Employed.

Yup, I have a job.

It only took me ten months, eight interviews, half a dozen informational interviews, and at least thirty job applications, but I did it, and good golly I'm proud! And I'm moving back to Lawrence, which makes me happier than pretty much anything ever. So basically I feel like this right now:

Go, panda, go!

Here's what I learned from my long, long job search:

1. Relationships are important: At several of my interviews, I felt like I said all the right things and had all the right answers. Did I get those jobs? No. What job did I get? The one where I had fun in the interview. My future co-workers laughed at my jokes and I laughed at theirs, and I was impressed by their intelligence and energy. I liked their questions, so I answered them well. Ultimately, we wanted to work together, so now we're going to!
2. "Work" is a relative term: I wasn't appreciative of most of the job titles, job descriptions, and salaries I saw on-line, at least not until I started working at the cafe. That's when I figured out what real work was. My feet ached, my head pounded, and I was in bed every night before eleven. And, even though I was nearly full-time, I still didn't have health insurance or enough money to live! After that, I realized how lucky I was to have the opportunity to earn my living with my mind, not just my hands.
3. There are many ways to be happy: Despite its more grueling aspects, I love my cafe job. I love my co-workers, and I like how high-energy and physically demanding the job is. I like the choreography of working the line, how we all learn to weave smoothly between each other and prepare dishes with an unthinking, almost instinctive grace. I know, I know, it sounds over-the-top, but I'm being serious! I'm good at being a line cook, and I'm glad that I know that about myself. I can be happy making food in a restaurant, and I have a talent for it, just like I have a talent for writing poems and doing marching band drills. So maybe there's a second career as a trained chef waiting for me in the future!
4. Tangents are okay: I had a hard time finding a job. So what? I also got to develop a blog that I now love. I learned HTML and CSS and SEO. I learned how to bake bread and cinnamon rolls and make cafe mochas and cappuccinos. I got to teach Othello to a fantastic group of business students, some of whom had never read Shakespeare before. And I got to experience the restaurant business first-hand. I could never, ever say that these months have been wasted.
5. The (mental) readiness is all: After grad school, I felt entitled to a job. Not a great job, just a job, because I was smart and nice and responsible. But around February, I realized that nobody owes me anything. Nobody owes me their attention, their good will, or their employment. The only thing that could earn me anyone's attention, good will, and employment was being truly willing and eager to work hard. Somehow, during my time at the cafe, I went from thinking like a student ("Give me a task to do and I'll earn an A!") to thinking like an employee ("Give me a chance to put my nose to the grindstone, and I'll impress you this week, next week, and next year. And I'll out-think the next guy to help you and your company grow, all while building my own knowledge and career.").
6. I am not my job: I felt awful about not having a job for a very long time. Part of it was hating the boredom and the constant horror of job applications and interviews and cold calls and emails. But most of my self-loathing came from considering myself a failure. Working at the cafe made me realize that I could still be me and have a good time even while I mopped floors and plunged toilets and sliced croutons. It taught me that I am not my job, or my lack thereof. Success is not the result of succeeding at one limited task (finding a full-time office job), and it doesn't come with any set job title or a salary. It's about feeling like myself and following my gut and finding a way to do something I love every day.

Update

Hi, folks! Long time, no blog!

I'll try to get back to blogging regularly soon. I'm finally getting my schedule under control. I've finished my application for the full-time teaching gig. I think it went really well--now I just have to wait and see!

This week, I've been learning a lot at my bakery-cafe. I have a big ol' slice on my thumb from a rogue bread slicer (yooowww!), but I've also learned how to slice bagels and bread safely by hand using a giant bread knife. I've learned how to make every sandwich in the shop and a few of the salads. I've baked cookies, scones, and baguettes in the industrial ovens. I'm starting to know the ingredients of most of the food that we sell. Come on in and ask me about the smoothies or the soups or the turkey sandwich--I dare ya!

The treacherous bread slicer looks something like this.

 

But this, for some reason, I can handle!

For my class, I've been reading up on literary criticism and literary theories. These theories are incredibly influential in contemporary literary scholarship, but I somehow made it through grad school without reading up on any of them (hmmmm, maybe I should have taken that Intro. to Critical Theory course everyone kept talking about . . . ).

 

Wearing glasses to class will make me look smarter, right? Right?!?

There's nothing like teaching something you've never studied before to set your heart racing and your palms sweating! It puts you in the same position as your students, but the difference is that you have to explain it to them, answer their questions, and sound like you know what the heck you're doing! Ack!

But now that I've gotten through the readings and given them a little thought, I feel well-prepared for tonight's class. There's nothing like learning on the fly to burn something into your memory for life. Well, except maybe scarring yourself on a bread slicer--I think that makes you learn even faster!

For both of my jobs, I've been on a very steep learning curve. It's been overwhelming sometimes, but I love it: my brain feels extra juicy and absorbent and active all the time. I love how busy I am these days. My hours are always filled (which leaves little time for blogging, writing poetry, and looking for other jobs), but it's a great change from the last six months--I got so sick of moping around like an unemployed lump on a log!

In conclusion, folks, things are going well. And one of these days, I'm going to have the time to bake and blog about this: Whoopie Pies, an old east coast favorite! I hope that they turn out just like the ones from the Amish farmers' markets in Pennsylvania!

Like all good things in the world, Whoopie Pies combine cake with frosting with more cake.

Busy-ness

I know, I know, I haven't posted here in awhile! My mother is pestering me daily about it. But my bloggerly absence must be forgiven for the following reasons:

1. I'm teaching Othello this week and giving my students their Midterm and reading up on literary criticism so that I can teach my students all about literary theory next week. It's the ickiest time of the semester, both for my students and myself.
2. I just started a new part-time job at a bakery/cafe in Lawrence. I like it a lot, but I'm pretty well whupped after every single shift. I'm not used to being on my feet that long, or carrying large coffee urns and dish tubs, or talking to that many people in a single day. I know that I'll get used to it in a few weeks, once my brain and body have adjusted, but right now, I'm doing a lot of passing out at 10:30. On the upside, I've learned how to use an industrial oven, how to make espresso, the difference between lattes and cappuccinos, and how to make some killer smoothies over the last few days. And that is awesome.
3. I'm finishing up my application for a full-time teaching job here in Kansas City. The job would be a great fit for me, but the application is a pain: it requires a full electronic application, a cover letter, a CV (a resume for academics), a teaching philosophy, and an essay about what a student should expect from me as a teacher. If I get it, the job will be more than worth the hassle of applying, but the process is sucking up all my writing juices right now! And so the blog suffers.
   

So there are my excuses, like them or not. I'll probably be slow about posting until early February, but I assure you that I haven't abandoned you, gentle readers! I'll be back, after many, many hours of sleep . . .

How to Prepare for an Interview: Four Tips No One Tells You

As I've prepared for interviews over the last few weeks, I've done everything I'm supposed to: I've practiced answering common interview questions, practiced my behavioral interview stories, and learned a great deal about the companies I'm interviewing with.

But I've also learned that, no matter what answers I prep, the most important part of a successful interview is being mentally prepared. Here are my five most important tips for mentally preparing for a great interview:

1.  Loosen Your Tongue: Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, it's important to get yourself warmed up before the interview. Talk to yourself out loud, practicing your answers to common interview questions again and again. This will loosen your tongue and prepare you to think on your feet. Remember that interviewers will remember your conduct more than what you say: no matter what, being eloquent and quick will make your answers have a lot more impact.
2. Adjust Your Attitude: You should always approach an interview with the attitude that you're visiting the office to meet potential colleagues and friends. If you go into the interview thinking that your interviewer is trying to test you or find your flaws, you can become overly nervous, quiet, and even defensive (and these are never good traits for an interviewee to have!). Go into the interview room wanting to build a relationship with your interviewers; doing so will help you reduce your anxiety and come off as confident and personable.
3. Be Yourself: Focus on showing the interviewer that you're a real person. Feel free to tell a story, tell a joke, and be friendly. If you keep the conversation positive, light, and sincere, your interviewers will see you as more than just a job candidate--they'll start to see you as a real person and potential co-worker.
   
4. Stay on Message: No matter what questions you're asked in an interview, you should have a message that you're completely focused on delivering. That message pertains to why you're different from all the other applicants: do you work harder than anyone else? do you have unique ideas about how you could improve the company? will you do a great job because of talents X, Y, and Z? No matter what questions your interviewer asks, you should take any opportunity to relay your message about what makes you unique and desirable. Not only will this ensure that your interviewer knows exactly what you're about, but "staying on message" can keep you focused during an interview.

If you follow these tips, you're sure to come off as the confident, prepared, and positive employee that your interviewer is looking for!

The Round-Up

Despite the utter lack of job postings in the KC area, I've been busy lately. I've been conducting informational interviews (Callahan Creek must have the kindest copywriters in the world), reading up on marketing, working on my portfolio, and generally trying to let the world know that I'm looking for a job.

My brain's been fragmented, so this post is going to be, too. Just go with the flow, people. Dig the melange.

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1. I finally chose a poem for my friend's wedding, and she loved it. I'm so thrilled! It's by Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first major black American poets. I've never really cared for his poetry (I always thought it was too sing-songy and cliched), but this poem is killer precisely because it so gentle, soft-spoken, and unexpected. I especially love the refrain of "And you are welcome, welcome."

Invitation to Love

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or come when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

Come in the night or come in the day,

Come, O love, whene’er you may,

And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,

You are soft as the nesting dove.

Come to my heart and bring it to rest

As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief

Or when my heart is merry;

Come with the falling of the leaf

Or with the redd’ning cherry.

Come when the year’s first blossom blows,

Come when the summer gleams and glows,

Come with the winter’s drifting snows,

And you are welcome, welcome. 

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2. There's a fantastic article about swine flu in this month's Vogue. It's called "The Year of the Pig," and even if you're not a Vogue subscriber, I'd strongly recommend that you park yourself by a Border's magazine section and give it a read. In the piece, Robert Sullivan takes a look at how the government has been planning for the swine flu pandemic and why experts are so worried about it. He explains that H1N1 is behaving very much like the Spanish Flu of 1918: so far, it hasn't proven very dangerous (except to children), but experts suspect that the strain may mutate by next year and cause rocketing number of cases in the fall and winter of 2010. They don't believe that the virus will grow much more fatal, but it will severely strain the American health care system. Scientists are raising alarms about the flu now in order to prepare for next year. So, in conclusion, ack!

Reading this reminded me of Ellen Bryant Voigt's Kyrie, which is one of the saddest and most beautiful books of poetry I've ever read. It's a series of sonnets about the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Voigt writes mostly in the voices of the flu's survivors, and her use of the sonnet form is clever, appropriate, and moving. Go out and read it, like, now.

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3. Speaking of horribly sad poetry, I finally managed to read Donald Hall's Without. Hall's collection follows the illness and death of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon. Surprisingly, the volume was a page-turner; I read the whole thing in about an hour, and, naturally, waterworks ensued. Why am I so attracted to poetry that ruins my make-up?

To be honest, I wasn't in love with the poetry in this collection. The poems were just so raw, so straight-forward, so narrative that I couldn't call it very good or interesting poetry (thought, in general, I think Donald Hall is quite brilliant). But it did depict a beautiful love affair and the sort of raw emotion usually reserved for romance novels and chick flicks. I'd recommend this book if only for the catharsis.

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4. I've also been reading The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. It's a fascinating exploration of how to successfully position a product within a unique market. Jack Trout and Al Ries use a ton of real-world examples to prove their points, including the never-ending marketing battle between Coca-Cola and Pepsi and lots of little tidbits from the emerging PC market (well, emerging in 1993, when the book was first published).

But despite the myriad references to Atari, Commodore, and a hundred other computer and software companies I've never heard of, the book feels relevant and useful to a business newbie like me. In fact, these guys are kind of blowing my mind: they make me realize how complex marketing strategies can be, but they're also reinforcing how much I have to learn if I want to be a part of the marketing industry. It's wonderfully exciting to read about something as familiar as Coke and Pepsi, but to find myself seeing it in an entirely new way.

Crafting Copy for Marketing Campaigns . . .

. . . always involves alliteration!

At least as far as I can tell. I've been researching marketing copy this weekend and drafting writing examples I can use in job applications. My marketing skills are a little rusty, but after reading other people's portfolios on-line, I'm feeling confident that I could do at least as well as most professionals, if not better.

Some of the advice pages I've found about writing marketing copy have been fantastic; I found GNC's suggestions and DT&GBusiness's tips to be particularly helpful. These sites made me wish that I had taught a web-based persuasive writing assignment in my composition courses. Not only would it have been tremendously helpful to the students' general writing skills, but it would have forced my students to practice practical rhetoric, something that even I'm not used to doing.

Anyway, I've posted my marketing copy example below. I made up a business (Claire's Cakes and Candies), brainstormed some services they might have, and tried to explain these services to a potential consumer. I image that this copy would be used for the bakery's home page as an introduction to their basic services.

I tried to directly relate each service to a specific need or desire that the consumer has, like the need for convenience or the desire to impress his or her guests. I'm especially fond of my slant-rhymed tag-line: "Creative Designs for the Event of a Lifetime!"

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Claire's Cakes and Candies

Creative Designs for the Event of a Lifetime!

Welcome to Claire's Cakes and Candies! We provide . . .

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  Custom Cakes for Weddings and Special Events: We don't just make cakes, we make impressions. Let our staff of master bakers and designers shape a sophisticated, one-of-a-kind cake just for you. With our wide selection of gourmet flavors, we can ensure that your cake will be as delicious as well as spectacular. We're expert at suiting any style, any occasion, and any palate. So let us take care of your cake so you can enjoy your event! Schedule a design consultation and taste test with us today.
  
  
  
  
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  Same-day Sheet Cakes: Forgot to order a cake for a co-worker? Missed Mom's birthday? Call us on your way to work and we'll have your custom sheet cake ready by the afternoon. With a personalized message and colorful butter cream detailing, we can make any of our fresh pre-made sheet cakes (available in white and chocolate) into something special just for you. Never miss another opportunity to show that you care!
  
  
  
  
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  Cupcakes: Perfect for on-the-go hostesses and spur-of-the-moment celebrations, our cupcakes (available in white, chocolate, and carrot cake) can turn any day into an event. We whip up our no-fuss, all-fun cupcakes by the dozen. And since we they're made fresh daily, these mini cakes will let you display your party panache at a moment's notice!
  
  
  
  
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  Fine Gift Chocolates: From kids to connoisseurs, everyone loves our hand-crafted chocolate gifts, which we make using only the finest ingredients from Belgium and France. Our artisan molds transform our deluxe milk and dark chocolates into dramatic gifts for your special someone. Playful or polished, silly or sophisticated, Claire's chocolates make a sweet statement for any occasion.
  
  
  
  

About Us

Claire Schlitterwhooster and her staff have over seventy years of combined experience making custom pastries and chocolates for the Kansas City area. Though she grew up baking cinnamon buns and coffee cakes with her German grandmother, Claire chose to focus on crafting artisan cakes after graduating from culinary school in 2003. Since then, Claire and her staff have combined a passion for art with a love of gourmet sweets and fine European chocolates. Her staff includes Mark Chevre, her talented sous-chef; three full-time bakers; four cake artists; two chocolate confectioners; and long-time office manager Marie Clark.

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Isn't Schlitterwhooster a great name for a pastry chef?

I also created a pdf mock-up of what the website would look like, incorporating a few photos and a basic header image I made myself on GIMP. I converted my pdf to a couple of jpgs and posted them below. They're nothing fancy, but hopefully they'll help my potential employers imagine what my work would look like with a designer's help!

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Berube's "From Where I Sit--Measuring the Unmeasurable"

I'm out in Lawrence this afternoon, having iced coffee at a local coffee shop, blogging, and basking in my status as a Gen Y cliche (all I need to complete the scene is a light-weather scarf and a bad texting habit!). I've spent my day hitting up temp agencies and stopping by a potential employer's office to insinuate myself with HR.

I've also been on Twitter, which lead me to this brilliant little article from the Times Higher Education. The author is Michael Berube, an English professor from Penn State (which is where I got my MFA). I've never taken a class with Dr. Berube, and I don't remember ever meeting him, but I loved this piece.

Berube believes that "the humanities help us come to terms with the possibility that some forms of difference might be unresolvable and that some kinds of conflict might be intractable." Though today's academic culture repeatedly demands easily digestible "assessments" and evaluations of "impact" (whatever that means) for its programs, Berube admits that "We do not know how to test people to see if we have enhanced their suppleness of mind or their love of lifelong learning."

This brief opinion piece seems especially meaningful to me today. Though I know that I am intelligent, reliable, professional, and capable of adapting to almost any work situation, I'm having a hard time getting a job. This isn't too surprising based on my degrees (a BA in English and Humanities and an MFA in creative writing), but it frustrates me that these degrees mean almost nothing to potential employers when, to me, they represent years of personal and intellectual development. Not only would my skills as a writer and editor be almost nonexistent without my education, but I can guarantee that I would be a poorer thinker and a less generous individual if I had not attended KU and Penn State.

When I compare the person I am now to the person I was at eighteen, I find that I'm less likely to judge others; I have more tools to help me understand new ideas and novel situations; I'm less likely to believe everything that I'm told, but I'm also less likely to instantly dismiss ideas that make me uncomfortable or challenge my previous conceptions; I'm able to see the larger implications and assumptions behind others' opinions, ideas, and beliefs; and of course, I'm a quicker and deeper reader and a more precise writer.

To me, all of these talents seem invaluable, and if I had the choice to go back to the beginning of my education, I would never change my majors or earn a different graduate degree. Sure, I'd work more internships and be less afraid of talking to my professors and network more aggressively, but I would never give up my liberal arts education and the skills it has given me.

Now, all I can hope for is an employer who agrees with my assessment of myself and my education. I need to find a company that is willing to make an investment in me, a company that knows that a well-trained mind, a strong work ethic, and natural talent may be more valuable in the long run than a person with a solid skill set and little else to offer.