Happy Times in Stevenland
Thanks for all of the birthday wishes.
I am happier now than I have been on a birthday since 2007, when I was in Vegas shooting models for the Best of the Best TV show and partying at the Playboy Club atop the Palms.
I have good news to report. I GOT A JOB!
The recruiter in North Carolina called on Thursday to say an employer (who I shall not name yet because I don’t want to jinx it) had given the go-ahead to hire me for a telecommuting position as a blogger/aggregator for its web site, which takes trending info from Facebook and Twitter to list for us copywriters what to write about. I’m sure I will have more to tell you soon, but I am sort of in limbo at the moment, hired but not yet put on an assignment. I’m very happy to get back to work — full-time day job work, that is, since my freelance efforts have kept me plenty busy. This new job will have me writing for a readership of MILLIONS. It will take my career to an all-new level, just when I was afraid I was starting over from scratch. Whew!…
This difficult experience has taught me to never stop adding skills, keep at the networking and always be looking for your next job, even if you are perfectly happy with the one you’ve got! This was the first time I was unemployed in my life, so I didn’t know what to expect. The pre-layoff anxiety was actually far more harrowing than the actual time out of a job, just because it’s hard to focus on doing your job when you’re worried about losing it and trying to squeeze in time to find your next gig. I’m grateful that my old bosses at MAV gave me a head’s up they’d sold the TV network to new owners and I needed to start the job search before I was let go two days before Christmas last year. I always keep an emergency fund in savings, just for unexpected crap like this, and I had almost completely exhausted that. Yikes!
To anyone reading this who is unemployed right now… Please keep your chin up. I know how depressed you feel right now, but one phone call literally changed my entire mood, giving me a sense that a weight had been lifted off my back. I was first contacted by the recruiter about this position the week after Christmas (got the call while I was sitting in the New Orleans Coyote Ugly getting hammered, LOL). I took two “tone tests” to make sure I could write in their style, then I interviewed with one of the big guys at the top of the corporation. I hadn’t heard anything from them since March 6, so I had pretty much written this one off as another futile exercise. Just a couple of days before, I’d been rejected by the publisher of a new magazine and a video game company hiring copywriters. So don’t despair. Preservere. You may feel exhausted and weary, but a phone call or email saying you’re hired may be just around the corner. It took them 16 days to call and tell me they wanted to hire me. Don’t give up!
I’m happy to say I’m working on some pretty cool freelance stuff, as well. The BikiniMarketing.com website is coming together nicely, with an expected launch in April. I also had an idea for a new website, which I may describe to you guys later once I have all of my ducks in a row.
Man, when it rains, it pours!
My Sweet Oasis 