I have trouble gauging things

I just realized that I forgot to write a blog post yesterday. Have I mentioned that I'm crazy busy without a job? This isn't what I expected, but I'm pretty sure I'm alright with it.

I had an interview yesterday with a recruiter and that meeting made me realize some things I think most of us have trouble gauging. While we were going through my resume and talking about what I do in the course of a week or so, she said "So you worked full time, go to school in the evenings, help the Scouts and do things at church and then you have a family that you spend time with? Do you sleep?" I didn't think I was quite that busy. I mean, yes, I'm busy but I don't feel like I'm insanely busy. I just chalk it up to the fact that we don't watch TV, which leaves me with some extra time. I just assume that everyone works as hard as I do, which they apparently don't.

The other thing that I'm not particularly good at gauging about myself is how much I'm worth in the marketplace. The recruiter and I were talking about salary requirements and I said I was looking for something roughly close to what I was earning at Ancestry. She looked over my resume, at the other information I've sent her and said, "Okay, but for someone with your experience and skills, I think you're worth more than that." I'm thinking that I probably have no idea how much I'm worth on the market because I don't have to set the price very often, and the last time I did, I didn't have quite the same set of skills.

It's nice to be able to get feedback like that from someone who sees all kinds of resumes and meets with tons of people on a regular basis.

Holy busy!

I hadn't expected to be quite so busy this week, but again, that's where I am so we're going to move forward with it. The picture you see is from my adventure yesterday. If you hadn't heard already, I went to see Paul McCartney in concert at Rio Tinto Stadium. My friend Jeff came down to see it with me and I got to spend most of yesterday with him and part of today. Here's hoping it's not another 8 years before we spend time together again.

Back to Paul McCartney, the concert was fantastic! The weather was beautiful, the venue was nice and the experience was pretty near incomparable. How often do you get to spend time with someone who completely changed just about everything in their field? It's rare and I'm so happy I got to see him perform yesterday.

The job hunt is going pretty well. I've got lots of suggestions of jobs I should look into and just haven't had the time to look into them very closely yet. I'm hoping to get around to about 4 or 5 more because they sound like they'll be good opportunities for me to grow some more. What I'm finding in all of this is that I may have been wrong about my networking skills. I clearly have some, since I've got more suggestions at the moment than I have time to work on. I think I need to reconsider my definition of networking. Sure, I still have to fill out the applications and send out resumes and do the work, but the ideas and suggestions have largely come from other people. (Thanks to all my friends goes here more than I want to spend time writing up right now. Accounting homework's waiting.) As a result of all the love you've been showing, I'm still feeling very optimistic about this. Something really good's about to happen, I just have to find it.

There are upsides

As awful as it is to not have a job, there are upsides. For example, I didn't set my alarm clock to go off this morning, didn't get dressed until about 9:30 this morning and I get to wear my Spice Girls T-shirt all day. My friend Jeff is driving from Idaho today and I was going to have to get together with him after work today, but now I get to spend most of the day with him. I get to spend the afternoon in Salt Lake, which means I'll get to spend time with my friend Christian (with whom I don't get to spend enough time).

I've got plenty of time to do my accounting homework and do a few of the things around the house I just haven't had the time to do recently. But in all reality, my full-time job at the moment is to find a new job. I've decided to dedicate the time I would normally spend at work to finding a job.

Just not today. Today, I'm spending a decent chunk of the day with Jeff and going to see Paul McCartney in concert. I'll definitely have updates on that for you tomorrow. And regular updates on this blog is another upside of not having a job at the moment.

Free agent

I have totally neglected this blog, which I apologize for. I know that all three of you were holding your breath, hoping that I'd update it soon. Well, this is your lucky day. And you may wonder why today is so blessed.

I lost my job today. It went one way, I went another way. I had no idea that today was my last day, but it was and that's where I am. Sure it sucks but on the positive side, there's something else out there that's exciting and will be a better fit for me. I plan on working hard to find that new job. So if you hear of something that you think I'd just be excellent at, let me know, will you?

Between now and the time I find that job, I'll definitely be more regular about writing these blog posts. I have to allocate time to completing homework for my accounting class, but I'll make time for this too. Why am I in an accounting class? you may ask. The answer is that I've been accepted to the MBA program at UVU and I'm finishing prerequisites so that I can start the actual Master's work.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be doing something purely fun and not feeling at all bad about it. I'm going to see Sir Paul McCartney in concert in Salt Lake! Uh, yeah. Way excited about that. I'm going to have some dinner right now, but I'll definitely see you soon.

Sharing book notes

At work, I've been assigned books to read as part of my professional development and am going through them like crazy. Seriously, crazy.

That'll probably slow down once I start my MBA classes, but for now, I'm reading tons of books. And while I was reading this last one, I had the brilliant idea of making a place where I can share my notes with the people I work with (who also have books they're reading), since I'm not going to talk about some of these as much as others and the less-talked about ones may help someone else way more than they help me.

I've kicked around the idea of putting those notes here to share with more than just the people at work, but that would also subject them to reading my rants on other topics. Not that I necessarily mind that. They might, though. The more I think about it, though, the more I'm thinking I'll just post them here. That'll hopefully get me back in the habit of posting things here.

I could clearly be persuaded that another solution would be better. If you've got an idea, let me know in the comments.

Photo by Flickr user eclecticlibrarian.

I've created a monster

If you've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, you know that the monster is way cooler than the one Boris Karloff played in the movies. The monster I created is more like the slow, ugly kind that I would rather not have around.

I reached my goal with the NaNoWriMo novel, but as I was writing the climax of the novel, I realized that I hate it. It's not a good story. I've decided that I'll finish it up and print a proof copy for myself, but no one else is going to read it. It'll sit on my bookshelf as a monument to the work I did and a reminder of what not to do in a novel. In the end of the story, I didn't care about any of the characters, there was no growth, no emotion and no change.

It ended up as a sad story, not because some tragedy befalls the characters, but sad because it was weak. I'm counting it as my own personal Plan 9 from Outer Space. The next one will be better.

It's good to see old friends

Tonight, two of my good friends came over and we got caught up with what we've been doing since we last got together and chatted. Daniel gave me some great feedback about one of my greatest weaknesses and gave me a way of overcoming it.

There are a couple of great things about what happened there. First of all, it was nice to get an honest, loving assessment of one of the reasons I'm not as savvy as I could be. Daniel's a very nice guy and tends to be far more complimentary of me than I deserve, so it was great to get some criticism. The other great thing is that my weakness is one of Daniel's strong points, so it was like getting a master class.

I'm clearly a bit leery about telling you what my weakness is, partly because I'm hoping I can take make it more of a strength before too many other people realize I have it.

There are very few things more valuable than people who love you enough to let you know why you suck. You can tell they love you when they help you find ways to fix it.