The Space Between College and Real Life.
Posted: July 6, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Guest Post by Whitney Granneman
Growing up is hard.
Now that I’ve shared that hard truth with you, let’s begin.
Everyone tells you after you graduate high school you become a grown up.
Not true.
I graduated high school in 2007, and I didn’t begin to feel like an adult until… well… about a month ago when I graduated college. Your professors, parents and friends try to prepare you, giving you ominous warnings like, “Wait until you have to have a real job” or “College goes by very fast.” Unfortunately your parents are almost always right.
It isn’t until you are out of the shelter of being a college student that you realize a few things.
Here’s a few life lessons I’ve learned in the past month since I graduated from college.
First: college goes by WAY too fast. If you’re still in college reading this thinking that I’m wrong, think about how fast last year went. Think about how fast high school went. If you think I’m wrong, bookmark this page and read it after you graduate.
Second: you will NOT get your dream job right out of college. It just doesn’t happen. You have all these dreams your senior year about how life will be after you graduate and you wake up and you’ve graduated and you’ve sent out 500 resumes and not heard back.
You need to pick your ego up off the ground, dust it off, relax and apply somewhere else. When I graduated I really wanted to work at Target Corp, but they didn’t have any positions that I qualified for, so I looked somewhere else. And I kept looking and looking… Anyway I don’t need to tell you about the economy. Any job you can get, you should at least consider.
Third: you need to be enthusiastic wherever you end up working. Why? Because no one wants to work with someone who complains all the time. If you don’t like the place you got hired, continue to search. Something like over half of employed people are actively looking for employment elsewhere. In the meantime be the nicest happiest person you can be so that maybe if you find that dream job you can use your current position as a reference and if nothing else it’s a great learning experience.
More about the author: Whitney Granneman graduated in May from Carthage College with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and Communications. She just moved back home to Minneapolis, MN where her job search continues. She’s currently working a temporary position and getting some office experience under her belt to beef up her resume and gain some new skills.
Mid-Year Check In
Posted: July 1, 2011 Filed under: Positive Thinking | Tags: book club, Goal Setting, job, New Year's, resolutions, running Leave a comment »How are your 2011 New Years Resolutions Coming Along?
In December/January most of us set resolutions for ourselves such as getting in shape, eating healthier, etc…
I hate the idea of New Year’s Resolutions because:
- You’re coming off a bender of holidays, delicious food, parties and bad eating habits. January is really nothing more than a holiday hangover. When trying to get back on track from 2 months of bad eating setting rigid resolutions is not the way to get back on track.
- You don’t need a new year in order to make changes and improve yourself. Additionally you don’t need to let yourself go just because it’s the end of the year.
- Anytime I make a new year’s resolution to eat healthy I feel like I’m setting myself up for failure because my birthday is the 2nd week in January and my birthday is the one day a year I allow myself to eat as much birthday cake as I possibly want which typically conflicts with “eating healthy”.
Anyway, this past New Year I decided to make some resolutions since I was still unemployed, so here they are, but remember, you don’t have to wait until 2012 to make resolutions.
- Read 1 Book a Month: On track (actually I’m almost done with my 7th book). I joined a book club which helped and I made sure to read books that I really loved. I know this seems like very few books, but I read mostly blogs and articles which is why I decided to read more actual books.
- Run a 5K: Ok, so I’m not even close to this goal… I stopped working out a few months ago when life got crazy, but I’ve started eating healthier again and am working to incorporate more physical activity into my daily activities (i.e. gardening, watering, dancing to entertain my hubbie cause I’m terrible, etc…) and I’m hoping to join a gym and get back on track.
- Get a job: It’s a temp job but I like it, I get to work with some cool people, pursue outside interests and make some money.
Remember, there’s no time like the present to set your own goals so don’t wait until December 31st set some goals and improve yourself.
What Motivates You?
Posted: June 27, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bungalow, growth, ideas, learning, motivation, Penelope Trunk, Target Corp. Leave a comment »
I’ve been struggling to blog the past few months… Whether it’s lack of time, subject, energy, etc… But all of those things don’t seem to matter when I really want to do something. For instance I always find time to check my e-mail, Facebook and sometimes Twitter (although I’ve been neglecting that…) and somehow I always find time to watch 16 and Pregnant every Tuesday. It’s strange how priorities work, huh?
I read a post from one of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk and she said:
if you are thinking that you are blogging because you are going to earn money from it, think again. Blogging is about ideas, self-discovery, and growth. And anyone who lives a life about ideas and self-discovery will be worth more in the workplace, no matter who else is reading your blog.
Those are the reasons I started blogging. I’ll admit, it would be nice to make some extra dough but really that’s not what motivates me.
So, in the spirit of self-discovery, ideas and growth I’m going to compose a list of goals/what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning:
- Buying an old Victorian/Bungalow style house and fixing it up. I know this will be a long painful process but I’ve already come up with the name for the online posts I’ll do relating to said house: Amanda: Weekend Warrior Princess
- Learning. Right now I’m learning about analytics (specifically web), a few months ago I taught myself Dreamweaver and Flash (still a work in progress) but I love finding something new that catches my fancy and mastering it.
- Working for Target Corp. I’ve wanted to work at Target Corp for longer than I care to admit and in the past I guess I’ve always told myself “they wouldn’t want me” or “how would I EVER get in there with all those amazing people?!” but I’m pretty awesome too and I want in. I’d be an awesome addition and I really love Target, which brings me to my next goal…
- Working for a company I truly believe in and working with good people. While I’ve worked with A LOT of cool people and for good companies, working for Target would be like an Elvis enthusiast going to Graceland… (ok, the analogy needs work but you get my point and if not- leave a comment!)
Moonlighting
Posted: June 10, 2011 Filed under: Graphic Design, Positive Thinking | Tags: cover letter, graphi, Graphic Design, interior design, job, nutritionist, Resume Mascara, temp, The Y Mightier, writer Leave a comment »As per usual life has taken a 180, in a good way. I’m currently so busy I can barely see straight, which as the hubbie reminds me, is when I do my best work. I’ve got an office temp job which keeps me out of trouble during the days (read here to see how well it’s going…) and at night I’ve been moonlighting as a web/graphic designer, writer [check out my latest article], interior designer (kind of…), and nutritionist. In addition to that I’ve been working with a career consultant/angel who’s been helping me improve my cover letter writing skills (of which until a few days ago I had none…)
Needless to say I’m feeling pretty good about life in general. I love being busy and I firmly believe that if I keep working hard at all my “jobs” it’s going to pay off. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and what’s even better is that I’m a productive member of society once again and each “job” fulfills me in some way.
Temp Office Job: Although the job isn’t going swimmingly (as you may know if you clicked the link above) I get to work with some great people and this job gets me out of bed in the morning and gives me a reason to look fabulous everyday which somehow just makes me feel more important…
Web/Graphic Designer: I get to create things from scratch and once again work with some awesome people! Web design especially feeds my logical and creative sides. I love designing pages, but I also love going into the code and figuring new things out.
Writer: Writing is especially exciting for me because it’s a new skill that I’m cultivating and I honestly didn’t know I had. For years I just accepted that I was a mediocre writer at best, but I’m starting to gain some confidence and I’m really enjoying it. (Check out my weekly post on Resume Mascara entitled: Are You There Job? It’s Me, Amanda and The Y Mightier where I’ve had 2 articles published thus far).
Interior Design: It’s a bit of a stretch since I’m just helping my parents finish off their basement to make it into a nice living space, but I’ve always LOVED interior design so this is more of a fun hobby.
Nutritionist: I’ve always been interested in nutrition but lately my mom, sister and I have been looking into a gluten free diet. My mom thought we should cut out dairy too, but the thought of cutting out dairy made me lose my desire to live, so for now we’re just gluten free. It’s been a lot of fun learning and researching gluten and gluten free meals and considering I’ve been off the healthy eating bandwagon for longer than I care to admit, it’s nice to get back into it.
Although I’ve been super busy, and by the time my head hits the pillow I’m out, I’m feeling great. I’ve got my old world conquering attitude back and as I stated above, I know good things are going to happen (especially since they already are).
Boodle & Boodle or Boodle & Bobbin?
Posted: June 3, 2011 Filed under: Graphic Design | Tags: Boodle & Boodle, Chris Farley, design, Graphic Design, Shameless Promotion, Telient, Whitney Leave a comment »My sister and I are hoping to start a graphic design company. Right now we’re in the preliminary stages and we’re trying to drum up some business and come up with an official name as well as design our website, you know, just the usual stuff…
As for our name, well for longer than I care to admit we’ve called each other Boodle. Whitney calls me Boodle and I call her Boodle. Sometimes we mix it up and change it to Noodle, Roodle, Caboodle, Snoodle, Doodle, Newtie (complements of Chris Farley playing Newt Gingrich on SNL) and the list goes on…
Anyway, that’s why we’re thinking of calling our design firm Boodle & Boodle or something like that, personally I really like the name Boodle & Bobbin.
We’ve already started work on our first collaboration. It’s the new and improved Telient Website (version 2.0). She completed something like 12 banners while I did the rest of the work (which really sounds like a lot, but I had a lot of it complete from the first time around) and I must say the website looks great and we’re hoping to have it online by Monday June 5th.
Anyway, between the two of us we’re a fierce design team to be reckoned with!
InDesign and Dreamweaver are my specialties and Illustrator and Photoshop are her specialties with our skills combining to create graphics like you’ve never seen (ok, well, that’s quite the statement, but I’m hopeful that eventually it will be true…)
Now, if we could only agree on business cards we’d be in business… literally.
Now, for my shameless plug:
If you or someone you know are looking to have some design work done (be it business cards, a website, brochures, etc…) let us know! We can be contacted at: (Amanda) ajgranneman@gmail.com and/or (Whitney) wgrannemaw@gmail.com.
I’m Baaaack
Posted: June 2, 2011 Filed under: Landing a Job, Unemployment | Tags: DIY Supercenter, family, friends, Minnesota, moving, NC 1 Comment »
Assuming you look at the dates of my blog you’ll notice I haven’t posted much lately…
Over the past few months I quit my job at DIY Supercenter after my manager told me she didn’t like me… (no joke) and decided I’d had enough of North Carolina. No offence NC, but I missed home. I missed MN, I missed the familiar faces, friends, family, the accents, the Minneapolis skyline and the list goes on.
So, a few weeks ago I submitted my notice to DIY Supercenter, packed up my car, bought a bunch of dog toys for my dog to not play with while driving back to MN and left for the longest and worst drive of my life.
Not only did I drive literally for 16 and a half hours straight (stopping only for gas and potty breaks) but I tweaked out on caffeine, had my dog freak out and literally jump under my legs while driving through one lane construction and got to drive through the Appalachian Mountains with a 4 cylinder 1998 Honda CR-V packed to the gills with stuff.
Since my husband will be moving back a few weeks after me I also had about sixteen and a half hours to think… and sing along to various mix CD’s, but mostly think. I thought about “What if I’m moving back and I still can’t find a job”, or “What if I get a call from one of those jobs I applied for in NC?” and my favorite “What if this is just flat out the wrong decision?”
Then I kept reminding myself that regardless of what happens with my job search I’m not only going back to my home state, but to the loving embrace of my friends and family. When I’m feeling down I’ll have not only my hubbie to cheer me up, but also an entire network of people that love and care for me and that’s why I wanted to move back to MN.
After all, the toughest task of the unemployed is to keep your spirits up.
Cover Letter Blues
Posted: May 5, 2011 Filed under: Cover Letters | Tags: bullet, cover letter, Minnesota, practice, writer's block 1 Comment »I’ve had writer’s block lately, which is why I haven’t been blogging. I blame my writer’s block on a topic I have yet to discuss: cover letters.
In the past few weeks I’ve decided to extend my job search to Minnesota (and surrounding areas) in an effort to fully utilize my network. By doing so I have started sending out more resumes and cover letters.
I’ve never been particularly fond of writing cover letters (which is an understatement to say the least). They take forever to write and I never feel confident about the finished product, no matter how much effort I put in.
To me a cover letter seems like a crapshoot. There are numerous formats and depending on who’s going to read it you never know what they’re looking for. In addition to those variables the even the experts have differing opinions of what makes a good cover letter. From my research I’ve gleaned the following:
- Cover letters should contain bullet points, no less than 3, no more than 5 and no even numbers (so 4’s out).
- All over letters should be written in a formal letter format.
- A cover letter is about selling yourself and getting the reader to look at your resume, which will hopefully get you an interview.
For the most part if you use those three bullets you’ve got yourself a good cover letter. It seems simple enough, but I find it easier to write poetry in Mandarin than write a cover letter (ok, that was a slight exaggeration… but now you get my point).
Given that cover letters are required for most positions, and that’s not changing anytime soon, I’ll continue to struggle away and hope for the best. Perhaps the old adage that practice makes perfect is something to keep in mind as I write.
Additionally any advise anyone has to offer would be greatly appreciated!
Plastic Shopping Bags
Posted: April 17, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: DIY Supercenter, environment, experiments, Green, management, plastic bags 5 Comments »
C'mon people, you know you have WAY too many of these in your pantry, under your sink or in the closet.
Working in a retail setting has given me my most recent idea: Plastic Shopping Bags- I’m gunning for you!
Now that I got that out of my system, it occurred to me that when working at a cash register I usually ask people who are purchasing few items if they’d like a bag in addition to the questions cashiers are required to ask such as ‘Will you be putting that on your DIY Supercenter Credit Card?’ (which is a question I hate-as a customer I don’t think it’s any of the cashier’s business how I pay, as long as it’s an accepted form of payment and not Monopoly dollars) or ‘Did you find everything ok?’ (which I’m also not especially fond of because if they say no and ask me where something is I usually have no idea and want to say ‘They don’t let me leave this general vicinity…’)
Anyway, I started thinking to myself, if they can require me to ask the questions above, why not add one more question to this list- ‘Would you like me to put this in a bag?’ It would help the environment and maybe even encourage people to recycle their bags by either buying the reusable ones, or even reusing their old plastic bags. It also might serve as a reminder to forgetful people to bring their reusable bag with next time.
I’ve conducted a few experiments on customers purchasing one or two items. When I automatically put their items in a bag, 9 times out of 10 they would take the bag and say nothing. When I asked similar patrons if they wanted a bag for their one or two items 9 times out of 10 they said no, which saved bags from ending up in landfills and ultimately saved the company a teeny tiny amount of money. So even if the DIY Supercenter doesn’t care about saving the environment they may be interested in the cost savings.
I’m making up figures here, but let’s say they would use 20% less plastic bags each year across 3,000 stores (approx), that could potentially be a chunk of change… My next step, I just need to figure out how much plastic bags cost. I can’t imagine they are expensive, but in this economy what business isn’t interested in cutting costs?
Now, to prod management to see if anyone at DIY Supercenter would be interested in this idea (but that’s a whole different post for the future…)
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Posted: April 14, 2011 Filed under: Interviewing, Unemployment | Tags: Minnesota, Monty Python, network, North Carolina, unemployed 6 Comments »Call me crazy, but thoughts of Minnesota have been drifting through my head lately, and since April is considered to be a habitable month in my home state, it’s all the more appealing (right now…)
Honestly though, it’s not the weather that’s calling me back, it’s the network of friends and family that I miss dearly and (unfortunately) the prospect of jobs and easier networking. When the hubbie and I decided to quit Massachusetts and move down to North Carolina we always said that if all else failed we could move back to MN with our tail between our legs.
The only problem is that neither of us exactly knows when that moment is… or if we’ve passed it. I’m not sure what we were thinking when we made that decision, but we never quantified it. Was that moment when the bank account sunk below $2,000, $1,000, $500, $5? Because I gotta tell you, if we wait until the bank account sinks to $5 we’ll be lucky to get 1 gallon of gas let alone our asses back to MN.
Additionally, were we thinking there would be some momentous event that would happen indicating it was time to move back home? Perhaps the state of NC would spookily tell us to “Get Out” or the hand of God would come down from the clouds Monty Python style and flick us back to Minnesota.
Anyway, we haven’t hit any of those points yet (and I have yet to see the hand of God), but as job prospects continue to come and go I’m feeling less and less sure of our ability to make our lives happen down here in NC, and I keep thinking if I’m going to be broke and unemployed, I’d rather do it in the company of friends and family.
Having said that, it sure would be nice if I could get a job lined up (in MN or NC) to confirm my decision to stay or go.
Some Things Never Change
Posted: April 13, 2011 Filed under: What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? | Tags: curator, James-Younger Gang, Jesse James, museum, Northfield, Northfield Historical Society 1 Comment »dalton_gang_scope_reasearch_paper
Today I was contacted by the Northfield Historical Society which is the local museum in my hometown. In 8th grade I participated in a program called SCOPE. I can’t for the life of me remember what that stands for but I know I got out of my least favorite class, and more importantly, teacher and instead I got to go hang out at the museum for a few hours every other day. That’s when I wrote the paper attached to this post. It has a few typos but all in all, my writing at the ripe old age of 14 was not bad… I also gave my first ever speech on this very same topic, which my dad informed me was the best presentation of the bunch (and I’m sure his critique was 100% objective…).
I volunteered at the museum starting in 6th grade when I signed up for a summer program. I got to explore the archives and develop my love for history. I continued volunteering until I graduated high school and went to college. I worked in the gift shop, at the admissions desk, and helped out during The Defeat of Jesse James Days (or Jesse James Days as everyone else calls it).
The museum also gave me my first job, as a tour guide. I was paid $200 to give tours for 6 weeks in the summer before 9th grade. I dressed in a costume reminiscent of the late 1800′s with a bustle and all and taught museum goers about the day the James-Younger Gang rode into Northfield, MN on September 7th, 1876.
To this day being a Tour Guide is the best job I’ve ever had. I loved everything about it, giving tours to museum goers, learning everything I could about the James-Younger Gang and the history of Northfield, and most of all the museum environment. Just thinking about it gives me fond childhood memories and makes me remember lost dreams of wanting to become a museum curator.
Feeling particularly lost with my job search and getting this e-mail from the Northfield Historical Society may have been just what I needed. Perhaps it’s the universe’s way of reminding me of my true passion and giving me a bump in the right direction. After I sign the contract allowing the Northfield Historical Society to post my research paper online I think I’ll look into museum jobs and a masters program to see if there’s a way to pursue this forgotten dream.
