WorldWideWaterCooler

I received my layoff notice on the 6th of March, worked my last day on the 15th, and will start my new job on the 25th of June. That’s about 3 months and two weeks trying everything I could think of (and a few things I couldn’t) to land a new job. Seeing as the longest I’ve ever been unwillingly unemployed before was 3 weeks, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

And in the interest of passing some wisdom on to those who will undoubtedly follow in my footsteps (and also for my own personal record, should I need to do this again), I wanted to outline what I did, what I thought worked, and how I finally found myself re-employed. This will certainly be a series of posts over the next few days, since I tried a LOT of avenues before something finally worked.

Part The First: The Resume (a necessary evil)

The first order of things was to get my resume up to snuff. While everyone says “keep your resume up to date” on a constant basis - that’s not necessarily accurate. What you DO need to do is keep a constant running record of your career - job titles, dates, references and accomplishments. Pay special attention to the accomplishments - nobody cares what you do day-to-day, they want to see what you’ve achieved along the way.

Since I hadn’t done any of those things, I really struggled putting my resume together. I finally enlisted the services of a professional resume writer to help rephrase my experience and solidify my accomplishments in a format that would (ideally) make the HR types come beat down my door and beg me to join their teams.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Even though the improvements from my original resume to the pro version were substantial, it wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, and didn’t net any instant results. In fact, there were a few components on the resume that could be seen as huge liabilities, and it went through a few more iterations with the help of friends and other professional contacts before it was useful. Even then, I received so much conflicting advice about what to include, exclude, how many pages it should be and whether to use a functional, chronological or mixed format that I’ve lost a lot of faith in the usefulness of the document.

Frankly, the most important lesson I learned about resumes is that they are really a secondary piece of collateral about one’s self. You will never, ever sell yourself with your resume. A resume is the human equivalent of a spec sheet for a piece of hardware. When you see the ad for that shiny new cell phone, great printer or other device, you are sold by the compelling ads, recommendations from friends, reviews in the media and in-store displays. You only look at the spec sheet AFTER you’re interested, to make sure it has the features you need. It’s the same with a resume. The person reading it must already be interested in the candidate to actually consider them for a position, and they use the resume after the fact to confirm necessary experience and accomplishments.

So sure, having your accomplishments, achievements, duties and career progression in a cohesive, comprehensive, impressive piece of self-promotional material is important - but not as important as the circumstances under which it’s delivered, which I’ll address in Part Two: Networking.

If you’ve been paying attention to Facebook in the last couple hours, you may have noticed that I finally got a damn job.

My new title is Marketing and Corporate Communications Manager. Yes it’s a mouthful. No, I’m not sure how it’ll all fit on my new cards. I’ll be working for a small, but rapidly growing high tech surveillance equipment manufacturer. If you’re in need of such a product, or just curious (because frankly, it’s pretty cool stuff), then drop me a line to ask about it. I’ll probably take the usual stance of not mentioning the company’s name outright on the blog.

The first day is Monday, and I am now running around like mad, trying to get some things taken care of before I cease to have entire empty days at my disposal - so further details will have to wait until after my siesta. Especially since they’ll be very few and far between from here on out.

Also, the commute’s a little further than at the last job - but I’m still trying to avoid purchasing a car. Anyone know where I should look for a good commuter bike in the $500 range, and what I should look for when buying one?

While there haven’t been any other exciting or noteworthy developments on the wedding planning front (not that I could share much anyway, or I’ll give away the whole evening to guests who may read this), I did have my first encounter with the “Wedding Machine” the other day.

Wedding Machine? It’s the phenomenon that dictates anything to do with weddings immediately inspires the vendor to pull out a folding chair, whack you in the shins with it, then bend you over the back of the chair and reach their fist as far up your hindquarters as they can in search of vital organs. Or at least that’s how you feel when they present you with a quote for their services.

In search of some music for the evening, we contacted one such vendor, mostly out of curiosity to see what his rates may be. You see, having a wedding in Tofino means that nine times out of ten, we’re going to be paying our vendors to travel from somewhere that isn’t our venue. The photographers are from Vancouver, the officiant is from Ucluelet, and some rentals are going to be coming from the Lower Mainland. Travel and shipping costs are built into our budget.

And while we have no qualms about providing for our vendors, there’s certainly a point where their requested compensation starts to look like one of those ridiculous diva-level backstage riders from the smoking gun.

This particular performer requested the following:

1. Minimum booking charge of $500 or 4 hours performance at $520
2. Mileage and ferry costs to/from the venue
3. A meal during the event
4. Overnight Accommodation

Those were pretty reasonable - what really got me was when he added:

5. Per-diem for all meals during travel to and from the venue
6. $25/h for 10 hours of travel to and from the venue (his “normal rate” for travel anywhere past West Van or Langley)

Seriously. Seriously? SERIOUSLY!

I respect that the guy’s gotta eat, and a drive to the far west coast probably isn’t his idea of a good time, considering the rate he wanted for doing it. But while I’m sure he’s talented, he’s not any sort of groundbreaking musician. He’s a wedding singer. That’s ALL he does. He does not do weddings in addition to gigging other venues and events, he doesn’t advertise any sort of individual composition or instruction ventures. He sings cover tunes at weddings and corporate events. And has a partnership with a DJ service to offer both live and canned music. And has clearly never entertained the notion of packing an effing sandwich!

The ONLY thing he’s being compensated for, at his $25/hour, is he’ll be driving instead of sleeping in until 3:00pm, then writing love songs for Drew Barrymore so he can sing to her on a plane while Billy Idol distracts her big beefy jerk of a fiance… wait, no… I don’t think he does that either.

In any case, when I called him out for his exorbitant demands, he simply said “fine, good luck finding someone else” and left it at that.

Dude, if you didn’t want to travel, just say so. Don’t assume I’m stupid enough to cop to your particular brand of crazy simply because I’m a bride to be.

And incidentally, we did find someone else, who happens to be an enthusiastic, recognized and well-trained musician/composer who happens to accept weddings in addition to other regular gigs, and like the rest of our vendors is as far from a Diva as one can get, and really just wants to offer any advice and expertise in his realm that he can in order to make our event the best it can be.

Also, because he’s making perfectly reasonable demands in terms of travel & logistics, we can afford to hire him, and a few of his bandmates as well - making our musical experience even better than we’d initially planned for!

Take that wedding singer. I hope you’re enjoying hitting the snooze button next March 29th.

So I wrote that I didn’t think facebook was for me.

And then I figured I’d try it out before making a judgment one way or the other.

Thus far, I am completely unsurprised and underwhelmed.

All sorts of people from various past jobs, schools and affiliations are on there, and I have somewhere in the vicinity of 50 friends. I’ll admit that there’s at least one “friend” on there whose name sounds familiar from high school, but I don’t actually remember interacting with him/her at any point, or what s/he even looked like. But there doesn’t seem to be a good way to question friendships - it’s either confirm or deny!

So far, though, facebook hasn’t delivered anything to me I’d consider “valuable.” There are events being planned through the site that I’ve been invited to, though I’ve also gotten individual email invitations to said events, so I don’t think I was missing out by not having an account.

But in terms of knowing on a minute-by-minute basis which of my friends are now friends with others, and what any given person is… at any given moment in time - I just don’t give a damn. If I did, I would (and do) ask. And I hate small-talk enough, which is what the updates and wall posts are. So I’m sure that if I can’t be bothered to small-talk in the real world, the internets will forgive me for not engaging in it there either.

I’m also more than a little distrustful of their terms of service, which state that anything posted to the facebook site is property of facebook. From their TOS:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

So this means that I suddenly grant the site creators unlimited rights to any blog posts, photos or other content I include on facebook. For me, this means that the one photo I’ve got up there is the only one that’s staying, and I’m going to be removing the “blog import” function in the notes section shortly. I’m not delusional enough to think that the facebook machine is going to get rich off of my paltry ramblings, but it’s the principle of handing over ownership of my creation. Homey don’t play that.

While initially I liked the idea of sharing my activities, events, photos and thoughts with an audience who would otherwise not be reading my blog or seeing me in person - I won’t compromise my own rights to those things for the sake of people with whom I don’t regularly interact, or have only a long-past place and time in common.

So the Verdict? Mildly interesting, ultimately not valuable to me.

I’ll stay on facebook for the sake of the invites that roll through there, update my “Jen is…” whenever I’m feeling clever, and probably leave some wall snippets or comments here and there whenever I’m so inspired. But until it actually prompts me to participate in a meaningful way - and one that leaves me feeling a little less violated - my public profile and private experience will likely be highly uninteresting.

After my Food Network rant the other day, I must make a confession.

I use a lot of disposable plastics in the kitchen.

I do use a lot of plastic and glass re-usable containers, but I’m also guilty of using a great deal of zip-top bags and cling-film.

Not to mention all the tinfoil, now that it’s BBQ Season again.

What on earth can you do with used tinfoil?

Solutions I’ve come up with so far are to use as many re-usable containers as possible instead of baggies, and to try and get a couple uses out of baggies when I do need to use them.

But I’m at a bit of a loss for ideas when it comes to reducing my use of clingfilm (primarily for covering big casserole dishes or re-wrapping cheese, etc.) and tinfoil.

Do you have any brilliant ideas?

Because I’m feeling random like that

1. I don’t know if it was the full moon or what, but the dog decided last night that bedtime was a great time to go apeshit, and she tore around the bedroom at full speed, pausing only do to her crazy doggie doofus dance (picture bouncing repeatedly up on hind legs and waving front paws around while making growly, howly noises) for a good 8 minutes. It’s probably the closest I’ll come to owning a cat.

2. Who’s the lucky girl that got fresh apple-cinnamon muffins in bed this morning? Oh yes, that’d be me. Too bad an avalanche of metal baking trays cascading to the floor at 6:15am ruined the surprise!

3. My hands are suddenly, randomly covered in freckles. Just my hands. They appeared all at once about a week ago. Anyone care to play doctor internet and explain that?

4. My dill plant is taking over everything. Do you want some Dill? Come on over and get some. I’m going to have to do some serious bushwacking on it before it completely annexes the parsley.

5. Despite wanting to have one for the past two years, finally having a piano here makes me much happier than I initially thought it would. This is a good thing. I will probably now go blow the rent money on new sheet music, because playing “Kiss From A Rose” and the “Theme from Mission Impossible” over and over and over is growing old.

6. Facebook is completely unimpressive and uninspiring. I am on there because, as Grant pointed out in my comments, people are insisting on using it to plan events and keep in touch. But I’m a bit baffled at those who can spend hours on the site. Really - what are you doing on there?

7. I think the most disappointing part of our condo being delayed until December is the extra 6 or 7 months we’re going to have to live with this couch. It’s my “free from the parents’ basement so it’ll do college furniture” couch, and it’s creaky and ugly and old. I have dreams of a clean-lined sectional in microsuede.

8. I really want a yogurt maker. Does anyone know where to get one that doesn’t look like a spaceship and have the price-tag to match?

9. I’ve found the best summer makeup product, perhaps ever. Clinique Pore Minimizer Instant Perfector. The only thing that keeps me from re-enacting the Exxon Valdez on my forehead by 3:00pm.

10. I know no one cares what I had for lunch. But I had a gigantic organic tomato covered in coarse salt, and a Rosemary Rocksalt bagel, and people - it was spectacular.

11. Plus, I totally don’t have 13 interesting things to share.

12. Someone came over the other night and exclaimed their surprise at our half-dozen bottles of Sawmill Creek in the wine fridge. Believe me, I’m not too proud to drink the cheap stuff. If we had Trader Joe’s here, I’d totally be drinking Two-Buck-Chuck. Sure, we know and like good wine - but there’s certainly stuff out there that’s inexpensive and drinkable (if not interesting), and the Sawmill Creek varietals happen to be one of them.

13.This entire entry is an excuse for procrastination on a project I really should be working on. And now that the list done, I think I’ll go finish said project.

Not unlike fellow blogger and member of the ranks of the unemployed, Dave Drucker, I’m also spending a lot more of my time cooking at home, rather than going out.

This isn’t a huge change, as Neil and I both really enjoy cooking - we generally argue over who gets to make dinner - but being home all day means I’m a) watching a lot more food network and b) constructing some awfully elaborate dishes because I have the time, so why not?

Favourites over the last little while include Slow Roasted Moroccan Lamb, Lasagna Rio Grande, BBQ’d Ribs - slow roasted in homemade bbq sauce, and a succulent, falling apart Pork Roast in Teriyaki Pinapple marinade.

And I tell you, nothing has upped my food snob factor like having the time to spend closely examining the origins and quality of the things I eat and how they’re prepared.

I found myself watching Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller (warning: flashy talking video awaits…) and just getting irate at the TV about the choices she’s making.

The premise of the show is fine - make a meal plan, and purchase the ingredients for three quick and easy weeknight meals, using the same staples. Prep as much as you can ahead of time, and assemble the day you want to eat.

But then she starts off the cooking bit by washing her hands… and drying them with paper towels! She creates a lot of waste on the show in general - from paper towels, through convenience packaging, and storing prepped food in disposable (and disposed of) plastic baggies. I don’t honestly know whether she just strikes me as environmentally non-conscious, or because I’ve been paying more and more attention to living green and sustainability lately. But whatever it is, it irks me.

But maybe the food’s ok? Meh.

Keep in mind she’s targeting her show to busy women who need to feed their families quickly. But every single week, she makes a pasta dish with plain, white pasta. Now I’m sure someday I’ll be rewarded with kids who will eat nothing but one plain spaghetti noodle for dinner (except on Tuesdays after 8:00pm in months that begin with “J”, when they’ll demand a plate of deep-fried chicken strips instead) but where’s the variety???

What about polenta, quinoa, couscous, bulgur, whole what pasta, whole grain rice, other ancient grains? In a brief spark of irony, now that I rant I notice she’s using soba noodles in her recipe this week - but it’s the first non-white food I’ve seen in at least half-a-dozen episodes.

The meals are nutritionally sound if you don’t look too closely: a bit of protein, some starch and plenty of veggies - but convenience is the major focus.

Contrast this with the new Jamie Oliver show, Jamie at Home, where Oliver has taken his trillions of Pounds, and upon returning from Italy has purchased acres of land in the English countryside to devote to a massive vegetable garden. Of course, Mr. Celebrity doesn’t actually do the gardening, he has a gardener for that - but he uses his garden’s spoils to create his dishes. Throughout the show he reminds the viewer (who can’t always grow it all) to “pull your finger out” and make some effort to find a good market, fishmonger, butcher and create wonderful dishes with quality ingredients.

There’s no shortage of people encouraging the Food Network audience to do the same thing.

On his show Good Deal with Dave Lieberman, Dave brings fresh ingredients from Whole Foods back to his tiny New York loft kitchen, and encourages cooking with quality ingredients on a budget.

I even caught an episode of 30-minute meals with Rachel Ray that had to be at least 2-3 years old, where her first instruction was to “Buy Organic Spinach. It’s far and away better than the other stuff, just make sure you get all the dirt off.”

Blogger Rebecca Blood just spent the past month proving that it’s possible to feed your family organic food on a food stamp budget.

And of course our own local 100-mile-diet initiators Alisa Smith and James McKinnon have started a movement that reduces impact on the earth, supports local farms, and results in some darned tasty food at the end of the day.

So what’s up Robin?

Other TV hosts and food influencers have shown that convenience, local eating consciousness and affordability can work in tandem with nutrition and organic ingredients. One shouldn’t come at the expense of the other, and I’d like to see more of a focus on both, because I certainly don’t plan on giving up the awesome meals to which I’ve become accustomed once I’m working again.

Generally I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to new gadgets.

They usually come trussed up in pretty boxes, covered in promises that they’ll revolutionize my life and I’ll forget what ever came before them.

So far only my TiVo has ever lived up to that promise. And if you know TiVo, you’ll know that it’s a pretty tough act to follow.

So imagine my surprise when I received the Rocketfish Wireless Rear Speaker Kit to review - and found that, in line with the promises on the box, it just works.

The promise is that you’ll hook up the transmitter to your sound system using simple speaker cables, then place the receiver within 100′ and hook your rear speaker cables into it. The “CD Quality” sound is transmitted over a 2.4GHz wireless signal, and voila - you can hear a mustang MiG-28 scream across your room as Iceman and Maverick duke it out in the skies. It literally took me 10 minutes to set the whole thing up. And I really mean me! Even I - who normally foists these kind of things off on Neil because I just can’t be bothered - found it really, ridiculously easy to figure out.

There are only a couple potential issues with this solution:

1. If you have truly open concept living, it may not work super well for you. Both components require DC power to operate, so while the units don’t require direct line-of-sight to work, you do want a power outlet pretty darned near where you’re plugging things in to avoid unsightly wires - the problem you’re trying to solve in the first place. If your couch is smack dab in the middle of a loft, you’re going to have to run cables anyway.

2. The sound is good, to me, on my system. I have basically destroyed my upper register hearing, and my surround sound system is one of those $100 combo units (dvd-player, receiver, 5 identical speakers in a box) - so there’s not a lot of fine tuning going on in my audio visual experience. If you’re a die-hard audio-snob, I can’t vouch for the unit’s performance on your $1500 speakers.

At about $100 USD, the kit is completely reasonably priced for those who purchase high quality AV products. Personally - while I don’t know that I’d spend that kind of money on my own system (because generally I don’t care enough), it got me using the rear speakers that had been sitting in a box for over a year, because I couldn’t be bothered running ugly cables around my room.

And that’s pretty awesome as far as I’m concerned.

Is the ice cream afterward.

Neil and I are heading out for a 5-day canoe trip in mid-August.

Any paddlers out there have any tips, tricks or recommendations to share for training, packing, portaging, etc?

Of Facebook.

I signed up. No promises that I’ll stay, but you can go ahead and attempt to find me and add me to your various networks.

So far I find the site clunky and annoying. Perhaps it can change my mind.

UPDATE (40 minutes in). Complaint the first: For various reasons, I use a couple different email addresses. They aren’t “work” or “school” addresses - but I can’t find any answers on the help page to consolidate multiple addresses (that have nothing to do with work or school) into one account. Evite lets me do this, why not facebook?

UPDATE (a few hours later) So it seems that, in a stupid, circular way, I can add email addresses. I can “change” my contact email, which will add the new address. Then I can change the contact email back. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to just add an email address and leave the contact email at the default.

When I first found myself on the job-hunt, I was inundated with a common question: Why not strike out on your own? Why not start your own business?

It still comes up - even in interviews! Seriously - prospective employers, people who would ostensibly have me work for them, wonder why on earth I’d want to do so.

And every time I say I don’t want to, the question-asker acts incredibly insulted. Like I’d just kicked their cat or something. Because apparently the very idea of wanting a boss is sacrilege in this city.

Working with small businesses, I’ve come to realize that what I long suspected about running a business is true - it’s damn hard work, and rarely done well. Many “entrepreneurs” in this city are actually contractors operating under an incorporated name. Yes, they do what they do well, and don’t report to anyone but themselves (or clients), but are certainly not building empires.

Casual observation suggests that a great majority of the self-employed strike out on their own because they’re great at what they do, and don’t want to be tied down to an employer. The problem is, they don’t have the skill necessary to actually RUN A BUSINESS.

Being good at what one does, does not immediately bestow that person with any degree of proficiency in business development, growth management, marketing, budgeting, accounting, human resources, management, or any of the other myriad things that are necessary for business efficiency or success.

Were I to go it alone, I’d be spending 80% of my work time doing my own business development and paperwork. And because the 20% of my work time remaining for billable work isn’t enough to pay the bills for the other 80%, I would end up working through much of my personal time as well. And that’s just not at all appealing to me.

I don’t want to build an empire. I just want to enjoy what I do, where I do it, and who I do it with. And at the end of the day, let someone else worry about the other “departments>’

And because I’m good at what I do, actually enjoy the buzz of the business district and play well with others, I’ll continue to take my chances looking for a boss, rather than being one of the numerous small businesses that fail every year.

In this neighbourhood, the mean dogs come out at 4:00pm.

Generally I walk the dog either around 11:00am, or 3:00pm, depending on my schedule for the day.

The other day I had to go out at 5:00, and in an effort to avoid the wearing of pants as long as possible (one of the very few perks of being at home more often than not these days), I delayed the mid-day walking of the dog until 4:00.

Oh my.

In our 2-ish kilometer jaunt, we encountered no fewer than four completely awful, aggressive dogs. These dogs are the reason leash laws are in place.

Poor Sasha was accosted for crimes such as:

-> Chasing her own ball
-> Walking through the park
-> Walking away from having her bits sniffed
-> Existing.

I was admittedly lucky that my dog chose that day to actually remember her “Canine Good Neighbour” training, and actually broke away from the dog-fights when I told her to “leave it” and “come.”

And I really wonder at the mental facilities of the woman who had her dog off leash when she knew it was going to try fighting my dog for ownership of her own ball (not when chasing, but when returning), or the guy who had his behemoth on a regular collar lead, and couldn’t control it when it lunged at Sasha for being so offensive as to be heeling beside me as we waited to cross the street.

These are the people who give dog owners in the city a bad name. I bet they don’t scoop their poop either.

So, you’ve been warned: if you want to avoid the mean dogs, stay away from the Cornwall/Macdonald area on weekdays (or at least Mondays) around 4:00pm.

I am still trying to resist the Facecrackbook.

The invites keep flooding in.

Mostly I am afeared of pictures from my youth, fueled by young hubris and much liquor, being tagged with my name once I’m there. And some things are just best left in the past.

But other than that - while I’m feeling weak and impressionable - does anyone have a *good* case for actually signing up?

Thank you for being environmentally responsible

Originally uploaded by peechie.

It’s been a long while since I’ve purchased inkjet cartridges. I don’t print all that much and they only end up needing replacement every 12-16 months. In the past, it’s actually been cheaper to buy a new printer (since I generally buy the cheap, crappy ones and they don’t last very long).

So I was pleasantly surprised when I received two postage-paid envelopes with my two-pack of cartridges to return the empty ones to HP for recycling.

Considering the waste problems exacerbated by the influx of peripherals ending up in dumps this little move toward a bit of extra environmental consciousness made me almost (not quite, but almost) feel okay about forking over nearly $70 for the privilege of printing, and adding further volume to my recycling bin.

I’m sure I’ll eat my words in another 9 or 10 months, but this wedding planning thing is dead easy. Boring even.

We’ve currently got the following things booked and ready to go:

Ceremony & Reception Venue: Long Beach Lodge Resort, Tofino BC
Photographers: Blue Olive Photography
Florist: Crabapple Floral

As well as an officiant, our cake, and some entertainment.

We do still need to tackle invitations (and figure out who exactly to send them to), but that doesn’t seem like a terribly major undertaking.

I suppose we do still need something to wear, as well as some other decorative details, non iPod music, and hair/makeup whatnot - but for all intents and purposes, this thing is ready to go.

It certainly helps that by having the wedding in Tofino, most of our decisions are made for us. The resort handles all aspects of the ceremony & reception (no separate caterers and flatware rental companies), there are only 4 marriage commissioners to choose from, and there is one florist. The photographers were a no-brainer.

But having all these things done doesn’t stop me from acting indecisive around vendors - watching them fall all over themselves trying to woo me with their wares is one of the best parts of being a bride-to-be!

After all, it was only by engaging in some wedding-related conversation while donating blood, that I received this priceless gem!

One of the nurse’s assistants at the clinic where I was donating blood also moonlights as a makeup artist. It’s heartbreaking, really, that I won’t be married in the city, so I can’t have my own hair feathers, heavy eyelashes and bright fuschia lips! The only word I can really think of to describe this particular look is “special” - perhaps you can do better?