My mother is a force of nature. Sometimes nature is sunshine and rainbows and sometimes it's thunderstorms and tornado warnings. This pretty much sums up my mother.
My parents as a team have faced more than most marriages could weather. They have suffered the loss of three children, two shortly after birth and one when he was a small boy. Financially they struggled to keep a roof over our heads and keep the repo men at bay. All while scraping by to find the tuition to send me to a private middle school because they felt that the public school wasn't advanced enough to keep me out of trouble. This turned out to be a really good call, but that is another blog for another day. One of their children had serious drug issues and two still live with them to this day. They are amazing people and work well as a team.
But I've always felt it was my mother that drove that team. My father supports her, adds steel to her resolve and muscle to her declarations. But my mother calls the shots. My mother is just over 5 feet tall. Bright blue eyes. Easy smile. Lovely laugh. She was the driving force in my family growing up. I can remember sitting at the dining room table as a small girl and announcing that my father might be the head of the family but my mother was the neck that turned the head. My dad said something to the effect of that being the best for my mother to think and the subject was changed. But please believe it was true.
Mom was a working mother for as long as I can remember. When she was pregnant with my sister she was a meter maid in Des Moines, IA and they did a newspaper article about her and the baby after my sister was born. I guess there was a lot of curiosity about the pregnant meter maid! While I was growing up she worked for my dad and then as the office manager for a local car wash. My brother Jeff, my sister and I all worked at the car wash as well. Because Mom decided we would, and so we did. My mother has an incredibly strong will and my father falls in with what my mother decides and they become an immovable force.
Lately things have shifted. My mother started suffering from sudden onset dementia last fall. It took months of tests and a move to a new doctor and hospital before we discovered that the underlying cause was excessive calcium production due to two different types of lymphoma. Now the good news is that she is undergoing treatment for the cancer and that is in turn treating the calcium levels so she is getting better. But a side effect of the chemo therapy is depression. When you add depression to the traces of dementia that are still around and mix that with a healthy dose of my mother's normal steam roller personality you get a really difficult mix to manage.
My mother has always had the habit of hearing what she wants to. Now, this has undoubtedly helped her through her life in raising all of us kids. But as one of those kids it's one of her most frustrating characteristics. We have had more arguments than I could ever recall from her insisting I said I would do something that I never agreed to. She probably has no idea how close I came to cutting all ties to my family in New Mexico when I was newly married. (Again, another blog for another day.) She is the queen of wishful thinking. I say she has the ability to hear a paragraph worth of words and can cut and paste in her head to make the sentence she wants to hear.
Just over the past few weeks she has decided we are coming home for Christmas, my niece and I are having a fight and have stopped speaking to each other and that she hasn't spoken to me in weeks and is going to call me and ask if I am still alive then hang up the phone. Now, we are not coming home for Christmas, my niece and I are fine and I just spoke with my mother last week.
I am going to have to call her and listen to her complain about how I never call her, and hope that she remembers this time that we spoke and try my hardest not to lose my temper. But I am not calling her today. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will remind myself that she is an old woman; who is sick and scared and not in her right mind. Tomorrow I will remember that she is a force of nature and that right now she is stuck in a fog bank that she doesn't know how to find her way out of. Tomorrow I will put on my good daughter hat and dial the number. Tomorrow.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
It's just an expression...
"I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost
“We must be willing to give up the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
"My Mom always said men are like linoleum floors: Lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for 30 years." Brett Butler
Don't you love a good quote? Funny, inspirational, motivational. My friend Scott writes down quotes that inspire him, personally and professionally. I was really pleased when something I said made his list because I keep a list of my own. Well, list is probably being generous. Mine are tacked up on the refrigerator, stuck in books as bookmarks, torn out of magazines, stuffed in a drawer or crammed in my head.
I wish I could always remember where I picked up the phrase from, but sometimes that piece is lost. But the words aren't. The expression, the life lesson, the joke, that part I keep. And I have found that a really good turn of phrase can really bring you comfort. I mentioned in another blog the power I found in the phrase "I can't let who he is change who I am." It really did turn into a mini mantra of sorts. Another one I love is "just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have."
Another friend, Norma, would size up a bad situation in the office and say either "walk down the same path, fall in the same hole" or "no good can come of this." I actually took that last quote to heart and put a personal spin on it. Often when I am sizing up a situation, and deciding to act or not to act, to speak my mind or to stay silent I will think, "what good can come of this?" and if the answer is none, then I hold my tongue. I wish I had figured that one out earlier in life, it would have spared a lot of hurt feelings and prevented more than one useless argument.
So I thought I would take a page from Scott's book (or future book anyway) and share a few phrases that I love. Some of them I apply to my life, some of them I just like the way they sound. I will give credit to who I first heard the phrase from if I remember! So here are a few more of mine:
"Never raise your voice at each other or your children unless the house is on fire" the only premarital counseling my parents received
"When budgeting never skimp on food or woman's lingerie." Larry Pierson -the only piece of premarital counseling Brent and I received that I remember.
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." Marshall Clifton (my dad)
"Don't should on me and I won't should on you." Megan Clark
"You don't know what you don't know." Scott Dickinson
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt
"If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me."
"When you know better, you do better."
"Everyone is the star of their own movie."
"Inside every skinny person is a fat person who is really cramped."
"If you aren't sleeping with your husband, someone else is."
"First we mock" Christopher Mastenbrook. Okay this is mine, but it's a good life lesson and a good story for another blog
"After the final no there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends." Wallace Stevens
"Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live." Goethe
"Trust yourself, Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Imitation is suicide." Marva Collins
"All appears to change when we change." Henri Ameil
"Make Voyages! Attempt them! -there's nothing else..." Tennessee Williams
"Follow your bliss." Joseph Campbell
"I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get." Anne Tyler
"If not now, when?" The Talmud
This list is only partial, I am sure there are a ton more that are just escaping me at the moment. Oh and my quote that made Scott's list? I actually have two now.
"Sometimes the best hand up is a kick in the ass!"
and a team effort
"His heart is in the right place (said by Scott trying to be the good guy) too bad his head is up his ass (my retort)"
“We must be willing to give up the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
"My Mom always said men are like linoleum floors: Lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for 30 years." Brett Butler
Don't you love a good quote? Funny, inspirational, motivational. My friend Scott writes down quotes that inspire him, personally and professionally. I was really pleased when something I said made his list because I keep a list of my own. Well, list is probably being generous. Mine are tacked up on the refrigerator, stuck in books as bookmarks, torn out of magazines, stuffed in a drawer or crammed in my head.
I wish I could always remember where I picked up the phrase from, but sometimes that piece is lost. But the words aren't. The expression, the life lesson, the joke, that part I keep. And I have found that a really good turn of phrase can really bring you comfort. I mentioned in another blog the power I found in the phrase "I can't let who he is change who I am." It really did turn into a mini mantra of sorts. Another one I love is "just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have."
Another friend, Norma, would size up a bad situation in the office and say either "walk down the same path, fall in the same hole" or "no good can come of this." I actually took that last quote to heart and put a personal spin on it. Often when I am sizing up a situation, and deciding to act or not to act, to speak my mind or to stay silent I will think, "what good can come of this?" and if the answer is none, then I hold my tongue. I wish I had figured that one out earlier in life, it would have spared a lot of hurt feelings and prevented more than one useless argument.
So I thought I would take a page from Scott's book (or future book anyway) and share a few phrases that I love. Some of them I apply to my life, some of them I just like the way they sound. I will give credit to who I first heard the phrase from if I remember! So here are a few more of mine:
"Never raise your voice at each other or your children unless the house is on fire" the only premarital counseling my parents received
"When budgeting never skimp on food or woman's lingerie." Larry Pierson -the only piece of premarital counseling Brent and I received that I remember.
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." Marshall Clifton (my dad)
"Don't should on me and I won't should on you." Megan Clark
"You don't know what you don't know." Scott Dickinson
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt
"If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me."
"When you know better, you do better."
"Everyone is the star of their own movie."
"Inside every skinny person is a fat person who is really cramped."
"If you aren't sleeping with your husband, someone else is."
"First we mock" Christopher Mastenbrook. Okay this is mine, but it's a good life lesson and a good story for another blog
"After the final no there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends." Wallace Stevens
"Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live." Goethe
"Trust yourself, Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Imitation is suicide." Marva Collins
"All appears to change when we change." Henri Ameil
"Make Voyages! Attempt them! -there's nothing else..." Tennessee Williams
"Follow your bliss." Joseph Campbell
"I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get." Anne Tyler
"If not now, when?" The Talmud
This list is only partial, I am sure there are a ton more that are just escaping me at the moment. Oh and my quote that made Scott's list? I actually have two now.
"Sometimes the best hand up is a kick in the ass!"
and a team effort
"His heart is in the right place (said by Scott trying to be the good guy) too bad his head is up his ass (my retort)"
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The inescapable Michael Jackson blog....
Michael Jackson. What's the image that comes to your mind? The young boy singing with his brothers? The moonwalking Michael of the 80s? The gloved hand? The Michael on trial showing up in court in his pajamas? The Michael whose face became an unrecognizable oddly alien looking plastic surgery warning?
I am a child of the 80s. MTV was on all the time. We planned activities around World Premier Videos. And I cannot tell you how many times I watched the video for Thriller. MJ was a huge talent. No way around it. His voice, his dancing, his music. It was all amazing. My personal favorite album is Off the Wall. You hear his influence through popular music still today.
About a month ago Brent, Christopher and I were talking about MJ and what his legacy would be when he eventually died. If people would forget all of the accusations and oddities and just talk about the music. Would he be bigger in death than he was in life? Would his legacy follow the likes of Elvis? Would the company that bought out Neverland turn it into a tourist attraction like Graceland and would people actually go?
Part of what stirred this discussion was the sold out series of concerts planned for this summer in London. I was amazed at how quickly those tickets sold. We talked about how for some people all that mattered was the music and for others the questions and doubts would always be too pervasive to overcome. That it was very easy for people to say, you weren't there, you don't know what actually happened. He was never found guilty so that means he didn't do it. To that I say, you are right, I will never know for sure what happened, but I didn't need to be there to form my opinion.
When Christopher was 6 or 7 years old he came home from spending the night with friends of ours and he had two adult size Tae Kwon Do uniforms and a few different belt colors. I asked him where they came from and he told me the neighbor of our friends gave it to him. We talked about why and who and as I got all the details my mom radar started pinging like crazy. This was an adult neighbor of our friends who had kids of his own, but chose my son to give his uniforms to. His daughters were still young, 5, 6 and 10 and could very well still choose to go into martial arts at some point so why give up his belts to a stranger? And what did he want in return? Just for Christopher to come show him new forms as he learned them.
I talked to our friends to see what they knew of their neighbor. Was he really interested in their girls as well? Their youngest daughter was already showing the signs of being an incredible athlete, was he some sort of coach? And what I found was that he really never showed much interest in the girls. They had actually been surprised with how enamored he had been with Christopher. Now Christopher always has been an amazing kid, I will let you know, but even through my biased parent eyes this just felt off.
So the adults all had a talk, this guy had done nothing wrong, yet it still didn't sit right with anyone. Why would he ignore the girls and not Christopher? Why would he give his items away to a stranger and not his own kids? Why would he try to arrange more time with Christopher? So it was decided that Christopher was not to be left alone with him, ever. The uniforms were returned with a "thank you but I would rather earn the belts myself" and that was that. Did he have nefarious intentions with my son? Who knows. He might have genuinely been just a nice guy who thought boys did martial arts and girls didn't. But it felt wrong.
A grown man who builds a personal amusement park, has a petting zoo, spends most of his time with prepubescent boys including having sleepovers? It just feels wrong doesn't it? Now strip away the music. The videos. The feeling that we must "know" him because we have heard his music. And well he's famous after all. So imagine you are watching the news one day and you hear about a man that has been accused of child molestation. He has been accused in the past and paid the family over 20 million dollars to make it go away. He is known to have sleep overs with young boys on a pretty regular basis. His friends say that it's all innocent really. When he was asked after the first set of accusations why he didn't stop hanging out with young boys his answer was "because I don't want to." Now, if this wasn't a celebrity if this wasn't someone who could make a good music video, what would you think about him?
I had a friend ask me if I thought the fact that I am the mother of a son influenced my feelings on MJ. I can't say for sure, but I would guess that it does. Christopher was a baby when the first set of accusations hit and you are at your most fiercely protective right then. But I have to think that even if I was the parent of a little girl, or not a parent at all MJ's behavior would ping my "this in not right" radar.
Then MJ died. And Brent, Christopher and I got our answer. Yes, people forgot about the accusations and set about making him even bigger in death than he was in life. And trust me in the 80s especially he was pretty darn big in life. News reports slid right past the child molestation accusations. Calling them, "his later day problems" or "the unpleasantness" and focused on the music. Fans came back out of the woodwork to weep publicly and loudly at losing this great genius.
Now the question comes up. Does it matter anymore? What is left is the music right? We will never know for sure what happened. MJ is dead. We should just enjoy the music he left behind right? So what does it matter that he could very well have been a serial child molester that possibly ruined the lives of dozens of young boys over the years?
Oh...that part. Yeah, it still just doesn't feel right to me. And I don't know that it ever will.
Talented man. Damaged childhood. In my mind probable child molester. Guess which is the most important part to me?
I am a child of the 80s. MTV was on all the time. We planned activities around World Premier Videos. And I cannot tell you how many times I watched the video for Thriller. MJ was a huge talent. No way around it. His voice, his dancing, his music. It was all amazing. My personal favorite album is Off the Wall. You hear his influence through popular music still today.
About a month ago Brent, Christopher and I were talking about MJ and what his legacy would be when he eventually died. If people would forget all of the accusations and oddities and just talk about the music. Would he be bigger in death than he was in life? Would his legacy follow the likes of Elvis? Would the company that bought out Neverland turn it into a tourist attraction like Graceland and would people actually go?
Part of what stirred this discussion was the sold out series of concerts planned for this summer in London. I was amazed at how quickly those tickets sold. We talked about how for some people all that mattered was the music and for others the questions and doubts would always be too pervasive to overcome. That it was very easy for people to say, you weren't there, you don't know what actually happened. He was never found guilty so that means he didn't do it. To that I say, you are right, I will never know for sure what happened, but I didn't need to be there to form my opinion.
When Christopher was 6 or 7 years old he came home from spending the night with friends of ours and he had two adult size Tae Kwon Do uniforms and a few different belt colors. I asked him where they came from and he told me the neighbor of our friends gave it to him. We talked about why and who and as I got all the details my mom radar started pinging like crazy. This was an adult neighbor of our friends who had kids of his own, but chose my son to give his uniforms to. His daughters were still young, 5, 6 and 10 and could very well still choose to go into martial arts at some point so why give up his belts to a stranger? And what did he want in return? Just for Christopher to come show him new forms as he learned them.
I talked to our friends to see what they knew of their neighbor. Was he really interested in their girls as well? Their youngest daughter was already showing the signs of being an incredible athlete, was he some sort of coach? And what I found was that he really never showed much interest in the girls. They had actually been surprised with how enamored he had been with Christopher. Now Christopher always has been an amazing kid, I will let you know, but even through my biased parent eyes this just felt off.
So the adults all had a talk, this guy had done nothing wrong, yet it still didn't sit right with anyone. Why would he ignore the girls and not Christopher? Why would he give his items away to a stranger and not his own kids? Why would he try to arrange more time with Christopher? So it was decided that Christopher was not to be left alone with him, ever. The uniforms were returned with a "thank you but I would rather earn the belts myself" and that was that. Did he have nefarious intentions with my son? Who knows. He might have genuinely been just a nice guy who thought boys did martial arts and girls didn't. But it felt wrong.
A grown man who builds a personal amusement park, has a petting zoo, spends most of his time with prepubescent boys including having sleepovers? It just feels wrong doesn't it? Now strip away the music. The videos. The feeling that we must "know" him because we have heard his music. And well he's famous after all. So imagine you are watching the news one day and you hear about a man that has been accused of child molestation. He has been accused in the past and paid the family over 20 million dollars to make it go away. He is known to have sleep overs with young boys on a pretty regular basis. His friends say that it's all innocent really. When he was asked after the first set of accusations why he didn't stop hanging out with young boys his answer was "because I don't want to." Now, if this wasn't a celebrity if this wasn't someone who could make a good music video, what would you think about him?
I had a friend ask me if I thought the fact that I am the mother of a son influenced my feelings on MJ. I can't say for sure, but I would guess that it does. Christopher was a baby when the first set of accusations hit and you are at your most fiercely protective right then. But I have to think that even if I was the parent of a little girl, or not a parent at all MJ's behavior would ping my "this in not right" radar.
Then MJ died. And Brent, Christopher and I got our answer. Yes, people forgot about the accusations and set about making him even bigger in death than he was in life. And trust me in the 80s especially he was pretty darn big in life. News reports slid right past the child molestation accusations. Calling them, "his later day problems" or "the unpleasantness" and focused on the music. Fans came back out of the woodwork to weep publicly and loudly at losing this great genius.
Now the question comes up. Does it matter anymore? What is left is the music right? We will never know for sure what happened. MJ is dead. We should just enjoy the music he left behind right? So what does it matter that he could very well have been a serial child molester that possibly ruined the lives of dozens of young boys over the years?
Oh...that part. Yeah, it still just doesn't feel right to me. And I don't know that it ever will.
Talented man. Damaged childhood. In my mind probable child molester. Guess which is the most important part to me?
Friday, July 10, 2009
What do I want to be when I grow up part three, or where I finally stopped arguing and started listening.
So this is where I say "and peace reigned through out the land" right? Obviously not. If you have ever watched children on a playground that are forced to apologize you can imagine what things were like now. An uneasy semi-truce was called based on fear. They were afraid of what our boss would do, our boss was afraid of what I would do. I was afraid I couldn't stand to work there anymore and had no back up plan.
Open warfare ceased but I didn't for a second believe things were fixed. I just needed to be able to come in to work and do my job without it being a battle every day. And for the most part it got there. I didn't trust them, they didn't like me, but we were civil and outwardly professional with each other. And that's all you can ask for in a situation like that.
But then things started to shift. People left, new people came in and they quickly figured out where they fit in the scheme of things. And I was really surprised one day to look around a conference room table of people playing Soduko and filling in crosswords and eating their lunch together and realize that these people were not just my co-workers but my friends.
One of the two main instigators from my hell time still worked in the office and she knew the shift had happened to. If you can imagine how pleasant my surprise was, you can imagine how much it pained her. Not only had the people that had come on board not decided to join with her and hate me, they had decided that actually out of the two of us, I was the one they would rather spend time with. Now you would think this is the part of the story where the sun comes out and she realizes her wicked ways and becomes a good person and we all went skipping down the garden path together. And if it were a book or movie I would say you were right. Instead she went completely out of her freaking mind.
The only good thing about this is that we all were in it together this time. She was the company bookkeeper and would do things great and small to make life hard on everyone around her. Billing was done wrong, expense checks were not cut, she would disappear out the back door and not tell anyone where she was going. UPS items weren't set up. It was sabotage for her amusement. In a normal company this would mean she would lose her job. But we worked for a special special man and so she never was going to get fired and she knew it. I think for a stretch she did things just to see how far she could push us all.
Now during all of this as you can imagine the job was just a giant stress ticket. It went from an outright hostile work environment to a completely dysfunctional one. Looking back it almost seems like that unseen force said...well we tried with one tactic and thick head over there didn't get it, so let's try again shall we?
One of the things that my crazy former boss did well was gifts. Birthdays, Anniversaries, End of Shit Storms, he would gift you. And usually for me that gift was a gift certificate to Aveda. So being on the receiving end of a lot of Shit Storms during that period I was the pretty regular recipient of those certificates. And off I would go to Aveda for my massage. And I would talk to the therapists, or treat them to my version of the Spanish Inquisition..."How long have you been doing this? Why did you decide to do this? Do you like doing this? Where did you go to school?" And on and on. And each time I would leave thinking how much better I felt and thinking "Could I?"
Another piece that fell into place during this stretch was Strength Finders. If you have never done the series or seen the books I highly recommend them. The basic gist is that we all have strengths and if we can line up what we are doing with what we are good at doing things will flow much smoother. One of my clients (also one of my closest friends) was planning on using the system in his organization. To help him get set up with a company wide roll out he gave me a copy of the book to see what my strengths were as well. Well surprisingly my strengths did not line up with the job I was doing, but lined up perfectly with what I WANTED to do.
But I still stayed with the agency. No matter how many times I would think either "I HAVE to get out of here, it's making me nuts," or "Wouldn't being a massage therapist be cool?" I would talk myself out of it. Money for school, time for school, switching careers for a lower paying job even a strong sense of loyalty to the clients I had and the agency as a whole. So I would talk myself back out of it. And I would set my shoulders and hit the job again.
Then the final stretch hit. The bookkeeper had a run where she was crazier than normal. I had had it. Again. My boss and I went to lunch and I told him he HAD to do something. I knew he would never fire her but he had better learn how to control her. I lined out (again) all of the things she had done to make my job and my fellow AE's jobs impossible to do. How she was abusive to vendors and ignored the creative's needs. And I told him that she made me feel like quitting. Now you are sitting across a table from your longest term employee, who is telling you they want to quit because of the actions of one employee, and you know that this is not your only employee who feels this way. What is your response? His? "If you quit over (her) I will lose all respect for you."
So I went home that night and told Brent I was done. I was in the middle of planning a big event and roll out so I would wait until that was over and then give my two weeks notice. So that meant 2 more months at the agency. Six weeks until the event, two weeks notice. And I started figuring out what I was going to do. STILL not thinking back to school at that point. Brent and I talked about me taking a month off between jobs so I could clear my head and look for something new. And I went on my merry way. The week I was planning on giving my notice the crazy bookkeeper quit.
So I didn't. I felt like I needed to stay and help with the transition, and really wouldn't this fix things anyway? So I stayed. A new bookkeeper started (who was her own brand of crazy, but we didn't know that at the time) and things moved along. And I realized I still wasn't happy. I had made my peace with leaving and yet I was still there. Knowing my boss was what he was and that was never going to change. Knowing that I wasn't fully using my strengths. Knowing that other people would be happier in my job. So I was going to quit again. And then my media director gave notice. Her husband was being transferred and they were really excited.
This was a professional and personal blow to me. During my hell stretch she had remained Switzerland. She was able to maintain good relationships with all involved. But for me she was my calm in the storm of the office. My one friendly face in the crowd. I was going to miss her terribly on a personal level. Professionally it was a huge blow as my account was a media heavy account and I couldn't leave without knowing that there was a good media person in place. So I didn't quit.
And I just got more and more miserable. I described it at the time as bone tired. I was tired of working for a man I didn't respect. I was tired of swimming hard against the stream trying to make the best of a situation that was never going to change. The people I worked with at the time were a great group. Smart, funny, beautiful women. Incredible talent levels. This should have been the highlight of my career. But poor (no?) business sense was starting to catch up to my boss and the agency was beginning its final crumble to the ground. Lots of ways it could have still turned around but it wasn't going to. When you feel like you are Cassandra it's time to leave your job no matter what.
So I took a deep breath. The next time Jenn Valdez from East West College of the Healing Arts sent me a "Hey, you still out there?" email, I answered. Yes, yes I am. Brent and I sat down and talked about what it would mean for me to leave. And I decided that I wanted to go to school during the day, not at night so I would quit the agency and get a job at the local Starbucks as a barista on my off days from school. I met with my main client and told him I was really doing it this time. This is really telling, I felt a stronger sense of loyalty to the clients I had than the man who signed my check. He thought about it for a few seconds and then agreed it was time for me to go. And then offered me a job. Part time working from home helping him in his employee development programs and in house projects. I waited until after the planning session for the following year was done, then met with my boss and gave him my notice. Six weeks notice. He had until the end of the year to find my replacement.
Then I went back to the office and let everyone know I was going. It was hard. Like I said, at this time the people I was working with were all top notch. It was just too late for me to be able to appreciate it. So I was on my way out the door. The next week my boss and I negotiated a new arrangement. He would pay for my school if I would continue to work for him. We decided to take it one term at a time. So I stayed. Again. I know...I know...
I have little mini-blog postings from that year posted here. It was a wild ride. I had a full time job at the agency that I was cramming in around my days off from school. I was back in school for the first time in almost 20 years taking classes that were much harder than I ever imagined they would be. I was working part time as well during my "free time." So it was an incredibly busy and stressful time. And I had many opportunities during that year to abandon my dream again. But this time I decided to put on my blinders and move forward on the path I was on.
And it was worth it.
“We must be willing to give up the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
Open warfare ceased but I didn't for a second believe things were fixed. I just needed to be able to come in to work and do my job without it being a battle every day. And for the most part it got there. I didn't trust them, they didn't like me, but we were civil and outwardly professional with each other. And that's all you can ask for in a situation like that.
But then things started to shift. People left, new people came in and they quickly figured out where they fit in the scheme of things. And I was really surprised one day to look around a conference room table of people playing Soduko and filling in crosswords and eating their lunch together and realize that these people were not just my co-workers but my friends.
One of the two main instigators from my hell time still worked in the office and she knew the shift had happened to. If you can imagine how pleasant my surprise was, you can imagine how much it pained her. Not only had the people that had come on board not decided to join with her and hate me, they had decided that actually out of the two of us, I was the one they would rather spend time with. Now you would think this is the part of the story where the sun comes out and she realizes her wicked ways and becomes a good person and we all went skipping down the garden path together. And if it were a book or movie I would say you were right. Instead she went completely out of her freaking mind.
The only good thing about this is that we all were in it together this time. She was the company bookkeeper and would do things great and small to make life hard on everyone around her. Billing was done wrong, expense checks were not cut, she would disappear out the back door and not tell anyone where she was going. UPS items weren't set up. It was sabotage for her amusement. In a normal company this would mean she would lose her job. But we worked for a special special man and so she never was going to get fired and she knew it. I think for a stretch she did things just to see how far she could push us all.
Now during all of this as you can imagine the job was just a giant stress ticket. It went from an outright hostile work environment to a completely dysfunctional one. Looking back it almost seems like that unseen force said...well we tried with one tactic and thick head over there didn't get it, so let's try again shall we?
One of the things that my crazy former boss did well was gifts. Birthdays, Anniversaries, End of Shit Storms, he would gift you. And usually for me that gift was a gift certificate to Aveda. So being on the receiving end of a lot of Shit Storms during that period I was the pretty regular recipient of those certificates. And off I would go to Aveda for my massage. And I would talk to the therapists, or treat them to my version of the Spanish Inquisition..."How long have you been doing this? Why did you decide to do this? Do you like doing this? Where did you go to school?" And on and on. And each time I would leave thinking how much better I felt and thinking "Could I?"
Another piece that fell into place during this stretch was Strength Finders. If you have never done the series or seen the books I highly recommend them. The basic gist is that we all have strengths and if we can line up what we are doing with what we are good at doing things will flow much smoother. One of my clients (also one of my closest friends) was planning on using the system in his organization. To help him get set up with a company wide roll out he gave me a copy of the book to see what my strengths were as well. Well surprisingly my strengths did not line up with the job I was doing, but lined up perfectly with what I WANTED to do.
But I still stayed with the agency. No matter how many times I would think either "I HAVE to get out of here, it's making me nuts," or "Wouldn't being a massage therapist be cool?" I would talk myself out of it. Money for school, time for school, switching careers for a lower paying job even a strong sense of loyalty to the clients I had and the agency as a whole. So I would talk myself back out of it. And I would set my shoulders and hit the job again.
Then the final stretch hit. The bookkeeper had a run where she was crazier than normal. I had had it. Again. My boss and I went to lunch and I told him he HAD to do something. I knew he would never fire her but he had better learn how to control her. I lined out (again) all of the things she had done to make my job and my fellow AE's jobs impossible to do. How she was abusive to vendors and ignored the creative's needs. And I told him that she made me feel like quitting. Now you are sitting across a table from your longest term employee, who is telling you they want to quit because of the actions of one employee, and you know that this is not your only employee who feels this way. What is your response? His? "If you quit over (her) I will lose all respect for you."
So I went home that night and told Brent I was done. I was in the middle of planning a big event and roll out so I would wait until that was over and then give my two weeks notice. So that meant 2 more months at the agency. Six weeks until the event, two weeks notice. And I started figuring out what I was going to do. STILL not thinking back to school at that point. Brent and I talked about me taking a month off between jobs so I could clear my head and look for something new. And I went on my merry way. The week I was planning on giving my notice the crazy bookkeeper quit.
So I didn't. I felt like I needed to stay and help with the transition, and really wouldn't this fix things anyway? So I stayed. A new bookkeeper started (who was her own brand of crazy, but we didn't know that at the time) and things moved along. And I realized I still wasn't happy. I had made my peace with leaving and yet I was still there. Knowing my boss was what he was and that was never going to change. Knowing that I wasn't fully using my strengths. Knowing that other people would be happier in my job. So I was going to quit again. And then my media director gave notice. Her husband was being transferred and they were really excited.
This was a professional and personal blow to me. During my hell stretch she had remained Switzerland. She was able to maintain good relationships with all involved. But for me she was my calm in the storm of the office. My one friendly face in the crowd. I was going to miss her terribly on a personal level. Professionally it was a huge blow as my account was a media heavy account and I couldn't leave without knowing that there was a good media person in place. So I didn't quit.
And I just got more and more miserable. I described it at the time as bone tired. I was tired of working for a man I didn't respect. I was tired of swimming hard against the stream trying to make the best of a situation that was never going to change. The people I worked with at the time were a great group. Smart, funny, beautiful women. Incredible talent levels. This should have been the highlight of my career. But poor (no?) business sense was starting to catch up to my boss and the agency was beginning its final crumble to the ground. Lots of ways it could have still turned around but it wasn't going to. When you feel like you are Cassandra it's time to leave your job no matter what.
So I took a deep breath. The next time Jenn Valdez from East West College of the Healing Arts sent me a "Hey, you still out there?" email, I answered. Yes, yes I am. Brent and I sat down and talked about what it would mean for me to leave. And I decided that I wanted to go to school during the day, not at night so I would quit the agency and get a job at the local Starbucks as a barista on my off days from school. I met with my main client and told him I was really doing it this time. This is really telling, I felt a stronger sense of loyalty to the clients I had than the man who signed my check. He thought about it for a few seconds and then agreed it was time for me to go. And then offered me a job. Part time working from home helping him in his employee development programs and in house projects. I waited until after the planning session for the following year was done, then met with my boss and gave him my notice. Six weeks notice. He had until the end of the year to find my replacement.
Then I went back to the office and let everyone know I was going. It was hard. Like I said, at this time the people I was working with were all top notch. It was just too late for me to be able to appreciate it. So I was on my way out the door. The next week my boss and I negotiated a new arrangement. He would pay for my school if I would continue to work for him. We decided to take it one term at a time. So I stayed. Again. I know...I know...
I have little mini-blog postings from that year posted here. It was a wild ride. I had a full time job at the agency that I was cramming in around my days off from school. I was back in school for the first time in almost 20 years taking classes that were much harder than I ever imagined they would be. I was working part time as well during my "free time." So it was an incredibly busy and stressful time. And I had many opportunities during that year to abandon my dream again. But this time I decided to put on my blinders and move forward on the path I was on.
And it was worth it.
“We must be willing to give up the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
Thursday, July 9, 2009
What do I want to be when I grow up part two, or Don't ask questions if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
There is a joke that I love that fits this situation perfectly.
There is a man watching television and the emergency broadcast system breaks in to announce there is a major storm on its way and there will be widespread flooding of the area. All residents are being told to evacuate immediately. The man says a quick prayer asking God to take care of him. His neighbor knocks on his door and says, "We are packed up and ready to go, do you need a ride?" The man tells his neighbor, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor leaves.
The storms come and the waters start to rise. The man moves to the second floor of his house and sees out the window another neighbor in a boat. This neighbor comes to the window and says, "Come on, man, we've almost waited too long, let me take you out of here." The man shakes his head and says, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor shakes his head and rows away.
The storm keeps raging and the man ends up on his roof. A helicopter comes and the ladder is lowered, a loud voice booms out "Grab the rope and climb up! We have a lot of people to save!" and the man shouts back, "You go on and save them then, God will take care of me!"
And the storm keeps raging. And the waters raise and the man drowns. When he stands before God he is really angry. He shouts at him, "I had FAITH, I told every one you would save me and yet here I am DEAD!" And God looks at him and says, "I sent you a television report, a car, a boat and a helicopter what else did you want me to do?"
This story always tickles me. Sometimes when you ask a question you need to listen to the answer.
Going to school for massage therapy was the answer to my question of What next? And I ignored it. And I paid the price.
I went to a small private middle school. So the experiences everyone else had with cliques and "mean girls" and such I didn't have. I had one brush with it during high school but I was comfortable enough in my own skin and a pretty tough cookie by that time so I wasn't impressed with it, and it didn't make the impression on me it might have otherwise. So I was shocked to be living my own middle school experience at 36 years old.
It's hard to describe completely. I was the focus of hatred and dislike that to this day I am not entirely sure why it started. It made my time at work miserable. It started from a few nasty comments here and there to vicious gossip and rumor mongering at work and outside of work. I kept a fairly brave and callous front up at work but I cried a lot more than I would like to admit. I wonder why I stayed. I know I had reasons, commitment to the agency, commitment to the client, belief that it couldn't possibly get worse (and yet, it would) but I think probably the thing that kept me there was pride. I wasn't going to let them win.
I can remember sitting at an agency retreat one year as the client billings were flashed in pie chart form up on the screen. I was the AE in charge of 65% of the agency's revenue at the time. I looked around the room at this group of people that HATED me and I thought, I should quit tomorrow and as I go I should let my clients know why I am leaving. And I felt an anger bloom in me that I had forgotten existed. I had spent the past 20 years getting over being that angry kid and there she was back full force. And let me tell you, no one in that room would have been prepared to deal with the bitch I was in high school if I didn't like you. I wasn't going to take it anymore. Come Monday morning at work things were going to shift. I was the big dog in that place and dammit they had better start taking notice! I didn't care if they liked me or not but they better well fear me and respect me because I was burning the place down!
After we had dinner that night and we were all getting ready to head back to the city our creative director whispered in my ear, "What ever you are planning, you need to take the weekend to think on it." I looked at him and he said, "I've known you a lot longer than they have, that is not a good look in your eye. You are better than that, you need to hold on to that." Creative directors as a whole are a challenge, and ours was especially trying to work with but as I always remind people, he is one of the good guys. It was a quiet ride back down the mountain for me that night while I thought about what he said. Was I better? I sure didn't feel like being better. I felt like tearing them apart. Then our media director reached over and patted my leg and asked if I was okay, she is also one of the good guys. And I realized I needed to take the weekend and think.
As is my normal behavior that weekend I read a book. One of the problems with reading as much as I do is that you forget what book you read something in. There is a story from a book that I read that weekend that profoundly changed the way I viewed my situation. And it has changed the way I deal in the world ever since. And I CANNOT remember who wrote it. Someday I hope to stumble across it again so I can give them full credit. In the story the man's mother is married to a really abusive jerk. I cannot remember if it's his father or his stepfather, but anyway, he is horrible. He cheats on her, he abuses her physically and mentally while they are married. He is an awful human being. Years later he is very sick and no one will take him in. She lets him back into her house and she takes care of him until he dies. Her son asks her, why would you do that? He was horrible! And she says, "I cannot let who he is change who I am."
I must have read that sentence twenty times. I cannot let who he is change who I am. It became my mantra. I cannot let who they are change who I am. I would like say that from there on out it became easy, but that would be a lie. It got much worse. I just changed the way I dealt with it. I stopped wondering what was wrong with me and realized that it was their issue. When things got too hard to deal with at work I picked up my lap top and worked from a friend's office. I worked early, I worked weekends, I worked evenings at home. I basically stayed away from work as much as I could get away with. And when I was there I did my best to not let it get me too down. I tried my best to keep a civil tongue in my head, which most of the time meant I didn't talk at all. During social/work events I tried to play along as much as possible. I kept my mouth shut when I heard or saw things that were no one's business even though I could have used them to wreck a few lives. I held back people's hair while they vomited, I jumped dead batteries in cars, I kept people from talking when they were drunk and wanted to play true confessions. I tried to understand when people I had been friendly with in the past were shitty to me. Basically I did my level best to be who I am.
Months went by and things were miserable at work but I thought I was managing it okay. Then my boss and I went to Vegas. While we were there he made a crack that let me know two things. One he was aware of the worst of the things being said about me, and two he was part of it. The bitch that had gone into hibernation that weekend came roaring back full force. At a food court in Vegas I called my boss back to the table and stone cold told him that I was done. That I was through eating shit. I was finished turning my cheek. I was over being the grown up and either he was going to fix it or he was going to regret it. The look on my face, or the absolute lack of emotion in my voice must have scared him because as soon as we got back I got a lunch invitation from the two ringleaders of the abuse and got an apology. They also wasted no time in throwing another person in the office under the bus and soon she became the target of their abuse.
And this is much longer than I was planning on so I will wrap it up for now. So as our story stands so far, I put the question out to the Universe, what should I do with my life? And at this point in the story I am ignoring the answer I got. Can you see how well it's working for me? :-)
There is a man watching television and the emergency broadcast system breaks in to announce there is a major storm on its way and there will be widespread flooding of the area. All residents are being told to evacuate immediately. The man says a quick prayer asking God to take care of him. His neighbor knocks on his door and says, "We are packed up and ready to go, do you need a ride?" The man tells his neighbor, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor leaves.
The storms come and the waters start to rise. The man moves to the second floor of his house and sees out the window another neighbor in a boat. This neighbor comes to the window and says, "Come on, man, we've almost waited too long, let me take you out of here." The man shakes his head and says, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor shakes his head and rows away.
The storm keeps raging and the man ends up on his roof. A helicopter comes and the ladder is lowered, a loud voice booms out "Grab the rope and climb up! We have a lot of people to save!" and the man shouts back, "You go on and save them then, God will take care of me!"
And the storm keeps raging. And the waters raise and the man drowns. When he stands before God he is really angry. He shouts at him, "I had FAITH, I told every one you would save me and yet here I am DEAD!" And God looks at him and says, "I sent you a television report, a car, a boat and a helicopter what else did you want me to do?"
This story always tickles me. Sometimes when you ask a question you need to listen to the answer.
Going to school for massage therapy was the answer to my question of What next? And I ignored it. And I paid the price.
I went to a small private middle school. So the experiences everyone else had with cliques and "mean girls" and such I didn't have. I had one brush with it during high school but I was comfortable enough in my own skin and a pretty tough cookie by that time so I wasn't impressed with it, and it didn't make the impression on me it might have otherwise. So I was shocked to be living my own middle school experience at 36 years old.
It's hard to describe completely. I was the focus of hatred and dislike that to this day I am not entirely sure why it started. It made my time at work miserable. It started from a few nasty comments here and there to vicious gossip and rumor mongering at work and outside of work. I kept a fairly brave and callous front up at work but I cried a lot more than I would like to admit. I wonder why I stayed. I know I had reasons, commitment to the agency, commitment to the client, belief that it couldn't possibly get worse (and yet, it would) but I think probably the thing that kept me there was pride. I wasn't going to let them win.
I can remember sitting at an agency retreat one year as the client billings were flashed in pie chart form up on the screen. I was the AE in charge of 65% of the agency's revenue at the time. I looked around the room at this group of people that HATED me and I thought, I should quit tomorrow and as I go I should let my clients know why I am leaving. And I felt an anger bloom in me that I had forgotten existed. I had spent the past 20 years getting over being that angry kid and there she was back full force. And let me tell you, no one in that room would have been prepared to deal with the bitch I was in high school if I didn't like you. I wasn't going to take it anymore. Come Monday morning at work things were going to shift. I was the big dog in that place and dammit they had better start taking notice! I didn't care if they liked me or not but they better well fear me and respect me because I was burning the place down!
After we had dinner that night and we were all getting ready to head back to the city our creative director whispered in my ear, "What ever you are planning, you need to take the weekend to think on it." I looked at him and he said, "I've known you a lot longer than they have, that is not a good look in your eye. You are better than that, you need to hold on to that." Creative directors as a whole are a challenge, and ours was especially trying to work with but as I always remind people, he is one of the good guys. It was a quiet ride back down the mountain for me that night while I thought about what he said. Was I better? I sure didn't feel like being better. I felt like tearing them apart. Then our media director reached over and patted my leg and asked if I was okay, she is also one of the good guys. And I realized I needed to take the weekend and think.
As is my normal behavior that weekend I read a book. One of the problems with reading as much as I do is that you forget what book you read something in. There is a story from a book that I read that weekend that profoundly changed the way I viewed my situation. And it has changed the way I deal in the world ever since. And I CANNOT remember who wrote it. Someday I hope to stumble across it again so I can give them full credit. In the story the man's mother is married to a really abusive jerk. I cannot remember if it's his father or his stepfather, but anyway, he is horrible. He cheats on her, he abuses her physically and mentally while they are married. He is an awful human being. Years later he is very sick and no one will take him in. She lets him back into her house and she takes care of him until he dies. Her son asks her, why would you do that? He was horrible! And she says, "I cannot let who he is change who I am."
I must have read that sentence twenty times. I cannot let who he is change who I am. It became my mantra. I cannot let who they are change who I am. I would like say that from there on out it became easy, but that would be a lie. It got much worse. I just changed the way I dealt with it. I stopped wondering what was wrong with me and realized that it was their issue. When things got too hard to deal with at work I picked up my lap top and worked from a friend's office. I worked early, I worked weekends, I worked evenings at home. I basically stayed away from work as much as I could get away with. And when I was there I did my best to not let it get me too down. I tried my best to keep a civil tongue in my head, which most of the time meant I didn't talk at all. During social/work events I tried to play along as much as possible. I kept my mouth shut when I heard or saw things that were no one's business even though I could have used them to wreck a few lives. I held back people's hair while they vomited, I jumped dead batteries in cars, I kept people from talking when they were drunk and wanted to play true confessions. I tried to understand when people I had been friendly with in the past were shitty to me. Basically I did my level best to be who I am.
Months went by and things were miserable at work but I thought I was managing it okay. Then my boss and I went to Vegas. While we were there he made a crack that let me know two things. One he was aware of the worst of the things being said about me, and two he was part of it. The bitch that had gone into hibernation that weekend came roaring back full force. At a food court in Vegas I called my boss back to the table and stone cold told him that I was done. That I was through eating shit. I was finished turning my cheek. I was over being the grown up and either he was going to fix it or he was going to regret it. The look on my face, or the absolute lack of emotion in my voice must have scared him because as soon as we got back I got a lunch invitation from the two ringleaders of the abuse and got an apology. They also wasted no time in throwing another person in the office under the bus and soon she became the target of their abuse.
And this is much longer than I was planning on so I will wrap it up for now. So as our story stands so far, I put the question out to the Universe, what should I do with my life? And at this point in the story I am ignoring the answer I got. Can you see how well it's working for me? :-)
What do I want to be when I grow up?
Man, I pondered that question for years. I think on some level, though I love massage therapy, I still do. How do we find what we are supposed to do? Is there a grand calling out there for all of us? I don't really know. What I do know is that the road to me being what I am right now was a long and twisty one.
So background time...for those of you that don't know Brent and I got married when we were 18. Let me let that sink in for a minute. Yep, 18, graduated in June of 86 got married in December. Brent joined the Navy and away life went. My mother is fond of saying that I was born a grown up. Another day and another blog I will talk more about that, childhood stories are fun, but for their own time. Brent joining the service was a good solid grown up decision for a couple of kids to make. It meant steady income, housing, and medical coverage. Looking back on it we would have switched that up and done the college route instead, but at the time it was a good decision to make.
So his career path was set and signed away. That left me. At 18 and no degree you don't have a lot of options in front of you. Food service and retail. I did both. My parents are older than most parents of my generation and instilled in me that depression era work ethic. If you have a job, I don't care what the job is, you do it well. So I always did well no matter where I worked. But there is only so long you want to do food service or retail work. I decided that really the smart thing would be to do bookkeeping. I am good with numbers and no matter where we were to live I could get a job doing books. And so I switched to back offices in retail stores. Would work the floor as needed and work the office the rest of the time. And we rolled along with this arrangement until we moved to California.
California has a pretty constant flow of people coming into the state. Due to that they have a pretty large pool to draw from for employment. What I soon discovered is that I wasn't going to get a job as a bookkeeper without a degree. The other thing that California has is a spectacular Junior College system. Now with Brent in the Navy we could only guess we were going to be stationed in San Diego for a few years anyway so this worked perfectly. I enrolled in San Diego City College for $5 a credit hour, maximum $25 a term and got my degree in Accounting. My professors wanted me to go on to UCSD and pick up the two additional classes I would need to take my CPA exam but I didn't want to be a CPA, I wanted to be a bookkeeper. That's enough, thanks.
After graduation I got a job at a wholesale pottery company, with my experience and my brand new piece of paper I was able to get on as their full charge bookkeeper. I spent the next few years working for a variety of companies as different versions of bookkeeper/office manager. I also took three years off in the middle to stay home with Christopher. Then the first shift in career happened. Moving back from Colorado Springs to Portland, Oregon we found ourselves in need of a letter from a company saying I had a job waiting for me so we could get the loan on our house. The advertising agency I had been keeping books for before we moved was coming to the realization that the person they had in their AE position for one of their biggest clients was not working out. Jack, my former boss, asked me if I wanted the job. He assured me he would teach me anything I didn't know and that the rest was just tracking numbers, which I had done for them before in my old position. So I took a big leap and said yes.
Now, Jack hadn't told me that he was in the absolute last stages of selling the company to his partner and by teaching me anything I didn't know what he really meant was he would run for the door just as soon as I had my desk unpacked again, and good luck to you! Maybe it wasn't that bad...but it sure felt like it the first few months. There were 4 of us in the agency full time and we had a freelance bookkeeper that would come in a few days a week. Between the 5 of use we did it all. And I learned a lot very quickly. I realized just how sheltered I had been from the day to day dealings when I had worked there before.
So the whole time I am doing the job I am still thinking in the back of my head, is this it? Is this what I am supposed to be doing? New people would start at the agency and they would be so excited to FINALLY be in Advertising! This was their goal. This is what they went to college to do. And there I was handling the agency's biggest client and a small handful of others and I had no clue if this was even what I wanted to do.
Now in every office there is that person that will rub your shoulders when you are stressed and tired. I was that person. And every time I would rub someone's back or shoulders they would say, you are really good at this you should do it for a living. Now the first few times you hear that you think, awww...isn't that sweet. Then you start thinking, hmmm...maybe I should. I like doing it, I am good at it. It makes people feel good. Hmm....
Brent and I talked about it and he bought me books on massage and books on reflexology and I read them and practiced more and thought, yeah, this sounds good to me. So I looked into schools. I had the paperwork in hand to start night school. It was going to be very tricky to manage as my travel schedule for work was picking up more and more, but I really thought this was it. And then I chickened out. Completely backed out of it. Just couldn't see how I could manage full time work, school and family life. It just wasn't for me so why even bother. I called the school, withdrew my initial application and gave up the idea.
Or so I thought.
So background time...for those of you that don't know Brent and I got married when we were 18. Let me let that sink in for a minute. Yep, 18, graduated in June of 86 got married in December. Brent joined the Navy and away life went. My mother is fond of saying that I was born a grown up. Another day and another blog I will talk more about that, childhood stories are fun, but for their own time. Brent joining the service was a good solid grown up decision for a couple of kids to make. It meant steady income, housing, and medical coverage. Looking back on it we would have switched that up and done the college route instead, but at the time it was a good decision to make.
So his career path was set and signed away. That left me. At 18 and no degree you don't have a lot of options in front of you. Food service and retail. I did both. My parents are older than most parents of my generation and instilled in me that depression era work ethic. If you have a job, I don't care what the job is, you do it well. So I always did well no matter where I worked. But there is only so long you want to do food service or retail work. I decided that really the smart thing would be to do bookkeeping. I am good with numbers and no matter where we were to live I could get a job doing books. And so I switched to back offices in retail stores. Would work the floor as needed and work the office the rest of the time. And we rolled along with this arrangement until we moved to California.
California has a pretty constant flow of people coming into the state. Due to that they have a pretty large pool to draw from for employment. What I soon discovered is that I wasn't going to get a job as a bookkeeper without a degree. The other thing that California has is a spectacular Junior College system. Now with Brent in the Navy we could only guess we were going to be stationed in San Diego for a few years anyway so this worked perfectly. I enrolled in San Diego City College for $5 a credit hour, maximum $25 a term and got my degree in Accounting. My professors wanted me to go on to UCSD and pick up the two additional classes I would need to take my CPA exam but I didn't want to be a CPA, I wanted to be a bookkeeper. That's enough, thanks.
After graduation I got a job at a wholesale pottery company, with my experience and my brand new piece of paper I was able to get on as their full charge bookkeeper. I spent the next few years working for a variety of companies as different versions of bookkeeper/office manager. I also took three years off in the middle to stay home with Christopher. Then the first shift in career happened. Moving back from Colorado Springs to Portland, Oregon we found ourselves in need of a letter from a company saying I had a job waiting for me so we could get the loan on our house. The advertising agency I had been keeping books for before we moved was coming to the realization that the person they had in their AE position for one of their biggest clients was not working out. Jack, my former boss, asked me if I wanted the job. He assured me he would teach me anything I didn't know and that the rest was just tracking numbers, which I had done for them before in my old position. So I took a big leap and said yes.
Now, Jack hadn't told me that he was in the absolute last stages of selling the company to his partner and by teaching me anything I didn't know what he really meant was he would run for the door just as soon as I had my desk unpacked again, and good luck to you! Maybe it wasn't that bad...but it sure felt like it the first few months. There were 4 of us in the agency full time and we had a freelance bookkeeper that would come in a few days a week. Between the 5 of use we did it all. And I learned a lot very quickly. I realized just how sheltered I had been from the day to day dealings when I had worked there before.
So the whole time I am doing the job I am still thinking in the back of my head, is this it? Is this what I am supposed to be doing? New people would start at the agency and they would be so excited to FINALLY be in Advertising! This was their goal. This is what they went to college to do. And there I was handling the agency's biggest client and a small handful of others and I had no clue if this was even what I wanted to do.
Now in every office there is that person that will rub your shoulders when you are stressed and tired. I was that person. And every time I would rub someone's back or shoulders they would say, you are really good at this you should do it for a living. Now the first few times you hear that you think, awww...isn't that sweet. Then you start thinking, hmmm...maybe I should. I like doing it, I am good at it. It makes people feel good. Hmm....
Brent and I talked about it and he bought me books on massage and books on reflexology and I read them and practiced more and thought, yeah, this sounds good to me. So I looked into schools. I had the paperwork in hand to start night school. It was going to be very tricky to manage as my travel schedule for work was picking up more and more, but I really thought this was it. And then I chickened out. Completely backed out of it. Just couldn't see how I could manage full time work, school and family life. It just wasn't for me so why even bother. I called the school, withdrew my initial application and gave up the idea.
Or so I thought.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
And moved...
Okay, all of the old items are here now.
They start oldest at the bottom (right after Moving day!) and work towards current.
I promise no more mass date postings. :-)
I will be back tomorrow or the next day with all new material, but this should keep you busy for awhile!
Feel free to comment!
They start oldest at the bottom (right after Moving day!) and work towards current.
I promise no more mass date postings. :-)
I will be back tomorrow or the next day with all new material, but this should keep you busy for awhile!
Feel free to comment!
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