what i learned in ny

Status: I WENT TO THE GYM TODAY!!!!!

I realized while I was standing on the platform waiting to take the T home from work that there are a few key things that I learned while living in New York City.

1. I can spot a mouse moving out of the corner of my eye, no matter how far away or how briefly
2. I’m actually happier when I’m working out
3. I absolutely adore my friends
4. It is possible to live off of all Trader Joe’s frozen food.  In fact after sometime you start to think fresh food tastes just a little bit off
5. It really is only acceptable to substitute tights for pants in nyc.  In other cities, people notice that you forgot to put pants on
6. I don’t care if my mani/pedi place is a cocaine front, I want a mani/pedi for $15 period.  What you do with your oddly long pinky finger nail is your business
7. Being employed totally sucks, except, well… for the alternative 🙂

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Time for another round of musical housing

I seem to be playing music chairs with housing.  It seems that for me and my business school friends, there always seems to be one more person than apartments to live in.  But this time, when the music stopped, I got a house!!!

For the last two months I’ve been crashing with my boyfriend.  This means, my makeup rest on the back of the toilet, my clothes lay in suitcases on the floor and my earring collection sits in a big tangled ball.   Less than ideal… but man was the price right….

But now that I’m a high flying fancy consultant with a big fancy paycheck and luxury benefits like health insurance, the time came for me to ante up and get myself an apartment.  Most people then would have signed a lease, shipped all of my crap from storage in NY, hung up the “home sweet home” sign from the Christmas Tree Shops and called it a day.  But not me, thank you layoffs, now I’ve developed a serious unwillingness to commit to housing.

So instead of moving all of my belongings, I’m subletting an apartment from a friend with all of her stuff in it and just a few suitcases of mine.  I told you, no commitment.  I’ve edited my life down to a few suitcases of clothes, a bag of handbags (I am Jewish, it’s absolutely required to have a bag of bags at all times), another few bags of heels, and $50 worth of toiletries from CVS.  Not bad for a pack rat like me…

Which certainly begs the question, why am I paying for a storage unit in NYC if in reality I’ve figured out a way to live my life without the vast majority of my belongings?  It certainly makes it easier to move and has inspired me to do some serious editing when I am finally reunited with my belongings.  Whenever that may be.  See, I’ve even plotted out my next move, when my sublet runs out at the end of the summer.

See my friend who’s apartment I’ve taken over has just bought a place in the South End of Boston and will need a roommate.  And seeing as I have no place to live anyway as of the end of August, I figured, why not, that sounds fun.  Turns out when you get rid of everything you own, moving is a breeze and when you refuse to commit to anything, you are free to change your plans on a whim.

Hoodlum, did you hear that??? I’ve finally become a housing bus person.  I can get on or off the bus anytime I like, whenever I feel like it, with virtually no planning and no commitment.

For the rest of you, see my sister and I have developed a theory on life.  There are two types of people, bus people and not bus people.  Bus people can move to Europe with no plans, when they get there travel around by getting on the bus and getting off whenever they feel like it, having no knowledge of where the bus is going, or where they are when they get off.  They are like leaves in the wind, no planning, no commitment, go with the flow, life is a feather in the Forrest Gump winds of time.

We are not bus people.  We always dream of being bus people, but we are not bus people.  We plan, we organize, we like to know where we’re going, endless ambiguity gives us heart attacks, and getting on a bus when you don’t know where it is going seems stupid.  What if you get on the wrong bus? (See for bus people, there is no wrong bus) What if you get lost when you get there, what if you miss out on some cool new thing on the other bus line?  Questions like these and more are exactly why my true calling is in event planning and catering, I’m a planner.

All of this begs the question, did unemployment change me?  Did a few months of napping on a glorious green couch fundamentally change the person I used to be?  The answer is probably not, but I got to be honest, it’s nice to know there are even hints of bus-ness floating into my life.  Next stop, becoming a real runner.

OMG, what if I became a runner who didn’t plan????  Ha, maybe this is the summer of reinvention?  Or maybe this is just me planning on how to reinvent myself in a way that looks like I’m going with the flow?  Crap that defeats the purpose.  Must come up with a better plan to stop planning so much.  Haha, sometimes I love how my brain works…

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Welcome back to the world of pants…

and showers and paychecks and thinking.  It is official, I will be rejoining the employed world.

Now all you loyal unemployed followers don’t worry, it’s not a permanent gig.  It’s a contract position that is only set to last a few months, but it does a few key things for me:

1. It puts money back in my pocket. I hear having enough money to eat without scanning for the cheapest thing on the menu and cursing your friends for picking such expensive restaurants is nice….
2. It pads my resume.  The tiny blip of my layoff was starting to turn into a gaping hole.  Think of this as trying to patch a bullet hole with a bandaid.  unlikely to do the trick but you might fool a few
3. It makes me “officially” employed and as we all know, employed people are far more attractive than unemployed people.  Maybe now I can retire my push up bra, stilettos and lipstick and let my resume do the talking.  Scratch that, on second thought maybe this can be the 1-2 punch I’ve been missing.  (Don’t worry dad, I’m just kidding)
4. Since the job is a contract position, it still gives me the flexibility to search for my dream job.  For a while there, I stopped looking for jobs I would like and started applying to absolutely anything I was remotely qualified for.  What do I want to do?  Well, what do you want me to want to do?  No I’m not playing coy, I just really no longer have opinions.  In fact if it makes it easier, I’m happy to phrase my passions in the exact language you use to write your job descriptions, just to avoid any confusion.   I wonder if they have that dress in my size?  No no, I understand you just want me to be me, but honestly this is me, I am whoever you want me to be.  Really I’m a chameleon, it’s really one of my best traits.

So now I get to stop selling myself to the highest bidder, or lowest bidder, or really any bidder and do a little rediscovering one’s sense of self.  What makes AIB tick?  Of course other than a love affair with a green couch and the ability to be pantless all day long.

Oh and stay tuned for tomorrow’s reflection on this bout of unemployment.  What online public diary would be complete without a healthy dose of self reflection and lessons learned.

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A little productivity never hurt anyone

Status: Jobs applied for: 2, Gym: $7/visit

Today for the first time, I took advantage of my unemployment.

After hearing many people suggest I check out the networking groups on www.meetup.com, I finally took the plunge a few weeks ago and poked around.  There were bunches of entrepreneurial networking groups and since I’m always looking for another interesting startup to work with, I decided to check it out.  I know some of you are saying, but you already work with a couple of startups, why would you want to work with more?  Well, while I love the companies I currently help out on occasion, helping out friends in an informal way can be tricky as it’s hard to tell when your voice is too loud and whether or not you are actually adding any value.  With strangers’ companies it’s much easier, they only engage in relationships that are mutually beneficial and your role is often clearly defined.   Less ambiguity and you never know where startups are going, so maybe you’ll pick the next twitter without even knowing it ($$$ cha ching).

So anyway, I sign up for a few groups and mentally design some business cards (this of course is very different from actually getting business cards.  This process is much cheaper and just involves going to zazzle.com designing away and never actually following through by actually purchasing said business cards.  Very productive, a good use of time.)  So I never go to the meetup events because I have no business card to offer and that is step 1 of networking and I don’t buy business cards because the promotion code expired and the nicer looking ones at zazzle seem to be kinda expensive, so this cycle goes on for a while without me actually doing anything.  So my nothing cycle is going along quite nicely until I see an email for a free email marketing workshop.  Since I pretend to know social media, sorta know e-commerce, kinda knowing email marketing would be the next step, so I sign up.

I then promptly forget about signing up and continue about my stimulating job search, until yesterday when I get the reminder.  I still think the class will be useful until I see that it is at 7:30 AM on West 51st St.  Seeing as I live on the east side and a bit farther south I do the math and realize that attending this course means waking up close to 6AM. Ouch!  The earliest I have gotten up on purpose has been 8AM and I think that was even a stretch.  6AM????? I’m so close to opting out but then the guilt hits.  What do I do with myself all day long that getting up at 6AM one day will kill me?  It’s like I have little jewish grandmothers living in my head at all times.  With all you do you can’t make it to one workshop?  Is this how I raised you, to be lazy? You know my friend’s grandson would go, the doctor. For someone without actual grandparents the voices in my head do a damn good impression.  On second thought, maybe voices in your head are thoughts you should keep to yourself.  oh well.

So I go.  And the session is good and worth it.  I learn a bunch of good takeaways, meet some interesting people.  For example: The best time to send out emails or any marketing communications especially in B2B businesses is Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10AM and 3PM.  See that’s a free one.  Now aren’t you all thankful I got up at 6AM?  Who’s harping on 6AM?  Not me…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go update my resume with continuing education: email marketing and take a nap.  I need my beauty rest…

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The rules of life

Status: Jobs Applied for: 2, Gym membership: $10/visit – yes! Alcohol: none.  Now that’s what I’m talking about!!!

Life has rules:

Toast always lands jelly side down

The bus only comes once you decide to walk

Men only notice you, when you are so happy on your own that you’re not looking

And you need to have a job to get a job

While these rules can be unfair, they are constant and therefore can be adjusted to.  Just to prove my theory from yesterday (yes, I’m always right, world just get used to it) that all of us unemployed people should go ahead and get standing offers from friends so we can go into interviews with confidence, today has turned out to be a good day.

I’ve been in talks with a company about a contract job for the next few months.  The work will be interesting, the pay will be great and I will still have the option to interview for other jobs along the way.  The contract is temp with possibility of perm and most importantly it makes me employed.  So when employers see me I’m instantly more attractive.  So I still don’t have anything in writing, and have been refusing to get excited until I see it in writing.  My father didn’t raise a fool, a verbal contract is worth the paper it’s written on, I get it.  But I had a good call this morning and all signs point to yes, and the weather is fabulous so fine, I’ll allow myself to be a little excited.

I get off the phone and before I even put it down an unknown number pops up.  Sure enough it’s another company I applied to asking me about an interview for next week in their global e-commerce group.  It’s like they could smell the happiness a mile away.  I now tell them that my schedule is tight and I have other offers I need to make decisions on and sure enough they schedule my phone interview for early next week and tell me they can move quickly.

Then, I go to the gym, ellipticize to jock jams and enjoy the sunshine.  Really I should just listen to jock jams on repeat.  I like to mOve it mOve it, I like to…. move it! Whoop there it is.  Be aggressive, B.E. aggressive.  Boom boom boom let me hear you say way-o. Seriously all i need is some remixed Whitney Houston and I’m in step class heaven.  It puts you in such a good mood I’m about to be that girl standing on her couch singing You make me feel like a natural womaaan into her hair brush.

Man I love sunshine.  I love being happy.  I love weekends when you actually have some hope of making money again.  I love friendly people.  I love life.

So if you find yourself in Gramercy and look up and find a girl dancing on her couch singing into her hair brush without pants on (some aspects of unemployment may never leave me, sorry deal with it, who needs pants, so over rated) come say hi, I like company.

And to my fabulous sister who’s playing in a powder puff football game today:  JD’s rule!! UFO’s or whatever you call that foreign degree thing, suck!!!

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The art of desperation

Status: Jobs applied for: 0, Gym membership: $12/visit, Alcohol: none.  Not awful, but for a very boring day I should have at least cleaned my apartment or something.

In this game we call job hunting the feeling of desperation comes up a lot.  You find the job you want, hell  you find the job you don’t really want or are kinda mediocre on but once you have your heart set on it, you need to have it.  In a world where I swear there are 50 actually qualified people to every one of me (substituting an MBA from a top university for actual qualifications) the competition is too fierce and you need to find a way to stand out.   Once you get yourself into this situation that you have that dreaded feeling of desperation.  You want to go to them, with a boombox on your shoulder, saying “pick me!, choose me! want me!”  But the funny thing about life is, the harder you try to get them to pick you, the less they want you.

This sad truth may be the very thing that has kept me unemployed for the last 6 months.  Yes I said it, 6 months.  We’re coming up on that fun 6 month anniversary, makes you think just a little…

How as job hunters, or even just as people, can we convey our desire for something without sounding desperate.  In the world of love and dating my philosophy has always been that it comes down to honesty.  Be honest with yourself about whether or not you like him.  Be honest about whether he is worth liking.  And most importantly be honest about whether or not you think they like you.  When you have a 3 prong match, go for it.  If not, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

But I can’t seem to get it right with job hunting.  What’s the equivalent of a coy little text message to let them know you are available and interested, but not overly so.  What’s the equivalent of “I’m Breezy!”  If you come on too strong, it’s done, you’re a weirdo.  If you come on too weak, they may not even notice you, there are 500 people applying for every one job.  I think the trick is to have another offer in hand at all times.  It puts the pressure on and forces them to evaluate you quickly.  Plus employed people are more attractive than unemployed people.  It’s just how it goes.

Maybe that’s it.  You need an offer.  Since I’m not a fan of lying and kinda suck at bluffing let’s make it real.  Get a standing offer from a friend of yours who runs a company.  Since this person is actually your friend you can tailor your offer to whatever you need it to say.  Maybe that will force people to bend over backwards for you.  Or maybe since it’s not real that will shine through and you’ll be back at square one.

You know in a million years I would have never guessed that I would end up better at figuring out men than figuring out jobs.  But now I get it, men are easy.  Women just want endless attention and men are dumb.  That’s all it comes down to.  No he didn’t do that on purpose, he doesn’t even know what “that” is.  Once you understand this very simple truth, then navigating these waters is easy.  The trick is you have to go with an underlying assumption that nothing they do is malicious or with mal-intention.  They are just stupid.

The difference is you can’t give that benefit of the doubt to employers.  They are putting 500 people against each other for one slot.  It’s survivor without the $1 million payout at the end. Ha, if job hunting were only as easy as being deserted on a tropical island having to build rafts for the chance of a lifetime…  That would be the life 🙂

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Why is this night different from all other nights?

Tonight is the first night of Passover, so like a good unemployed daughter I have returned to my parents house to partake in the festivities.  As this is a Jewish holiday, that mainly involves eating (for those of you unfamiliar with how we celebrate.)  To quote my father every year.  They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.  And so the Jewish tradition goes.

During the course of the Passover Seder, we ask the four questions.  Although, the more I think about it, we really only ask one question and call it the four questions.  For a people who pride themselves on education, we should really learn to count.  So the main question is: Why is this night different from all other nights?  And the service goes on to explain Passover traditions like why we eat matzoh, and why we dip celery in salt water, and so on.  But I’ve decided to take this broad question and answer it a different way.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

On this night, I will be eating delicious food in the comfort of my parents house.  Where as normally I’m glued to my couch eating either a trader joe’s frozen rice bowl or sushi takeout.  I think my couch is actually starting to get the imprint of my butt.  I really need to find a job soon…

On this night, I am likely to show up to dinner wearing a prom dress.  See in my haste to clean my ny apt and run to get the bus, I did not leave enough time to think about what clothing I needed to pack and only packed jeans.  In my normal couch sitting life, jeans are more than appropriate (in fact I usually just wear sweats)  but if I’m going to be seeing family friends, “slacks” as my mother calls them, would be much more appropriate.  So I’m forced to go through my childhood closet and rummage through the clothes I’ve deemed too ugly to bring to my apartment and wear something from there.  Which is likely to be a prom dress, bridesmaids gown, or some hideous remnant from the ’80’s.  I can’t wait to see the faces of my parents friends tonight.  No wonder she’s unemployed, look at her!

On this night, I get to explain to my family friends what a smart ambitious girl like me is doing unemployed.  How is this possible?  Surely your previous employer is an idiot! Tuy tuy (that’s me spitting on the ground). Now usually I would dread these conversations.  Like the, How is a girl as beautiful as you not married and the You know, you’re not getting any younger, I’ve grown to hate these conversations, but not this year.  This year, I am a year older, a year wiser, and desperate for an income.  So I plan to “network” aka “whore myself out” to whoever has the best connections, most likely to result in You should call my friend’s cousin Shlomo, he’d love a smart cookie like you in the company.  Normally I would smile and say yes, and never follow up.  But not this year…. Be careful what you offer, this year I might just take you up on it!

So now I need to run to the gym and go help my mom cook.  I wish everyone a Happy Passover and for those who have no idea what I’ve said or why it may or may not be funny, I’ll return to normal commentary tomorrow!

Outfit Update:

Now that I’m actually at my parents house, I have a much better idea how the rest of the evening will play out.  So I go upstairs  to my old room to find an appropriate outfit because I’m too stupid to pack a decent pair of pants.  These are literally my options:

• My bat mitzvah dress
• My prom dress
• My high school graduation dress
• My college graduation dress
• A lilac pair of “retro cut” gap pants.  (In case you were wondering “retro cut” is Gap for “ugly”)
• A long paisley purple skirt that looks like it’s straight out of the Adams family
• The LEI booty black pants I wore in college.  No joke, the pair of pants I wore clubbing every weekend of my freshman year.  The fact that I still have them is frankly amazing

So far my high school graduation dress is winning.  No, I’m not joking

Now on to my sister’s childhood closet

• A camo mini.  Very appropriate for passover dinner
• A strapless tube-like denim dress.  Paris Hilton eat your heart out
• Her black booty pants from college.
• A purple snake skin print knee length skirt.  What is it with us with ugly dark purple weird skirts.

That’s it.  Those are my options.  And the winner is…… My sister’s black booty pants!!!  I’m going to Passover dinner wearing the pants my sister danced her butt off in the clubs in college.  Making mom proud every step of the way.

Pairing the booty pants with a nice top and a pair of my mom’s heels, which are a size too big on me.  So I’m walking like a truck driver and wearing booty pants.  I can hear the whispers from across the room now.  Is that girl wearing bell bottoms??? Shut up!  They were in style then, maybe?  Or we were too young to notice…

Wish me luck!

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Alumni Encounters

Workouts: 1, New Contacts: a few, Jobs applied for: a few.  And one new company created.  I’m telling you the pre-business school me doesn’t even recognize the post MBA me, starting new companies? Who am I?  Well that and my stomach used to be flatter, but anyway.

So I have a fun story.

I’ve recently started contacting alumni from my business school in the hopes that they will lead to new job opportunities.  Applying to jobs seems to be a waste of time and I know someone who got a job through an alumni contact, so I figured what the hell, it’s worth a try.

So I constructed an email:

Dear Alumni,

I’m an alum and found your name in the alumni directory.  I was hoping to talk to you about your experience at XX Company.  Is there a time over the next few weeks that works for you to chat?

All the best,

AIB

And generally speaking, this method has been working.  I’ve gotten a ton of responses, none that has led to a job yet, but many that have led to interesting conversations and good future contacts.

But I have to share one response in particular with you.  So I send off my standard email and this is what I get in response:

Dear AIB,

My company, XX is not hiring.  Send along your resume in case business picks up in the future.

Sincerely, Jane Doe

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  If you scroll up and reread my original email, go ahead, I’ll wait, you’ll see that in no way shape or form do I ask for a job.  Obviously that is the end goal, but truthfully I think every bit of advice helps and you never know who knows who.  So now I respond to my dear friend Jane with more than a little chip on my shoulder.

(And I’m paraphrasing here)

Dear Jane,

Thanks for your response.  Actually, I was just looking for some advice, you presumptuous cow.  Glad to see the alumni network is alive and kicking.

Good luck dodging karma, AIB

Obviously the real email had no bovine reference and was so overly polite and friendly she will never know the absurdity of her rudeness.  Seriously?  What the hell is wrong with people?

So with that behind me, I decided to have a Carrie Bradshaw type day and curl up in a cafe sitting at the window bar, looking out at New York, probably looking all pretentious and judgmental 🙂 and just enjoy the people watching.  I always thought those people in cafe windows were so snobby and techy, sitting there with their mac book air’s and judging the world.  Now I know they are just smarter than me for having switched to a mac and also are sick of spending the day in their apartments.

And you never know, maybe I’ll meet a new contact…

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Out like a lamb

Status Update: 4 jobs applied for, 3 new contacts, 2 something something, 1 workout and a partridge in a pear tree

The proverb goes March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.  And it least this year, it was true.  March 1st was miserable disgusting weather and today is warm, sunny and lovely.

Maybe job searches do the same.  It starts with someone blind-sighting you, laying you off, fighting with you over unemployment benefits, putting you through ridiculous interview hoops, never getting back to you – ever, and so on.  But maybe it ends with a great job, having met interesting people, finally receiving unemployment benefits, and knowing far more about yourself than when you started.

This is what I’m choosing to believe today.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Some food for thought: What does it say about you when your anonymous blog has more daily hits than you have followers on your not anonymous twitter account?

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The joys of unemployment

I’ve decided the weekend didn’t count, so I’m not updating my status.

Unemployment blogs are growing.  This is not surprising since there are increasingly more of us with quite a lot of time on our hands.  I don’t know if it’s that unemployment brings out the inner writer in everyone, or we all secretly hold on to the dream that we will be discovered through our blogs and wind up with some fabulous job that we never imagined possible, but suddenly we all have a lot to say.   This morning while reading Adventures in E-commerce I discovered the blog Stuff Unemployed People Like and it got me thinking, there are some hilarious secret joys of unemployment.

Typically I get mad when people tell me how jealous they are that I don’t have to work, since the past few months have arguably been some of the most stressful times in my life.  But truth be told  there are a few joys, the guilty pleasures that once the pity party momentarily pauses come shining through the rain.

1. It’s 2pm on a Monday and I’m sitting on my couch in my pajamas.  I love pajamas and I love that I can walk around in them all day if I want to.  I sometimes get embarrassed when my super stops by in the middle of the afternoon and I need to haul ass to throw some decent clothing on, but honestly, I love it!
2. Pretending you have money.  Thanks to my 0% APR credit card, I can still enjoy the $15 martinis and $5 cappuccinos all over this wonderful city.  I have managed to cut down my spending on almost everything but those martinis and cappuccinos get me every time.
3. Having a clean apartment and going to the gym.  These are both theoretical joys of course since in reality neither ever happen.  But I’m working on it, maybe this will be the week
4. Twitter!  I’ve discovered new ways to keep up with friends, know what every VC is thinking at every moment of the day, and get a play by play update on every time mere acquaintances do mundane things like get on a conference calls and go to the bathroom.  Plus I get to value my self worth based on how many followers I have (sadly it’s only about 20 right now, but I’m getting more strangers every day, a good sign)
5. Napping.  I love napping.  In fact, when I bought my couch, I refused to look at any microfiber because I think it makes you sweaty when you nap and being able to nap on my couch was a key requirement.  I nap at 9:30 in the morning if I’m not ready to get up.  I nap at 3pm if the day is slow.  I nap at 5pm just to get in a quick one before evening activity (i.e. watching the foodnetwork challenges, an ongoing marathon of america’s next top model on oxygen, or something trashy on bravo)
6. Traveling.  Since airlines and tourism is going just as bankrupt as everyone else, there are some amazing travel deals to be had.  See I actually haven’t been able to take the plunge and go anywhere (except for the Boston – NY trip on Bolt Bus which I do multiple times a week) because traveling when you are unemployed seems irresponsible.  But, if there were any sponsors out there who would like to finance the trip I’m dying to take to SF, please let me know.  I accept cash, credit and money orders.

Those are few of the many wonderful things that are going on in my life at the moment.  In addition of course to my family and friends who have been absolutely amazingly supportive and always there to pick me up when I’m having a “I want to punch all of HR in the face” kind of day.

Oh I forgot one of the major plusses of unemployment.  I never have to deal with bullsh*t stupid bosses and I feel for those who do.  No fire drills! No pointless meetings! No conference calls!

Always got to look for the silver lining…

Have a good one

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