|
| Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
| The First Day |
"What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers."
Martina Horner
Boy do I need to remember those words in the coming days and weeks. Today I completed my first day at the new job. There are so many thing I am just overjoyed about. The cause I'll be working for. The people I'll be working with. The salary. The office. The responsibility.
It was a bit of baptism by fire today. Somehow I went from 7 bosses at my first job out of college, to 4 bosses at my last company, to exactly none at this one. That's right, as of tomorrow, the woman that hired me will no longer be with the company, leaving me with little to no direction. On my second day. With a magazine that is half done and needs to be out in three weeks.
I haven't even started day two yet.
I'm not upset about this. I'm nervous. Which I guess comes with every first day on a new job. I KNOW I can rise to this challenge. And I am looking forward to proving what I can do. But I'd be lying to say that I am not feeling a little in over my head at the moment (and I HATE admiting that knowing some of the people who are continuing to read this blog). But then again, it's only day one.Labels: work |
posted by FINY @ Thursday, February 23, 2006   |
|
|
|
| Friday, February 17, 2006 |
| A Hangover, A New Job, and a Celebrity Sighting |
I awoke yesterday with, quite possibly, the worst hangover of my life. My head hurt, I threw up, and I generally felt like I was going to die. Wednesday had been my last day, as I had noted before, and after an interview for a sales representative job, I met up with 10 of my good friends at one of my favorite bars both to drown my sorrows and celebrate the end of what had turned into five weeks of torture.
I had intended the night to end with me returning to my apartment, drunk enough to have enjoyed the night, sober enough not to have become sloppy. A lot of beer and two shots later, I only vaguely remember leaving the bar, The Twin taking me back to his place, and generally taking care of me. So the hangover was to be expected I guess.
When I rose at 10:30 to use the bathroom, my head hurt so bad I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I checked my email. Along with a few “Hope you’re enjoying your first day of freedom” messages, was a note from a woman I had interviewed with a few weeks back. She asked me to call her whenever I got a chance. Hangover be damned, I got on the phone right away.
Long story short, I was unemployed for all of 18 hours. I can proudly say I am now the Publications Manager for a national non-profit. I am beyond ecstatic. The job has more responsibility, pays MUCH more, has better benefits, and I finally get to say goodbye to cube living since I’ll have my own office. Basically, it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of, PLUS I’ll be working for a really great cause. I didn’t even need to think about it, I accepted the offer immediately. I then promptly called everyone I knew, told them about it, trekked back to my own apartment and went back to sleep. Getting a new job was exciting, but damn that hangover was still kicking my ass.
Later that evening, I met up with a group of friends from the company I had just been fired from. After choking down a few beers, we split ways and I headed towards Union Square to pick up a book at Barnes and Noble. Having just finished The Glass Castle, I had nothing to read on the subway ride home, and now that I was gainfully employed, I could afford to splurge on a new book.
As I’m standing outside Barnes and Noble, talking to Graduate School roommate about the new job and finishing off a cigarette, I see a Sox hat pass me on the street, and then stop a few feet away. The guy wearing it looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place it. As I finish my cigarette and head inside I hear “Finy” behind me. I turn around, and it hits me. Sox hat guy? Yeah, it’s Jere ! Maybe not a celebrity to many of you, but to someone who reads his blog every day, he’s a celebrity in my little world. For those of you who don’t read his blog, you should. He knows more about baseball, pop culture, and well, really most anything, than I do.
So being the big dork that I am, I whip out my camera and have Chan take a picture of the two of us (see below). We chatted for a while, Jere led the way to his mother’s book , which I promptly bought. It was REALLY great to meet both Jere and Chan, and I hope Jere knows that now that I have met him in person I am going to require his presence at the bar at least ONCE to catch a game together this season.
So yeah, two days ago, my life was shit. Today, I have a great new job and I got to meet Jere. God damn, life is good.Labels: blogging, drinking, work |
| posted by FINY @ Friday, February 17, 2006 |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, February 15, 2006 |
| LAST DAY!!! |
No, not of the blog, at my office!!!!
I know I have been woefully neglecting this space, but come tomorrow I'll be a blogging maniac, hell not going to have much else to do. But for the moment, I am just enjoying that in about an hour I'll be in my exit interview. And tonight, I've got an interview for a new job, a better one. Not to mention the three interviews I've already been on. In the words of Tom Petty:
"It's time to move on, time to get goin' what lies ahead I have no way of knowin'. But under my feet babe, grass is growin' it's time to move on. Time to get going."
And I couldn't be more ready.Labels: work |
| posted by FINY @ Wednesday, February 15, 2006 |
|
|
|
| Monday, February 06, 2006 |
| Why I am So Emotionally Drained At The End Of The Day |
... because I need to keep smiling through shit like this:
Cast of Characters:
Me – self explanatory
Alanna – friend in the office.
Coworker 1 – woman in her, I don't know, midthirties maybe?
Coworker 2 – woman in her, again, I don't really know, but let's say early 50s
Scene:
Downstairs lobby of my building. Coworker 1 and Coworker 2 say hello to Alanna and I and promptly turn their backs to us, as they were in the middle of a conversation. Two elevators arrive at the same time. Alanna and I get in a different elevator than the rest of the crowd that is waiting.
(cut to the 35th floor)
I exit the elevator maybe two seconds after Coworker 1 and Coworker 2 turn the corner. I can hear them talking but don’t know what about. Coworker 1 sees me out of the corner of her eye.
Coworker 1: whispers something inaudible
Coworker 2: what did you say I can’t hear you
Coworker 1: whispers something I can’t hear
Coworker 2 promptly looks over her shoulder, sees me not three steps behind her, and stops dead in her tracks. Sidestepping so I can walk past her. As I continue down the hall, and Coworker 1 and Coworker 2 turn the corner we hear this:
Coworker 2: God it’s just like school all over again.
Yeah but only because you're making it that way.
The 15th can't come soon enough at this point. It's getting too hard to hold back the tears in the office. This is just downright humiliating.Labels: work |
| posted by FINY @ Monday, February 06, 2006 |
|
|
|
|
| Thoughts While in the Brooklyn Museum |
Well, I’m back. I had a conversation with Lizy last night about why I haven’t been blogging lately. How hard it is to motivate myself to write when I get home from the office. How emotionally draining going in every day is. Facing the people who fired me. Keeping a brave face on in front of the coworkers who know I’ve been fired. It takes everything I’ve got to keep it together. And what little I have left goes to writing cover letters, resumes, preparing for interviews (I’ve had two so far).
So the blog has suffered because of that. So has my email correspondence. For those of you who have emailed and posted comments, thank you. I am still alive and kicking, I promise.
As a way to get myself back into the swing of things, I took a trip to the Brooklyn  Museum on Saturday and spent a few hours just wandering around the collection. For those of you New Yorkers who haven’t been there, I highly suggest it. It’s peaceful and quiet. Out of the way enough that the crowds don’t get large at all. Their collection isn’t as extensive as many of the NYC museums, but what it lacks in breadth, it more than makes up for in other ways. These are my thoughts/ramblings while walking through the museum.
It should be noted, I don’t know shit about art. I know everyone says that, but I’m just giving you all a heads up. I use art museums more as a place to escape. I place to reflect, and often, a place to write. There’s something about having the art of others around me that inspires me to try to create something lasting of my own.
* * * * *
Madonna Nursing the Christ Child - Master of the Magdalene Legend
For probably the first time in my life I saw the actualization of a painted scene at the exact moment I was gazing at the painting itself. The portrait was small, maybe a foot and a half tall and less than a foot wide. The vivid red background caught my eye immediately, but I was interested more in what was happening on the bench in front of the image. For there sat a mother, with her back to the painting, nursing her son. We were in a small alcove on the top floor of the museum, an idea spot to nurse out of the public eye. I approached quietly and sat on the opposite end of the bench from the pair, facing towards the painting in order not to disturb the mother, and to write about the beautiful symmetry of the moment. But I was almost immediately distracted by the happy gurgling of the infant to my right, who had apparently decided that staring at me was infinitely more interesting than his mother’s breast.
Being a person in the possession of a uterus, I of course turned and smiled, unable to be the casual observer any longer. The mother smiled at me and simply said “What an ideal spot to nurse, huh?” as she looked over her shoulder at the painting of Mary and the baby Jesus. “If anyone gets upset I can just point them in the direction of the wall. Whenever I take him here with me I always feed him here”.
Sometimes talking to people you’ve been “people watching” can take away from the idealistic thoughts you have going through your head. But I liked the situation even more because of her knowledge of the symmetry.
* * * * *
Visible Storage – Number 49.67
Incantation – Charles Sheeler
One of my favorite portions of the trip was the “Visible Storage” on the fifth floor of the museum. In it, a visitor can walk through one of the museums storage areas, which has been turned into a sort of tutorial on how the museum operates. Kind of a “behind the scenes” look at what it takes to get the galleries looking the way they do. It’s almost awe inspiring to think of the thousands of works they have on hand, hung on sliding walls stacked at least five deep, or shelved in floor to ceiling glass cases, catalogued for ease of use.
 It was here that I saw my favorite piece of the day (see picture). Visual Storage Number 49.67. By using one of the five computers provided in the area, I looked up the description of the work.
“Clean, sharp lines and unmodulated passages of color here create shapes that suggest factories and machinery, aligning this work with the Precisionist style that Charles Sheeler helped to develop. Although the artist intended this painting to be viewed in terms of its abstract design, contemporary audiences often endowed the image with social meaning, lodged in the fear of technology's potential to replace the human workforce. In 1949 a writer for The New York Daily Worker described the painting as "an industrialist's heaven where factories work themselves."”
I loved the image mainly because of it’s simplicity. But it’s interesting to think about the differences in the artists intent and the meaning the audience gleans from it. This happens with everything from painting to sculpture to literature to music. So what’s more important? What the artist actually meant (which in many cases can’t be a question posed to the creator) or what the audience takes away from it? I don’t have an answer, just a question to think about.
* * * * *
Egyptian art doesn’t fascinate me the way that I feel like it should.
* * * * *
I enjoy paintings with vivid colors, sharp contrasts, every day detail. I shy away from portraits of royalty. My taste in visual art, much like my taste in literature, focus on the details. Our every day lives are beautiful and the details of OTHERS everyday lives are fascinating.
Perhaps that’s why blogging has taken off in the manner in which it has. Manny blogging critics will say that the personal blogs we write, these daily musings on nothing, suggest how voyeuristic and self-important, self-indulgent, self-centered, or society has become. But I see it differently. If we can find beauty and intrigue in the minutia of other’s lives, we are in turn reminded of the simple elegance of our own existence. This is probably reading too much into nothing. But I’m in a museum, I’m bound to get overly wordy.Labels: NYC |
| posted by FINY @ Monday, February 06, 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
