Work is boring (Warning this is a rant)

I think I already mentioned that I occasionally work as a receptionist at a huge media company that owns a bunch of radio stations. The downside of being the "backup" is that when it's Christmas Eve they'll call you two days before and ask you to work. I kinda ripped my boss a new one when he asked because he didn't give me any notice. I was asked to do it about a month ago and then was told it was fine if I didn't. And then magically on December 22nd I get a call basically forcing me to work until 6:30. They changed their minds apparently. I mean. 6:30. Get. REAL. It's Christmas Eve! THERE'S NO ONE HERE. Anyway, I'm only working until 2:00 but I've been here for less than two hours and and it fees like it's been five. About six people have come in and I've gotten around three phone calls. I could be making my Christmas dessert right now. I could be decorating Christmas cookies. I could be wrapping gifts! I could be doing things! Can you tell that I'm annoyed? Not only am I working but the other receptionist is working too. So we're like doubly bored. It's epic. On the plus side when a song we like plays on the radio we're singing quite loudly.


One important thing I've noticed in places I've worked:


Bosses almost never know what's going on. They think they do but they don't. And a lot of the time they supervise a job they never did themselves so they REALLY don't know what's going on. Obviously I want a good job where I'm making good money and have a bit of status within the company but never underestimate starting your career as a little person. A receptionist or a desk clerk or an assistant. That's where you figure out the ins and outs of the work place. These are things you would never know if you were just stuck in your bubble in your corner office. I don't know about others but I feel like I can do a better job of things when I have a full understanding of how the place works.


Anyways enough about that. I'm sure my loyal followers have noticed I haven't written in a while. I was sick for a bit but also I've actually been kind of busy! Shocking! Well it's the Christmas season and I've been working a bit and actually going to some interviews! I also find that in order for me to write something on here that I like and that I'm proud of I have to get myself into a kind of mindset that is impossible to do when I'm buzzing around thinking about other stuff.


All this to say I haven't abandoned the blog and that reception work on Christmas Eve is boring stuff.


Happy Holidays hooligans!

Limericks?!

LIMERICKS!!


Limericks are pretty cool. Mostly they're funny poems that are known for having dirty connotations. Not mine though. Mine are pure as the driven snow!


They're about dancing fruits and aliens!


Before we begin who remembers WordArt that you could use in Word Perfect or maybe the Microsoft Word of yore? Anyways most of my titles were WordArt and it makes me laugh because I remember thinking that WordArt was like THE BEST when I first discovered it. I'm pretty sure it still exists but does anybody use it? I really hope I haven't put my foot in my mouth and it's actually super widely used and I've just insulted half the world.

Disclaimer: I just re-installed Photoshop so you all may be privy to some pretty terrible Photoshop-ed pictures. Right now I just got the wonderful idea of trying something out after reading one of the limericks I wrote called "The Yellow Banana"


Check it out:

The Yellow Banana

There once was a yellow banana

Who sang at the Copa cabana

He met a green mango

Who taught him to tango

And they won a trip to Havana

All I can think about right now is to try and find a way to Photoshop bananas and mangoes dancing at a tango club or in Havana or just dancing...yes...


I wasn't kidding when I said it would be bad :)

Tony the Banana and Lola the Mango dancing in Havana

I also can't help but think that this is shamelessly ripped off from one pretty famous Barry Manilow song. Mango might as well be called Lola and the banana, Tony and, at the Copa, They fell in love.

In addition to the banana and mango there was an Alien from Mars.


Oooh ooh! Picture this! Alien happily jumping around in space and then suddenly getting his hair singed. Aw silly alien. I guess it'd have to be like a comic strip. I guess the limerick itself does kind of plays out like a comic strip actually.

The Alien

There once was an alien from Mars

Who tried to jump over the stars

But once he got there

The stars burned his hair

And he ended up drinking in bars

In Flanders Fields

It's November 11 and I don't have a more comprehensive post but it's Remembrance Day here in Canada. Poppy day. 

Many people have stories about the adventure of getting your poppy and losing your poppy and getting another poppy and losing that one and eventually resorting to putting a Canadian flag pin in in the middle just to keep the thing on. 


I have a story of when I had lost about 3 poppies in the same year and encountered a veteran giving them out in a metro station. I decided to ask him what he does to keep the poppy on because losing them was driving me insane. He told me that he'd pin one on my jacket and that I'd never lose it again. So he did and I didn't. I was so impressed and stupid because it didn't occur to me to check what he did until much later. He basically just bent the end of the pin so it wouldn't come off easily. Smart. I've been doing it since.


How many Lauras does it take to pin on a poppy pin? haha. no? 


Another Remembrance day memory I have is of an assignment in eighth grade. We had to memorize and recite "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. I don't know if it was the act of memorizing and reciting it in an animated manner over and over or listening to it being recited in an animated manner over and over but I still remember it by heart, word for word. And many of my blog followers (hi guys!) were in that class and still remember it too. 

Anyway it's a beautiful poem :

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
 To you from failing hands we throw 
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
 If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.


- John McCrae

I don't mean to be preachy but I do think Remembrance Day is important. Lest we forget...

Insomnia

At the beginning of October I was PLAGUED by what I'm calling insomnia. I don't know if it was really insomnia but I was tired and I couldn't sleep properly for around 2 weeks.

Why am I mentioning this you ask? Well I seem to be afflicted by a different type of sleeping ailment nowadays. It's called ThePhoneRingsEarlyInTheMorningAndICan'tGetBackToSleep. So my point is I'm so tired all the time that I can't write anything coherently. Believe me I've tried. And naps are completely useless to me because then I can't sleep at night which causes "insomnia" which is just SO annoying.

Part of me thinks it's a lack of schedule. I have no reason to wake up at a certain time in the morning and no reason to go to sleep by a certain time at night. Sleeping patterns are all over the place! Treasure your sleep people. It's the best!

I remember those days in University when I could probably fall asleep in a split second wherever or whenever I wanted because I was so exhausted from being a student with a part time job. NO MORE.

Anyway I seem to be rambling. I'm going to preview what I have planned for the next few posts even though I don't know when that will be. I'm tired.

Second real job interview evaluation. Seemingly huge marketing company turns out to be a tiny office with 4 people in it. The interview was really strange as well. There was a dog licking my shoes.

Limericks! LIMERICKS!!!!!!

A séance with a really important lesson to be learned!

Some French poetry and short stories anyone? I do live in Canada and more specifically Québec. Must spread the love of BOTH our official languages am I right?

In the meantime sleep well all! You could not be sleeping and then you'd be like me.

Hope twinkles

Stars are pretty and are, in a way, a metaphor for hope. 

Look at all that twinkling hope!

Usually looking up at stars makes us hopeful. I think it does anyway. Which is probably why I wrote this. It's another poem from the "Lemons" poetry project.

Hope

Hope is like a distant

Star

That will always 

Twinkle

In the sky no matter

How dark the night

This poem makes me happy and also makes me think I may have stolen it from somewhere. I mean it's a pretty common idea, the one of hope springing eternal, but the poem is so sweet and visual and true. I can't believe I wrote it. It was a "free verse" poem in which there was no defined structure. This is why I find the structure I used so interesting and it is definitely not the way I would have structured it had I written it now. I sometimes feel like being in academia for so long has made me less creative than I used to be. I would have probably arranged it like this had I written it now which is just so...typical.

Hope is like a distant star

That will always twinkle in the sky 

No matter how dark the night

I realize I sound like a literary snob and I actually have no idea what I'm talking about. I just miss the feeling having no boundaries whether they've been imposed on me by a teacher or by myself (which is probably more likely). It's so easy to set yourself limits even when you don't need to. Although I'm sure at the age of 14 I already had pretty defined limits which is why I didn't have words written in all different directions and in all different areas of the page.

Anyway I wish I had more to say about this poem. I know I seem to keep patting myself on the back but I do think it's pretty good for a 14 year old. :)

Job interviews suck even when they're awesome

It’s November and it’s my seventh month of partial unemployment. You must think I’m lying and that it’s more like ten or eleven but the definition of “unemployed” is somebody who doesn’t have a job and who is actively searching for one. See I stumbled into interview hell at the beginning of the year but didn’t really start trying again until about April.

When I got back from India, I was pretty exhausted. Not only was I jetlagged with a ten hour time difference but I was, in addition to being physically tired, psychologically drained. I had just returned from an intense trip and things had finally slowed down from one of the most intense years of my life and all I wanted to do was sleep for at least a month.

Nevertheless, the week I got back I had two phone interviews. One was a part time promotional assistant position at the company I work at now and the other a full time receptionist job at a software company. I had never experienced not having anything to do for an undetermined amount of time so getting a job RIGHTAWAY for some reason seemed like the next logical step.  I probably could have snared that receptionist job but I think the woman who interviewed me sensed my hesitance at getting a job that wouldn't really further my career. I had been doing that for years working at the library. Good money, fun people but obviously it wasn’t going to get me anywhere in the writing or media biz.  

So I did the interviews with absolutely no preparation and without really caring about the outcome. Considering the circumstances (jet lagged, not prepared, incredibly fatigued with using my brain), I think they went pretty well even though I stand before you partially jobless. I have learned however, that how well an interview goes has nothing to do with whether you’ll get the job or even a second interview. And so I didn’t get either job and then stopped looking for two months and was instead transfixed by the Vancouver Olympics, sleeping a lot and bumming around until I was sick of it.

My first REAL interview was at the end of April and for a really cool company. It was a non-profit organization that had been around for years so the office wasn’t in an old building with old chairs that make your back hurt with desks that are falling apart and no air conditioning. I have experience with other really awesome non profit organizations that do great things but sadly don't have money for luxuries.  Anyway, this particular somewhat rich non profit was so cool and the people made me feel really special! First they told me I was shortlisted with three others for an interview which is like "wow" for my first interview. Second they told me my resume was really impressive which, at the time, was amazing but I've been told that so many times since, it has lost its meaning. Third they put me through all kinds of skills testing that was fairly easy and thus made me think I had the job in the bag.

The interview itself was great. It consisted of The HR rep, the CFO, the person whose job I would be taking over and I all sitting at a round table. I was really well prepared and answered all of their questions with confidence and hopefully intelligence. It became the interview model for all subsequent interviews. And they had the common decency to let me know I didn’t get the position.

Evaluation of job interview: Communications Coordinator

Clothes: Purple dress shirt, grey pants, black pointy flat shoes.

Glasses or no glasses: Glasses. 

Morning, afternoon or evening: Morning. Ugh.

Small, medium or large firm: Small 

Number of interviewers: 3

Men or Women or Both: Both. Two women (previous Coordinator and HR rep) and a man (CFO).

Human Resources interview: Not really, even though the HR rep was there.

Length of interview: At least an hour. Possibly more.

Conference room or office: Conference room (so much better than an office).

Interview atmosphere: Relaxed and professional. Kind of perfect actually.

Office/location: Really nice, right downtown in an office building and a really nice office space.

Well prepared: Yes, times a million. I still have all the notes I wrote for this job interview in my little notebook. Strengths? Weaknesses? Where do I see myself in 5 years? Why do I want this job? I know the answers to all those questions!

Possibility of tardiness: I was very close to being late because I couldn’t find the right elevator to get to the right floor.

Stress level/likelihood of pit stains: Epic because of possible tardiness but relaxed really quickly because I wasn't late and everyone including the awesome receptionist was really nice. Sweating was at a minimum because it was fairly cool outside.

Initial vibe at office environment: I wanna work here I wanna work here I wanna work here.

Hurt chances due to slight English accent while speaking fluent French: No, because the company is mostly English.

Charmed them with quick wit and self depreciating humour: Yes, or so it seemed. I can’t remember what exactly because it was months ago. I made them laugh. They liked me. Or they were really good at faking their like of me.

Tough/weird question I’m not sure how to answer: How would you change the world? I said I’d make people more tolerant after a lot of really awkward silence. What a question. I still get nervous thinking about it. How would YOU change the world?

Desire to take back the answer to a question and replace it with something you just came up with while answering a different question: I can't remember but that almost always happens so probably.

Skills testing: Inbox exercise (they emailed it to me) testing how I would handle various high stress situations.

False sense of confidence: A billion fold. They made me feel great.

Disappointment at not getting job: Really REALLY disappointed. I probably shouldn’t have been because hardly anyone gets their first job from their first interview but I WAS SHORTLISTED! AND MY RESUME WAS IMPRESSIVE! AND THEY LIKED ME (I THINK). AND! AND... yeah.

Job status notifications: Yes. A very nice email that I didn't get the position. Not one of those annoying "I'm sure you'll find the perfect job for your qualifications and we thank you for your interest in our company" emails. A nice one. Thankfully.

It’s too bad I didn’t get the job because, now that I think about it, interviews have been going downhill from there. 

Maybe I should answer questions like this:

How do you feel about lemons?

I'm not that much of a sweet tooth. I've always liked things that were slightly more sour but I can't say I'm really into lemons as a casual everyday snack.

Apparently my 14 year old self was really into lemons. Or pretended to be for the purpose of this poem. I wrote it when I was in the eight grade and it was for a big poetry project. This was called a "Concrete Poem" which I assume was a poem that was supposed to be represented in a concrete visual manner. See?

Now I wish I could make fun of my 14 year old self and mock how terrible this poem is but I actually think it's pretty awesome! The rhythm works, the words are catchy, it rhymes and is kind of hilarious. Also note how we did things before the widespread use of computer graphics. A title in highlighter on a not-completely-erased rulered line and a lemon drawn BY HAND. Honestly I have very limited artistic talent so I have no idea why it looks somewhat good.


In case you can't see that properly here's the poem:


Lemons are a yellow fruit that taste very sour.
When offered one, most people cower.
I don't know why people can't deal with the acidity
I can eat one with perfect tranquility.
A lemon is small but bigger than a lime,
In my opinion they are pretty fine.


Not bad if I do say so myself  ;)

I'm writing a blog!

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 26. I have slipped to the other side of twentysomething-dom. And while I was reflecting on the year that was (smack in the middle of twentysomething-dom) I realized that I haven't done anything creatively or intellectually stimulating in at least a year. For someone with two highfalutin university degrees who’s been told she has the wind at her back and the world as her oyster I’m thinking that that is kind of an incredible thing.  I spent my year working at a fun but inevitably dead-end job and then quitting and visiting my homeland for the first time and coming back to commence the search for that new, real, exciting and awesome job.

Turns out searching for that new, real, exciting and awesome job brings with it new realms disproportionate mood swings such as temporary euphoria (HURRAY I GOT AN INTERVIEW!), desperation (I’ll be your personal assistant and make you coffee all day for 5 bucks an hour! Please hire me!), and depression (I’m not even good enough to get a job making coffee all day for 5 bucks an hour). I shouldn’t complain though. I do have an EXTREMELY part-time receptionist position with a company that has the potential to sweep me off my feet and offer me the job of my dreams. But that hasn’t happened yet nor has it happened at any other company and that is not for a lack of trying. Hey I don’t mind paying my dues but in the meanwhile, until that new, real, exciting and awesome job comes along, it’s time to start using my brain again.

My birthday present to myself is to stop aimlessly going about my life like a job is the only thing that can fulfill my creative and intellectual needs. This week I thought it would be fun to go through some of my old writing and school projects. As I read them it dawned on me that I was a creative and intellectual person before I was even old enough to have a real, exciting and awesome job and thus, I should probably think outside the box a bit and move back to my roots. I’m going to share some of my old essays and poetry from high school, CEGEP (college) and even university to in the hope that it inspires me to start writing again. Also, I hope to talk about some of my more interesting forays into the job market and the joys of partial-unemployment. 

Let the games begin!