Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: Animals

  • Reflecting On My Job Search

    I’ve always been a bit of a prima donna when it comes to jobs.

    Not that I want everything at a job. Or treated like a superstar at my job. But that I just have certain things I don’t want from a job.

    I don’t want jobs that start too early. Or have a windowless office. Or require me to do something I don’t have an aptitude for.

    I don’t like jobs that have too much process. Or have ebb and flow where it’s boring sometimes and hectic others, with zero control of my schedule. Or sit in a Bullpen with a lot to do but where people are distracting me. And I hate “locked” jobs where I have to work in an office 8 to 5 every day with no flexibility to my days or schedule minus pre-determined vacation time.

    I’d love to say this is new. That’s it’s my age. But it’s not. I’ve always been this way.

    Time was I really thought I hated working. But it turned out that I hated working hourly jobs with time requirements and where I was a drone.

    I learned when I went into teaching and into sales that I’m actually an incredibly hard worker. And very determined and quite good. When I’m given flexibility and freedom to do what I think needs to be done.

    I went into real estate. And like it. But it isn’t paying the bills. I need to pad this income. So am looking at supplemental jobs. And am driving myself crazy in the process because so many jobs are either micromanagement hell (one has two syncs per day to keep the manager updated on what we’ve been doing) or have fixed schedules in an office that are 40 hours per week.

    Here is to continuing my search. And not giving in to a job that will make me unhappy. Because I’m 58. I’ve done more than my share of jobs that make me unhappy. And life is just too short, especially at age 58.

  • Crows Are Cute In Their Own Way

    I’m in our office working, but there are about 20 crows in the trees outside going berserk (caw caw cawing away, caw caw cawing away, caw caw cawing away) which is making it kind of challenging to concentrate. This has been going on for about 10 minutes now, and when I look outside they’re all up in the trees hopping around each other and cawing like crazy. What in the heck are they up to? This is the second time in three days they’re doing this same thing. It’s bizarre.

    Crows are kind of like our cats. They just do their thing, and sometimes that thing looks pretty bizarre to me. But at the same time it’s also kind of cute. It makes me kind of appreciate them (meaning the crows, since I already appreciate our cats 🙂 ) and their strange habits in a way. In short, they’re kind of adorable.

    Happiness is an appreciation for other creatures and their habits, whatever those are. We share this grand planet and are all so vastly different from each other — why not appreciate the weird habits of other creatures (so long as it doesn’t physically hurt me or cost me a lot of money like when ants infest a kitchen).