Working Retail

It has been a long and trying week and a half at work. I’m a project manager for a home improvement company where I work exclusively on bathroom and kitchen remodeling projects. I had the day off May 29^th  with no solid plans for the day. I was just hoping to relax, maybe paint my nails, run some laundry, and finish reading my book—you know, spend the day on myself.

I received a call from work early in the morning while I was home in my PJ’s. My general contractor had been fired. I found out later that it was for theft, so they didn’t even want him to complete jobs he had bid, sold, or started. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had recently sold a project to an extremely rude, difficult client who, from time to time, has resorted to transforming into a fanged monster and screaming at me and cussing me out. That seems to be her main mode of communication. Anyway, long story short, because I wasn’t there to deal with it (…on my day off…) a corporate guy came down and stepped in to fix it. I’ve been cleaning up his suave fix ever since. 

After being cussed out by said customer again on Friday, I was at my breaking point. I caught myself just spewing the craziest notions. As I was saying these things, I realized how ridiculous they must sound to God, but I was so full of anger that I just couldn’t stop myself. “I am so sick of being screamed at by that woman! This is the second time she has called me up just to cuss me out. I even sent her a get-well card after her surgery last week! How can she treat me like that?! I don’t deserve it! I’m a good person—I go to church, I’m nice to people, I come to work every day and pay my taxes and contribute to society. It’s so degrading to be treated that way and if it happens again, I’ll quit!”

 

Wow. I, I, I, I, I, I, I. Am I that selfish? Does going to church or paying taxes really set me above anyone else? Absolutely not! I am reminded of a verse from Isaiah 64 that says, “We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated. Our best efforts are grease-stained rags (MSG).” It’s so easy sometimes to get lost in our first-world “problems” and forget why we’re here, who we serve, and what’s important in the big picture. At the end of my life, it won’t matter whether I had a satisfied customer with a smile on her face when all was said and done, but it will matter whether my attitude and words reflected the love and patience of God. Am I trashing my character every time I encounter unpleasantness, or am I using it as an opportunity to show Christ-like love and forgiveness? Am I letting these small problems build and fester, or am I learning to count my blessings in between? I know I need to do better. But I know I can’t do it. I have to lay every problem, worry, frustration, and sin at the feet of Jesus and trust Him to handle it. Please pray for me as I try to learn/work through this situation.

New Job: Project Manager

Hi guys!

I started a new job and I love it! I am a kitchen and bathroom remodeling project manager. It's just like it sounds-- I work with homeowners who want to remodel their kitchens and/or bathrooms. I help them select which cabinets, countertops, lighting, flooring, faucets, paint, and appliances they want to incorporate, then measure their room and give my measurements and sketches to my NKBA kitchen designers who draft everything in 20/20. The homeowners settle on everything and sign the contract, then my contractor builds the dream for them.

I've been training and setting up my office for the last 10 days or so. I'll be out of state to train all of next week, and then I'll be back on April 7th to officially start doing my job. I'm really excited!

I know it seems like I switch jobs a lot. I suppose I do. But I'm not going to stay somewhere where I'm unhappy. My life doesn't revolve around my job, and I'm not going to waste away psychologically at a company that pays crap, doesn't care about my professional development, and works me to death. At La-Z-Boy, I was working 55-60 hours a week for a salary of $30,000. Not worth it! At Ethan Allen, my manager did not appreciate that I have a design degree (even though I was a Designer and she was the Design Center Manager...). She made comments like, "I'd rather hire waitresses than designers. You don't need a degree to be a good designer." I worked on commission against draw and made basically no money. No one, not even my manager, could accurately explain the pay structure to me. Basically, you make some kind of base pay, and then it is deducted from your next commission check. So, the one month I made commission, my paycheck was supposed to be $5,200, and they managed to pull this fee and that penalty and take it down to $300. That was the day I turned in my two weeks notice. Then, my boss got mad at me because I was leaving for what I told her was a better job, so she sent me a snotty text message saying not to bother coming back. Ok. See ya. I realise this whole paragraph sounds narcicistic and very millenial-minded of me. I suppose it is. But I want a life outside of work, and I want to feel like I matter while I'm there. I know, I know. American "problems" and I should be grateful for what I have. I am. I don't get all my fulfillment from working. But it's nice to, "Do what you like and like what you do."
 
I feel like this was a good move for my career as a designer, and also a good move for getting by here and now. It has a decent salary + commission, the company benefits are good, it's a Fortune 100 Company, and a Forbes "Top 10 Best Places to Work" company. My team is very talented and professional. I'm excited and very thankful that I have been trusted to do this!


And while it's just a job, it is important. It is important to pay off our student loans and become more financially stable so we can have kids. It's important to work somewhere that won't completely drain me of all my compassion and energy every day (lol).

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.” ― Francis Chan, Crazy Love

In all seriousness, the BEST thing about this job is that I have off every Sunday! Which means I can go to church and get involved in a community there. That is what matters.

Looking on the Bright Side

I want to take a moment to thank those of you who chose to encourage and support Aaron during this last year and a half that he has been working toward becoming an air traffic controller. It has meant a lot to both of us.

Unfortunately, we learned today that Aaron was not selected. You might be wondering why. I am not going to whine or complain, but I do want to explain what happened. After all, he scored decently on his AT-SAT, he has two different aviation degrees, and he has experience as a pilot. 

Before Aaron started ATC school, he did research and talked to air traffic controllers to find out that:

1.   The FAA has semi-annual hiring panel. 
2. That only graduates of FAA Certified Training Initiative schools could be hired 
3. That candidates must be hired by their 31^st birthday. 

Being the amazing husband that he is, it was hard for him to leave his full-time job that helped pay our mortgage, put food on the table, and provided health insurance to pursue a career path that we both knew might not pan out. Let’s be real—he was 29 when he started schooling and he would have had to be hired within 24 months. It was a risk. We knew this. In fact, about three weeks before we moved for him to go to air traffic control school, he told me he was having serious reservations about doing it, so he almost didn’t. I talked him into it. 

So, a couple of months into ATC school, Aaron found out the FAA was on a hiring freeze and would be pushing the fall hiring panel to spring. It didn’t seem like it would affect him. Then, the spring panel was pushed back to the next fall. Inconvenient, but not impossible. Then that one didn’t happen, either. He was optimistic. Surely at this point, he thought, they would have a ton of openings. Finally, in January, they announced that there would be a new hiring panel this month. Yay! Right? Well, not really. 

The FAA recently severed its hiring contracts with the CTI program and decided to open the panel to anyone and everyone—completely disregarding the individuals who had spent years in school to meet the qualifications. In other words, any American citizen between 18-30 years old could apply. And they did. In hordes. Also, like most (if not all) government jobs, preference is given to veterans. For approximately 1,200 open positions, over 50,000 veterans applied. The selection process was completed by computers in less than 5 days. So, that’s that. This wouldn't seem so crappy if he had been turned down because there were better applicants in the pool of CTI grads. However, since the FAA just changed their hiring policy, it sucks to know that someone who was flipping burgers at McD's last week and hasn't a clue about any of it very well might have beaten Aaron out of his dream job.

I don’t want to complain. Yes, it’s disappointing. Yes, we feel like we both wasted a year and a half working toward something that didn’t happen. And we definitely feel like we just flushed another 6 grand down the toilet. And hunny, if you’re not married, let me explain why I keep saying “we”. When you’re married to the person you love, you are one. Trials, triumphs, failures, victories, sadness and joy are shared. When your spouse hurts, you hurt by extension. 

But like every other bad situation in life, “It can make you bitter, or it can make you better.” Disappointments have struck before and they will again. So, I’m choosing to believe this very comforting truth:

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” –Romans 8:28

Thanks again!

INSANITY!!!

This is a really long blog post, but I need to get it out there.

I have gained a lot of weight in the last two years. I can try to blame it on any number of things—fertility drugs, hormones, anti-depressants, long hours at work, stress, loneliness—but those are all just excuses. They are all just things that normal people deal with every day. I’m not special and my life isn’t extra difficult. The truth is I am lazy and I eat a really crappy diet. I never exercise. I eat tons of candy and ice cream and fast food. I sleep a lot. I watch far too much television. I am a fat, lazy slob. In the last two years, I have gained almost 15 lbs and I have gone from a size 6 to a size 10. Two years ago, I ate a balanced diet and I exercised a lot, either on the cardio circuit at the gym, going for long and fast walks (2-4 miles), or in my living room using Wii Fit. Looking back, I can pinpoint precise moments when my habits went to hell. I want to have to change that! 

I have been meaning to start “P90X,” but someone gave me their copy of “Insanity” instead. Free is good. I knew people who did P90X a few years ago when it first came out and they talked about how hard it was, but that the results were faster than any other exercise programs they had tried. I have also been following someone on Youtube for a good 4 years who lost like 60lbs by living a healthier lifestyle, including Insanity. So… why not go for it?

I considered waiting until Sunday to start because it is very regimented and it would be easiest to keep track if my weeks started on Sundays. Then I got to thinking, It’s a snow day. I’m sitting here, bored out of my mind. If I don’t start now, will I still be motivated come Sunday? After a day of pretty rigorous exercise outside—shoveling my car out of 15” of snow and walking a mile (in 15” of snow) to the store—and eating my Valentine’s candy, I decided to start tonight. I really should have waited for Sunday. Oh well.

Y’all… I have known I was out of shape, but I was absolutely shocked by how bad it was! I started with the Fitness Test—a 25 minute video containing eight 1 minute exercises plus warm up and cool down. My form was terrible because I had never most of these exercises before (although others are similar to Tae-bo). By the end of the 2^nd exercise, I was winded. By the end of the 3^rd exercise, I was on the verge of vomiting. During the 4^th exercise, I was shaking. During the 6^th exercise, I was absolutely dying—nausea, headache, shortness of breath, shaking. At the end of the 8^th exercise, I literally crawled to the bathroom, sure I would throw up. But I finished the video. I am so sad that finishing the video feels like an accomplishment. And it wasn't even one of the fitness videos; it was just the "how flabby are you?" test.

The woman exercising in the video, Tanya, is obnoxiously beautiful and lean and is smiling while doing these same exercises that I thought would kill me. While I’m shaking doing 2 reps of a certain exercise, she pips in her perky voice, “I did 93!” I want to be as obnoxious as Tanya! For now though, here’s where I am starting. The nutrition part will have to wait until the next time I go grocery shopping (mid-week next week).

Day 1: Fitness Test

Height: 5’5”

Starting weight: 144

Swish Kicks	30	But they’re low.
Lumber Jacks (I think)	21	Good form, but I’m winded & burning!
Power Knees	21 per side, so 42 total	Feeling like I’m going to vomit!
Power Jumps	2 (yes, two.)	Still shaking from Power Knees.
Globe Jumps	7	Bad form.
Suicide Jumps	2	DYING! Shaking, might vomit L
Push-up Jacks	15	Holy cow! What is this? My butt is too high and my legs are wobbly.
Low Plank Obliques	30	I.am.crawling. My chest burns. I can’t move.

You have to follow the exercise and diet regiment and then take the fitness test every 2 weeks. Hopefully, I won’t suck as much next time. I think this fitness plan is far too extreme for someone who is as active as a marshmallow. But I’m going to go for it anyway! I want to be healthy again & I want to fit into my smaller jeans again. 

Let me know if you are interested in starting this and we can do it together! =)