friday chex mix

This week has actually been very productive. Wednesday evening Joey and I met our friend MJ out who introduced us to several of her friends. They all seemed really nice and I am hoping to hang out with some of them in the future. Most of them will be at her book signing on December 10^th, which I have on my calendar.

Yesterday I set appointments with clients for following week and went by to see a landscaping prospect. I ran errands and did some Christmas shopping. Joey and I went to see the boy sing in his Christmas Corus at his school. He was right in the middle of the rows of kids both fourth and fifth graders and we could clearly see him – and he never smiled. It almost looked as if he was in pain up there. But, some of the other kids didn’t smile either. Some were listing back and forth, some had their hands in their pockets, one kept looking at her fingernails and the boy’s best friend kept making weird faces. It was all pretty entertaining. Tonight he sings at the Gladiators game and of course, Joey and I have tickets for that.

Yesterday, I got a Christmas card in the mail from my sister that had several Amazon gift certificates attached to the inside of it. She told me to use them to do all my Christmas shopping. It was very sweet.

Well, off to landscape as it is Friday! Have a great weekend!

go brown

I’ve already started making progress. (If I tell myself this enough times I will start believing it). This morning I hauled myself out of bed at 8:30, threw a sandal down the hall at my howling cats (which, I intentionally miss) put on my flannel pj pants, before heading down to the kitchen to feed them and put on the coffee. Coffee in hand I went in to my office to make a few phone calls. I sent an email to a former co-worker to see if former boss (two jobs ago) could put in a good word for me with the director of another department I interviewed with. She wrote back that she was on it. Not sure if this will actually get done but it’s worth a try. I also sent off an email to my friend at Un*ted P*rcel S*rvice asking if she had any information for me. She was one of those “I will find out who the hiring manager is” when I said I applied for a job there. I know that they are hiring seasonal help right now and that time is of the essence. Later I got a reply that she couldn’t find out the name and suggested that I just go to the distribution center I applied to work at and ask. Ok, I could have come up with that myself. I made an appointment to have my iTouch looked at and hopped in the shower with Joey. She was heading out to have lunch with a friend. 

Later, after my appointment I walked by the guest services desk and noticed that there were people with UPS badges on. I stopped and asked their advice on what I should do after applying online for seasonal work. They told me to go immediately to their job placement office in Duluth (for you, Maria) and talk to them. I left and went right there. There was a woman at the front desk who asked for my name and was able to pull up my information in the system but I needed to finish the application process there on their computers. This is something that is required after submitting an online application. She took me into this room and I filled out the rest of the information. When I finished she made an appointment for and interview/orientation for next week. It was as simple as that.  So, I could be wearing brown next week.

On the way home I dropped off cards at a couple of places that I’m trying to get landscaping gigs with. At home I made myself go right in and put on my running tights and was headed out the door when Joey pulled up from shopping. I suspected that she was Christmas shopping and was right when she asked me to turn around while she toted bags out of the car. I ran through the neighborhood and tried not to walk much. I could feel my head clearing and my shoulders relaxing.

the blahs

I feel like I’m in a rut these days. I have too much time on my hands and not enough to do. I hate being unemployed. (hate it, haaaate it, hate.it!) I’m one of those people who like to be busy, busy, busy –all.the.time. I don’t do well sitting around being stagnant. I also don’t’ do well during the holidays – never have. It messes up the cadence of my days but the cadence of my days have been messed up for awhile now. Even when I was in school the holidays messed with me. I only wanted to go home for a few days and then be right back into the pulse of the university, the pulse of people. I wanted things to get back to normal. Things don’t feel normal right now. I make myself get out of bed between 8 and 8:30 whether I feel like it or not. At least if I’m not doing anything then I should be up just in case I can make something happen.

Most of my friends have jobs and work. Normal schedules which don’t allow for a lot of time to hang out. I get that. Despite my circumstances I still feel that I’m always the one to make plans, call them, send texts. I’m the one who keeps juggling all the balls. If one drops then they all fall and it stops. It feels like a one-sided thing. I also have friends who say they will help me. They say “send me your resume” or when I tell them that I applied for a job where they work they say “I will check on it” but nothing ever happens with this. I realize that this is a way for people to feel like they’re being helpful but really they’re not. People cannot handle the subject of someone being unemployed. They’re uncomfortable with it. They almost treat you like you have the plaque and it’s going to rub off on them. So, to change the subject and get away from an uncomfortable situation the common response is “well, send me your resume”. I want to say “Thanks but no thanks. I don’t really think you can help me. I know it makes you feel better but it does nothing for me.” Because when I don’t hear anything from them I ask and I get the response of “Oh, I’m so busy I haven’t had time.” I keep falling into that useless resume pit every time. I understand that I need to stop it myself of it will keep going.

I do have glimmers of good things going on – it’s not all bad. I went to a friend’s book signing last week and she called me out of the blue. In fact she just called me again and see if Joey and I wanted to meet her out on with some other friends tomorrow night.   Someone actually called me for a change to make plans. 

I am going to stop chasing my old friends around. The balls drop now and it’s up to them to pick them up. If they want to juggle them then that’s their call. I’m going to focus energy on new friends, my relationship with Joey and people who are available that can handle juggling a full time job and multiple friendships. I am going to go out for the volleyball team. I need a competitive sport and a team. I need a healthy release to my pent up unemployment stress. I am going to run more and go to every training meeting that I possibly can for my insurance gig. I’m going to start editing my book in my spare time. Maybe if I get it edited I could look into getting it published. I am going to volunteer for some needy organization and quit sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

That’s what I’m going to do and I don’t even need some holiday like New Years Eve to kick my butt into gear.

tree tree

Yesterday, me, Joey and the boy picked out a tree. We had it tied to the roof of the forerunner and drove home where I hauled it off the roof and into the living room. I held it upright while Joey and the boy twisted the screws tight to hold it up in the tree stand. Joey went to fill it with water and the cats immediately went to drink out of it. We let it relax overnight.

Tonight, we had Laura, Ellen and her aunt over to help us trim the tree. What does “trimming” mean anyway? It’s not like we had pruners out cutting the branches or anything….we just hung lights and decorated it. Joey and the boy hung ornaments that were special to them. I hung my ornaments. Every year when the Christmas tree goes up I take a walk down memory lane. I hang all the birdhouse ornaments I have acquired over the years. However, I remember getting several of them during a time I went home for Christmas and bought them at the same flower shop my family always went to for flowers – be it anniversaries, birthdays, occasions even funerals – I will always remember it as the later. I look at the ornament “Mind the Gap” and remember my sister and I being in London for my 40^th birthday. I always loved that about the London underground (they call it “underground” in London and “the metro” in Paris) how they always announced in their British accent “mind the gap” when stepping on and off the train. I realize that I am in love with the train system in London and Paris and hope one day that I can take Joey there so she can experience it as I have. I also look at the fly-fishing ornaments that I hang on the tree. One of a fish that says, “Fish stories told here” and a fly-fishing basket. This is from one of the ex’s that taught me to fly fish but never claimed the ornaments in the divorce. I kept them along with my fly fishing equipment and am happy about it. (she got plenty so I’m not too upset over it.) There are several Coca Cola ornaments that I did not hang this year just because I want to preserve them in a way. I notice they don’t make as many as they used to. I pulled the boxes that had pictures of steins on them my parents bought back in the 60’s before I was born. (Which, we drank out of but never beer but iced tea.) In them it contains ornaments my mother made by hand. They are Styrofoam balls with push pens with shiny beads and sequins and ribbons. I remember when she made them every year. I hang a few but never all of them. They are so precious to me that I never want them to wear out. It makes me miss her when I hang them but I hang them in her honor and memory. I pull out the picture of our family dog that has long since passed and hang beside an ornament of my mothers. They can keep each other company. Next is a miniature Ducati motorcycle yet another ex got me – special ordered, in fact, the exact replica of my actual motorcycle. I hang that beside many other motorcycle ornaments – glass, porcelain, plastic. Then there is the corn husk angel on the very top – because I am from Indiana and grew up on a farm raising corn. This contrasts to the chilli pepper lights surrounding the tree.

Company long gone, Joey reading to the boy, I sit at the dining room table sipping scotch, smelling the spiced candles I have burning, listening to Eliane Elias sing “Movin’ me on” and stare at the lights.

Thanksgiving chex mix

The eve of Thanksgiving I got up and padded into the kitchen past sleeping cats to put on the coffee. I stopped and looked back at them curled up. One on the bed I recently purchased and the other under my snare drum. Their bed sits on a large multicolored rug under my drum kit. I thought it strange that the cats hadn’t heard me walk by – usually they are meowing and quite vocal when I get up. I had a fleeting thought that it would really suck if they were both dead when one of them got up and walked over meowing.  After grinding the beans and setting the coffee to brew I walked over to the male cat, checked to see if he was still breathing and he was -obviously quite deaf in his old age.  After pouring myself a cup he finally woke up and walked over to me rubbing up against my leg. I reached down and petted him and took the coffee to the counter, turned on the space heater, sat down and caught up on my blog reading until Joey came in. She put her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulders.

I had lunch with a former co-worker who bought enough shares of a construction management company to make her an owner. It was a good to see her, probably good career-wise but who knows. [I know so many people who are VP's and owners of companies of my old discipline and still I'm unemployed] After lunch I ran errands and went home to find Joey in her pajama’s in bed. She told me that Bella had been in the hospital all night and that Stella had just called to tell her that. This meant that they wouldn’t be coming for Thanksgiving. We had previously offered to host to give Bella an option to attend (we live in a ranch so access is much easier than Laura’s 5 stepped house) but now that they weren’t coming I picked up the phone and called Ellen to see if she would host it. She happily obliged so the rest of the day was freed up to relax instead of running around cleaning and cooking. I suggested that we go have pizza since we would be eating leftovers for days to come. Joey got up, got dressed and we left for the pizza place up the street. It’s in a shopping center that has a Salvation Army that has ½ off on clothes on Wednesdays. We decided to go in and shop but it was closing early due to the holiday. When we walked in they announced “Fifteen minutes until closing!” We still managed to find Joey a sweater and me an Abercrombie t-shirt in under fifteen minutes which was a record. 

We went next door and ate pizza and texted Laura to see if we could go over to her house and watch Dexter. We knew that she was going with Ellen and her aunt to see Cirque de Solie. She texted back that we couldn’t. We were a little shocked until another text from her said “well, ok if you put my clothes in the dryer”. She had been pulling our legs but lately it’s harder to detect when she’s doing this. Laura had been preparing for a procedure and hasn’t been able to eat certain things, take her regular medicine or drink alcohol. The procedure is complete but until the results are back she has to be on the same diet. She’s been a bit worried and stressed about the results as well as not feeling very well. She’s not been herself. It’s been strange to have the friend you’ve texted, talked to and hung out with for months pull away.[Not to mention that she will only hang out with Ellen who she is in love with. But, that’s another story.] We’re all hoping that the results come back ok and things get back to normal.  

Remember my friend, Joy? She’s back from the cruise and actually called me (but, only after I sent an orange phone flare to her Facebook wall) we’re supposed to have a drink but I’m not holding my breath. My friend, Opie has been AWOL and the last text I got from her was frantic saying her grandmother was ill and she was going home. I called and left a message to see if everything was ok but no response days later.

So, things are a bit crazy with some of our friends. We met some new neighbors up the street. One [if I can explain it correctly] is transgender (from female to male) and the other is a lesbian and they’re both legally married. We’ve only met Jake and have yet to meet his wife Celia as she’s been working both the times we’ve stopped in. I’m hoping to hang out with them more in the future – especially, since we live on the same street.

Thanksgiving day we took enough food to feed an army over to Ellen’s house and ate and played Wii Cook or Be Cooked. [It’s ok – I hope Rock Band is better.] We got home late after dropping off a few plates of food at Stella’s and hid a couple of presents we’ve already gotten the boy for Christmas. [it was a bi-otch getting that big rock band box in the top of the closet] We read a bunch – Joey finished her book and I tried to finish mine to no avail. I still feel guilty sitting around just doing nothing even if it is a holiday. I know I could be out prospecting on black Friday but I think it would be a waste of time and energy to try to talk to people whose only objective is to get in and get out with what they came to get. So, if you’re out there on black Friday I hope you are successful in what you set out to purchase!

weekend in a nutshell

Friday:

I have to go over and work my landscaping gig today. I am not moving too quickly as I’m still achy from having a H1N1 flu shot the other day. The alarm on my phone just went off reminding me that I need to get over there and start. The beagles are waiting…… 

The day before was spent holed up in my office trying to work on all my state licensing requirements. (I am trying to get licensed to refinance mortgages and do auto and homeowners insurance) If I work on this over the holidays then by 2010 I will have everything in place so I can really rock and roll. It has been a bit frustrating this past week. I spoke to tons of people but it’s just a hard time of year. People are either busy with the upcoming holidays or they just want to collect unemployment and not have to work for making a commission only paycheck. [I get it, I’m collecting unemployment myself but that doesn’t stop me from trying to find work or make money]. In fact, if I advertised free root canals it would have been easier to get people to the interview/open house. (That’s an idea….) The two people who came to the open house that night left before it was over. One didn’t even stay long enough to even hear the presentation (this person is unemployed and supposedly desperate for a job). She told me it wasn’t for her. Perhaps if she would have stayed long enough she would have been a better judge of that but I wasn’t convinced. The other guy who left later explained that he had a felony (we cannot hire people who have a felony on their record for the last 7 years). Great, I thought. Do I want people on my team who a. cannot stay long enough to find out what it’s about or b. has a record? No, not really. But, part of that was my fault for not doing a better job of prescreening. So, I’m going to be a little more selective in the future. It’s going to be like this – if you’re interested then come to an interview/open house. If you cannot take an hour out of your day to find out if it’s a good fit then it probably isn’t a good fit. In the meantime, I’m going to have all my licensing in place so I can do all the work myself until I can get more of a team set up.

That night I went out to grab a bite to eat at one of my favorite places. They always have Sweetwater specials and great burritos. As I walked around the side of the building fronting the square of Decatur I saw a sign in the door that said “Office space for rent $400/month”. I went inside. I thought “if I could do the training and open houses here in Decatur then it won’t be so hard getting all the “townies” out to Duluth. That is the toughest part of recruiting inside the perimeter. Despite the corporate office being just outside I-285 if you mention Duluth to a townie they shudder and say “You mean outside- the-perimeter? I don’t know if I can go that far.” You would have thought I was asking that they travel to Chattanooga. But, I get it because I consider myself a townie, too and I loathe going outside the perimeter myself and I dream of having a home office in Decatur on the square between two pubs, in fact. 

After opening the door and stepping in I saw a staircase and decided to head downstairs. I heard a man’s voice say, “Hello?” I said back that I was curious about the office space. The first one he took me to was perfect. It had a small office with a conference room attached that I could do the workshops and presentations. He said that office may or may not be available and it was $580 [Ok, not sure what the "may or may not" was about]. He took me to two more and neither one worked. One was very nice, with a small meeting room with a window at the end looking down on the square and an office attached. Unfortunately, the large arced window that used to exist in the office was bricked over giving it a bit of a claustrophobic feel. I thanked him and left not knowing how I could afford to rent an office unless I got all my licensing in place and made a few commissions – food for thought and on to the beer and burrito. After eating I walked back to my car and ran into the man again talking to the owner of the building. Again, they tried to sell me on the offices but I just said I had their number and would be in touch if I could do such a thing. 

Saturday:

I got a Christmas card already from Mags, which, was a nice surprise to my day. Joey and I went for coffee/tea and drove up to this huge thrift store in Marietta. We shopped for a few hours and then I went to meet our friend, Ellen. I got Ellen to join my team and went to her house to do some paperwork and training. I say this lightly because our training consisted of us having a few beers and me showing her procedures of what she will be doing. I am starting to work on motivating her but I am not pushing too hard doing it with more subtlety since she’s responding well so far. 

Sunday:

I had terrible dreams the night before about both of the bosses from my last job who were instrumental in being huge jackasses laying me off. It was actually two separate dreams, too. I woke up hating them both [again] and feeling like I was never going to find full time work. So, I’ve been in a real funk. Even though I have had small victories the past few months – landing a landscaping gig – [which, I hope they will renew again next month], talking to another potential landscaping gig [which, would be good to land], and doing the part time thing with this other job. It still doesn’t pay the bills all add up to full time work. I had decided put my unemployment insurance into effect to get me through the holiday’s. I basically wouldn’t have had any money coming in during this time if I hadn’t done this. I got a call from one of the guys I used to work with and he wanted to get together for lunch sometime. He said he had heard that I was working and sounded jubilant about it as if I had landed this new fantastic job and that we needed to celebrate. I corrected him saying that I was basically working on getting my licenses to sell insurance and refinance mortgages but basically hadn’t made any money doing that yet. He went on and on complaining about how hard it was out there and there being no work in engineering, construction, etc. This was the same stuff I heard on a daily basis before I got laid off  -by the ones who still have a job. So why would I want to subject myself to that again? I said I’d look at my calendar and get back to him about lunch. I think my calendar will be booked for awhile. Tonight a friend of mine is having a book signing at the local pub [which, is what her book is about]. Ellen and I are going to go down there and have a beer before going out to the training meeting in DULUTH [ohmygod I’d better pack a bag it’s sooooo far…..]. I ordered Rock Band for the boy today for Christmas and am looking forward to that! Now I’m going to hop in the shower and grab something to eat before heading out to my late afternoon/evening. Hope the rest of your weekend goes well!

Rocket Popp

Btw…we have some new stuff over at Rocket Popp if you want to check it out.

crabby crab legs

We decided to go up to the top of Stone Mountain Park today. I hiked to the top and Joey and the boy rode the sky car up. It was a beautiful day and relatively warm outside. I had gotten a bit warm in my jeans and t-shirt – knew I would but wasn’t feeling the shorts and decided to persevere. Once at the top I awaited their sky car to pull up, the doors opened and the two of them departed. We walked around the top of the mountain for awhile. The boy ran up to every pool of water and looked for shrimp. Joey took pictures and then we went back to the snack shop to refill the reusable cup of Coke Zero for a dollar. The lady at the cash register said she hadn’t seen that cup in awhile and what a good deal that was. I knew Joey was thinking “Uh ye-ah! That’s why we bought it so every time we come back here refills are only a dollar.” 

They got back on the sky car and I walked down. It didn’t take me nearly as long to get down as it did to get up. They drove around and picked me up in the car and we took off for the grocery store. They had crab legs on sale $4.99 per pound at Publix and Joey decided to surprise the boy with them for dinner. On the way to the store the boy got pouty. He said he had a headache and didn’t feel well. Joey said he could stay in the car while we ran in and got groceries leaving him with the cell phone and locking the car.

Once inside we shopped for the sales that were in the flyer. Joey asked that if the phone rang would I be able to hear it. I said yes but it didn’t get a good signal in the back of the store. By the time we got to the front to check out there was a missed call. I tried to call back but he wouldn’t answer. I finished checking out while Joey ran out to see if he was ok. By the time I got back to the car she had his back seat door open and was holding him while he cried. He had said he tried to call and we wouldn’t answer. He was quite distressed and anxious. Joey soothed him while I loaded the groceries and Joey got into the passenger seat and we went home. He said he was so weak he could barely move. This reminded me of a David Sedaris story I had recently read to Joey about him and his boyfriend both coming down with a stomach flu and vying for whose flu was the worse. From his book “When you are engulfed in flames” essay “Old Faithful” he said, “You can at least move your hands,” he said. “No,” I told him, “it was the wind that moved them. I have no muscle control whatsoever.” -Going through my mind at that moment. 

We pulled up at home and Joey and I unloaded the groceries while the boy used her cane to limp into the house. Head down, limping with the cane I had to turn around to keep him from seeing my amused expression. “What a little drama queen”, I thought. While I could understand his anxiety – I could not understand him acting like he could barely walk into the house limping along with Joey’s cane. [He did do a wonderful imitation of her on her worst days, though.] Inside the house he slumped over the bar as we put groceries away. Joey was trying to cheer him by talking about the crab and accidentally mentioned tofu before that. The boy loves tofu almost as much as crab. He brightened over the mention of it and Joey said we weren’t having that tonight but crab he said, “Oh-uh” and slumped back down on the counter, again, pouting. I piped in that his mom wanted to surprise him with crab tonight. I could tell we were getting to the end of our sympathy rope with the poutiness. There were children starving in Africa and he was to have crab, which, was one of his favorites. [Not that I said that but thought it.] I asked him if he wanted me to set up a movie for him to watch before dinner and that seemed to work. I took him into our bedroom and cued it up and gave him the remotes. He looked content with his banana and movie when I left him. I went back into the kitchen Joey said, “Thank you. I was about at the end of my rope.”

By the time crab was served we were all focusing on getting the scrumptious meat out of the legs, snarfing down sweet potato fries and later ice cream. Everything seemed to be fine after that. It was a good day despite the grocery store incident.

dreams

My sleeping cycle has been all f*cked up lately. I’ve been coming home late from training, meetings and prospecting and Joey and I have stayed up late talking. Not that this is a bad thing it’s good. I have enjoyed our conversations late into the night. It’s sort of like the old days. Despite staying up late I have been waking up exceptionally early, too.

This morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. from a terrible dream. Well, terrible to me. It was about one of my ex’s becoming a famous rock star, making the top three on iTunes and Twittering herself all day long to become more and more famous. All my friends were talking about her and her band and how great she was and how they couldn’t believe I broke up with her. 

Staring at the clock I contemplated getting up. I tossed and turned and finally drifted back to sleep. 

The next dream was about my mother. It was like I was visiting home for the first time since I’d been laid off and she was fretting over how I was going to get by and that she’d take care of it. She pulled out a wad of cash and gave it to me to put in my pocket. She was telling me that is was going to be ok when my father interrupted. I was frustrated in the dream because he kept interrupting us. [This was much like real life.] Then, I woke up – frustrated like in the dream. Sometimes I think my mother comes to me in dreams to give me messages. I try to remember them but they are fleeting and eventually lost.

It was 1998 and I was working for this small sweatshop of a firm. There were only three of us working full time and one part time. I had left a large architecture firm doing site planning for the Home Depot to work for this sweatshop. In hindsight, it was a mistake to leave the previous firm. Angry that they wouldn’t promote my title and pay to project manager even though I did all the work of a P.M. I quit. It was a good-old-boy firm who almost never promoted women. But, it was almost like out of the frying pan and into the fire sort of thing. A friend of mine who worked for the company went to work for said sweatshop and got me a job there. A none too glamorous job at that. Between the three of us we were constantly on deadlines and printing out plans and delivering them to FedEx at the airport at the last 9:00 drop. I was working 10-hour days and not getting paid for it. The owner was a registered landscape architect who always sauntered in at 11:00 every day, answered the messages that we had been taking all morning since 8:00 a.m. and went to lunch at 1:00 for two hours.  He also chain smoked in the office and we all had a hard time with it.  

It was approaching Christmas and I had accumulated a weeks worth of comp time to use to take off and fly home to Indiana for the holiday. My mother had already purchased the plane ticket and I had put in for the vacation. The boss had been acting strange towards me. I found out later that the friend who worked there had told him I was gay. The last day before I was to leave for vacation he let me go – without pay, too. Because I had worked there for less than 90 days I wasn’t eligible for Cobra health insurance. For the first time in my life I didn’t have a job or health insurance.   

I called my sister and told her what happened but not to tell mom. Right. No one in my family could ever keep a secret despite the many times they attempted to do so. My mother told me she knew the minute I stepped off the plane. She then took me shopping and told me not to worry about anything she would see to it that I would be ok. 

I guess my mother was trying to tell me again that it would be ok.

warm [friend] market

As you know I’m doing a new business now that it involves sales and recruitment. Ok, test time –

-what is the first thing they tell you to do when you go into sales?

[guessing…..guessing….. hmm, let me seeeeeee..... Oh! I know! Call all your friends!]

Right, call your friends because they are your warm market. Are you wondering what “warm market” is? Well, let’s go to our standby Wikipedia and see what they say:

Warm market is used both the sales and direct marketing industries. In direct marketing it is similar to using the phrase “permission marketing“, which is also the title of a best selling book by Seth Godin. In sales and direct marketing your warm market is said to be people you know, which could be friends, relatives and existing customers, even referrals are said to be warm (see referral marketing.)

So, guess who has been doing that? Yes, me. Which, really isn’t such a bad thing as I get to be sociable, promote and catch up with friends I haven’t seen in awhile. Gosh, what more could I ask for? Not only am I working, I’m also seeing my friends!

Today, I finished my landscaping job, came home, took a shower, ate lunch and started prospecting. I texted a friend I had been chasing for a year to get together and have a drink.  Somehow, I was able to pull off her meeting me for such drink and talk to her about joining my team -all from texting. [It kinda blew my mind]

Not only did we catch up, I think she’s going to come to an open house and join my team. We’ll, see….for every 100 people you get to an open house guess how many you get to join you? 10. Out of those 10 you may only get 1 who makes it to regional VP. Yes, a numbers game and not personal.

Recently, I was trying to get in touch with a woman whom I did some work with who has been laid off for quite some time. I contacted her old boss who I interviewed with earlier in my layoff status and asked how to get in touch with her and he told me to find her on LinkedIn. So, I signed up for an account. As I’m going through the registration process it linked to my yahoo email contact list and sent out an invitation to join to everyone including –

-every girl I’ve dated since the year 2000

-all my old bosses including the one who recently laid me off

- my financial advisor/ex gf who probably wasn’t happy to learn that I’d joined the financial industry and was probably going to yank all my $ out of her company soon

- various people who I have no.idea. who they are and how their email addresses got into my contact list

Yeah.

As I realized this I closed out my email and logged off the computer and swore I wasn’t going to freak out or have an anxiety attack over it. In fact, I was kind of amused at the amount of people who accepted my invitation to join my network.

Including the most recent boss that laid me off.