brunobaby

Not All Efforts At Rebranding Are Successful

2009-06-18T14:35:00.003-04:00

Like this one, for example.

But I'm still working on mine. In fact, I'm working on two new brands: One personal and one professional.

Watch this space. Not that it'll be here, but you'll be directed to two new spaces.

Ablated and Avulsed, and Ready for Summer

2009-05-18T19:07:00.003-04:00

I went to the vein doctor for the follow-up and bandage removal, and I'm healing just fine if you like big purple bruises. I'm supposed to follow up again in a month.

I had a craving for a Hebrew National hot dog from the Mount Sinai cafeteria a couple of blocks away. They changed the stations around a little since the last time I was there. Also, they now have candy. Also since the last time I was there, I've lost 20 pounds and most of my varicose veins, and my job. But it's not like I've misplaced my job, and it's not even as if somebody else is doing it. The job was done, and now I'm searching for another one to do.

Update

2009-05-11T21:15:00.004-04:00

I haven't abandoned this blog; just posting updates to Facebook and figuring out what's next. Also trying to figure out the season finale of House (okay, so they didn't sleep together?)

At the moment, I'm recovering from the second, probably last, leg vein procedure--smaller bandage and I only have to wear it for a week.

Over at Ambiance, which Amba started because she was tired of Ambivablog, they've been blogging about "is blogging over?" No, it's just changing, like everything else. When I was interested in making sense out of politics, I followed political blogs. Now I'm following recession and job-hunting blogs. So either I'm a dilettante, or different blogs spring up at different times to fill different needs, like pop-up stores.

The next thing I'm going to do, both for income and for online presence, is taking shape. So if you're still reading this, thanks, and if you're not, then you're not reading this.

I Did A Word Cloud of My Resume In Wordle

2009-05-01T21:36:00.001-04:00

And this thumbnail should take you to a size you can read.

Some Genius Thought This Would Be A Good Idea

2009-04-27T21:27:00.001-04:00

A low-flying plane over Lower Manhattan.

They Need Java

2009-04-22T08:31:00.005-04:00

And so do I.

O'Reilly--the tech manual company, not the right-wing talk show host--has this snapshot of IT job market trends. It only goes up to last November, when the economy fell apart, but these trends are expected to continue for the two or three jobs that are still left.

The second most popular skill is SQL, which is database programming, which is the computer job thing I'm considering learning next. When I've told some people this, they've said, "Oh, you don't want to do that, you're creaaaaaaative!" which you'd think would be a compliment, but it's said in a tone of voice that indicates, "Oh, you're not smart, you're Giggles the Clown."

I've also had creative people say to me, "Computers, oh, you'd be good at that. You're smart." And you'd think that would be a compliment, too, but it's said in that tone of voice that means, "Oh please stop trying to be creative, you're an unimaginative geek and you're only causing painful embarrassment to everyone but yourself."

The work I've been doing for the past nineteen years, desktop publishing, was something I got into because there was a growing need for it in companies and a growing need for me to make a living other than trying to make drunks laugh at two in the morning and then getting up four hours later to temp at law firms. My college degree was in graphic design, and I'd already been working with computers since 1983. (Those articles telling Baby Boomers to acquaint themselves with that-there newfangled technology are bogus; most 50-ish people have been using computers for most, if not all, of their working lives.)

But over the past few years, desktop publishing has gotten, excuse the expression, dumbed down. Consumers who've never taken a graphic design class in their lives have a home computer, a desktop printer and a million fonts, and often try to use all of them in the same piece. One of the reasons that I'm currently unemployed is because the department I was working in was becoming obsolete. We found ways to automate the production process so that managers and their assistants could download pre-made presentations off the company intranet. It became apparent to me, although apparently not soon enough, that in order to stay employed, the next thing I would have to learn to do would be to program the company intranet. Either that or stay home and write that novel. And I've found from past experience that when I stay home to write that novel, I don't write...I go window-shopping every day for stuff I don't buy.

So here are some possibilities for me right now:

1. Sign up at temp agencies so I'll have something to make money from, even if it's a day of word processing;

2. Sign up for an IT certificate at a reputable place of higher learning;

3. Join some kind of writers' group so that I will have to show up with some printed matter once in a while and can listen to something other than the sound of my own voice babbling prose like a lunatic.

I've got plenty of fine whines about wanna-be writing workshops, but they'll have to wait for another post. Meanwhile, I think NYU has an open house next week for their data mining intensive. Time to wind up my propeller beanie.

My Favorite Carol Burnett Show Sketch

2009-04-20T18:49:00.004-04:00

The one with Madeline Kahn as an acting coach. It was worth years of therapy to me as an acting student when it first aired in 1976.

It contains one of my all-time favorite lines from anywhere: "Poor baby, she's failed again!"

My Day of Shopping and Death

2009-04-19T18:32:00.003-04:00

Today I read Everyman by Philip Roth, a book about death. It opens with the funeral of this seventy-something guy and then takes you through his life and his experiences with death. In between, there are the usual Roth themes of love, sex, and being a good son. It's a short book and you can read it in a day, especially if you like Philip Roth.

Then I bought this handbag on sale at Amazon to have something nice to carry at interviews. So that was my day: Death and this bag.

Tourist in My Own Town

2009-04-18T20:06:00.003-04:00

This New York Magazine's guide to Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood says:

Right now on Brighton Beach Avenue, the neighborhood’s trestle-shaded thoroughfare, you’re equally likely to bump into the aging eighties arrivals who’ve never left their apartments or upgraded to the pink Oceana complex right nearby; their designer-clad kids jabbering in an amazing mix of gutter Russian, Brooklynese, and teen uptalk; Dominicans and Puerto Ricans making inroads back into the area; Manhattan hipsters out for an ironic evening of vodka and chintzy stage shows at Rasputin or the National; and half-repulsed, half-misty-eyed Russo-Americans like yours truly who have moved on geographically but are still reeled back in from time to time by the siren call of thick ice cream, a dubious DVD, and a jar of really good pickles.

Who the article doesn't mention are third-generation American Jews who pick the first really warm day of the year to tell themselves, "My great-grandparents were from Russia, so I shouldn't have any trouble finding stuff in Brighton Beach." What I forgot was, "Gee, Russia has a different alphabet than the United States!" and I felt like the signs were in Martian.

I'd brought this article with the map and the places to eat, even though I felt like a tourist. Then I figured, let's face it, I'm going to check out a neighborhood I haven't seen in about 40 years and I'm not going there to work or to visit somebody, so I'm going there as a tourist. I was glad I'd brought the map.

I found the Varenichnaya place. It has the Russian equivalent of ravioli. I remembered varnishkes from childhood, with buckwheat groats. Kasha varnishkes. Then I remembered I hated kasha. But the place also had an assortment of dumplings and blintzes and other hearty peasant fare, and every table had this little bottle of condiment made from garlic, oil and paint thinner. There was a TV over the door playing what looked like a Vegas-y variety show in Russian. So I got to be a hipster ironically enjoying a chintzy show.

I carbo-loaded and then went out to plow the fields, but since there are no fields in South Brooklyn I just headed over to this store that had appetizers in bulk and collected a whole bunch of little bags of stuff I would never have thought of buying if I weren't in a store that had appetizers in bulk: Pounds of fruits and nuts and dried beans and grains.

Then I picked up a great deal of produce. The article doesn't tell you about this, but every block has a produce store with a great assortment and price, or at least a great price compared to the Village. Then I went home to the fruits and nuts.

I'll check out other neighborhoods as a tourist, too. It's one of those things you always mean to do when you have the time, and then when you have the time, all you can think is, "I'll do that after I get another job! I can't think of anything except getting another job!" And then you don't check it out after you get the other job. So I'm violating Normal Person Protocol and actually doing it now.

New Biz

2009-04-17T18:39:00.005-04:00

Okay, you should be able to see the business card design that I chose, here.

I was driving myself crazy looking to create something unique and cool: "Look, it's an extreme blow-up of a piece of the Bezier curve tool from Adobe Illustrator! How hip! She must be a real designer!"

Ultimately, I chose this one because it looks PowerPoint template-y, and at the end of the day, that's what I am...The PowerPoint Temp Lady.

End of Compression Stocking Hell

2009-04-17T18:35:00.002-04:00

And the leg is doing well.

The next procedure will be on May 11th. They would have done it today, but they needed authorization from my insurance first.

Insurance...Fixing America's legs one vein at a time.

My Favorite Small Cool

2009-04-15T12:46:00.004-04:00

Here's my favorite entries for Apartment Therapy's Small Cool 2009 contest. Full disclosure: They're all long, narrow tenement apartments just under 300 square feet, like mine. So it's really Apartment Narcissism:

Megan's Changed Outlook

Grace's Efficiency of Mirrors (When you have a tiny apartment, mirrors are your friend)

Garrett's Repurposed Furnishings (Some of the apartments in my building have the three areas made into separate rooms like this...and only the front rooms have windows.)

You may say, "So if you like these so much, Bruno, how come you didn't enter your own apartment this year? Is it low self-esteem? Huh? Huh? I bet it's that, I bet it's low self-esteem."

Well, You, I'm waiting to hear if the building's owner will make certain necessary repairs. In other words, if I posted my pictures now, all of the comments would read, "Nice use of space, but fix your ceiling before it falls on your head."

Ah, teeny-tiny New York City apartments. It may not be much, but it's home.

"I Just Want My Pants Back"

2009-04-14T14:21:00.004-04:00

I've been catching up on my reading while recovering from The Leg. This week I read a great piece of Guy Lit: David J. Rosen's I Just Want My Pants Back. It's about a twentysomething named Jason Strider who lives in a tiny apartment in the West Village, has a suckass job and goes out every night partying and trying to get laid. One review says "It's as if Bright Lights, Big City had been given a polish by a young Woody Allen." It also reminded me of one of my all-time favorite novels, The Breaks. It's like, The Breaks: The Next Generation.

Besides: Tiny apartment in the West Village, partying, suckass job, trying to get laid? Been there, done that, albiet a good twenty years before Jason Strider. And I'm a girl, so it wasn't so much trying to get laid as looking for "a lump of clay I could mold into the Perfect Boyfriend." I could relate to the eventual "taking responsibility" part, though.

Girl on the Brink

2009-04-09T19:14:00.003-04:00

A friend just alerted me to yet another great Unemployment Blogger/One Woman Industry, "Girl on the Brink." Girl blogs under the name "Ann Powers," and she's a writer who's currently doing a stand-up act as well as blogging about her unemployment.

This is a blog and a blog-sona that can easily translate into a Not Just Unemployment Blog, once you're employed.

Now Here's a Good Question

2009-04-05T21:02:00.004-04:00

I've been telling myself, "Only spend money on what you need." Then I saw this book through a link from Recessionwire and I said, "I need this book!"

Okay, did you need this book before you knew it existed?

No.

So why do you need it now?

Because it validates a lot of stuff I already know about changing jobs and careers.

So now the question I'm asking myself is, "How do I make a potential client or employer who didn't even know I existed say about me, 'I need her'?"

Maybe that's in the book, too. Or maybe this compression thing is too damn tight and I'm not thinking straight. But taking the time--while you have the time--to correct a long-standing circulatory condition before you get crazy with job-hunting and career-changing sounds like a "must-do" in my book.

Publicity, and Other Mixed Blessings

2009-04-05T15:20:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite Layoff Bloggers was featured in a Times article today. There's a new term: Layoff Blogger. It's "in" now. It's a new subculture that I didn't realize existed until I myself was laid off.

So should I start a layoff blog dedicated just to my job/career-changing exploits, so I can link to the other Layoff Blogs and be a part of a community? Should I change the name of my existing blog? Should I just go along my merry (ha!) way documenting all of my transitions the way I've been for the past four years?

How about if I become part of a network, like BlogHer? Do I have any helpful hints to share? Yeah: Don't Be Me. Or...Be Me. It depends on what kind of a day I've had.

One of my all-time favorite bloggers is taking a hiatus from blogging, because she's reached an impasse with that particular blog; maybe that particular blog-sonna. I'm going through that right now with the cube, but not the blog. What it feels like right now is that I'm not doing enough with blogging, or not doing something focused. And certainly not marketing my blogging--or any other writing--enough, maybe because then I'd have to take the responsibility to make sure it's consistently good.

Brand Me: I'm A Fine Girl.

PS: More hiatuses. Hiati. Something going around, maybe?

Another Good Reason to Keep Blogging

2009-04-04T12:20:00.003-04:00

Ann Althouse is marrying one of her regular commenters, "Meade." He looks exactly the way I've pictured him...do you ever picture what people look like on blogs, e-mail, Twitter, whatever?

They had a long-distance romance: She's in Madison, Wisconsin and he's from Cincinnati, but he'll be moving to Madison. My romance with Jim started as a long-distance romance: I was here in New York and he was in Philly and would come up here to visit his sister, with whom I used to make the rounds of the comedy clubs. We met on one of those rounds. Eventually, he moved up here with me.

Considering that I spend at least as much time online as I used to spend in comedy clubs, it's not too far-fetched that my social life and eventually possibly my romantic life would be forged partially online. I've already made friends and frenemies alike through e-mail lists and blogs. I've been keeping in touch with people from various eras of my life through Facebook. In the words of my third-grade teacher, it's time to "make an effort," and kick my social networking media up a notch.

See This Leg?

2009-04-02T22:45:00.006-04:00

See this bandage running all the way up my leg? I have to wear it for the next two weeks so that I don't have to wear it every day when I'm 82. It's part of a laser surgery procedure to treat varicose veins in a doctor's office without checking into a hospital. It involves thirteen injections and the smell of burning flesh. And then this itchy bandage.

According to post-op instructions, I'm not to:

1. Sit in one place for too long;

2. Stand in one place for too long;

3. Lie in one place for too long.

Basically, I'm supposed to walk until I drop in my tracks.

I'd better live to be 82.

"She Hardly Updates This Anymore"

2009-03-31T12:42:00.006-04:00

That's what I'm imagining my audient is saying.

I'm okay, just shifting gears. The initial shock/liberation is wearing off, I'm getting things done, ducks in a row, irons in the fire, gorillas in the mist. I'm getting a few minor medical and dental problems treated while I still have the insurance, and settling in for what's going to be a pattern for the next six months or so.

I figure it'll take me at least that long to land something else, either freelance or staff. But unlike past layoffs, I don't feel like the thing I have to do before I start breathing again is to find something else. For one thing, the bodies are still falling. For another, I feel like the main thrust of my life isn't to land another job right away, but to integrate the experiences of the past five-six-seven years.

Sham-Ow!

2009-03-28T22:43:00.003-04:00

ShamWow guy Vince Shlomi charged with violent assault on a prostitute: report

"Fed officials hint recession in final stages"

2009-03-27T12:41:00.001-04:00

I love that headline. It makes the Fed officials sound coy.

I hope we're on the upswing. It'll be the first time I got laid off at the bottom of a recession instead of the top.

Women Who Make Me Laugh Out Loud in the Middle of the Night

2009-03-22T20:54:00.003-04:00

Here's the short list of what I've been reading lately:

The Nanny Diaries, by two ex-nannies, cathartic for anyone who's ever suffered through a Hell job;

Certain Girls, by Jennifer Weiner, who authored In Her Shoes and whose wit on family, sex and suburbia is impeccable;

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. Somebody contributed a bunch of them to the office paperback exchange. I got hooked on them over my vacation, reading four of them by the pool and the light of my Itty Bitty Book Light. Then I found a bunch more at Housing Works Thrift Shop, then a friend of mine gave me five more. By the time I've finished reading them, Janet Evanovich will have written another five.

Clothes Make the Job

2009-03-21T21:43:00.008-04:00

I almost bought a pair of shoes today that would have cost an entire unemployment check. In the job I've just left, this wouldn't have been unusual; women half my age were running around in heels that cost twice that much, and $3500 suits. What was unusual was that these shoes were a European comfort brand and the style would have been both too casual and too avant-garde for that office.

It wasn't the price of the shoes that deterred me, or the style, but the fact that somehow I'm between two sizes right now and the pair in the smaller size was a little too tight in the toe box and the pair in the larger size was like a couple of canal boats. Otherwise I would have bought those too-casual, too-avant-garde $400 shoes.

I've been doing stuff like that a lot lately. My practicality, which is as nervous and stammery as Leo Bloom, tells me to buy a suit and pumps. "You have to find another job in a large multi-national corporation," it advises. "You can't wear jeans and sneakers forever!" Then I go buy a new pair of jeans and a boyfriend jacket.

They say "dress for the job you want," and my Inner Tim Gunn must know where I want to work next more than I do. And since start-ups may be doing better six months from now than any multi-national corporation in the news, perhaps I can trust him and listen.

Put on Your Winter Coat, It's the First Street Fair of Spring

2009-03-21T21:40:00.004-04:00

There's another one in the neighborhood tomorrow, same vendors. By three weeks from now I'll be like: "Ugh, a street fair."

Rent-A-Desk

2009-03-17T14:57:00.007-04:00

In the spring of 2004, I was getting burned out at my job and ready to make a move. One of my plans was, "I'll quit and stay home and write."

Fortunately, I've been blessed with common sense, and it said, "Bruno, if you quit, you will not stay home and write. You will go window-shopping every day for things you will never buy." Besides, my husband had been recently laid off from his advertising job and our apartment was 300 square feet, and Jim was, to put it mildly, a tireless conversationalist.

Although the idea of spending money when I don't know when I'll be making any causes me to break out in automatic writing, I briefly considered the idea of renting office space, or at least cubicle space. I would have a place where I could focus on whatever I needed to do, free from the distractions of listening, talking and shopping. "It's not you, honey," I'd tell my husband, "it's me. I'm undisciplined."As if I'd really get away with that from someone who'd lived with me long enough to know I alphabetized my socks.

Unfortunately, Jim was diagnosed with advanced cancer shortly after, and the same common sense said "you'd better hold onto this job until you see what's gonna happen."

Now, deposited gently on the shores of Layoff Land, I'm again considering renting a little space. For one thing, space in New York is considerably easier to get than it was in 2004. More importantly, it may help supply me with the structure I need, now that the one imposed by a 9 to 5 job has been yanked out from under me. I'd have a reason to get up at 6:30 and put on business casual instead of typing in my sweats watching "What Not To Wear."

It's definitely on the list, the one headed "The Economy Is Falling Apart Anyway, So It's Okay to Join the Circus." It remains to be seen whether I do it as an individual or a business, use it as a launching pad to search for another staff job or go out on my own. Or perhaps I'll just stop alphabetizing my socks and make the next move, and let things sort themselves out as they will.