Erica's Checklist for Getting Through Unemployment

So the second most question I get lately is: "How do you survive being unemployed?"

My first inclination is to get upset. "What the hell kind of question is that?" Then I chillax and realize that while folks are concerned about me, they're also concerned that they wouldn't be able to survive it if it happened to them. My husband tells me, "Erica, part of the healing is teaching." (I hate when he's right sometimes). 

So I calm down.

I'm definitely not perfect, and let's face it I've only been unemployed for two weeks. (Damn that went fast!) But I do have my own checklist. There's so much to do, but if I do these 8 things every day, my day is at least semi-hopeful and I can make it to the next day and start all over again!

So here's my list. It's not in any particular order and doesn't include stuff like applying for jobs, networking with folks, rewriting resumes and cover letters, coffee, bacon, Law & Order, CSI Miami, True Detective or Game of Thrones (I know I'm late, but that's okay) all that stuff is just a given.

1. I go outside everyday- Even with three little people in the house, it’s easy to get caught up in my cozy bedroom and forget that the world needs me out there spreading my truth and drinking my lattes.  So at the very least I get the mail and then walk for another 10-20 minutes, or I go to the library near my house and just look out the window.

This is our library, isn't it cool?

Sometimes I go to Barnes and Noble and get schoolwork done. Or like today, drive to Duke and get my mind clear and write my blog. Whatever it is, I've got to leave and breath fresh air.

2. Take a shower and or bath. Sounds easy. Not if you’re not going somewhere right away. My impetus to wash is usually that I want the kids to see me looking fresh and happy when they come in the door. It's probably also very pleasant for Milt, and the dogs in our neighborhood. So I wash. Afterwards I always feel better and my energy levels soar.

3. Write. Whether it’s in my blog, or in my journal, or my memoir class, or a paper I know I’m a cranky son of a biscuit if I don’t write. I don’t care if I’m on the NYtimes bestseller list, but I just have to get these stories out of me. Plus I’m not a big confrontation person so I usually write my scenarios for massacre and mayhem on the page or on the computer. It helps to sort it out and while I might still feel crazy, I don’t feel anxious or panicky.

This is me when I don’t write for the day

So for everyone's sake I go on and write a paragraph or twenty.

4. Eat good stuff and drink water. I said this yesterday, but it can’t be emphasized more. When I go for the junk I’m lethargic, cranky and just blah.  I love cupcakes and chocolate eggs with that peanut butter in them, that just seems to fall out of the egg and onto your tongue and then you have to ....hmmph. Excuse me I went off topic. But you get the idea. I obviously haven’t cured my sugar craze yet, but I will. In the meantime I’m going to check out some veggie recipes folks have been telling me about. I do have a summer experiment that involves sweet tea, and rum...oops again, off topic.

How can you go wrong when you 

put sweet tea in a mason jar?

5. Sleep. I’ve been looking at the two journals I wrote in since Fall of 2013. There’s at least 30 to 40 entries where I’m complaining about not sleeping. Either I’m upset from a phone call with someone, or I was fretting over work, or I was guilty about the kids, or whatever.  I never slept 8 hours and in some entries I actually thought it was a badge or honor to only get 2-3 hours sleep. While I'm trying to avoid the nap trap, if I need one, I just take one. If I don’t, I go to bed by 10 and get up at 5a (much to the chagrin of my husband) and sometimes I just lay there thinking and trying to be at peace with the day behind me and look forward to the day before me. Either way if I sleep less than 6 hours, I'll turn into this guy again: 

6. Telling my family I love them. This was the scary one. Until I was home I didn’t realize how little I was telling them I loved them. I thought I was saying it all the time, until my son came and hugged me and told me he liked that I told him I loved him so much now. Now? I thought. Haven’t I always been saying it? Maybe, I was saying it. But not  in a way he could hear it. I wasn't present when I said it. I was either going out of a door, or saying it to him before he went to bed. But now there is no reason not to say it all the time, so I do.  

They crack me up. 

I get choked up just looking at this picture. They're my life, and they deserve those three words as much as they can stand it. (Of course Lauryn now gets a lot of her I love you's via text on her phone. The girl's schedule is too much. But its heartfelt and not rushed).

7. Reading. I’ve done it my entire life. But to get caught up in other words and beautiful sentences has been remarkable. Not because I want to create them, but because those beautiful sentences defy the ugliness in the world, and the criticism that faces us all. Even in the ugliest of books, there has to be some type of hope, and there is. This week I read the best sentence "Reality requires all the senses."-Gloria Naylor. Wow. I took it to mean, a lot of us are sleepwalking through life. Only using our eyes and ears. Or our hands and smell. But if you use it all, you miss nothing and you receive everything! Whoa. That's deep. There are about 10 books on my nightstand not including the ones on my kindle. If I only had these books I'd be blessed a million times over. I’m even re-reading Harriet the Spy.  It’s just as awesome as it was when I was 8.

8. Being Gentle with myself. I'm the hardest person I know on myself. I'm judgmental about everything I do, the way I look and if I say anything wrong I think I'm the worst person ever. The day I was fired, I kept repeating in my head "You're a loser, You're a loser." Well it's been two weeks and I'm still here. A little shell shock, but still here. And this week I started to say nice things to myself:  You're beautiful; You're a good person; You're a great mom and dynamic wife (of course Milt co-signs this everyday); You're imperfect, but you do imperfection perfectly (my absolute favorite); You're here; Be grateful. In 44 years I've never been gentle with myself. I've compared myself with others and always come out the loser. In the past those comparisons made me judge my kids harshly, incur debt, overeat, drink heavily, and caused problems in my marriage. So for the last week the first words to the universe have just been 

Thank you. 

Even when I wasn't feeling it. And this morning I wasn't. But I said it anyway.

I'm not sure what the recipe will be for anyone else if they find themselves without a job or a marriage, or a spiritual home, or if someone they love dies.  But I wish I had made these things the priority in my life earlier instead of  my job. I might still have my job and I might be a healthier person for it.

So if you don't have a list. Maybe start one.

It couldn't hurt.

Who Ordered this Spinach Salad?

Before I moved to North Carolina I had been a Weight Watchers devotee. I joined right after a college friend had died from cancer, in April 2010.  It motivated me to get my act together. I lost 30 pounds in 8 months.  I saw my collarbone for the first time in a long time and I went from a size 26 to a size 22. 

Then 2011 hit. My grandmother died in February, Milt lost his job in July, and my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in August.  Our finances were stretched to the limit and knowing there was no way we could survive on my non-profit salary in New York, and we moved to Raleigh in September of 2011 with high hopes and real excitement for a new life. We felt great for the first time in 3 years.

Then I gained the 30 pounds back, mostly from living a very, very sedentary NC life. I went from walking to the bus every morning and then walking to work, to walking 20 feet to my car and then walking 20 feet to my office in NC.  No matter what the season in New York I’d walk around the block or find my way to Grand Central Station or do something that got me off of Madison Avenue and into some serenity. Even walking the elevators at Macys was a stress reliever.  In NC, I was in a corporate park with no view and no landmarks to keep my attention starved persona happy.  I hated walking around the building and only seeing cars and more corporate parks as my scenery. And because we only had one car, I was stuck at my desk for almost 7 hours a day.

In our house the transition of responsibilities became problematic. I assumed Milt would know that I needed him to do what I used to do the exact way I did it. He in turn assumed that I knew he wouldn’t do it that way and I should get over it. Cooking became a major problem.  Milt is an assembler, and I’m the cook. The problem was I had worked 8 hours and was exhausted. So dinners were quickly afterthoughts. Nutrition was not a priority, though I thought about it EVERY day, and sleep became the only thing I was really interested in. No wonder those 30 pounds came back easily.

Now there’s been a shift. Not a huge earth plate shift, but a little one.

I have time now.

I can now think about good tasting good for me food. It’s a window that’s been shuttered for the last three years. But having a moment to think about what I’ll be putting in my body is wonderful, overwhelming at times, but wonderful. Two days ago I minced garlic and put it in some olive oil and then sautéed spinach in it. I ate it like it was candy. I picked peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, and carrots for an amazing salad. I’ve made sure that there’s at least a tomato on my sandwich and some carrots in my smoothie. For a girl who doesn’t like vegetables, this is a huge deal.

Also I’ve decided to ask for help.  This is HUGE. If you have any dealings with the women in my family (ON BOTH SIDES) we don’t ask for help. We do what we have to do and that’s it. But I’ve been asking, and taking people’s offers of help.  When Lauryn’s bestie’s mom said Lauryn could stay over for two days I said “Bye!” When Milt offered to take the kids for ice cream so I could think I said, “Bye”.  When I needed time to study, I asked if I could get lost for a few hours and it happened. Normally I’d reject all of it and be a martyr and give up my space to be me. But now I just said, “Bye!”  It was a weird experience, but I liked it. ( God knows I love my diva, but two days of quiet is a blessing!)

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m still into the not so great stuff.  I’ll eat a cupcake in a minute and feel no guilt. But I think eating spinach like candy and walking around my neighborhood, and asking for help, and creating a vision wall for myself is progress. So I’m tooting my own horn on this one, and seeing the benefits of putting 100 % of my energy into myself.  It’s scary, and ominous to ignore my friends and family in order to get a glimpse of who I can be, but its also so very, very necessary.

Job Search Trippin

It’s been a week since I was fired.

It feels like everyone has moved on. I am trying to. But I haven’t yet. There are days when I’m still sitting in that office with my silent boss and two HR people worried that I’ll go postal. There are times where I’m still on that curb feeling like a sack of laundry, crying about my stupidity, but those times are getting shorter.  And a touch of my swagger has come back. Not a lot, but a touch.  Folks are still uncomfortable around me, hoping I’m not contagious. Some are angry about my situation and others are ambivalent.  Others have found that they should explain to me the rules for corporations and how I should logically just get over it. I usually just listen in silence. It’s cool. I’m not a performer and they’re not my audience. I’m fine with folks avoiding me.

The process of looking for a job hasn’t changed much from 2009, the last time I looked.  But even in this one week, I’ve been completely humbled. This process can make you feel like a complete loser, whether you are one or not. You sit at the computer, deciding what in your life is important to tell to someone you’ve never met. You look at the computer and wonder if you can create some sort of magical spell that will make your resume stand out over someone else’s. You look up the relevant person to send your resume to. You research salaries so you don’t come in too high and look like a jerk. You line your references up and hope that they’ll be home or at their desks 24/7 if someone happens to call. You even wonder if you’ll be able to afford a suit. And you revise, revise, revise, and throw away scores of resumes and cover letters because they aren’t what Forbes, About.com, or even Cosmopolitan says is relevant for the job hunter.

What I’ve learned this week about job hunting is that the question isn’t, “How do I get a job?” it’s really “Am I relevant?”  Ouch. Proving your relevancy to someone, who probably has just as many insecurities and issues as you do is heart breaking. Your mind races if you get called for an interview or even a phone interview. What will I say? Will it make sense? What if they’re having a bad day? What’ if I’m having a bad day? Is 4 the only time they can talk? Where will I stash my three kids who are usually running around at that time? What will I wear that won’t make women hate me, and men disregard me? Will I be comfortable in the interview chair?

But I think the resume is the hardest part. Not because I can’t write up my accomplishments to fit a job description. I can, and I will.  I have a ton of accomplishments, that are all true by the way, that can get me a well paying job. But the resume is a funny thing. There are all these lines where you’re supposed to put what makes you the right candidate for the job. Where you have to prove your relevancy.

But relevancy doesn’t mean important.  And I don’t think I’m being subjective about this point. In order to find a job, you must split yourself into two, your personal and your corporate self.  But I’m not sure if there’s more than an hour where I’m not a mommy. I’m not sure how it works for dads because I’m not one. But for most of the women I’ve spoken to and worked with, the mommy channel is 24/7. (Even when their kids are adults). The jobs my corporate self is qualified for has never allowed for my resume to reflect the other side of my life. On my resume there’s no line for successfully taking a shower while taking care of a 4 year old and an infant. There’s no line for getting dinner together and taking care of math homework and driving to Michael’s Craft store at 8:45p to get that thing your 12-year-old told you about at the very last minute that they need in the morning. No lines for cupcakes made, or laundry washed, or coupons cut, gathered and distributed.  No lines on your resume for the counseling sessions for your family member who is having a hard time. Or trying to help manage your father who has Alzheimer’s from 500 miles away.  I’d like a line for making appointments and managing extracurricular activities while sitting in the carpool lane. Or arguing with the financial institutions your parents bank at right before the three parent-teacher conferences.

I did all those things sometimes while having had surgery, a torn meniscus (that I still have), having pink eye, and recovering from a hysterectomy.  I did those things while I worked outside the home almost non-stop whether it was checking emails outside company office hours, to talking to a client on my own time, to working when should have been on disability. Saying all of that on my resume would make my resume 20 pages long.  My relevancy would be obliterated. (Now I know a lot of you will say, “Erica, you just have to finesse those skills into your resume.”  Call taking care of three kids with pink eye, “Managing an in-house children’s ward.”  Or when cursing out your dad’s doctor in New York you could say, “Managing the day-to-day operations of a private care patient.” And when you have to ask your parents for a loan to fix your car you could say, “Negotiating a private line of credit for transportation investment.”) Look, I get it.  You have to put a little shine on the shinola, but I don’t want to get it.  And I’m sure the women who have children (and those that don’t) don’t want to get it either. They’d love for their organization, administrative (permission slips for every trip come to mind), and financial acumen at home to be counted for something exactly the way it happens.  That way the people who are interested in hiring folks would see all of me as relevant and wouldn’t compromise my career after I was hired when I had to take care of a sick kid, or fly to New York unexpectedly or see elementary STEM project at 8:45 in the morning.

I’ve been thinking that as interviewers and interviewees that we might be asking the wrong questions, and setting the wrong structure for job hiring. What if what was more important was not your accomplishments but your failures? And what you learned from these failures? I think that’s a damn good interview question,

Interviewer: Ms. Woods, what have you learned from your failures?

Ms. Woods: I’ve learned to never take anyone, anything, or any situation for granted.  I’ve learned that the only moment that matters is right now, and that the only way to live your life is through grace, compassion, and empathy.  Without those characteristics you’re sleepwalking through every relationship whether corporate or personal you’ll ever have in your life. I’ve also learned that when you fail, you’ll be alone in that failure; but the good news is that you can rise from it and become the person that you always dreamed you’d be with or without folks.

Interviewer: Well, your answers were concise, intuitive, and creative. Most importantly they were relevant to the kind of person we'd like to have with us. You’re hired!

That’s my kind of job search

All about me

On Thursday, the first day of Spring, I lost my job.  I had violated a zero tolerance policy that like most people I thought would never apply to me. I had sent personal mail on the company’s bill. Not paying the bill was never intentional, but that doesn’t matter. What is intentional is that there are consequences for every and all actions and my consequence is that I no longer have a job in one of the worst job markets in my lifetime while being sole breadwinner for my family.

While the prospect of not having money is not cool. The hard part is remaining happy and not branding myself as an idiot. My true friends are fine with me being a sap, beating up on myself (for a minute) and having a breakdown. They’ve gotten angry, sent me pictures of chocolate to make me smile and indulged my newfound obsession of Elvis’ peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and asked me what they can do (send over a meal, help me find a job, take care of our kids). Others have just offered their ears (we’re grateful). One of my closest buddies said she’s willing to just sit with me in silence if that’s what I need her to do (why she says that when she’s knows we’d be giggling the whole time I don’t know, but I love her for saying it). Others are avoiding me.  They don’t want to get the funk of failure on their hands and do everything they can, not to talk to me. That’s cool, for now. There are others who have texted me or emailed me in order to see how they can avoid losing their jobs by finding out the juicy and spicy story and “commiserating” with me.  They lash out at my former company and say how unfair it is they would fire me in this economy and in my situation. In reality, they too want to know how they can end up not like me.

I don’t have their answers.  Hell, I don’t have my own answers. I’m too busy trying to breathe.

The real deal is, even though in my head I’ve been wishing for 2014 to be the year I changed my job, I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be sitting on curb crying in front of my former job after the final meeting. My five-year work record had meant nothing, the mistake was more important. But looking back, I now see that’s how many of us relate to one another. The one mistake prevents us from loving someone, trusting someone, or having a truly meaningful relationship with others.  If we as individuals don’t know how to forgive, or embrace mistakes, how can we expect institutions, or societies, or our children to move past these mistakes and take chances on folks?  So it should be no surprise that I’ve lost my gig. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

What hurts more is the shame. The shame is probably the worst part. Shame has not a damn thing to do with you, but you think it does. It has everything to do with people who usually mean nothing to you. NOTHING.  You worry for their feelings, you hope they don’t think bad of you or your work. Hell, you hope they don’t talk about your work to other people and badmouth you. You remember all the things you didn’t have a chance to do. You couldn’t even tell people goodbye so that at least that would be the last image they had of you. While I sat on that curb, I thought about so many other people who would think badly of me.  Amazingly, I thought nothing about my children, or my husband. Out of the twenty to thirty (yes, I counted) people. Only two people were my close friends. None were family. NONE.  I was (and I’m still fighting it) more concerned about my FB community, or my classmates at Duke knowing that I had failed than I was my own children. The day I was fired, three people wrote me to tell me how upset the department Supervisor was over my dismissal. One person said she almost cried in her office and I should know that. For the rest of the night I was worried about the supervisor’s feeling and how I might have failed her. I almost wrote her a letter telling her I was sorry I let her down. My shame was enough to fill my entire house. Later I dreaded telling my parents that I had lost my job. My mother who has never been fired from any job EVER what would she say? I held off for three days before I said anything to her.  The shame triggered a panic attack on Saturday while I sat Barnes and Noble. I was so afraid that someone I worked with would see me and want to talk about it. Afraid that the human resources person would come in looking for a book or the mailroom guy who knows everyone’s business, or even the cleaning lady might glance at me and they’d say “tsk, tsk, so sad” as I sat in the magazine section reading Vanity Fair.

But it’s all just shame taking control and trying to call all the shots. The reality is I made a mistake. A foible. You can call it a costly error. But that’s it, and I’m paying for it. But who hasn’t. That’s it.  It’s not rocket science.

This morning it dawned on me. How in the hell could my departmental supervisor be more upset than me? Who the hell cares if people who don’t even know my name see me at Barnes and Noble or the movie theater?  My classmates at Duke were going through similar trials and tribulations and had lived to tell the tale and were still doing wonderfully and were extraordinary human beings.  I even had someone who was in my program who didn’t know me tell me she wished me peace and knew that my presence in the program was evidence that I would do great things. And my FB community, they had already proven themselves time and time again to give their support through words but also through small significant actions that meant everything to me and to my family.  I am pissed that shame blocked me from seeing that almost nothing would dull my shine to my children, who wanted me home anyway.  My youngest had been asking for me to be home in the afternoons to read her stories and play tea party.

So if you’re one of those folks who think I have cooties.  I’m fine with that.  But I’m not fine with you putting your shame on me. I refuse to engage in your fear that you’ll end up like me, or your conceit (which is also fear) that you’ll never be like me.  If you come to me with love, that’s cool. But if you’re coming to get the juicy story, you’ll be sadly disappointed. Not because I don’t have a story. I have one.  It’s a story that has lots of depression, low moments, and bad decisions. It’s a story where I get my ass kicked on several occasions before I get the message and move onto a different path.  But that’s not the story you’ll get from me.

The story you’ll get is about me moving through that shit and coming out great on the other side. It’s about me redefining success to fit my brand of Erica, not yours. It will be about me seizing the day and trying this writing thing for real. Even with the haters whispering in my ear that I can’t do it. I’ll do it anyway. It might even be about moving back to New York City, or some other place. It will be about getting my PhD in my 50s and teaching women to be fearless. It might be about taking a job who’s salary is half what I used to make in order to get to the ultimate goal for me and my family. It will definitely be about producing compassionate and empathetic children who learn that failure is part of life, but it’s not all there is to life. It will definitely be about enjoying the time I have with my partner whether it be a quiet movie night, or a trip to Paris. It might be about going back to take care of my father.  It might be about adopting a Pug. It might be about opening a Peanut Butter and banana sandwich shop. I don’t know, what it will be. But whatever it is, it will not be about you.

It will be all about me.