents.
Essentially, they toss you to the wolves with a wide angle lens.
All of the rules and laws you learned while obtaining your license are completely tossed out the window and you will likely not make enough money to compensate the time, energy and investment you put into getting one apartment rented.
There’s a lot of luck involved in most people’s success.
No? You disagree?
I showed a very nice couple with an 18 month old a few apartments one Saturday. This is how it went.
The first apartment was on a beautiful tree lined street in Prospect Heights. I knew the neighborhood well. My mom lived a few blocks away. The brownstones were well maintained, the cars parked with good spacing between them, no loud music coming from any windows. It was idyllic.
The apartment was on the ground floor of the brownstone. It was perfect. The children who lived there currently opened the door and welcomed us playfully. Soon an adult surfaced and introductions were made.
Normally, showing an occupied apartment was a bad idea. But this family was the perfect commercial for living in this neighborhood.
It was a two dad family with three children of all colors of the rainbow. The kids were loquacious and friendly, the apartment looked lived in but not too messy.
Out of the park. Home run. Good luck so far.
When we stepped back out of the apartment to share notes, the couple raised objections to living just off of the street. They were concerned with safety.

Next on the list was an apartment building that had an intercom. It was in the same neighborhood, just around the corner and up the street. At least the safety issue wouldn’t be as much of an issue since the door to the actual apartment was on the other side of a door, a foyer, another door and a lobby.
We got to the building, which while being in the same general area, wasn’t on a tree lined street and faced a series of small businesses that were slightly dilapidated, and rang the buzzer. After a few minutes, I rang the buzzer again. The whole time I yakked incessantly about the building’s proximity to the museum, the park, restaurants, I even touted the availability of parking. After the third ring, I started to sweat.
The door to the building was locked. In one aspect, that was a good thing. This young family was concerned with safety. But I didn’t need the building to be so safe that I couldn’t show them the apartment.
As I pulled my phone out to dial the listing agent, an older lady pushing her groceries in a cart approached us. She was going home, into the building I was trying to get into! Fantastic.
We parted and allowed her access to the door. I breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly a loud bang. I swung back towards the door, disturbed from my reverie, to find that this tiny, crouched woman had kicked the door open.
Bad luck.
The end.

Dining Set (gently used)

Dining Set (gently used)

Panic

“I’m baaaaack!”
The panic has set in. Again.
I have flour, yeast, salt, pepper, olive oil, several cans of beans, a can of corned beef I refuse to eat, and a few tea bags. That’s my food supply until I get paid again. Which will be…

It’s the second month of the 28th year of my life. I have been in this position more times than I care to admit.
I owe almost $5000 in back rent. I’ll have to put a few dollars in a flex pay account to keep my cell phone on. If I don’t, one of the opportunities I am hoping will change my circumstances may never get through to me.
I’m going to try selling off the furniture piece by piece. If I can’t sell it, maybe I can barter for something. But I don’t know what.

Food?

Antidepressants?

Drugs?

There is a constant knot in my gut that will not be untied until I feel like I have a serious solution to my current financial status.
The worse that can happen is I wind up homeless.

Aside from the back rent I owe, I’ve also racked up an additional $30,000 in debt. Everyone from the IRS to the bank or collection agency that owns my student loans wants to know when I will pay them what I owe.
It’s a fair question. A question I wish to god I had an answer for.

There are always possibilities. There are a few that I am hoping will soon bear fruit. I’m just not sure until I hear from them.

Until then, I can’t really do much.
I do push ups.
I clean, I bake the bread that is sustaining my life.
I wander around like a bum.
I probably resemble a bum in many ways.
Odor.
General likeness. (lots of fatigues)

I try to take my mind off of my troubles by listening to the radio.
I tap into some unsecured wireless network and read mindless celebrity gossip.
I strategize about what to do in case everything falls through.
I fantasize about what I would do if it all works out.
I’ll have to ask someone to take my cat.
This will be heartbreaking.
My cat is my guardian angel.
She keeps me company.
She calms me when I wake up, panic stricken, at 4am imagining the worse.
She’s my companion.
I love her.
I promised her that I would take care of her.
Forever.

Maybe god speaks Aramaic like Jesus. Perhaps it's a simple matter of a language barrier.