How I became a money pit without even knowing it

My reaction exactly, Tom Hanks!

Finance is one of my least favorite subjects in the world - to talk about, write about, read out, or think about. Basically, I could go the rest of my adult life never uttering or hearing another utter a syllable that relates in any way to money. But unfortunately, when I say "finance" here, I'm also referring to my own finances. I've known that this ignorance-is-bliss approach to my cash stash makes a true recipe for personal ruin, if not macro-level, national disasters (Financial meltdown of '08). So after some nudging, in the form of unexpected bills, I've forced myself to take a cold hard look at the reality. And its not pretty, friends.

Alright, I'm exaggerating a little. Its not that bad. I'm not going to be belting out "Hard Knock Life" on street corners for pennies anytime soon. I will, however, be belting out "Hard Knock Life" on street corners for fun, so get ready Seattle! But.. its definitely time that I begin to really assess my spending habits, and re-think my relationship to money.

I am, after all, an adult. Gulp.


You might think that this last sentence conceals a deeply embedded fear of growing up, that my disregard to spending marks a subconscious desire to remain forever young. But its really much more complicated than that. When offered money by family members, I typically turn it down. I've preferred to be financially independent for as long as I've had the means (aka, a job). In that sense, I've actually welcomed the financial responsibilities accumulating after college. Yet these responsibilities of mine were only sort of there, in the same way that you'll tell people you're doing one thing and believe you're doing that same thing. But your actions - and in this case, transactions show otherwise. There was a discrepancy between the responsibilities I claimed to want, and the way I was holding myself accountable for them. Essentially, I made a financial agreement with myself that was far too broad, lenient, and carried out sans intention. In the past month, my friends heard me repeatedly aspire to save more and spend less; yet an hour after my fifth grand proclomation that month, I'd be lounging comfortably in a booth sipping a G&T with my gals! Or, I would come up with a "budget", probably something written on a napkin at lunch and then tossed into my purse where it would sit for days. And though those numbers would remain in my consciousness faintly, they weren't present enough for me to refrain from that fateful shopping trip to Whole Foods. 

Wait, now I'm actually feeling nostalgic at the memory of the past few months, because - and I have to be honest - I lived like a modern day, middle class, urban princess! And you know what? It was incredible! The past couple months of my life have been one huge celebration of everything: my friends' accomplishments, my friends' birthdays, my friendships, my accomplishments, my non-accomplishments, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays...you get the picture, right? If I do a mental re-cap, I was actually living the kind of life I'd always imagined I'd be living at 23. A life that was full of adventure and challenges (trapeze and mountain climbing), great food and drink (both home-cooked and eaten-out), culture (live music, art, theatre). And I got to share it all with some of the best friends in existence. 


I realize that changes are necessary and I'm fully prepared to make them. I'm looking forward to meeting a realistic and smart budget, thanks to this neato site (it even texts you the second you go over your alloted spending). I'm looking forward to saving. I have lived incredibly over the past few months, and its time to start paying for it. Yes, literally and figuratively. And while it was ugly for a few days to take a good hard look at things, it was necessary. I'm learning. I'll find new ways to have my fun that won't require swiping the plastic. And I'm not going to wallow about my new strict budget, or bemoan the loss of my beloved nightcaps at Flowers. 


Because I am an adult now, and I guess that's just what adults are supposed to do. Hey, look, I didn't even gulp that time! 

Just Like a Woman

Kathryn Bigelow accepting her Oscar for Best Director - Click for picture credit

It's International Women's Day today (which I had never heard of until last night when I looked at my day planner, probably because its not an official holiday in the U.S.) and so, how fitting it is that on a day dedicated to celebrating the social, political, economic, and artistic achievements of women around the globe; here in the U.S., we just witnessed a woman take home a Best Directing Oscar for the very first time. Obviously, this achievement pales in signficance to those with truly resounding, large-scale impacts elsewhere, but I believe Kathryn Bigelow's win last night is far from frivolous. Its easy to get get excited when someone becomes the first to do something and even to promote and advocate for it just for novelty's sake. But I think there's so much more to this occasion than just the ability to say this marks 'a first'.

Watching the three and half hour long telecast, the prevalence of gender divisions within the film/media industry - like so many others - was more than obvious. The nominees in categories such as best screenplay, editing, sound mixing, special effects, cinemotography were predominantly male; while women's presence was visible only in the costume and makeup categories. And of course, women were most visible in the audience as beautiful, luminous, sparkling actresses. Not that there's anything wrong with being beautiful and sparkling - but it was an all-too-rare and inspiring moment to see a woman honored not for her work in front of the camera, but behind it. And yet, her movie itself was far removed from any of the politics inherent in the subject matter, a decision that allowed this story to unfold simply, beautifully, powerfully. This was not just a fantastic film by a woman director, this was a fanastic film, period.

Watching Ms. Bigelow accept her award, I couldn't help but think of how this moment had the potential to erase or at least make less visible those limitations and divisions found in the Kodak Theatre and beyond; how more women in film might  be encouraged (rather than turned away) to make movies which are not about love, fashion, and/or how to be fashionable while finding love. The significance of the moment has implications for women even beyond those in film; for the women whose stories might be shared as a result of outstanding female filmmakers like Kathryn Bigelow, and for the millions of women who might be impacted in an invariable number of ways by these films, no longer relegated to small-scale, independent, and limited distributions.

Because as we can see, the U.S. has been less than active in promoting gender equality via policy; seemingly miniature milestones like this, and their ensuing patterns are then increasingly vital. Living in a large, progressive city and working alongside an abundance of influential, talented women, my reality is often deceptive. But its not hard to see there is still a long way to go to attain equal status in the everyday spaces we occupy. While we can look at women's earnings and work/leisure ratios in comparison to men, in fact, it seems the largest and most impactful inequalities are the ones so ingrained, so commonplace, that identifying or describing them is near impossible without looking outside of our immediate scope. To be sure, the work of women and men committed to these causes is relentless and ongoing, 365 days a year. However, this one dedicated day to applaud and examine their accomplishments thus far has some useful qualities, namely, to encourage discussions on where future efforts might be directed. It is time for women's voices to be given equal weight in the spaces we inhabit, locally and globally. Whether the changes that occur are tangible or symbolic is not so important. And while I was thrilled to celebrate last night's first, I'm looking forward to the fifths, the tenths, and the twentieths.

Update: NYTimes article on the impact of Bigelow's win, and what her refusal to be an explicitly "female-director" means: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/movies/14dargis.html?ref=global-home

just a poem

Photo credit: ME via flickr

Just a poem for today, to welcome March, and the weekend, and the new spring with the widest of embraces. There's just no better way to describe this feeling or this day or this season, and no better way to honor what has been lost, or left behind over the winter's course. No better way to come out of the season's perpetual shade than by thanking the trees which lend it.

--------

Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

-Jane Kenyon

On irony, and the importance of being earnest

I am so proud to include my first literary reference in my blog! My English degree is all Jennifer Lopez: 

LIVE 'IN LIVING COLOR'!

Nearly six months ago, I was tiredly searching for a job and felt like I had exhausted all potential contacts, all avenues for revenue-gains, all cover letter templates, and worst of all, myself. My countless applications yielded little responses, and even less interviews. Those interviews yielded no offers, and well, you can see the pattern there.. And then, on one unassuming Monday afternoon, I got a call from the temp agency I had interviewed with a month earlier, to begin a job the next morning at 8 am. Fifteen hours later, I was planted in front of a computer screen and phone, answering job-seekers questions about their applications and resumes. It could not have been more ironic if it were in that Alanis Morrisette song (which, can we please talk about how someone should have proofread those lyrics because sister can't tell irony from just plain bad luck). Yet I quickly learned how perfecly the stars had been aligned in my favor, because this job was providing me with a birds' eye view of the hiring practices and structural layout at a major organization, one that I had been trying to break into for months. My mouth was foaming in those first few days at the expanse of information that was literally at my eager fingertips. If they only knew who they hired to put in this chair, I kept thinking to myself. Of course, my scope was more narrow in the larger scheme of things - the organization's size, and state-affiliation make it a not so average example; but still, this was a temp job that would prove tremendously valuable considering the short amount of time it has lasted.

Most importantly: I've gained some badly-needed perspective. On the job market, on the ins and outs of hiring, on the politics of office relations, on the incompetencies of massive institutions. Not to mention the technical incompetencies of waaay too many people out there. For instance, did you know there are professionally employed people in this country who do not have the technical capacity to copy and paste? Well there are, and I hope that I talked to all of them in the past six months, otherwise America's computer literacy is in worse shape than I ever thought possible. But all joking aside, this has been the part of the job I found to be the most enjoyable. I will generously estimate that I have spoken to thousands of candidates in this time, many unemployed, many desperately, desperately needing work. They have run the gamut of all spectrums, in profession, economic class, and ethnicity. I've spoken to custodians from Ethiopia and millionaire CEOs in China. They all wanted a job, and they all wanted me to help. Many of these conversations played out politely, generically. But many were wrought with anger, frustration, sadness as their various situations were described. And while there have been times that I've been thankful for the phone receiver that divides me and the caller, or given myself a headache from rolling my eyes too far back into my head; on the whole, I've actually been touched by these conversations in which people share so much of themselves. Their openness inspired my own honesty, and I hope its safe to admit that sometimes, I gave more help than was "officially" allowed. I never accepted bribes - bizarre, but there were offers - or gave out information that would give a candidate an unfair advantage, but I always gave my most earnest and sincere responses, no matter how many times I had to give them. And this approach wasn't only applied to clients (as those are the rules of customer service, after all), but to supervisors and co-workers as well. My ability to be sincere in my interactions and direct in my requests from them, ultimately, leads me into my next job. 

Earnestness in the workplace is something to strive for always. For all its power, it is undervalued and underused. Imagine if we all communicated with eachother with the utmost honesty; if we felt we were allowed to say what we mean to say at our jobs, within the codes of civility, of course.

So now, for old-times sake, I will reflect on a few additional take-away lessons as I prepare to depart this "little job that would":

-A back-slash can mean different key-strokes for different folks:You say  \  I say  / . Its best to describe this as "the symbol that shares a key with the question mark" just to err on the side of safety.

-If someone comes into the office thinking they've been shot, kindly offer them a seat but do not engage in prolonged eye contact even when they begin to talk about hot-button topics like gay marriage or Lindsay Lohan.

-Lastly, when someone smiles at you, smile back. When someone says 'thank you', thank them as well. It is these moments that brighten a dull day, and its only the least we can do. The very, very least.

"Y" is for "YUCKIES"..?

The Times' Ben Schott features this recently coined acronym in his vocab blog today; thereby infuriating hundreds of thousands of young people around the world. Or maybe just me. To let him off the hook, Scott wasn't the one who came up with the term, which stands for "Young Unwitting Costly Kids"; and in fact, no one seems to be taking credit for this sweet little nickname which manages to both insult and deflate the morale of its 20-something namesakes. Schott pulls the word from an article written by a self-proclaimed YUCKIE herself (pushing 30, I hardly feel she can call herself a 'kid' but that's a whole 'nother story) who goes into the boggy statistics behind the word. To sum it up, Gen Y is eating up their parents' 401K savings accounts, regular savings accounts, vacation cruise, and emergency savings accounts - as if their lives depended on it. Because with unemployment hovering around 50% for this age bracket, their lives, or at least their livelihood, indeed do depend on it. And they're eating up a lot more than just money, as scores of them head for greener pastures - and stocked cupboards - in their parents' homes. These are apparently called the 'boomerang' kids, but make no mistake, as the article mentions a half million 35-44 year olds moved back in with Mom & Dad in the UK last year. But no worries, the parents do get to join in on the fun of having a new generational nickname! Now dubbed the "baby-gloomers", they face growing financial uncertainty and with that, a less rosy picture of retirement as a result of their adult children's postponed professional incomes.

You know what I want to say to that? Boo-hoo. Thankfully, the author quickly changes her tune midway through the article and adopts the same tough love approach. I've got a mountain full of gratitude for my parents and the various types of support they've given me without question, but we cannot expect to feel sympathy for the set of Americans who embarked on their adult paths during an era of low-cost higher education, and unparalleled economic prosperity and growth; when one could realistically expect to retire at age 65, sell their house for more than they paid, and drive their motor home around the country without guilt of carbon emissions. Yes, in case you were uncertain, that was feigned romanticism. But the reason we shouldn't feel sorry is because that will only make us feel guilty and we all know what a mess that can lead to.


Times are tough right now. But I don't believe in feeling guilty for being where we are (or where we aren't) or sorry for anyone, not even my generation whose professional development and subsequent lifetime earning potential will take a dramatic nosedive in comparison to previous generations, including those 'baby gloom and doomers'. I'll even go one step further to say that I'm glad this change is taking place. Because although job security and guaranteed pension sounds great, these things also meant you were expected to stay in one place for the majority of your working life. At one company. At one job - or maybe a couple if you count promotions and such. We've seen enough dramatizations, both real-life and staged, of the mid-century businessman to realize that this formula has a serious tendency of producing depressed, creatively stifled and claustrophobic individuals (in movies, always with drinking problems). This outdated  model also meant that the company had ultimate control over the direction of one's career, or at least, more control than they have now.  I'm happy about the predictions that show our generation will be changing jobs something like every 18 months, and shifting through sectors and careers at a pace of about every 5-7 years. Doesn't this just mean more opportunities for growth, for success? For innovation to occur more rapidly? For people to have greater autonomy over decisions regarding work and the way they fit work into their lives? I wish more people would begin to embrace the change, rather than lamenting the loss of 'securities' which were tenuous to begin with. And so what? You're 27 and living with your parents, or you're 58 and you've got a 30-year old in your basement.  Imagine the types of cross-generational intelligence that could be fostered within these new models, and the benefits it could bring to our towns and communities. The picture may not be the rosiest one, but it sure isn't black. 

I'm hoping for the quick demise of this insulting and inaccurate term. We are young, and certainly costly, but we are far from unwitting. My impression is that we're fighting to overcome the challenges we're facing, through hard work, acute awareness, and passion that fuels it all. So...that would make: H.W.A.A.P.? Alright, we'll work on that too.

How do you know when to "Just say no"?

I just wanted an excuse to put up a picture of these lively business-dames. Photo credit

A few weeks ago I was being considered for a position that was, on the surface, probably as close to a dream job as I could hope for right now. Out of hundreds of applicants, I was lucky enough to be given an opportunity to interview. Of course, I did my research on the job and the organization, making calls to people in my network to get more information. I spoke with the individual I would be interviewing with, and he described the parameters of the position in detail to me. I may be slightly above entry-level, but I quickly assessed in this five minute phone call that this position was for an established professional. And while I met all the requirements listed on the job posting, they were obviously needing someone with extensive experience. Experience that I didn't have. I fought back the quiet 'no's' in my head at first, telling myself I'd find out more at the interview and perhaps my lack of experience wasn't that important. Because after all, they had decided to interview me. When it came time for the interview, I was prepared and enthusiastic. I channeled my inner young professional like I never knew I could (see Bette Midler's Sadie in Big Business, minus the flip phone and shoulder pads, although that would have been awesome). But still, that feeling that this would be too much, that I wasn't ready, persisted; and in the days following, I started carrying the heaviest of heavyweight feelings: Guilt. I was Guilty for not being grateful enough for all the connections that had helped me land that interview, Guilty for not being ambitious enough to take a risk, Guilty for not being more forthcoming in the interview, miming Bette's cucumber cool self-assurance like my life depended on it, Guilty for lying to myself and the Director about my readiness to take on such a huge responsibility (I won't go into details, but trust me, it was huge). Just about everyone I had the guts to confide my doubts to basically told me I'd be crazy to say no. I didn't even ask my Dad because I knew the force of his response over the phone would propel me backwards into the nearest wall. When I finally consulted my most-trusted former colleages, their advice was to simply wait and see what the Director would decide. Two weeks passed as I twiddled my thumbs, anxiously wondering what I would decide to do if I was in fact, offered the job. And well, as you can imagine with all this guilty, greasy build-up, I never had to make that decision because they went with a different candidate.


The thing is, from a very young age, we are taught how to 'just say no'. Say no to drugs, say no to peer pressure and toxic friends and bad relationships. We've finally allowed ourselves to say "no" to our co-workers, to our families and our closest friends when their demands become too much. Its even becoming culturally acceptable to turn down promotions in the notoriously ultra competitive Japanese business world . Basically, the logic follows that if the proposal in question is not the right fit - Will you work more hours? Will you watch my dog? Will you marry me? - we can and should say no. And even though I didn't have to say no to this job (someone else said it for me), I wondered if our ability to say no isn't inversely proportionate to our age.

It seems there is some widely accepted rule that says college grads have to hungrily lap up anything and everything that is offered up to us, and gone are the days when it gets offered on a silver platter (were there ever days like that?). And as we get older, it seems we flex our 'nixing' muscles more and more. But should we really be saying 'yes' to anything - even if its eons away from the field we want to be in or requires much more time/experience/whatever than we are currently able to give it? For those who know their talents and capacities, their passions and areas of interest, I'd like to shout a big fat, "NO"! But this is something I hear very little discussion about; even thinking about writing this post caused my guilt to come creeping back.  So I would love to hear what others think...

I'll raise a glass to that

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately, letting my mind settle on events and periods of the past which it normally only skims, like to recall the address of my first job in high school for a job application (so unnecessary, by the way). Lately the image in my rearview mirror is Drake University, my would-be alma mater. The memory of this place which I entered so full of unbridled hope and innocent dreams as an 18-year-old Girl from the North Country is a complicated one for me; one that I have not spent much time looking back on, because, well, I was busy moving forward. But in fact, now I'm beginning to see what it represents in my life: my ambition to strike out into unknown territory and seek a world and life of my own making. I did not know a single person at Drake, I'd never even been to Iowa. Rather than feeling unnerved, I was thrilled. In my mind, this was where my journalist-self would establish her roots, and blossom. I imagined it as a short pit stop on my way to bigger things in bigger cities.

Instead, what it wound up being was an even shorter pit stop on my way to bigger universities (in bigger cities). The decision to leave Drake was relatively easy (my friendships there were, by and large, the biggest loss), yet in the wake of my undergraduate education, I have often caught myself thinking about this place; what it means now, and what it might have meant had I stayed. I'm aware; this is a dangerous and some might say pointless game  to play, so I limit my "What If's" to just a few. And really, its only through observing the progress and achievements of my fellow classmates and friends that naturally, I've begun to wonder if my path might have been similar. I've been tracking their progress via Facebook which I'll admit is kind of weird but not so weird that I won't admit I'm doing it. Many of the folks with whom I sat through David Wright's Journalism 101 class are now doing pretty amazing things and I can't help but feel in awe of the fact that they're doing it. It, meaning the exact thing they (and I) set out to do when we set our wobbly feet on Drake's campus four years ago. Maybe my admiration is simply caused by the twisty, prickly path I ending up following, but I believe its more than that. Because how many college grads out there are doing anything that even slighltly resembles what they intended to do six months, a year, even two years out of school? Even nursing and engineering students are having a tough time making that happen. So, I raise my glass to those Drake grads, and fondly remember all the glasses we raised together during that funny, fumbling, freshman year.

One other note to make about Drake. During our freshman invocation, the University President gave us one piece of advice: Be really adaptable. It's simple. Not too impressive-sounding. Yet, even though I never would adapt to life at Drake, I carried that lesson with me to the next two universities and believe that now more than ever, there has never been a greater need for adaptability. The successes - and failures - of Gen Y will be measured almost entirely by our capacity to act as chameleons in our professional lives, to not only adapt to change, but most usefully, to anticipate it. (Please read the terrific article on job-hopping by Rebecca Modite, particularly if you're feeling down in the unemployed-dumps. Did you read it? Good, now grab your swords and fight the nay-saying hordes!)

So looking back, good ol' Drake and I weren't the failure I once imagined us to be. There's a lot to be pulled from that time, and I will no longer be so quick to simply skim the surface of those memories and lessons, including how to adapt to situations and surroundings. And life. Yes, I'd say that's certainly something to toast.