Choices!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”- Mark Twain

Choices, choices, choices. You know some people value their life on their availability of options. Lets face it life stinks when you only have 1 or 2 roads to go down. I've been talking with my brother lately about our options in life. He is about to finish his AME or APC or AML I don't know the official name for it but it's airplane mechanic school. He is having to take a look at his options and start to make some concrete plans. Does he quit there and go into the workforce or continue on a bachelors program? Each of those options have another 4 options ie. who,what,when,where. He showed me picture after he mapped out all of his options and it looked like a spider web. His only problem now.. Picking the path he wants to go down.

This has gotten me to really start thinking about my options. About a year and a half ago I decided that I was going to make a positive change. I was going to do what I wanted to do. I was going to give myself options. I have always dreamed of doing something fun and creative with my life. I remember sitting in Career Services class in 9th grade half assed paying attention, but mostly dreaming about "When I grow up I'm going to have fun. I'm going to have a awesome office, working with great people, cracking jokes, working when and how I want to work. Who says work had to serious" I had NO clue as to what line of work that was going to be I just knew I wasn't going to forget my "have fun" attitude. Well 9th grade/high school came and went. Next thing I knew I had been accepted to Ole Miss and I was on my way to college. I thought for sure I would end up with some random liberal arts degree, maybe majoring in Theater Arts, Graphic design, or even Underwater basket weaving. The reality was.. I was told by the Man (i.e. Dad) that if I go to Ole Miss with him paying outrageous out of state tuition I was going to the Business School. I had 2 options. Stay in Jonesboro and go to ASU, or go to one of the nations top rated party schools but have to study business. Obviously I picked Ole Miss and made the best of the situation, by majoring in Marketing. My thought was I would be able to quench my lust for all things fun and creative and my "benefactors" rule of being in the business school.

Fast forward to now (5 yrs since Ole Miss). I got out in the real world and realized marketing guys are not the ones who think of commercials, who picks out design layouts, who come up with crazy gimmicks. They are the ones who sell them. I HATE SALES! Unless I own every part of a product It is hard for me to try sell someone something. People look at a marketing degree and thinks ok this person majored in sales. Marketing is so much more than just sales. Don't get me wrong I understand good marketing equals good sales. What I didn't know is that it was Liberal Arts students who give the "marketing" people stuff to work with. So needless to say I haven't been able to find my type of marketing job yet. Since graduating from Ole Miss I have worked various jobs, just to get by. Which brings me back to my earlier statement about making a positive change. Shannon and I are now at a point in our lives where I am allowed to have options again. She has finished her Masters program and is on track to be licensed and have a great job doing what she loves. Now as for me. Obviously I have been still trying to use the skills from Ole Miss to find a job here in Charlotte. I see stuff that I am qualified for and jobs I could do with out any further education, but I am afraid they wouldn't satisfy my desire to have that "fun and creative" job and lets face it. The phone hasn't exactly been ringing off the hook.

So now I have to look at a few of my options. I can continue to try and find just an ehh "pay the bills" job. I can waste time until the fall and look at either picking another major (digital media design) ,or even getting a masters from UNCC. Or I could go to the Art Institute here in Charlotte as soon as April. With AI I have two major options. Graphic Design which I think I would thoroughly enjoy creating lay outs, logos, packaging, posters, cards, awesome visuals. Or Web Design and Interactive Media, where I would still be able to create some awesome visuals but instead of click, drag, drop I would have to spend weeks writing complex codes of information and have to make sure it looks good an a slew of various browsers and systems. I think I would enjoy either one, but graphic design is obviously going to have a larger pool of competition because it is easier to learn than Web design, but there is a Huge demand for good web designers which means more money and more job security. With everything/everyone going to digital, I think either option is a sound one. I just have to make the choice on what am I going to do and how I am going to do it. My gut says Graphic Design, My head pushes to go to AI in April vs waiting until the fall for UNCC or Central Piedmont Community College. If you have any thoughts or comments please feel free to leave them. Maybe Jay is right and I just need to listen to Mark Twain's advice and throw off the bowlines and sail away from the safe harbor.

Confirmation

Well today I got my confirmation.

"Thank you for your time and effort to interview with "IA". Your background and skill set clearly demonstrated a potential match for our position. However, we had a extraordinary number of qualified applicants for this position. Although you were not selected for this particular position, we will keep your resume on file. please do not hesitate to continue to express your interest in employment opportunities with us.
Best wishes in your successful job search. And again, thank you for consideration. "

I was trying to explain to Shannon what it was like to have a great shot and feel it slip away. Then I remembered there is a song about situations like this.




I know that my trials are obviously not as dramatic as trying to be a white kid winning a rap battle in the heart of the hood, but that doesn't mean I cant relate.... at least slightly. The most important thing to remember is don't give up don't quit, keep pushing. You can do anything."

Nyquil and Phone Interviews do not mix.

Ok so maybe playing in the snow wasn't such a good idea. Last week I thought things were turning around for the + side. Earlier last week I found a job for a inside sales/customer service for a pretty cool company that actually happens to be right down from the house. I was thinking this was a Win Win. Well the only way to apply for the job is through Career Builder. Now Career Builder used to only charge companies that were looking for employees. Now they want to charge us to get prime placement. It really feels like a scam but that's neither here nor there, back to the job at hand. So I went through the normal channels and sent my resume in via career builder but I wanted to make sure my resume got through. I know its typically a big no no to actually physical drop off a resume these days, but I thought surely if they actually met me they would be thankful I put in the dedication to personally drop off this resume.

Well I go out to the office on Thursday and figure if I drop by around 11. There is a good chance I will catch them in the office. I arrive at the office at around 10:45 and think its close enough I'll go ahead and make my introduction. Well I walk up to the door and notice there is a "Sorry we missed you" Fed Ex package note on the door. So I think ok maybe that was earlier and they just haven't checked the front door. I reach down to open the door and sure enough its locked and it doesn't look like there is anyone inside. I thought great... I take a chance on doing an actual drop off and no one is here. I looked down at my phone at it says 11:00 on the dot. I was just about to give up and go home when my phone rang. I notice it is a local Charlotte number and you would think I would be excited but lately the only local #s that call me are insurance sales people trying to suck me into their world. So normally I let it go to voice mail then I can decide if it is worth a call back, but for some reason I decided to answer it. Turns out it is a company that I had applied to back in Nov/Dec. I was kind of in shock. I had applied for an admissions positions but they had looked at my resume and thought I might be a better fit in their Career Services dept. I was super stoked and long story short set up a phone interview for this Tuesday. So needless to say I thought things were turning around, I mean after all when I had gotten so excited about the 1st job only to be disappointed, boom out of no where came an even better offer. Then to top it off we got fresh snow.

Now forward to Sat. morning. I wake up with a heck of a sore throat and think oh man not now and immediately, start my over the counter medical regiment. Next thing I know my alarm is going off and it s 11:00 Tuesday morning. I feel like I am dying. It has been a long time since I have been this sick but.. I have my interview at 1 so I must push forward. I figure if I take a shower, Shave, get in some clean clothes I'll feel much better. Well I do all of that and actually convince myself I'll do great. I was nervous not only because i was sick but also because this is an awesome opportunity I have in front of me. Everything seemed to be going okay until 1 o'clock came and my phone rang. Now I don't know how many of you use Nyquil or Dayquil and know that sometimes that stuff can almost emulate the effects of alcohol. The second I got on that phone interview I felt as if i had been doing tequila shots for the last 5 hours. My heart started racing. I started sweating. I had no clear thought process and I could feel myself just rambling away. It was almost like a out of body experience I could hear the words and sentences coming out my mouth but could little to correct them. I did explain I was under the weather and the lady interviewing me seemed like she understood and was very forgiving but I could tell the writing was on the wall. I had blown my chance. Now if your reading this you can still see I am not anywhere close to 100% I still feel like my sinuses are about to explode and my whole body aches but i just wanted to get the word out to people. Don't try and be brave like me and risk an opportunity when your not feeling well. Reach out to your company and see if you can reschedule. Chances are they are doing quite a few interviews so giving you a few days to recover will not put you out of the running. It is a tough market out there and sometimes you have to be more aggressive than you would like to be, but make sure that you really are ready. To me I am just holding on to faith that the right job will come. Well I guess that about all I have to say that. I did send a follow up email, thanking her for my time and letting her know I wish i would have been able to articulate my answers in a better way but i still think i lost out on that one. Oh well there is always next time.

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

I have probably lost a few readers over the last 6 months but hopefully you guys will come back. As you know we moved to Charlotte in Aug of 2009 and as of today Feb 13th 2010 I have still not found a full time job. I decided to take a little hiatus to prevent my blog from sounding like a poor me novel. As anyone who has been laid off or looking for another career opportunity the job market is exceptionally tough right now, so if you, or anyone you know is looking right now remember things will get better and try and be as supportive as you can be. We all need it.

On a better note though. Even though I am still unemployed Career Opportunity Search Specialist, I have decided to start the blog back up. Hopefully a job will turn up soon enough and I can start to share about the adventures we have here in Charlotte. So... with that said and the fact we got about 4 inches of snow last night while watching the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Remember help control the pet population and have your pet spayed or neutered.