Connections

This post is dedicated to my father, who is less than comfortable with the online connectedness of today's society.

I can understand this reticence intellectually, although I do not grok it personally. There's a lot out there, and much of it is Not Good. From random folks oversharing <raises hand guiltily>, to who-the-heck-knows-what-tweets'll-come-out-of-the-White-House-today, to Creepy Stalkers, the Internet can be a scary place.

But there were two incidents yesterday that really made me happy to be part of the online community.

There are a few people on LinkedIn (one of whom I know better on Facebook) who have been so helpful to me in the swamp of despair and rejection known as Job Hunting. Although I have not found what the UI people call "suitable employment" yet, these three ladies have been especially encouraging and inspiring, just by being who they are on LinkedIn. Yesterday I felt I should tell them so, in a public forum, and tagged all three of them.

One of these women is LinkedIn famous. And her mere presence (and she followed me back! How flattering!) caused a lot of hits on this thanks-for-being-you thread. One of the other tagged connections messaged me to thank me for the number of hits on her profile thereby. I did not tag people with the intention of getting hits on my profile, except possibly from the three people I tagged. But the response was amazing; I made fourteen new LinkedIn connections, thousands of hits on the thread, hundreds on my profile, and now my name is out there to so many more people. And that was in the course of one Friday the day before a holiday weekend.

The other great connection went like this. I have a group of online friends who are parents of children Abby's age; most of us have never met in person, but we have known each other for over sixteen years online. One of them has a child who is sadly unwell, and her mom posted a fundraiser request (for hospital expenses) on Facebook. Now as we all know, I have no money, so I shared it with my own (considerable number of) Facebook friends. One of them (whom I have also never met in person) not only shared, he donated.

The neighborhood Facebook page we set up has been useful again this week, as several houses at what we call "down by the front entrance" were without water for a few hours Thursday. I texted the repairs and maintenance guy, he explained the issue, and I shared on the community page.

This, my friends, is what the Internet is for. What it does when it works properly.

And in the offline community, today Lizzy and I had a playdate with a friend I've known on the fringes for a couple years now. This friend is someone I knew to say hi to at school and PTA functions, and her child (in Lizzy's grade) has also been to several classes and camps at Studio East. Lizzy says she's the nicest person in the fourth grade (I'm inclined to believe she is correct), and her mom and I are now friends too, rather than barely nodding acquaintances (who help a girl out when she's dithering over whether to go to Weight Watchers).

Community. Connections. Online or off, it's all important.

Job Depression

Depression comes in several flavors for me, and it's a fairly comprehensive list. The types are very entwined; some of it is just my brain's chemical makeup, some is grief, some is situational-but-not-directly-grief, some is body-chemistry-but-not-brain-chemistry.

It's not a good mix.

Please don't suggest meds, meditation, weight loss, Vitamin D, melatonin, counseling, etc. We're doing these things, and doing them appropriately. They've helped a lot; I can now use the phrase "widowed mom of two," for instance, without curling up into a ball. People offer to help, and although those offers (especially from family) often make me feel like an incompetent-at-life-preadolescent, I do usually take them, especially if they directly benefit the kids. Swallowing my pride over and over is not helping with depression.

But these things don't actually help a lot with the current underlying issue, which is that I need a job.

I'm working a bit on a freelance basis; textbroker.com is terrific. I've tried delivery services, though there are some technical snafus going on with that. But these are not a living in and of themselves. I don't qualify for assistance (except the food bank, according to my research) because the death benefits I get for the girls means I make too much for that. And I wouldn't want to do that anyway; I want to work. I'm not disabled, not enough to be unable to work anyway, though if you read my blog regularly you probably know that temporary emotional disability due to a death in the family was certainly a big part of the problem at my last job.

In any case, this is not meant to be (yet another) post about that whole mess; suffice it to say that I'm better now, and as long as I don't have to deal with retail or call center hours and bottom-line-only-screw-the-worker employers or irrational-Veruca-Salt customers on the daily, I could work. I could work full time and be happy and productive in it. Because the daily rejection is adding to the depression in a big big way, and as well-meaning as it is, so are the offers of help.

So here goes.

Requirements: standard work week or telecommute ability, 25 to 40 hours a week, $16+ an hour, in writing or editing or communications or software testing or even plain old data entry.

Wish List: the above, plus a few dollars an hour, close by (to northeast of Seattle) or with commute subsidy, full benefits for me and Lizzy (Abby has her own through her dad), and writing about video games (at which I'm actually pretty good, thanks, Atari/Humongous).

And for the sake of all you hold holy, please no "business opportunities." I don't have the wherewithal, financially or mentally, to start my own business or participate in your MLM.

Emphasis Mine

Interesting bits of a work-personality report. Pretty accurate, as far as it goes. Any emphasis is mine, not theirs.

You have shown that you have strong emotional reactions to problems in the work place. This means you are probably a very genuine and sincere person who others enjoy being around. But it also means that major setbacks at work can take their toll on you. You are especially sensitive to interpersonal setbacks such as very unhappy customers and angry bosses. Because of this, you typically try to separate stresses in work and personal life, but may not succeed. It is important to you that you are able to rely on others to provide the direction and resources necessary for you to get your work done. You do not mind minor day-to-day changes, but are uneasy with larger changes, especially when you are not given sufficient reasons as to the reason for the changes. 

You work very well in groups because you are adaptable and cooperative. Beyond those attributes, you also enjoy the company of other people. More than most people, you have an interest in and the ability to work very effectively in group situations. You are very well suited to work in team-oriented environments. In most situations, you are dependable and cooperative. Usually people can trust you to do what you say you will do, but in certain situations you are willing to do something different. While you are dependable in most situations, sometimes you surprise people who were expecting something different from you.

Your work style indicates that you are motivated by other aspects of work than simply a drive to succeed. This internal motivation may simply be an appreciation for the work itself. It appears that results and achievements are not your primary reasons for coming to work. For this reason, you often must rely on other factors such as direction from supervisors, encouragement of co-workers and rewards such as pay to serve as your primary motivation at work. 

You do not seek out leadership roles. You do not see yourself as an assertive person and prefer to let others take the lead in most situations. Your interests are suited to team or individual roles more than to leadership roles. You choose to be less assertive than is sometimes necessary and you don't have a strong interest in influencing others unless it directly impacts your own results at work. Also, you can be unsure about whether you will actually succeed in influencing others so you may not persist as long as is necessary. You do not place much importance on being a leader, and you prefer not to lead unless it is in an instructional or teaching role. You are not motivated by power. Because of that, you do not look to take on leadership roles in most situations. 

You enjoy working in jobs that are not highly structured but with enough structure to ensure that the direction and available resources are sufficient to be successful. At the same time, you have a strong preference for working with others where your own outcomes depend on collective efforts of teams or groups. Your personal rewards and satisfaction at work comes primarily from a collaborative, interdependent work environment. Level of structure is not as important a consideration although you would not enjoy the extremes of very highly structured or completely unstructured settings. 

Your work style is  creative and innovative, although there are limits. Consistent with that, you are willing to work in new, uncharted areas where less is known as long as there are clear expectations about the objectives and limitations. You are well suited to this type of challenging, uncharted work that requires insight and creativity more than consistency and reliability. While you are willing to take some risks at work, there must be a significant amount of information about the degree of risk and the possible results before you would feel comfortable with the decision. 

Um, yes.

Let's Talk About Drugs

Yes. I know.

But I'm talking about specific drugs here, and I discovered something interesting. First a little background, as this is a newish, more work-safe area than my personal blog.

My husband Laston was diagnosed in October 2015 with colon cancer, metastasized to his liver. After several rounds of chemo, he didn't make it, and his death in August of 2016 threw us all for a loop. In addition to counseling, etc., my doctor wrote a prescription for Xanax, as needed, for "Primary Grief Reaction: Anxiety." This is also the diagnosis that covered me for FMLA (previously I had been covered as "spouse of patient").

This is not a whine about Big Bad Corporation and how they Done Me Wrong. They may have, but that is not the point of this post. I have plenty of other complaining writing about that whole sitch over at my personal blog.

The point of this post, and this blog in general, is to be more positive about such things.

And to get back to topic, when I got that Rx for Xanax, I wasn't taking it often. Maybe three or four pills a month until the numbness wore off, then five or six. A month. Not too bad. And I usually took a half dose, so that's what? Half a Xanax every three days on average?

Since I was let go from AT&T (November 29th, and today is January 5th), I have had half of one Xanax, and that one was Christmas Eve, after taking an hour and a half to slide on ice home from my aunt's house, which is on top of a fairly large hill. With three kids in a top-heavy mommy-mobile.

I have also had no migraines, not even ah... cyclically, and very few other issues. I'm even sleeping most nights without any aid but the Calm app's Sleep Stories.

Even with the stresses of joblessness and money during the holidays.

That says something important about work at that place affecting my health, does it not?