The Job Situation and Nearly almost 40.

So here's the thing...


My 36th birthday is coming up. I have a Master's Degree in Marketing and a Bachelor's Degree in Theatre. I made a pretty good run of having an acting career, and that was fun. I have no regrets in that area. Now I am dabbling in freelance Marketing here and there doing some editing for a friend and creating a consumer pipeline for another friend. A few things here and there.

The problem is not my ability, the problem is my day job.  If I had sat down and written down the worst possible job for me to have it would be the job that I have. I feel as if I've being punished by a Bond Villian. I work in customer care... taking  incoming phone calls.... and resolving customer complaints... for an Insurance Company!!!! This is wrong on so many levels. For one, I am a supporter of Universal Medicine. That can be discussed later and is not the purpose of this particular blog post. I merely bring it up to illustrate that my own personal dogma disallows me to be compatible with my job at which I spend 40 hours a week. I literally have to tell people stuff that goes against the core of my beliefs. For two, the job consists of having to deal with being yelled at a lot. People are upset when their medical treatments are not covered. Go figure. And since I'm the figure-head of what they believe to be the decision making entity, I'm the one who gets yelled at... cursed at... pleaded with... bargained with... cried at. Mind you, I have no actual power over anything. All I can do is read them their benefits and explain the existing claims. Some studies have shown that when a house plant is regularly yelled at it does not grow as well as one that receives positive verbal communication. What then does this kind of regular negative input do to complex thinking mammals?

In the mean time I am most certainly looking for another job, either by moving up or moving out. Every position that comes open within the company that I even remotely qualify for I have applied for. Plus, I peruse Careerbuilder, LinkedIn, Helpwanted.com, even Craigslist with a scientific regularity. As said earlier, I have consistently sought out freelance opportunities and continue to do so.

During this whole quest thingy, I have slowly come to the conclusion that among my talents and wishes is the need to write. Before I had this job I regularly attended a super awesome creative writers group, which helped to encourage me to seek feedback and continue to create. I had a pretty good roster of short stories building up... until my computer's hard drive crashed and wiped everything out. (And yes, several people have looked at it. There is no way to get the data back.) That really threw me for a loop, so combined with the new job I just haven't written anything significant since then.

But the thing is... That's what I'm good at!

Creative, scholarly, marketing research, PR pieces, petitions, letters to the editor... etcetera, etcetera... If something needs to be written I can normally do a pretty good job. When I was in highschool I was the student whose paper got read to the class. When I was in college, I soared through the assignments that involved extensive writing. As an adult making my way through the world I have been teased for using big words (my original draft said 'using verbose language'). My response to this has been that I do not have a list of what words other people don't know. And to kindly advise them to learn to read a dictionary.

My point is not to brag about what a great writer I am. My point I guess is that I know what I am supposed to do. I even know how to do it. On top of that I have some pretty good credentials to support my abilities. The problem again is my day job.

Sure I can do my best to work around it. But at the end of the day, after being yelled at by strangers, wrestling with two small children, and trying to job search online once the kids are down, I am physically and emotionally exhausted. I have nothing left... I have applied for jobs with Examiner.com and sought out similar jobs. Problem is they all require exisiting writing samples, and like I said my hard drive crashed, so no current samples.

In the mean time, I just keep going. Maybe eeking out a blog post once every six months... if that. So if anyone needs anything written, researched or edited, and you are willing to pay me, let me know.

Because I would like to quit my day job and get started at my career. 

Lisa vs. Edward

Remember when Twilight first came out? Everyone was all in a tizzy about the brooding predator-like vampire, Edward Cullen making quick work of the vestal delicate human, Bella Swan. His very existence as a vampire identified him to some as being evil, even though his clan chose to defy their very nature and avoid feeding on humans. The right leaning journalists compared the vampire bite, which would transform Bella from a fresh faced teenager into another predatorial vampire, to teen sex. It was obvious that those who believed this had never actually read the story, because the whole by line of the series related to purity, self control, and fidelity. It was quite the scandal.

Jump ahead to now. There exists a television show in which a race of lizardlike aliens is plotting an invasion upon Earth for the purpose of breeding a hybrid race, one of the main characters enacting this plot are Lisa, the daughter of the Alien Queen who is evolving into her "breeding skin" and gets a series of young men paraded before her for her to seduce, and Tyler, the teenage son of the resistance leader against the aliens. The show is rife with scenes in which Lisa's mother sternly commands her to "entertain" another young man when Tyler's phosphorus levels turn out to be too low for alien/ human compatibility.

What I don't understand is... where's all the fuss? I mean the show features two teenagers in which one is actively seducing the other for the purpose of impregnating herself. Not metaphorically, not symbolically, LITERALLY! Could it be that Lisa is a willowy blond with batting Anime Eyes and a whispery voice, but Edward Cullen is sports a furrowed brow, perma-scowl and can bend a car with his bare hands? Edward is an obvious threat, whereas Lisa is not. Are we really still so hung up on gender that we pigeon hole women into the victim role even when they are clearly the antagonists?

Earlier today the fam and I were out in the car and  we saw a bit of an altercation taking place along side of the rode. A young twenty something couple were having a shouting match. The guy was walking briskly away with his head tucked down and cell phone to his ear. The girl was shouting after him, red faced and pointing. He continued to walk away. She reached down to the gutter next to the sidewalk, picked up a rock and flung it at him. Hubby and I exchanged the notion that if the roles had been reversed everyone within view would have called 911.

For whatever reason, women are still seen as victims regardless of the circumstances. I'm not promoting the notion that women CAN"T be on the receiving end of unfortunate treatment. But the idea that women can't be the aggressors and aren't capable of wrong doing plays into a very dangerous stereotype. Truth is people of any gender are capable of both good and bad. Vampires can choose not to feed on humans, and an Alien Princesses can fall in love with a human.