Merry Christmas everyone! Today I am having a quiet Christmas all by myself but I am enjoying the time of contemplation and rest. Today I finish my holiday movie watching … Continue reading Merry Christmas 2019
Category: Work
10 Day Social Media Fast Thoughts
Recently the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held it’s semi-annual General Conference. This is a 2 day event where leaders, including our prophet, give advice and counsel to … Continue reading 10 Day Social Media Fast Thoughts
Slow Down and Make Perfect
So I have been working in my new marketing career for a year but in some ways it feels like it has really only been since about February. A lot of the first 8 months was spent doing research but not really marketing. Then in the winter I started posting on social media for the brands and it has been an interesting, rewarding experience. One of the things that I’ve had to learn is the difference between my hobby activities and professional. As a hobbyist my inclination is to always produce more content even if it isn’t perfect but still make it solid, readable. I’m very proud of my blog but if I waited till everything was perfectly edited then I would never post anything. You can’t build a community like that.
As a hobbyist you also have limited windows to jump on opportunities and so you go for it. Like if someone wants to do a collaboration with me they don’t have months of planning to get it out. No most of the time it is a couple of weeks and we get the videos out. If I waited to research and plan everything then it wouldn’t happen and they’d move on to someone else. Right now on my facebook page I am posting a giveaway for a Target Beauty box and I have 319 entries which given my small fry status I think is pretty good. (Still 3 more days to enter http://gvwy.io/kk65w9 and if you haven’t followed me on facebook please do).
In my career I initially took this same approach into marketing. Diving into a giveaway without a ton of planning but figuring we ‘just needed to get things going’. It did work pretty well and we got a fair amount of tweets and followers for the products, which I am proud of. However, we also had all these contacts that we didn’t know what to do with. As a hobbyist I would email them and send them to my blog but it isn’t that simple with a business. All that kind of content has to be screened, approved, and made consistent with a thousand other factors.
It can be a little frustrating when I have an idea I know would work and want to pump it out but I have to keep pursuing it little bit by little bit. My inclination is to just give it a shot like I would in my content but that would be a mess for a large company. Still you see the tug of war I play?
So what I’ve had to do is continually remind myself to ‘slow down and make perfect’. At first I thought if I put in 40 hours (maybe more) even though I’m being paid for 30 it would look great for me, but I actually found it didn’t. On certain projects it does but I found it creates too much on my side and it is better if I take my time and make it the best. More content is not the solution. Even in project like gathering and researching Mommy bloggers, getting a list of a thousand content creators isn’t very helpful. What they need is 20 or so carefully researched. It’s just a slower pace than I would do on my own.
Not sure if that makes sense but the interesting thing as I have forced myself to slow down I have learned a lot. It reminds me of when I was a little girl my Mom making me slow down and measure a goose poster I had to draw. I hated her for it at the time but it was a good drawing in the end and I learned way more than if I were to rush. With the content being pretty strong it makes my coworkers happier because I am in a sense wading through the less good stuff first and only showing them the cream of the crop (not that it can’t always be better).
Anyway, it’s just a change in how things are done from a hobbyist to a professional. One of many such changes I am sure I will be absorbing in the next few years of this new career. The cool thing is I think it has made my content better right along with the work content and so in reality it is a win-win.
I think these videos turned out very nicely. (Although still far from perfect!).
Also check out the movie blog because I feel like several of my posts have been very strong especially a recent spoiler filled review I did of Inside Out.
https://54disneyreviews.wordpress.com/
Like the saying goes you live and learn. In the meantime I am working to ‘slow down and make perfect’
Thank you for all your support all these years with my less than perfect content and helping me to grow and improve. Thank you so much!!!
Accounting Goodbye
Today marks the end of an era in my life. It is my last official day working in accounting (at least for the foreseeable future). It’s been 10 years since I got behind a desk taking a simple secretarial job never dreaming it would dictate the next decade of my life. I still can’t believe it!
If you had asked me when I was growing up or even in college if I would work in accounting for 10 years I would have said you were nuts. I’ve always been cluttered and bad at math. Little did I know that accounting actually has very little to do with math. It has everything to do with routines and organizing data.
In some ways it was a good career for me and maybe not a surprise I ended up there. I am great with routines and am extremely fast at data entry. I am also someone that can do the same thing over again and not grow tired of it. I could eat the same thing, see the same movie and be fine. That part of accounting never bothered me.
What was difficult was I seemed to be prone to errors especially at the beginning because it was all new. It seemed at first I was inventing new ways all the time on how to mess up the check run (I can’t believe no check runs! Wow!). These mistakes were always caught by one check and balance or another but it was still humiliating and it didn’t help that my manager at the time rubbed them in my face and made me feel ashamed of my work.
She was the wicked witch of my life. Not only the worst boss I’ve ever had but one of the worst people. She manipulated me (and everyone else) so that I found myself apologizing when I had actually done good work. Imagine what it was like when I made mistakes. I put up with her for 3 years because I lacked the courage to quit my job but finally in December 2007 I had enough! In one of my proudest moments I walked out and into nothing to begin the great economic year of 2008 (seriously who quits their job in 2008. That’s how bad it was). Kierkegaard talks about the great leap of faith and how it has to be perfect or it is illogical to believe. That moment in my life was as close as I’ve ever gotten to the perfect leap. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind it was the right thing to do.
Everything good that has happened to me in my life has been a response to that leap including starting this blog! I was unemployed and decided in May 2008 to blog how I was feeling. Honestly I felt like I needed healing after such an intense period (some of you may think I’m exaggerating but it was a time of deep depression and anxiety for me working in that job. Only God knows how tough it really was).
At that time I graduated from my MBA and thought I would go work in marketing or maybe human resources but over 40 interviews and nothing. My Dad asked me if I wanted to help manage his properties and I did that full time for about a year (thanks Dad!). I learned that even if I was doing some accounting work I was happier working from home and being my own boss. I felt free and it was exhilarating. I also moved to Draper during this time.
Then I got the offer to work part time in marketing for Grabber, which I did giving at warmers at local events (remember my old Grabber van?). But that was quickly dissolved and they needed help with accounting so back I went but this time I was working from home which was pretty good.
My next boss Kevin was a delight and I began working full time for Impact, Grabber and my brother’s new company Poler. I would go up to Syracuse, Utah once a week and print checks and do other mind numbingly boring tasks that nobody in all 3 companies wanted to do. That’s the history of my time in accounting. Because I was so fast if there was someone who didn’t want to do something I would get the job which was generally okay with me. One of the worst projects was entering 27,000 lines of inventory into quickbooks for Impact. So boring! (it was then that I got into podcast listening because it distracted me a little bit without being too much).
Then the company’s were sold and Kevin moved over to exclusively Impact while I stayed working for Grabber and Poler. Each week I did more and more for Poler until I was working for Grabber only managing their sales tax. I became the queen of sales tax.
Then they sold Poler and eventually Grabber was sold to Kobayashi. In 2013 I went from working at Grabber to Poler full time and then to part time last summer. My boss at Poler is a woman named Kelly and she is a total delight. I will really miss working with her. The part time work was a little bit of a safety net as I am working 30 hours in my marketing work for Kobayashi and it gave me a full 40 hours with Poler but it feels good to sever the ties and focus solely on my new job. (well except for my Dad’s rentals).
The problem with all of this work is it was never ending. I was grateful for it but because I worked from home there was no separation between my life and work and if I didn’t do certain things they just didn’t get done. In the case of accounts payable that is a major problem or payroll. It has to get done! So there was many a time when I was sick as a dog and printing out checks or entering data into a computer in Hawaii or California. It was also sometimes hard to go home because my father was my boss and it meant I couldn’t relax because I was always working or thinking about work. No breaks.
But I got to work from home so it was worth it. The very idea of going to back ‘cubicle Hell’ as I like to call it makes me nauseous. It will be very tough for me after working from home for the last 7 years. I pray every day that nothing will change in that department.
Fortunately things are looking great in my new marketing job and I really feel like I have scored the job lottery. I couldn’t be more happy. Every day I am learning new things and honing my craft. It is so satisfying!
I am nothing but grateful for those years in accounting. It was a journey I needed to go on and it sustained me for 10 years. It helped me buy my home and do so many amazing things. I never felt completely whole doing accounting and had decided it was just a compromise I was going to have to make in life. It was the card I had been dealt career-wise and at a certain point (8 years in!) you have to accept what God has given you and not be miserable all the time.
So I am grateful but getting this new job has taught me to always maintain a sliver of hope. Good things do come to those who wait and work in the sphere God has set them in. I wasn’t anticipating a career change. It came out of nowhere but like I said it has been a dream come true.
And now one door is closed and another is 100% starting, no safety net. I hope I can eventually be made full time with my new career but I will wait patiently and do my very best. In some ways it is actually nice having 10 more hours a week to do personal projects like my youtube channel (but I want the 40 don’t get me wrong!). There are times and seasons for everything and just like my accounting career morphed and changed I’m sure this new job will do the same. I can’t wait to see where it takes me!
10 years of accounting is done! Hurray! (I don’t know if anyone but me will read this rambling post but it is my story which I needed to write out). Sure love you guys and to 10 years of marketing!
1000th Post- First Post Revisited
So it’s here! 1000 posts! Can you believe it? I’ve thought of a lot of different things I could do to celebrate but after sharing my favorite post for 999 I thought I would take a look at my very first post on this blog.
Before I start I will say that I in no means make light of those who are without work and facing the extreme trial of unemployment. My experience was unique and from the perspective of a young 28 year old girl who finally found a happy spot in her life.
May 12, 2008 I wrote The Freedom of Joblessness.At the time I had been unemployed for 5 months and because I had been so unhappy in my previous job it was not as difficult a time as you might expect.
It was exciting and it felt like I had a renewed lease on life. I had also just graduated with my MBA in April. At the time it seemed like I had been set free from a corporate penitentiary and I wanted to blog about it!
“So, this is my first foray into the world of blogging… It is hard to describe my last 6 months but let me just say that I am in the job hunt and I couldn’t be happier. I honestly think I will be a bit sad when I have to go back into the work force”
At my previous job a manager made my life miserable and being free from her influence did so much good for my self confidence and over all happiness. I think that was a large amount of the freedom I felt. I said “after a bit of a breakdown last year I needed a change more than anything”…
I then share a quote “I would rather be doing nothing than doing something I hate”
But that sounds so lazy I hear you say. I elaborate
“The thing…is that I haven’t been doing nothing. When did we get it in our head that the only viable thing for a person to do is work? I have actually been very busy. In fact, I have been doing things that I actually love that I don’t have time for when I am working including doing some writing, making a cookbook for my mom, and exercising on a regular basis”
I think there is something to that. Why do we have this assumption that if a person isn’t participating in paid labor they are doing nothing? If I won the lottery and could make it I would quit my job in a heartbeat even though I love my job now.
The amazing thing is about 10 days after this post my Dad asked me to start working managing his rentals. I did that for about a year working from home. Before I knew it I was working for Grabber part time. Then full time and then over to Poler, Now Kobayashi All working from home!
When I look at everything good in my life including this blog it all started with the tough decision to quit my job. To place my happiness above all the other factors and go for it. That joy felt freeing and peaceful and it still does and perhaps that’s why I keep blogging. It was liberating then and it is liberating now!
To 1000 more posts!
Handymen?
Before I start my post just wanted to say I’m 3 posts from my 1000th post. Can you believe it? Do any of you have ideas of what I should do for post 1000? I’d love suggestions.
Anyway, when I purchased my home one of my concerns was how I would handle repairs. I am not a very detail oriented person and so things like repairs or assembly I am not great at. When I was at the rental I could call the landlord and have things taken care of easy-peasy. The few times I was put in charge of a repair project at my Dad’s rentals it did not go very well. I’m great at making calls but not the actual labor part.
In addition, my father, who is great at such things, is in California and I don’t have anyone else in my family nearby who is able to help. (And it doesn’t have to be a man but I don’t know any women either). You see why I was concerned before the move!
Luckily I have a new house so things have been relatively incident free. However, the last few weeks I had to fix a pocket door handle and install a new kitchen faucet. My Mom’s cousin fixed the door but I had a hard time finding anyone to help me with the faucet.
I put it on my facebook I needed help. Asking my friends if they knew anyone who was handy and could help me wiht the faucet. To my surprise the answer was no. And then I called my home teacher and he couldn’t think of anyone either. Eventually I texted a friend and her brother in law came over and the faucet was installed.
Still, I was surprised how few men out there have basic handyman skills. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago when such abilities were standard operating procedure for men. I guess that’s a stereotype so maybe it is a good thing but are we also raising kids without practical skills? I certainly don’t have those kind of abilities so I can’ t judge anyone else but it does seem like a little bit of a loss.
Shouldn’t we be teaching these kinds of skills to both boys and girls? I do know how to change a flat tire and check my oil but things around the house I am totally clueless. I guess I always had a Dad who could do those things and I assumed there would be people like that in my life. Now at least I’ve found that to be tough to find.
Luckily after about 2 weeks of searching I found my friends brother in law but it was quite the needle in the haystack! It shouldn’t be that hard.
What do you think? Should we be teaching these type of home repair skills to kids or is it just a new era where we are all digital and that kind of work is hired out? It seems like a loss and it certainly makes life tough for us single girls sometimes!
At least I have a new faucet installed. Hurray!
Atlanta Fun Day 2: MLK, Southern Food, Botanical Gardens
If you are someone who doesn’t like to read travelogues of other peoples vacations this post is not for you! I recently returned from a half business/half fun trip and it was a great experience. The work part was very effective and rewarding and the vacation part super fun. I posted on Thursday about my food tour of Atlanta which was a wonderful way to be introduced to the city.
This trip was a solo trip which some people find very intimidating and it can be but it has its advantages. First of all, you can do whatever you want. If you want to eat at the same place for all 3 meals you can. If you want to sleep in till noon you can. It’s your trip and you don’t have to worry about anyone else’s opinion or tastes. You can also go at your own pace which for me is a huge advantage. I’m a tough person to travel with because I am slow and need to rest frequently. Sometimes if I’m with others I feel guilty holding them back but by myself I can just walk in my way and savor the experience.
Traveling solo can be very rejuvenating when with others it can be more exhausting but still fun. Either way I encourage you to take advantage of what opportunities come your way. I’m so glad I stretched a business trip into a little solo trip. There was no option to travel with another person so I took advantage of the chance I had and I’d encourage you to do the same.
So day 2 started out sleeping in and enjoying a leisurely morning. Then I went to a popular breakfast spot called West Egg and got a southern breakfast.
I had a pimento cheese omelet with bacon, grits, biscuit and fried green tomatoes. It was good but I kind of wished I had ordered the pancakes. I figured I could order pancakes anywhere but they looked so good. I try to get local flavors when I visit new places and I’m glad I did. This was my second time eating fried green tomatoes and I’m not a huge fan of the dish. Something about the texture of big warm tomatoes isn’t my favorite. Live and learn!
After a pleasant brunch I went to the Martin Luther King historic site. It was a neat place and I left feeling inspired by the words of Dr King and the courage the Civil Rights movement showed. The site is very large with 5 buildings including visitors center, Ebenezer Baptist Church (MLK’s first church), Auburn St restored firehouse, MLK tomb and Freedom Walk, and MLK birthplace. It was all put together very well with lots of volunteers which I feel gives a heart to the tours you don’t get with paid tour guides.
In the visitors center they have a recreation of the Selma bridge march and you can stand amongst the figures and feel a little bit of what it might have been like. All the exhibits were very well done with a mixture of video, memorabilia and more hands on like the statues.
I was very moved by this plaque with Dr King describing his calling to the movement. “I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying ‘stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be on your side forever”. I can relate to that experience of receiving a call from the Lord and the reassurance I am up for the task (nothing like what Dr King was asked to do but I could relate on a smaller level). I know that Dr King wasn’t a perfect man but God works through imperfect people to do great things and we can certainly see that with him. This calling reminded me a little bit of Joseph Smith’s communion with God in liberty jail where he worried and turned to God receiving the guidance to go on serving boldly to the end of his life.
This quote also touched my heart. It was written by Dr King from jail in 1963. “when you are…living constantly at tiptoe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a denigrating sense of ‘nobodiness’; than you will understand why we find it difficult to wait”. I can’t begin to understand what that kind of hate and persecution must have been like but I can relate to small moments of being ‘plagued with inner fears and outer resentments’. Again nothing like what they went through but I guess finding some part of my own life that could relate to these feelings helped the experience at the site feel real and less like a textbook. It certainly took great courage to do what they did and I was humbled to be immersed in their stories for an afternoon.
Leading up to MLK’s tomb there is a long freedom walk with a fountain that goes 4 or 5 levels. Considering it was in the middle of the city it felt contemplative and peaceful. 
At Ebenezer Baptist Church they have stained glass, which I love, and a recording by Dr King called The Drum Major Instinct. It’s long but I was really moved by his words about the dangers of envy, enmity and selfishness. That if we must fight the temptation to vault ourselves up higher than anyone else. It was just a neat experience to be in the room, hear his voice preaching and think about what I could do to be less selfish and envious. If you are looking for a good listen for your morning devotionals or scripture studies this would be a very good one.
After all the MLK sites it was time for dinner and since I had been dreaming about it after the sample on the food tour I decided to go and get a full size portion of fried chicken at Max’s Wine Dive. As I said in my tour review this is the perfect place to go on a tour for me because I would never have gone into such a place on my own because I don’t drink alcohol and wine is in the name. This fried chicken is the best I’ve ever had. It was so moist and yet still very crispy. It has a little bit of heat from jalapenos in the soak and they give you a chipotle honey which undercuts the heat.. So good! They serve it with mashed potatoes and greens that are also to die for.
I guess the key to the chicken is to fry it on low heat for a long period of time. The waitress said 285 for like 20 minutes. I’m going to try it one of these days because unfortunately Atlanta is too far away for me to get it again anytime soon. One of the yummiest things I’ve ever eaten bar none!
After my dinner I still had time and was feeling pretty energetic so I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I have never been to a botanical gardens like this but it was huge and featured an outdoor walkway with lush trees.
A pond with a ‘Earth Goddess’ statue.
A Japanese garden
A edible vegetable garden with a wall of herbs
I loved this covered walkway.
Then there was a large indoor section with an orchid garden that was stunning ( I love orchids!)
A rainforest section with all these vines hanging everywhere. The photo doesn’t really do it justice. It was so beautiful.
It was such a stunning place and may have even been the highlight of the trip. I spent about 3 hours there just walking at my own pace, enjoying how beautiful it was. In fact, I even got to meet a frog friend…
All in all it was a fantastic day and for all that I did it didn’t feel rushed or crammed in. Just a fun leisurely day with good history, nature and food. My kind of vacation!
500 Channel Subscribers and Next Week
Very excited to tell you that I have 500 subscribers to my channel. Thank you to any of you that have subscribed. I really appreciate all the support I have gotten from this blog in so many ways. You have no idea what it has and will continue to mean to me.
Just wanted to let you guys know that I am going to be going on a business trip tomorrow. It’s the first time I will be meeting my boss and coworkers in person and I am really excited (and a little nervous if I’m honest!). I got new suitcoats so hopefully I will fit right in.
Anyway, I am not sure how much I will be able to post but I will do my best. If I go a week to 10 days sorry! Love you guys and wish me luck. I am so grateful for this blog that really gave me this job. It got the ball rolling and has helped me reach my dreams so thank you to all of you!
We will talk next week!!
What Collar Am I? Survivor 30
So you guys know I am a big Survivor nut. It’s such an entertaining show and a fascinating look at human nature and the way we interact with one another. What alienates people from one another, gives power, forms bonds, and why they make certain choices never gets old and they are now on season 30! I have seen most of the early seasons and later seasons and playing catch up on the middle (still got Fiji, Palau, Guatemala, Cook Islands and Pearl Islands and a few others to watch).
What’s amazing is given the similar rules of the game each winner has been different and used a different strategy. It makes it a fascinating show to watch. You just don’t know who is going to win.
My favorite season recently was season 28 Survivor Cagayan because of the fantastic casting and one of the most engaging winners the show has ever had- Tony Vlachos. He was building spy shacks, voting off his friends, running around the island and all the while remaining incredibly likable. It was so great to watch.
Season 30 is coming up and this time they are dividing the contestants into 3 tribes of 6 just like in Cagayan (I believe this is the 4th 3 tribe seasons). Cagayan was also a 3 tribes and it was separated into Beauty, Braun and Brains, which at first I had an issue with because I felt they were objectifying everyone, putting a label on. However, it ended up being kind of a wash because there were people on all the tribes who fit all the descriptions so it didn’t end up meaning much.
What’s got me thinking is season 30 has taken a similar approach of labeling the 3 tribes but instead of appearance they are going with careers- white collar, blue collar, and no collar.
Kind of an interesting concept for the show don’t you think? What tribe would you be put on? Their definition of collars according to Jeff Probst is a little wonky with white collar “making the rules”, blue collar “following the rules”, and no collar “breaking the rules”. I don’t know anyone else who would describe it that way but it’s Jeff Probst and he can do whatever he wants when it comes to Survivor (especially after season 29 which was a royal snoozefest…).
So given that further definition what tribe would you be on? I would definitely be on white collar because I have a computer job and I am part of a religion with a lot of rules (although I don’t really make them?). That said, I also have little pieces of no collar in me. I work from home, don’t have a boss and the idea of working in a cubicle ever again makes me want to jump off a cliff.
I feel like most people these days are a mixture of all the collars. What do you think? Now with computers, social media and the internet doesn’t everyone have to be pretty savvy? The days of a large blue collar class of unskilled factory workers and farmers just doesn’t exist much anymore. Even if you are in the service sectors like working as a hairdresser you need a website and facebook page to promote your business or you will get slaughtered. Farmers have to be able to use complicated machinery, same with what factory workers are left in America. It is by no means simple, mindless work of yesteryear.
Do you think this has any effect on our culture as a whole the fact we are collarless? I could see some ways it is a good thing and other ways it might force people into a type of work that is outside their nature. In previous societies there may have been more choices for such people? Does that lead to a whole bunch of depressed blue collar and no collar types who are wedged into white collar? I know the worst time of my life was when I was stuck in cubicle hell every day, never seeing the outside, entering data all day- and I was probably considered one of the lucky one’s with a decent job.
On the other hand perhaps with careers becoming similar there is less class division amongst the 99%. After all, is it really a big deal these days to marry someone who has a different career path than you like it might have been the past? (At this point anyone would be glad for me to just get married!).. I don’t think so as long as you can support a family and have similar values. Perhaps we are becoming a little less judgmental based on jobs because they aren’t that different (or at least have more in common than they used too?).
I don’t know. I certainly don’t feel any smarter or better than those with technical skills because I have an MBA. It’s just a different set of skills but still using a lot of the same stuff I use everyday. In fact, they are probably better than me at more things than I am better than them (if that makes sense…).
Or perhaps the whole idea of self-identifying with your career isn’t as important as it used to be? Maybe our jobs are more of a fluid thing and we will all have periods wearing many collars? I have been hard core white collar in several jobs including as a missionary. Now I’m white with a little dusting of no collar. If I get married and stay home with my kids I guess that is blue collar? I don’t know what collar are stay at home Moms? I’ve worked in food service so that was my blue collar and I was a teaching assistant in college and I’m not sure what collar teachers are?
Now that I have a job I love I do self-identify with it more than my old job but for about a decade people would ask me to introduce myself and my career was one of the last things I would mention. Honestly I think I would say survivor fan before accounting clerk. It just wasn’t how I saw myself. I might have mentioned work from home. I still would be inclined to say ‘I’m collar I would rather be swimming”
Are you that way? Is your job a means to an end or something that is a big part of who you are? Would you see yourself as part of a larger working group, wearing a collar if you will?
Anyway, what do you think? Do you ever watch Survivor and do you think this sounds like a good twist? Would love to hear your thoughts.
As the new season is starting check out Rob Has a Podcast for great post show debate and commentary by former Survivor Rob Cesternino. I love it!
I Love My Job
It’s funny because I have no problem complaining on this blog from time to time but for some reason when I want to sing my life’s praises I grow modest. I feel like people will think I’m boasting and don’t want to rub the good things in my life in people’s faces. But then again you all put up with the complaining so I should give you ,more of the joy (you see the back and forth I have).
So please take this with a grain of salt. I am not trying to show you how great my life is. I just want to say how grateful I am for the good things in my life especially my job. I just love it so much!
I think back to years of entering data. I remember one project where I had over 27,000 lines of data to enter and it took me a couple of months of mind numbing boredom. When my former boss gave me the job he told me ‘it is a really boring job’ but I thought it was going to be a short term thing.
I would never have taken it if I had known it would dictate the next 10 years of my life but that’s what happened. In 2008 when I started this blog I tried very hard to make a change but it never worked. I had experience as an accounting clerk and it seemed I was doomed to do that till the end of time.
In fact, I had accepted it. I had given up on the idea of doing anything else and decided to make the best of it. Certainly many had it much worse and at least I got to work from home which made it tolerable. But there was always that creeping notion in the back of my head craving doing something more but it seemed impossible. I mean after 10 years you kind of accept your reality.
Then this offer to go into marketing came and it really has been a dream come true! It came out of nowhere and I couldn’t be more grateful. I will do anything to keep this job. I love it so much!
There are a couple things I especially like about it.
First, deadlines are different. In accounting we have so many deadlines and it doesn’t matter if you are sick or injured or on vacation in Hawaii stuff has to get done. I was used to working all the time- weekends, holidays, evenings etc. I would get emails from my bosses at midnight and then again at 6 am.
I was sick as a dog last Christmas and I worked the entire time. Marketing is just so different. Yes you have deadlines but everything is more relaxed. In fact, they tell me to be patient with them and to take things easy.
I find myself doing a lot of research and putting together presentations on all the stuff I’ve learned. That is awesome! In accounting I was doing the same tasks over and over again. In marketing there are new challenges. Like last month I was looking into tailgating and twitter. Today I turned in a presentation on camping. It’s so great!
And the fact I can still work from home and have freedom I want to pinch myself. How did I get it so good? When I think what it would have been like injuring my knee a month after starting a normal job I am overwhelmed with gratitude at my blessings. I not only could work from home while I was immobile but they couldn’t have been kinder or more understanding.
on one hand I feel like I served my time and am reeping the blessings. Probably somewhat like a grandparent feels with their grandkids. They did the tough stuff raising their kids and enjoy the blessings of grandkids. However, I know nothing I did made that happen. I didn’t earn the new job and there are many who work much harder than me who have never gotten such an opportunity.
I am just grateful. Very, very grateful. Humbled and grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me this new opportunity. I love my life right now!
Oh and the physical therapist says I only need to go 2 more times so good news on that front as well. My birthday is coming up on the 23rd. Like I said- life is good!
Rachel's Musings 