Mar 26, 2017
Do you ever have those times when you feel you just can’t win? Well I am going through one of those times. Life has been hectic and my schedule has been crazy lately. I am trying to work two jobs and run a business as well.
Why two jobs you might ask? Well I went through a period over Christmas and part of the new year with no quilts or money coming in so I started looking for part time work. I got hired as a casual at one place and then another called as well. Now all of this wouldn’t be bad except my Mother and I made vacation plans way back in August of last year and we are leaving in two weeks.
So here I am trying to scramble and get everything done before I go. I have been putting in long hours to make it all work and I was almost there when it happened….
I broke a needle on the longarm while quilting a quilt. Doesn’t sound like much does it… except the tip of the needle got jammed in the hook race and now the timing is off on the machine and I can’t fix it. Sigh, so now here I sit with client quilts waiting to be done and no way to complete them. Hopefully I can get this fixed this week however that only gives me one week to finish everything else. I have already called one client and will hand her quilt back to her as I know I won’t get to it in time now. I had a charity quilt all ready to go too and I have had to call and let them know that I won’t be able to complete that until May. I have one quilt on the frame and one other quilt which I am not sure of now. So much for my well scheduled life.
I guess maybe life is trying to tell me I had things too scheduled and maybe I did. Normally, if I wasn’t going on vacation this really wouldn’t be that big of a setback as it will only put things out a week or so. It just so happens that this time I don’t have that extra week to spare. So here I sit, I had scheduled today, tomorrow and Wednesday as complete quilting days and now that is not going to happen.
Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it but try to make it better but it does show me that I am going to have to find out how to repair my machine myself as losing days or weeks of business is just not cost effective.
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Dec 6, 2016
Kevin and I had our open house on Saturday. It was a lot of fun catching up with people we haven’t seen in years (we keep in touch by Facebook) and in some cases getting to know our neighbours better. I decorated the house for the holidays last week and did a lot of cookie baking as well. We have a lot of cookies left over and I am going to have to freeze them or start giving them away or my waistline is going to grow.
We had our first snowfall last night. Well, it amounted to about 1 cm of snow on the ground the real nasty part is the icy road outside our townhouse. Currently it is a sheet of pure ice so much so that even Kevin looked at it and said he didn’t want to drive on it. Ugh I really dislike winter. Luckily in Victoria we don’t get much of this type of weather so hopefully it will be gone soon.
In other news I have started to look for a part time job. Nothing too much just something to fill in the gaps when I am not so busy with the quilting. The quilting business is starting to pick up and this is a good thing but I thought I would like to have something else as well even if it’s just to get out of the house once or twice a week. Well you would think this would not be a hard task wouldn’t you? Well, you would be wrong.
First off, although I held office and bank clerk positions for the first 20 years of my working career I have been working in a more professional capacity as a consultant in the later part of my working years which means that I am highly over qualified for the jobs I have been applying for. This is fine by me as I am only interested in a job that fills in the gaps and gets me out of the house (as mentioned above).
The real issues start with the people doing the hiring. These people are much younger than me and far less experienced. I am not the usual person they interview and you can tell right away I make them uncomfortable because I don’t answer their questions the way they are used to dealing with. Don’t get me wrong, I am not rude or anything but I guess they are used to dealing with people tripping over themselves saying the “right” things and “selling themselves”. I have no intention of doing any such thing.
One young man who interviewed me actually wanted me to “sell myself”, it was laughable. The job in question was one I could do with one hand tied behind my back. He promised to call me last week and to date I haven’t heard from him. Not exactly a professional way to deal with people, when you say you are going to call back, that is what you should do, even if you haven’t made a decision. I am thinking I won’t hear from him as I know I intimidated him. Now, I didn’t try to honestly, but really! Nice young man but he has a lot to learn, including how to give handshakes.
One of the standard questions asked was where do you see yourself in 5 years. When I asked why the question was important he actually wanted me to say working for his company!! This was a very young man and the answer I gave him was this. “If you had asked me 5 years ago where I saw myself it would not have been, well, let’s see let’s get laid off from a 15 year job, go through a nasty divorce and oh let’s throw in cancer for good measure. With that in mind the only answer I can give you is happy, healthy and still alive.” What I should have done was ask him where he saw himself in 5 years because surely he has to think bigger than the job he is doing now. The sad fact is I don’t think he does. I honestly think he thinks he will be working at that company for life. As I mentioned he is very young and has a lot of learning to do.
So, so much for part time job hunting. I’m sure something will come up, or not… either way I am learning a lot!! A lot about life and myself.
Life is a journey that is for sure.
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