Unemployment Goals

I had my official meeting today to discuss my leaving. Tomorrow is officially my last day at work. I'm moving further out of anger and towards some form of acceptance. I feel like a weight has been lifted. I'm ready to put all of this emotional turmoil and stress behind me to begin moving forward. In addition to finding a new job, I've been thinking a lot about what else I might do with all of my free time.

1. Watch a lot of Netflix. I've already started doing this as a pleasant distraction from thinking too much about my future and lack of plans. So many shows to watch.

2. Go to the gym. I hate going to the gym in the early morning or after work. The best time to go to the gym is late morning or middle of the afternoon. I know this from my grad school days when I had random slots of time open. Old people, unemployed people, and weirdos go to the gym in the middle of the day. I am excited to join their ranks.

3. Eat and drink a lot. Fun fact. When you're unemployed, people want to take you out to cheer you up. I love it. As if I needed a reason to hang out.

4. Get rid of stuff. Before the new year, I took a ton of stuff to the Goodwill and also recycled a million magazines. I'm addicted to the feeling and ready to take it to the next level.

5. Go shopping in the middle of the day. The only catch is not spending money that I don't have. I will have to ration out the giftcards I got for Christmas for my shopping fixes.


6. Spend quality time with my kitty cat. Or at least try to get along. She already seems annoyed at my daily presence. I am cramping her style.

7. Watch the Today Show. This was my favorite part of being in grad school. Sleeping in and watching some KLG and Hoda.

8. Play lots of Words with Friends and other games on my phone. I might have 15 games of Hanging with Friends going at the moment...

9. Write a dissertation. For real. I could graduate in May if I hustle.

10. Write a blog about being unemployed.You're Welcome.

Tomorrow I will be unemployed.

What better way to spend my new-found free time, than reviving my forgotten blog? So through a series of unforeseen events, I will be out of a job as of tomorrow. I won't go into details, or say anything slanderous on the off chance that someone actually does read this. In terms of life stressors, there is research that says that losing a job is right up there with death of a spouse, divorce, and jail time. I guess I have some street cred finally. I think that lady Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was onto something with her five stages of grief. I remember learning about this when I took AP psychology back in high school. It is a fascinating process. I think she came up with this theory in the 70s or so. Maybe I am an overachiever, but I think I've knocked the process down to four steps (I do have a masters degree, you know). Here is my new and improved model of grieving.

Stage 1: Messy outbursts of tears.
When I received the news, my eyes instantly teared up. I attribute most of this to complete shock and surprise. I usually tell people that I'm not a person who cries easily. This is part true, and part false. I usually do not cry at funerals and other death-related things, I pride myself on never having cried in my advisor's office (yet), I don't cry at happy things either. I don't get weepy over the sight of a beautiful baby, or a tacky wedding. I reserve my crying for ridiculous things, and usually when I am by myself. These triggers may include: episodes of ER, the scene in the Neverending Story where the horse dies, whenever my car breaks down, whenever I think too much about my future, and whenever I get overly stressed about something stupid. Interesting contrast, right? So it was a surprise to myself when I reacted with tears. To my credit, my eyes only watered, I did not sob. A girl has got to have some dignity. I saved my sobbing for the drive home and the rest of the afternoon I spent at home looking at job postings and trying to update my resume.

Stage 2: Anger
Kubler-Ross has this one right. When I woke up the next morning, my eyes were crazy puffy, like I had a stroke or something. I also had a horrible horrible headache, the kind behind the eyes when you cry too much. The good news was, I had no desire to cry. Instead, I was pissed. Like really really pissed. I began mentally recapping everything leading up to this event. I was mad both at the organization, my boss, and myself for not seeing the signs. I began to think about what kind of retaliation I could do, imagining conversations in my head, and other passive aggressive things. The best part about this stage was being able to have lunch with friends to discuss the situation. And guess what? They were pissed for me! There is nothing more satisfying that knowing you've been totally fucked over and finding out that others have your back.

Stage 3: Frightening, overzealous optimism
IMMA GET A NEW JOB! A BETTER JOB! MAYBE TEN JOBS! THAT PAY REAL GOOD! MWAHAHAHAHAH!
I'll be honest, I'm almost out of anger and have been in and out of stage 3 all day. Kubler-Ross uses acceptance, but that doesn't seem to map on quite right. I've kind of accepted things, but am still pissed and am instead overcompensating with my new found forward thinking. In reality, I know that I was better than that job, I am young, crazy intelligent, and actually have interpersonal skills. I will get another job that will be better, and I have plenty of time in my career.

Stage 4: Sneaky crippling bouts of depression and panic
This isn't really a stage, but maybe a recurring "mini stage". Or some kind of feedback loop? I haven't figured out a good graphical representation yet. I'll need some popsicle sticks and glitter to really make a solid visual model. Throughout the stages I keep coming back to this feeling. I freak out and wonder how I'm going to pay my bills, what happens if I can't get another job, where will I live, how will I feed my cat, and what am I doing with my life in general? I'm hoping that in time, this stage will diminish.

So that's my proposed revised model. I left out denial and bargaining, because let's face it, those are for suckers. I can't promise I will blog on a regular basis, but documenting this journey seems mildly interesting, right? Tomorrow I have my meeting to discuss my severance and all of that fun adult stuff. I'm not sure what to expect or how long it will take. I'm hoping to be able to clean out my desk and hopefully delete my browser history from my computer. And also to save e-mail addresses of people who might give me a new job. Will I be provided with a box? Should I bring my own? Maybe some reusable grocery bags? I have a lot of food in my desk to bring home. What if I leave something behind on accident? Should I leave something behind on purpose? Carve my name into the back of a desk drawer? Steal the screws out of my crappy office chair? So many things to think about. Wish me luck.

To the future! Onward and upward!

Have you ever wanted to be a hipster?

Now you can be!

Check out this website where you can hipster-rize yourself. Mine is pretty convincing. I love wayfarer sunglasses and cardigans.

Be sure to also check out this site for cartoon characters who were hipsters before it was cool. 

Mind Blown

I had not idea that Stephen Colbert and Bob Saget were long lost brothers.

That is ridiculous right?!

Even better, there is an entire website dedicated to other look-a-likes. 
Honorable mentions go to "Benedict Cumberbatch Totally Looks Like Moses" and "Phil Spector Totally Looks Like This Spider".

I sometimes like to play a similar game when I am watching tv or movies, but it is usually more like "that dude looks like so and so's third cousin in the 80s with a mustache!" Or better yet, an elaborate love child between two or more other celebrities. Maybe I will start a spinoff?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have six more hours to kill looking at this website.

The economy had been rough on all of us...

But perhaps the hardest hit is Julia Roberts. Apparently she has stooped so low as to sell real estate in Omaha. She is selling an abandoned Borders, with who I can only assume is a washed up actress from Mystic Pizza.

This is the kind of research I wish I did...

Really missed the boat on this opportunity.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you

I definitely fell of the blogwagon for a while there. Things have been busy at work, so my free time that I would spend blogging has been non-existent. I have plans to rectify this situation, including an very delayed blog about the time I went to a haunted house, some mysterious happenings centered around a certain PBS show, and my thoughts on Christmas music. Exciting stuff, right? Stay tuned...