FIVE TIPS TO HELP YOU FIND A JOB:

When Ashley, asked me about my upcoming post and I told her I was giving job advice, she doubted my expertise. Since, I who’ve now been hired for 3 different jobs in my life and is now giving advice. I had to laugh, but co-workers asked me last week, how I finally managed to escape from this 24 hour pharmacy.  To be upfront there is no real secret to explain how I broke free. However, I decided to give 5 helpful hints anyway.

1)      Cover letter, they say you should tailor each letter to the job you are applying for.  I am not sure how much these letters count for, but I would recommend including them if possible just take the extra step.  I for one am very glad I will hopefully not have to write one of these for a long time.  I’m also glad I do not have to fill out another online application, where I have to take everything that is already in my resume and then put into this new form.

2)      Bother your friends, family, and casual acquaintances who have a job at a place you would enjoy working at.  No one should be safe, constantly stay on them about new job openings.  I know that many of my friends were happy to hear that I finally found a job and that a few were also glad that I would finally stop pestering them about job openings.    

3)      Send a “Thank You” letter after every interview.  This advice came from Ashley, who is reading What Color Is Your Parachute? : A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Changers by Richard N. Bolles.  Why would you thank someone who makes you list your strengths and weakness after knowing them for 5 minutes?  I guess to make a good impression and make sure they remember your name.

4)      Pursue other hobbies and dreams while on the hunt.  This may seem counter-productive, but when you have been searching for job for long period of time and meeting only rejection, it wears on your self-confidence.  I have spent hours complaining to Ashley about this frustration and the final decision is always out of your hands.  However, I was also complained to Ashley how I wanted to write more and this was not out of my hands.  Starting this blog a few months ago, forced me to take control of one of my dreams and actually be able to accomplish it.  

5)      The only true secret is to stay motivated and keep applying.  I took breaks at time to keep my sanity, but then I always had to start applying again.  Since, most likely no one is going to hire you for a job that you did not apply for.  One thing I would tell Ashley when we were feeling low about job prospects, is that I always had faith we would find a job, because I had found her.  Let me explain, in my early twenties I was frustrated with being single and not dating anyone really and worried I would never find a partner.  Then one night at Landmark when I was pursing lost cause, who should enter my life but Ashley and she changed everything.  So keep the faith and know you will find that job or loved one someday, but you need to keep putting yourself out there for the world.   

 

16 YEARS TRAPPED AT THE CORNER OF HAPPY & HEALTHY

This is picture of me I have in journal

                   When I turned 16 years old on January 7^th, 1998 I decided it was time for me to find a part-time job.   About a week or two later I was working at my local Walgreens as a service clerk a few times a week.  I would never had expected that I would stay with this company for almost 17 years and now in 8 days on November 22^nd I will be working my final shift at America’s favorite pharmacy.  Originally I chose to work for Walgreens, because I did not want to work in fast food and there are few options for teenagers in high school.  A funny fact is that Ashley, my wife, worked at a Walgreens back in her home state of Texas.  However, she only stayed at the company for less than a week before she made her escape.  I have so many mixed feelings as I approach my last day, but overall I am very happy to be leaving the company.

                  While I was in high school and getting my undergraduate degree, it was a good job overall to have.  They were flexible with my schedule, had a profit sharing program that I joined when I turned 18, and had paid vacation days.  I could handle my hours at Walgreens better back then, because all along I thought to myself that my main role in life was of student and once I graduated I would shortly leave Walgreens to start my “real job.”  Then in December of 2004 I graduated with my bachelors of Sociology and it was nice to just work full-time at store for a bit and take a break from school.  However, when I finally decided to start looking for a new full time job I found this more difficult than I predicted.  At Walgreens I was no longer a service clerk, but now a photo-specialist.  I enjoyed hiding out by the photo machine, trying to avoid customers and just developing the pictures.  Film was still pretty popular back then and digital cameras were just starting to become popular.  I loved glimpsing photos of people on vacations and weddings, you got to see their happy moments.

                  Since, the job hunt was not going well, I decided that I should go back and get my Masters in Sociology.  In the fall of 2006, I went back to UWM and in addition to attending graduate classes I became a teaching assistant for “Sociology of Sexuality” and then “Social Problem” course.  Even though I was often nervous speaking in front of the students, I really enjoyed this job.  I wore professional clothes, not blue vest or scrubs, and I had my own desk and an office that I shared with a few other graduate students.  I felt like this job was the job I always wanted to work at.  During these few years of graduate school I continued to still work a few days a week at Walgreens.  Again it was good to get some extra money and of course I’d quit soon after graduate school.

                  Then in May 2009 I defend my MA paper, “Young Transgender Women’s Attitudes on Sexual Reassignment Surgery.”  With my new degree in hand I started applying for my new career and again I foolishly thought this should not take so long.  Prior to this working at Walgreens was an okay job, I had some great co-workers and it paid the bills.  However, now that I was no longer a graduate student, I became a full-time worker at Walgreens.  I feel bad admitting that I worked at Walgreens when meeting new people and they would ask me what I did for a living.  Friends from high school would be amazed at times to learn that yes, I was still at Walgreens.   I know many amazing and smart people who’ve worked at Walgreens and continue to work for the company, they have nothing to feel ashamed about.  It was my own insecurities and I felt there was this injustice that now that I have a MA and I am still working in retail, what did I do wrong?  There is not enough room in those post to talk about the struggle it is for many of us to find a job in this economy.  In next weeks post maybe I'll  try to tackle this situation that many of us find ourselves in.

                  In October of 2011, I decided that since I was not escaping this store I would at least change departments.  I went from being a photo-specialist to a pharmacy technician.  Looking back this was a good decision, since it gave me experience learning something new and working in more medical environment.  It was difficult to go from knowing everything about the photo department to having to learn about various drugs and working with insurance companies.  Another big change came a few months later when I was promised a raise and more hours if I switched stores.  I had been working this entire time at the Walgreens in Wauwatosa on 76^th and Center, and they wanted me to move about a mile away to 76^th and Capitol in Milwaukee.  Anyone who works in retail knows it’s a struggle to find a job that guarantees 40 hours a week, so I went to Capitol since they were offering more hours than I was getting at the moment.

                  At 76^th and Capitol I would spend the last three years of this Walgreens saga.  This store was open 24 hours and was the busiest pharmacy in our district.  A few months after coming to this store I went to the bathroom one afternoon and while I was sitting in my stall the lady next to me fell off the toilet.  I tried to talk to her, but when she did not respond I got the pharmacist.  I found out shortly later that this young white college kid was doing heroin in our bathroom and had OD, but she was awake by the time the paramedics came.  Nothing like this happened at my old shore.    Back at Wauwatosa store we thought it was busy when they had 40 scripts to fill at a moment, at this store I have seen it at 130 scripts to fill at one time.  We are always understaffed, but my God did the time fly by in this place.  It is a mad house, but the techs there are great at their jobs and I did enjoy the fast pace of it all.  However, it is also so stressful to keep up with the filling and the huge amount of customers and I do not believe the techs don't get paid enough to deal with the stress that comes with working at this store.  

                  By some miracle last week I was offered a new job that relates better to my academic field and pays better.  This last Monday I put my two weeks-notice and I only have a handful of shifts to go at Walgreens.  My manager wanted to know if I wanted to stay on part-time and work a few times a month, so I could keep my discount and make some extra bucks.  Even though this would probably work with my new job, I want this chapter of my life to be over.  I am thankful for Walgreens for giving me a job for these past decades, but I need to move on.  I have worked with some amazing folks over the years and I wish them the best, but now I am embarking on a new journey in my life. 

MY NEW PROFESSORS 

I really enjoyed my college experience overall both undergrad and graduate; the latter being a lot more work.  But being out of college now for six years I have come to miss the college courses and lectures that I found extremely interesting at the time.  I wish I could audit some history or English courses for fun, but time and money makes this difficult.  Instead to fill this desire I have become a fan of listening to podcast, which allows me to hear folks lecture on varying subjects that matter to them.  Here are my three favorite podcast in no specific order.  It would be difficult to rate them, because I feel their subject matter differs very much and they all speak to different parts of me.

1: SModcast    ( http://smodcast.com/channels/smodcast/)

Of all three shows this is the most recent one I have gotten into.  It started in 2007 and is hosted by director Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, his long-time producing partner.  I have been a big fan of Smith and enjoy his films such as Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma.  However, when I first saw “An Evening with Kevin Smith,” I became a much bigger fan of the man himself.  In this special he went to different universities and spoke about his hilarious adventures from New Jersey to Hollywood.  Smith is very funny and comes off as still being down to Earth, even after his fame.  The weekly podcast are him and Mosier, who is also funny, talking about random stuff from the films they are working on to crazy beavers in Canada.  He does swear quite a bit and maybe at time a little too raunchy for my liking.  Overall, I enjoy listening to these dudes banter and they also inspire me since they both created a low budget film and found success and still hold on to these DYI beliefs.

2: On Being (http://onbeing.org/ ) 

On Being with Krista Tippett, was formerly known as Speaking of Faith, started on Minnesota Public Radio back in 2001 and then aired on NPR in 2003.  Each week Tippett speaks with different public figures, who talk about a range of topics from civil rights to poetry, but they all touch on religion and spiritual beliefs people share about the world.  I really enjoy listening to this one on walks outside; because she her guest tend to speak about this world we live in and remind me that I am part of this world and all its mysteries.  Some of the guests on the show I recognized their names, such as the Dali Lama, Eve Ensler, and Phil Donahue (one of my favorite episodes); but the majority of the guest I have never heard of.  Almost every time I listen to this show I find the conversations very interesting and talking about subject matter I wish we could discuss more in everyday life.  Even if you feel that you do not prescribe to an official religion or are atheist, you can still gain some good insight in this show.   

3: This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ )

About a few years back I saw Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, talk at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  When the program started they turned the lights completely off and we sat in the pitch dark when Ira started talking to the audience and it felt like you were listening to him on the radio than him actually being  right across the room.  This was probably the first podcast that I started listening to on my I-pod.  The show started in 1997 and I just learned was originally titled, Your Radio Playhouse.  When I am listening to SModcast I expect that I will be laughing and when listening to On Being that I expect to explore some cultural concepts.  However, when listening to This American Life, I tend to find myself laughing and being touched about the varying topics that the show offers.  The hour long show has some kind of main topic and then there are usual three to four acts that deal with that particular topic.  For instants, there was an episode where they hung outside a rest stop and had conversations with the different visitors on their ways to various destinations.  The show can take ordinary events and make them interesting to us the listeners.  It was on this show that I first heard the “SantaLand Diaries” an essay by David Sedaris, in which he reads on the radio about his humorous account of being a Christmas elf at Macy’s department store, so for this one episode I will be in debt to this show forever.   

MEDITATION

There are a lot of things about high school that I have forgotten about over the last decade.  However, I do remember in my sophomore year, when the electricity went out in one class period.  The school had very few windows and the classroom I was in was completely dark and there was only a light coming in from the emergency lights in the hallway.  My teacher told us all to close our eyes and she started to describe us flowing down a river.  She was leading us in a meditation, something I had never experienced prior to this day. I tend to get anxious about life and worry about the future and past too much, while I should be focused on the present.   I remember feeling very peaceful and this was a soothing experience. Part of me was a little upset when the journey down the river was interrupted. The loud speaker came on announcing classes were canceled for the rest of the day, which was also great.

Ever since that day I have been interested in meditation and have tried to do it myself through books.  However, I have never maintained it and practiced it enough to feel the full benefits.  So I came across this “Life Class” that Oprah is offering free and through her website (https://chopracentermeditation.com/home/?acode=oprah). I have often wanted to take a class, but I have not been able to find the time or money, so I am going to take this opportunity to try something I always wanted to pursue.  It is a 21 day-meditation experience.  It is being lead by Deepak Chopra, an Indian-American author, physician, and well-known leader in holistic health movement.   The 21-day process starts this Monday on November 3^rd, and I plan to log some short thought after each session and after the three-week process I will share them with you all.  If you are interested in meditation, I invite you to join me.

ALL HANDS ON THE BAD ONE

                  This last week has been filled with the buzz that Sleater-Kinney is reuniting!!!  Their last album came out in 2005 and now on January 20^th, 2015 they will release their new record No Cities to Love, ten years later.  In case you have missed out on this amazing band they are riot grrrl and indie rock band from Washington.  The members are Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).  If you are unfamiliar with their music you need to check them out or I would probably make you a mix CD if asked.  They are punk rock, but that know how to play their instruments and have some of the best feminist lyrics out there.  I have to admit when I use to play the guitar, this is the band I wanted to be if I could imitate anyone.   

                  All this chatter about the band makes me think of one of the top three concerts I have ever attended, which was on September 14^th, 2000.  It was my first year of at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and I remember my friend Jessica called me and said she had seen Sleater-Kinney in Madison last night and they were incredible.  At first I was upset that I had not been at the show, but she knew I had a prior engagement at school that night.  The good news was that her and Laura, another friend, and I were all going to head to Chicago this afternoon to see them play at the Metro.  A few hours later the three of us were heading to the windy city, without tickets, and just a prayer we could see the band.  When we got down there we found out the show was SOLD OUT, but we decided to stick around, maybe we could still find tickets. 

                  Shortly later we saw the three ladies themselves walking down the street heading to the Metro for sound check.  We decided to approach them.  Corin and Janet were already inside the venue, but Laura had gotten Carrie’s attention.  Laura explained how they had gone to Madison the previous night and we’re hoping to see them play again tonight, but there were no tickets left.  It’s a good thing Laura had done the talking, I can never seem to talk very well to my idols, except to say “I really like your music.”  Carrie told us that she had tickets put aside for her family, but they couldn’t make it.  She took our names and put us down on her guest list.  So not only were we getting into the show, we were getting in for FREE and on Carrie Brownstein’s VIP list.  The guitars and drums were loud and the way Corin and Carrie harmonize their vocals was brilliant.  We got to chat some more with Carrie and Corin after the show and see Jack White smoke some cigarettes by himself, it was the first time I had heard of the White Stripes, who opened the show.  We spoke even briefly to Mr. White, but all the attention was on the ladies.  It was an amazing night and full of adventure on that sudden trip to Chicago. 

Me, Corin, Jessica, Carrie, and Laura outside the Metro

               Flash forward to February 2004, where I am drinking at my favorite local bar, Landmark, and my friend introduces me to this guy, named Kyle.  I am wearing my Sleater-Kinney t-shirt that says “All Hands on the Bad One,” which I had gotten from that tour, and Kyle says, “So you like Sleater-Kinney?”  I replay, “of course” and he proceeds to roll up his shirtsleeve and show me his “Kill Rock Stars” tattoo, a record label that the band had released a few records off of.  So begins my and Kyle’s love affair.  About a year later he will transition into amazing woman, named Ashley whom I would marry some seven years later.  Ashley and I have a poster of the band in our office and we are both big fans.  Today at noon we purchased tickets to see Sleater-Kinney play Turner Hall this February 15^th, 2015.  It may be a day late for Valentines, but I am very excited to finally get to see this band for a second time in my life and for the first time with my wife!!!

Janet, Carrie, Paul, Corin, and Kyle/Ashley at the Metro a different show

                 

They ALL float down here

PENNYWISE

            For the month of October it has become a tradition around the Altadonna household to watch strictly horror movies for those 31 days.  Most horror films I find creepy at moments, but few leave me lying awake at night.  The only film that still freaks me out is the 1990’s TV mini-series “It” based off of Stephen King novel. If you are unfamiliar with the 2 part mini-series or novel, it is about a creature that appears as a clown that is killing children in small town of Derry Maine.  I am not sure if I had been a fan of clowns prior to this movie, but after Pennywise, my motto became “all clowns should not be trusted”.  Tim Curry plays Pennywise, and the man should have won an Emmy for this role.  Curry is so creepy and realistic as a killer clown, that on the DVD commentary track the actors noted they avoided him during the filming.  I often remind myself this is Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”  To this day Curry still haunts with his role as Pennywise, with the clown makeup, that crazy laugh, and his big read mouth.

            The year this aired on TV, I was about to turn 9 years old, and my parents were never concerned with me watching horror films.  Besides the child killing clown, the other reason this film freaked me out was my mother.  I recall she wanted to watch the mini-series in our living room.  I was interested in the film and remember watching most of it through my bed room with the door cracked, so I could close if needed be.  I must have missed the very end of the film and I asked my mother the following day, “did they finally kill the clown?”  Where she replied, “well I can’t tell you, because I do not want to spoil the ending.”  Then to add insult to injury soon afterward my mom started laughing like Pennywise, which would freak me out.  I know my mom was just teasing me and that’s the way we show our love in the McKinney household.

            I have found that many people have one film that they saw as a child that scared them at time and then continues to haunt them still as an adult.  I wanted to see if “It” would still scare me now, since I have not watched it in ten years.  Ashley and I viewed the movie a few nights ago and the clown is still creepy, but not nearly as scary.  Overall, I do enjoy the story line, that these seven outcast children come together to kill this supernatural clown and then promise to come back together if the clown ever returns.   The story starts with them as children in 1958 and then six of them leave the town, except for one, Mike Hanlon.  Then in 1985 the children of Derry start to die again and Mike calls his six childhood friends back for one last battle.  For the last few years I have had Stephen King’s “It” on my book shelf I hope to start reading it in the next year or so.  I have so many books on my list to read and this one is 1,138 pages, but I want to know more about this nightmare.  After re-watching the movie, I did not have too much trouble sleeping.  However, I will admit that when I went to the bathroom at night I might have been sprinting back to bed faster than usual.