Hurrah for going to see a movie with Mom. My mom is cool. And she watches movies the same way I do- by making commentary. 
And, Cavalier, the SIMPLE solution is to just bring F/OM with us to Virginia. I’m sure Shawn knows people to introduce him too. He’ll make friends…. 
Besides, at the rate things are going, I get the feeling that if HE got a call from a headhunter, he’d be sending out a resume as well.
…of why I left so much extra time on Friday and Saturday for my job search stuff. Tonight I was only planning to be home for an hour or so since I’m meeting my mom to see a movie after work, and I figured that would be just enough time for me to finish filling out my resume at RCJobs and maybe start looking at jobs on that site that I’m interested in.
But then I get this email from Rich. “I need the comp list [for G.I. Jobs] for June. How soon can you get that to me?”
Well, I’m not planning to be home tonight, so I’ll start it tonight but I can’t promise that you’ll have it before tomorrow night.
He writes back, “But I really really need it by tomorrow morning. I’m sorry for the short notice, but can you make that work?”
Um, yeah, if I forego SLEEP. Can I have a little notice next month?
Let me point out that Rich is the Publisher of the magazine. He oversees ALL magazine operations, including editorial, production, and circulation. He’s a busy guy. I don’t deny this. But how hard would it have been to send me the email another day ahead of time? He has the production schedule. He has not shared it with me. I know that we publish every month, but it’s a new magazine and the exact schedule is still being worked out, so I don’t know when he’s going to need the list from month to month. And apparently Scott and Chris don’t know, either, because I haven’t gotten db updates from them yet this week.
This is a case of Rich making his lack of planning my emergency. He and Chris have been doing this since the Stripes days- a pile of media kits that needed to be overnighted once sat on Rich’s desk ALL DAY until he gave them to me at 5 PM, on a Friday, on a day I was actually going to get out of there at a reasonable hour, while my then-boyfriend was hanging around at my parents’ house waiting for me. I guess it is time for a refresher course in “Tiffany Has Other Things To Do Besides Wait For You To Drop Stuff On Her.” I am certainly not going to skip bonding time with my mother after a long day at work just because Rich can’t get his act together to send me an email in a timely fashion.
In the spirit of not being a big dork about this whole job search thing, I am publishing my plan for the next week. Feel free to harass me about sticking to it. I built extra time into the plan in case any of the steps take longer than I anticipated.
Today:
- get work samples for inclusion on baxendell.com
- finish filling out resume forms at rcjobs.com
- go to a movie with Mom for some much-needed R&R
Wednesday:
- add work samples to baxendell.com
- identify jobs I want to apply for at rcjobs and washingtonjobs.com
- write objective statements to put on the resumes I send to each job
Thursday:
- Cover Letter Madness!! OH YEAH!!
- Collate and address cover/resumes
Friday:
- Mail applications
Saturday:
- Relax and congratulate myself
Note to self: Working yourself into a frenzy of self-doubt just before bed does not make for a peaceful night’s rest.
I had 2 nightmares and one really weird dream last night.
In one, I was kidnapped by this freakish guy from a party (given by my employer, oddly enough) and forced to defend myself with a couple of serrated knives I found laying around in a parking lot. Then the guy blew himself up, Palestinian-style.
In the next one, the Dean of Students from my high school walked into a college dorm room where I was visiting and told my maternal grandparents that I had been doing something nefarious when I had not, in fact, been doing so. My grandfather called my mom and told her and she and my dad got mad and I freaked out and screamed at them for not believing me. Then I walked out because I am 23 and live on my own, gosh darn it.
I woke up at 5:30 AM after that one. It took me a little while to fall back to sleep.
Then I dreamed that I was at this weird performance given by my friend Anji, where every imaginable thing went wrong, and my friends from high school and college were all there, and I was sitting with this girl I knew from elementary school. And I was telling someone this story about how this freakish guy had kidnapped me from a party the night before….
It’s weird to have dreams about your nightmares. I usually don’t even remember one dream per night, let alone three.
And I came to a realization as I stumbled about my home this morning after waking up. All that dumb crap I was saying last night about my complete lack of qualification ad stuff was just me making excuses because Change Is Hard. And I was pulling all the same BS that what’s-his-name used to, the very same stuff that drove me so freaking crazy. Well, except for the “sobbing like a big idiot.” That was Original Tiff BullShit ™. So I’m just not going to do that anymore…. I hope.
So tonight I decided to be responsible and get crackin’ on this resume. Ergh. Every time I make a decision like that, I am reminded of why it is that I have such a hard time forcing myself to look at my resume. Nothing destroys my self-image faster than a piece of paper that is supposed to summarize everything I have accomplished in life. I suppose I could console myself with the idea that many of the greatest things I have been part of have been largely intangible, but intangibles don’t get you a job.
**I’ll just take this opportunity to publicly thank Tom for putting up with the great sniveling puddle of insecurity I became while all this was going on. I’m a real pain in the arse when I’m upset and I now owe Tom some brownies. **
There I am, trying to edit this thing, knowing that the first rule of resume-writing is “sell yourself!! make yourself look good!!” when all the while I’m feeling like the biggest phony who ever lived and why on EARTH would anyone be crazy enough to hire me? I also know perfectly well that no one who has ever seen my resume first has ever hired me- both of my real jobs have come through temp agencies.
Now, I just need to write an objective/summary statement. Ack!!!
… I posted something to Quibbling. I’m not a COMPLETE slacker, really.
Freaking idiots. They tell you that Pittsburgh 911 is disabled, and they tell you that an alternate 10-digit number exists, but they don’t bother to tell you what that number IS. Un-freaking-believable.
So I really should be working on getting my resume together. But I just don’t feel like it right now. So I am going to watch a movie. And maybe when that’s over I’ll be able to think about responsible grown-up stuff again.
Oooh, a vanity domain. I feel so special.
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