Cloth napkins.
Ceremonial grade matcha.
Extra time stretching after a workout.
Long hair.
Multi-course meals.
Full-fat canned coconut milk.
Ripe strawberries.
Creamy soups.
New sweaters.
Tawny port.
Burning more than one scented candle at a time.
A large glass of ice water.
A drizzle of olive oil.
Staying up late to read another chapter.
Baths together.
Swimming slowly in the dark.
Shopping at the farmers market and stopping at every stall.
An extra scoop of tea and a shorter steeping.
A walk after lunch before going back to work.
Chewing slowing.
Beethoven in the afternoon while you do chores.
An extra blanket at the foot of the bed.
Two goodbye kisses instead of one.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Friday, November 10, 2017
Future Careers I'd Like to Have
In case you've were out of the loop during any of my self-reinventions in the past eight years, my post-college career path, in summary, has looked like this:
- At age 20, I graduated college and became a publicist at a non-profit political think tank by telling my interviewer/future boss, "Basically, I'm an anarchist," and strategically name-dropping until she was duly impressed.
- Not quite a year later, I quit that job, went to grad school and obtained part-time employment for three years as a debate coach at a private high school where I also taught economics, American government, writing, and yearbook. I also helped edit a book, worked for a couple different tutoring agencies, and was a TA for my favorite professor.
- I graduated with my Economics M.A, didn't want to teach anymore but didn't know what to do with myself, so I joined the gig economy as a professional grocery shopper for several months. This left me with a prodigiously large number on my Subaru's odometer, skin damage from not realizing that car windows don't equate with sunscreen, and an overly-intimate knowledge of every Safeway, Whole Foods, Costco, and Bianchini's Market between San Francisco and San Jose.
- I then found a job as a Business Development Representative (an entry-level sales peon who doesn't actually get to sell things) at a software company, because I told them that I could be very persuasive, which I guess persuaded them to hire me.
- A year later, I promoted myself by switching companies and becoming an Account Executive (actually selling things now!) at a different software company.
- Fast forward about 14 months, and I told my new company that either I was leaving or they could find a different job for me and pay me more money, because sales was not for me (too stressful, too much social drinking, too little money in the "bad" months). Fortunately, I said this nicely enough that "the leadership" agreed to my demands (*ahem* requests), and I became a "Senior Small-Medium Business Customer Success Manager", which basically means that when people are unhappy with our software, I make them happy again, either by telling them that they don't actually want what they think they desperately need, or by telling them that they just didn't know where to click, and please let me know if I can help with anything else. Sometimes I also do some actual business consulting, which is what my job is supposed to be. Mostly, people just don't know where to click, and I point them to the right buttons. I also do things that aren't my job, including being on the Company Newsletter Committee (my first committee!), submitting frequent Office Supply Requests for items like organic extra virgin olive oil and double-walled espresso cups, beta testing new product features, and coming up with punny names for company-wide meetings.
So, I work "in the cloud" and my job is helping people. Essentially, the way I see it, I am a low-grade superhero who is a member of an elite group of technology-enabled telepathic businesspeople. I get to live in one of the most affluent and interesting metropolitan areas in the country, and my office has an endless supply of La Croix and peanut butter pretzel nuggets. Overall, I feel pretty content right now with my current career.
That said...
There are other careers that I'd like to have, either in this life, or in a future/fantasy life, and I thought I'd share a few:
- Teahouse Bookstore Matron. This would be a very distinct profession from being an Owner, Manager, or anything of that sort. A Matron, specifically, is somebody who has the following responsibilities in the proposed Teahouse Bookstore establishment:
- Personal Vegan Chef. This is basically what it sounds like. I'd like to find a very large family, with gourmandizing parents and at least seven children, to hire me as their in-home chef. I would cook them multi-course suppers several days a week, help them host dinner parties, bake holiday treats, teach the kids how to cook, pack pretty little vegan bento boxes for school lunches, and serve healthy breakfasts and adorably clever after-school snacks. I imagine doing this on a nurse's schedule: 3-4 days per week with very long hours, with several full days off each week mixed in.
- Poet/Bard/Minstrel/Troubadour. (Did you know that a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz?) I would like to professionally play with words, music, and stories, and perhaps myself be immortalized by the same. Wardrobe selection would be much the same as imagined above in the role of Teahouse Bookstore Matron, with the obvious additions of a lyre, a lute, and of course a pan flute.
Honorable Mentions: professional hair braider, Renaissance Faire vendor/re-enactor, interior decorator of tiny houses, novelist, guru, tour guide (the kind for weeklong trips to multiple destinations, not the museum kind), private pilot, motivational speaker, restaurateur, POTUS.
- At age 20, I graduated college and became a publicist at a non-profit political think tank by telling my interviewer/future boss, "Basically, I'm an anarchist," and strategically name-dropping until she was duly impressed.
- Not quite a year later, I quit that job, went to grad school and obtained part-time employment for three years as a debate coach at a private high school where I also taught economics, American government, writing, and yearbook. I also helped edit a book, worked for a couple different tutoring agencies, and was a TA for my favorite professor.
- I graduated with my Economics M.A, didn't want to teach anymore but didn't know what to do with myself, so I joined the gig economy as a professional grocery shopper for several months. This left me with a prodigiously large number on my Subaru's odometer, skin damage from not realizing that car windows don't equate with sunscreen, and an overly-intimate knowledge of every Safeway, Whole Foods, Costco, and Bianchini's Market between San Francisco and San Jose.
- I then found a job as a Business Development Representative (an entry-level sales peon who doesn't actually get to sell things) at a software company, because I told them that I could be very persuasive, which I guess persuaded them to hire me.
- A year later, I promoted myself by switching companies and becoming an Account Executive (actually selling things now!) at a different software company.
- Fast forward about 14 months, and I told my new company that either I was leaving or they could find a different job for me and pay me more money, because sales was not for me (too stressful, too much social drinking, too little money in the "bad" months). Fortunately, I said this nicely enough that "the leadership" agreed to my demands (*ahem* requests), and I became a "Senior Small-Medium Business Customer Success Manager", which basically means that when people are unhappy with our software, I make them happy again, either by telling them that they don't actually want what they think they desperately need, or by telling them that they just didn't know where to click, and please let me know if I can help with anything else. Sometimes I also do some actual business consulting, which is what my job is supposed to be. Mostly, people just don't know where to click, and I point them to the right buttons. I also do things that aren't my job, including being on the Company Newsletter Committee (my first committee!), submitting frequent Office Supply Requests for items like organic extra virgin olive oil and double-walled espresso cups, beta testing new product features, and coming up with punny names for company-wide meetings.
So, I work "in the cloud" and my job is helping people. Essentially, the way I see it, I am a low-grade superhero who is a member of an elite group of technology-enabled telepathic businesspeople. I get to live in one of the most affluent and interesting metropolitan areas in the country, and my office has an endless supply of La Croix and peanut butter pretzel nuggets. Overall, I feel pretty content right now with my current career.
That said...
There are other careers that I'd like to have, either in this life, or in a future/fantasy life, and I thought I'd share a few:
- Teahouse Bookstore Matron. This would be a very distinct profession from being an Owner, Manager, or anything of that sort. A Matron, specifically, is somebody who has the following responsibilities in the proposed Teahouse Bookstore establishment:
- Wearing stylishly eclectic outfits which aren't necessarily conducive to serving tea or shelving boxes of books, such that I have to hold my billowing sleeves aside as I pour the Darjeeling, and must hike my voluminous, tasseled skirt a few inches as I precariously climb the bookshelf ladder to reach an out-of-print volume for a venerable customer, who will comment sociably on the pleasant, musical jangle of my jewelry as I then descend from the stacks and hand him the dusty hardback.
- Making bread from scratch daily that fills the aisles with odors of bakers yeast, dried fruit, cinnamon, and going home for the holidays; slicing this fresh, warm bread ceremoniously and serving it with dark, sticky blackberry jam and an affectionate smile, even for strangers.
- Providing seasonable reading recommendations for eccentric poetry and novels, polarizing tea blends, and artisanal bookmarks, these morsels of wisdom being usually unsolicited but always deeply appreciated and immediately adopted.
- Insisting that hats, coats, umbrellas, and other weatherly concerns are left at the door, where I will have provided a vintage and delightfully wabi sabi hat/coat/umbrella rack, to which I shall gesture with aplomb and regularity throughout the months of October to April.
- Speaking in a whisper unless I am discussing Emily Brontë, John Keats, Rainer Maria Rilke, Kurt Vonnegut, or Patrick Rothfuss, during which times my voice will swell noticeably with a lusty fervor.
- Leading Children's Story Hour, which will be religiously attended by kids of all ages, yes, but also by hipsters now in middle age, including those who are childless and just really miss having no responsibilities (or pretending they didn't) like they did in their 20s.
- Life Consultant. This would be a job similar to a Life Coach, but with fewer pep talks and touchy-feely, and more straightforward recommendations and "harsh reality," where people would pay me to have an opinion (and write reports) on what they should do to improve their lives. This would start with a free consultation in which I'd ask questions like "Do you make your bed every morning?" and "When was the last time you read an actual book?" I would then charge them a lot of money for salient remarks such as "Wow, your bathroom is disgusting and you should clean it immediately, and then you'll feel a lot better about your lack of motivation in other areas of your life." and "I really can't work with you unless you are willing to stop poisoning your body and start eating vegetables." I would then wrap up the consulting sessions with advice like "I want you to tell your overbearing mother at least two things this week that she won't like to hear, but that are essentially harmless and reinforce the concept that you are an adult with valid opinions who is capable of making independent lifestyle decisions." and "I'm sorry--You are afraid of what? Okay, please go do that scary thing five times this week." I would be paid handsomely per hour, and would offer sessions focused on personal organization, how to grocery shop properly, how to cook without recipes, how to be more awesome at your job, how to "self-parent", unusual weight loss tactics, what to read next, date night ideas, what to buy your relatives for Christmas, developing non-digital hobbies, optimizing living room furniture arrangement, etiquette and conversational skills, finding free food, and stratetically dealing with customer service representatives in order to get what you want. I think I'd be great at this, and I am quite seriously considering getting some business cards printed, just in case I stumble across a hapless future client for my Life Consultancy business.
- Poet/Bard/Minstrel/Troubadour. (Did you know that a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz?) I would like to professionally play with words, music, and stories, and perhaps myself be immortalized by the same. Wardrobe selection would be much the same as imagined above in the role of Teahouse Bookstore Matron, with the obvious additions of a lyre, a lute, and of course a pan flute.
Honorable Mentions: professional hair braider, Renaissance Faire vendor/re-enactor, interior decorator of tiny houses, novelist, guru, tour guide (the kind for weeklong trips to multiple destinations, not the museum kind), private pilot, motivational speaker, restaurateur, POTUS.
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