More random nephew stories

My nephews are a never-ending supply of joy, hilarity and levity. Spending time with them always makes me feel better. They have a way of drawing you into the moment. Can’t worry about the future or the past when they’re in the middle of something mischievous and potentially dangerous right this second.

For posterity here are a few recent nephew moments:

1. Tonight Jordy was playing on the computer while I watched TV. I turned to him to ask what he was doing. His said without skipping a beat: shopping for happiness.

2. We were driving down the road and out of the blue Jordy says, “You know you’re not the only aunt we have.” OK. How do you respond to that. He’s a child. He doesn’t know he’s driving daggers into my heart. My first insecure response is, “But I’m your only real aunt since your mom doesn’t have any sisters.” Then Mikey pipes up, “And you’re the only one we connect with emotionally and spiritually.” Score one for Mikey, he does love me. LOL.

3. I will be watching the boys tomorrow morning because they have the day off from school. Jordy loves to cook so I told him we would make some chocolate chip cookies. He said, “That’s too simple we need to show off how well we can cook.” After all, last time we made muffins and he said it was an advanced cooking class with his aunt. Although his suggestion was a soufflé. I have no idea where he heard that. He has no idea what a soufflé is.

Filed under: Mi Familia, Quoting , children, funny moments, joy, nephews

The Power of Story

Who doesn’t love a good story? The love, the fight, the drama, the comedy. It’s why we go to the movies. It’s why we read book. It is what transports us to another time and place. We are inspired, horrified, scared, captivated and engaged.

All the while we are writing our own story, full of the same emotions, plot points and events. Yet there are so many elements of our lives we keep hidden. We’re afraid we’re the only ones. We’re worried about being judged. We’re ashamed of what happened to us or what we’ve done.

Yet my old pastor always said, “We’re only as sick as our secrets.” It makes a world of difference as soon as we begin to give voice to what is happening to us, what we’ve been through and how we are feeling. It empties out brain space. It frees up our heart to move on, so we don’t get stuck in the mire of our circumstance.

This is in part why I chose to blog. Some write stories. Some sing songs. Others write poetry, paint or play an instrument. Anything is better than being silent. Anything is better that being alone. Anything is better than quiet surrender. We have to fight for ourselves. We have to shout, in a way that is healthy, so we can be set free.

My friend Jenn is choosing to give voice to her story of breast cancer. At 34 she is facing a stage three diagnosis, a mastectomy, chemo, losing her hair and fighting for her life all within about a week. To reach out for support and keep those who love her updated on her progress she is blogging through it. I am amazed at her strength, resilience, faith and the joy in her journey so far. I know there isn’t much I can do but pray and her blog helps me do that more specifically.

We are also part of a bigger story that God is telling through us. All of our stories overlap and interact with others. We are not alone. We are part of a huge family. In that there is comfort, encouragement and faith. In the midst of pain it is easy to burrow inward. It is easy to become destructive or self-sabotage. But having the courage to speak out means that we can be held accountable, someone can give reason to our voices of insanity. Or in some cases someone to just give us a hug and tell us to hang on.

I think my friend Erika is right in that we are all a beacon of hope for someone who isn’t as far in their story as we are. We get to lead the way for someone, if we let ourselves speak of what God has done, how he has provided, how he has healed, how he has disciplined and even through how we suffered.

It’s easy for me to forget these things. I want to shut down. I want to block out. I have done that a bit over the last few months. The pain of my parent’s divorce was just too fresh. The death of our family unit was overwhelming. I was fighting out of wallowing in it. I was trying to help my parents. I was trying to be there for my brother. I didn’t know how to be there for myself. I just slipped into survival mode.

I am so grateful for those friends that have kept me sane. I am so blessed with their love, joy, distractions, prayers, encouragement and support. They have made this time of pain tolerable. There have been moments when I didn’t want to talk to God. I was angry at him, yet I knew that I was getting his voice through them. They kept speaking truth. They kept speaking love.

As I come out of the shock and denial of what is happening I can finally begin to give voice to everything. I am starting to process out what it all means to me. I learning how to have a different kind of relationship with my parents and my brother.

It’s all a process.

Filed under: About Me, Friendshipping, Mi Familia, Spiritual Formation , divorce, emotions, family, fear, fellowship, Friends, God, issues, journey, love, sharing, story, struggle

Misleading Job Interview

All I want for my 35th birthday is health insurance.

For some Americans that is still the dream. As a diabetic I am the health insurance equivalent of a leper. I couldn’t get insured if I were willing to pay a million dollars a month. I have to be on a group plan, which means no more freelancing or consulting for me. So, I am going to go out and get a regular, 9-5, bi-weekly paying, prescription-card-offering job.

I put all my friends and family on alert, updated my resume, set up job alerts and dusted off my portfolio. I was ready.

For months all I heard were crickets. Yep. Nada. Zero. Zip. I think the job boards are right, it is an invisible job market, you have to know someone to get in. But then twice in one week I get called for interviews. Yea!! That noise you finally heard, were the towns people rejoicing!

The first job, internet marketing manager, was found by my grandfather in the newspaper. How old school. I didn’t even know that he knew what I did for a living but apparently he was listening and taking notes. I was excited. I loved the product, industry and market. This could be great. I could finally have found a job where I could really settle in. Yay!

I had a pre-interview phone screening, which I passed and had the in-person interview last Friday. On the phone I got a brief overview of the job. She said I would be working with the internet/catalog director as the internet marketing manager to help with email campaigns which involved some merchandising. Sounds straight-forward enough. She assured me I’d get more details from the hiring manager.

All week I mentally gathered all of my web experience – web site development, email campaign creation, web metrics,  social media marketing, etc. I could describe my part in all projects. I could wax on poetically about web theory and new softwares for email marketing. I was ready. I didn’t even feel nervous, just ready to dig in. Look at me, all optimistic. It was a real moment. I nearly got verclempt.

On Friday, I re-met with the HR lady who re-qualified me for the job, we went through my experience and she asked me traditional interview questions. What is the best piece of constructive criticism you ever received? What are your references going to say about you? Blah. Blah. Blah. Do they actually really get valid, usable information from those questions? Anyway, she also gave me the same brief overview of the job, you’ll be working on email campaigns. Now in my mind, the internet marketing manager would be responsible for overseeing all aspects of said email campaigns. You would think.

When I met with the hiring manager I was immediately thrown off by the first question. He wanted me to go through my job history and point-by-point show how I was qualified for the position. Job description? Huh. I hadn’t seen one of those. The nice HR lady didn’t give me one. I told him that I never received one. He slides it over to me and at cursory glance I don’t recognize the responsibilities of the internet marketing manager. I was further thrown off track by a series of questions about statistical theory and process. Again huh.

Then I realized, they don’t want an internet marketing manager they want a marketing analyst. Now, for those wondering what the difference is, let me explain. In my opinion, the internet marketing manager would work on formulating a plan to promote the products on the web through an integrated marketing communications plan. Now what they want is equivalent to an accountant. They want a paper-pushing, number crunching, data juggler. A statistician. Someone who sits and interprets spreadsheet data. All day. ALL. DAY.

So zero creativity. Zero actual involvement with the web, other than generating data the web team will use to deploy campaigns. Yea. I was talking with a friend, and former boss, after the interview and she said they might not know what internet marketing is. No idea.

I was disappointed. I got through the rest of the interview, including the person who previously held the job and one of the team members. They made it crystal clear that this was strictly a numbers job. Hours and hours at a desk on tight deadline to generate reports and help clarify data. Yummy. The team member actually said – Me, words. You, numbers. Kid you not.

No thanks. I really want to write an email to the nice HR lady and tell her she has no clue what the department is actually looking for and that I am no longer interested in this position. Can you do that? Is that appropriate?

Big lesson learned, ask for a full job description. You may not be talking apples to apples unless you see it on paper.

I have another interview next Wednesday for a public relations position. I hope they really aren’t looking for a greeter, food server or bill collector. We’ll see.

Filed under: Working , HR mistake, interview, job, job description, job search, marketing job