Tag Archives: anxiety

Time to Make the Donuts

Posted on July 11, 2010 | 8 comments

You know that feeling when you look at an up-escalator that isn’t working? Those silver metal stairs staring at you, mocking your laziness, leaving you with no choice but to climb them. Then you know how I’m feeling right now. I start (yet another) new job next week. (I write this with little more enthusiasm than that dude from the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial who says: “time to make the donuts.”) I swear to you I have more experience on my resume than someone who’s at a senior level in their career despite the fact that I don’t yet have a senior title or salary.

When I graduated from college, I was ready to take on the magazine world. It took me two to three years before I landed my first full-time editorial assistant position at a magazine–a coveted entry-level job for which there are as many openings in New York as there are UFO sightings. In that three-year span, I witnessed some friends get lucky and some friends change careers. I considered myself one of the strong who survived and had a career that matched my $500,000 diploma. The reason why I survived can be found on my resume–I took as many freelance assistant, writing and research magazine jobs as I could get. This journey included calling hotels in Zimbabwe to confirm that Angelina Jolie had stayed there and checking the spelling of luxury golf courses. I even interviewed the rapper Jadakiss in person. (“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”) My resume became a patchwork of one-year stints here and six-months there. It’s certainly not how I pictured it would be. (“I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living“…)

Despite the arduous climb, there was a moment in time ever so briefly when I felt like I was soaring. When that editorial assistant job led to my first ever promotion, I felt more than a tinge of confidence. Finally my ship had set sail. And it was wonderful. Another year later, I landed an even better job for more money at a new place. Enter Career Ladder Phase Two and we’re off. I felt like I imagine Celine Dion felt when Ceasars Palace gave her her own performance venue in Vegas, except, like, I was in a cubicle. This company wanted me for the long haul and I was game. My days calling Zimbabwe were definitely long gone.

WRONG.

After six months at Career Ladder Phase Two I was laid-off and it was back to square one. So I did what I know best–I freelanced. I took stints here and there all the while trying to get back to where I felt…important and talented. The star of my own show. A cubicle with my name on it, a business card–all without an expiration date.

Alas, after multiple edit tests–(for those of you not in publishing, an edit test is given to a job applicant by a publication to test the applicant’s editing, writing and creativity as it pertains to that publication’s needs)–and rounds of interviews (and lots of tears) I got a real job offer (a.k.a. a staff position). It took exactly a year and a half, but I climbed my way back. So I should be excited, right? Relieved? Well, not really. I have the same feeling about this new job as someone who’s been recently divorced–I’m in no rush to remarry and go down THAT road again.

The office manager at my most recent permalance (another word for full-time freelance) gig used to make fun of me for never ordering office supplies while I worked there. For a year, I got by on what I could borrow. I didn’t want to get comfortable ’cause I never knew when I’d have to leave. It’s like moving in with someone and not bringing any of your stuff except maybe a pillow and a toothbrush. Pens, paper clips and Post-Its–these are the things that make a cube a home. But hey, play it as it lays.

The people at my new job have made it clear that they trust in my ability to meet their expectations as much as they’ve made it clear I still have a lot to learn. I’m nervous about this learning part. I hope it entails becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be and staying there awhile.

Whenever I start a new job, I listen to this song:

“I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I been a runnin’ ever since
It’s been a long, a long time coming but I know
A change gon’ come oh yes it will” – Sam Cooke

8 Comments

Posted in attitude, career

Tagged , , , ,

Call An Ambulance

Posted on May 2, 2010 | 3 comments

Whenever I hear an ambulance go by (which is often by the way, when you live in Manhattan) I get jealous. That’s right. Jealous. There goes someone who’s obviously getting the attention and care that they need. Their problem won’t have to wait long. And then I get pissed off. Not only is this person getting help, he or she is also making it obnoxiously known by holding up traffic and assaulting my ears.

I have a thing for ambulances. I have this fantasy that one day the sirens will come to my door and take me away. Let me explain:

There were times in my life when I knew I was dying. Like that day in the summer when I forced, yes forced, my mom to take me to the hospital because I was sure I was having a heart attack. See, I had consumed close to 10 cups of coffee that morning because I didn’t realize it would do anything other than wake me up. Well, one emergency trip to the hospital and a hefty insurance bill later, I realized I wasn’t dying. Or having a heart attack. Just as my mom had assumed, I had too much caffeine. But you try telling a teenage me that I’m wrong.

Then there were the times in my life when I wanted to die. Those post-grad years when I was making $15 an hour running errands for editors. Suicidal poets and writers like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Elizabeth Wurtzel were my heroes. I, too was a tortured soul! I actually admired the ability to stick one’s head in the oven. But I’m bad at being suicidal. If I take a bottle of pills or stick my head in the oven, I’m going to ask someone to call an ambulance.

The thing with ambulances is their immediacy. Their efficacy. There’s a problem put on rush and solved as soon as possible. No one tells a gunshot victim that time heals all wounds. That’s how I wish life would be–here’s my injury, it’s severe, fix it. NOW.

If I were to call 9-1-1 right now it would go something like this:

Operator: “Hello, 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

Me: “Hi yes, I’m on 9th St at 5th Ave. and I’m afraid I’m never gonna get married and have children and land a high-paying job and–

Operator: “Wait, slow down. Calm down. I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

Me: “–and I’m almost 30 and I can’t breathe and I need someone here right away!  Hello?”

Operator: (click. dial tone.)

I’m not sure when this whole instant gratification thing took root in me. Maybe it’s because I was a spoiled kid, always getting what I wanted. Or maybe my impatience is genetic–one of my grandfathers actually shot someone in the ear to get him out of his restaurant. He actually had a gun chest for situations like this. And then my other grandfather pulled a gun on my grandmother in a jealous rage, the same grandmother whose attitude in life was “is this all there is?” and smoked cigarettes like other grandmas baked cookies. It could also be anxiety passed down from my mother who, in her 50s, couldn’t drive over bridges without Prozac. Or, from my father who rushes us out of the house to get somewhere early. I mean, clearly I come from a solid line of insanity. I’ve certainly sent quite a number of therapists’ and psychiatrists’ kids to college with this genetic legacy of mine.

But before you go call 9-1-1 on my behalf, rest assured that should an ambulance actually come to my door, I’d probably ask for a cab. I mean, red flashing lights and sirens? How gauche. I know very well that my emergencies aren’t anything an EMT can fix, even if he was a psychology major.

The truth is that I just don’t like to wait for anything. I rarely go with the flow. I prefer plans with backup plans. I like to feel the water before diving in. So when people or situations enter my life without answers, plans, or guarantees my brain cells go all Code Red. What is this unknown and how can it be known?

I’m never gonna stop being me. (Fortunately for the mental help profession.) And I’ll never be fixed–not in one place or time or thought. So maybe patience will come naturally the older I get. I mean, I don’t rush to the hospital anymore convinced I’m dying. And I certainly don’t want to bake my head. But until I sit lotus style and breathe like Buddha, does anyone have a good prescription?

“Because I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance
And I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast
And I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance” – TV on the Radio

3 Comments

Posted in attitude

Tagged