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The Unemployed Woman's Guide to Enjoying the Holidays

This week's post on BlogHer: I wrote this after reading some great advice for people searching for jobs over the holidays. Time seems to stand still for these people at this time. I know, because I was one of them.

Entrepreneurial Sin #1: Assume the world will end when you stop working

I have a lot to say about the Entrepreneurial life, I realize. Including what NOT to do. I'm particularly expert at that. This is part I of a series on Entrepreneurial sins. As with all of my series, I make no claims regarding how many installments this one will have. Enjoy the ride, however long it lasts...

I've always found that the most introspective periods of my life have occurred when I've had time for them. Back in 2002, when the start-up I worked at went under, and I had nearly a year of "consulting" and thumb twiddling, I read stacks of self-help books, wrote a book, meditated and went on long walks that ended with me grokking something new about myself.

Intermittently in early 2005, when I quit my job to take on meaningful work (without knowing what that was), and before BlogHer, I had days that were fully open to me for nothing else but writing and jotting down inspirations.

But lately I've been in a distressed state. I've never been busier than I am now, and yet I'm equally introspective, and the two are duking it out for supremacy in a death match that's begun to eak its way into my consciousness. The first signs were small meltdowns, pissiness, and then moments of downright despair over the course of my life. I had a few months when I could blame it on planning a wedding, but now I don't have any excuses. Friends would ask, how's business? And the answer is always the same, "Fine." And it's true. But ask me, "How are YOU," and the answer is "Confused."

To What End, this Sacrifice? The Difference Between Male and Female Bootstrappers

My latest on BlogHer after reading about some fairly gnarly--and fairly lucrative--ways of building company value. Women, be warned: the guys don't wash.

Lynn Broadwell: On growing a business, staying sane, and finding a decent caterer

More on my Small-Business Hero, Lynn Broadwell, on BlogHer.org.

The Small Business Owner's Guide to Life: Rule #1--Stop Trying to Land Mr. Hard-to-Get

I used to read Inc. Magazine purely for hypothetical value, in case I ever needed to know how to run a business. I never planned to start my own company; I was interested in the psychology of a small business owner, knowing that I would someday take the leap again and become an independent contractor, not--I repeat--a small business owner. I figured that mundanities like payroll or P&Ls would keep me from my real work, that of creating. I skipped the stories about legal issues, accounting, and project management software for the virtual enterprise and focused on the lifestyle stories--the profiles of people who lived in incertainty and infinite possibility.

Now I'm wishing I'd paid more attention to the other stuff.

Feeling My Financial Age

Many, many jobs ago, I worked in Time Inc's Custom Publishing Department, developing custom magazines for corporate clients. Part of my job was securing content from Time's magazine properties--Money Magazine, Fortune, Parenting, Heath, Food & Wine, you name it--to repurpose in these titles. The job required that I browse dozens of magazines every week, a task that kept me up-to-speed on everything from fashion to the latest study on the effects of caffeine.

Many of the magazines I worked on were in the financial services realm and required that I pore through issues of Money magazine; I didn't realize the magazine had an effect on me, but it did. In the end, the job didn't take, but the money lessons did--until now.

The Relationship Chronicles: My &^%*ing Office Mate (Part II)

This post is a continuation of a post about me and my beloved, and the joy of sharing an office.

While I struggle with design software, B-friend struggles with writing. He's actually a brilliant presenter and letter writer, but when he writes prose his work transforms into mucky verbosity. And yet, despite what we both know will inevitably happen from word one, he still asks me to review passages from his thesis, and I still say yes.

"'Developable?' that's not a word; put something else in here."

"It's jargon--you don't know it. Just move on."

"Bullshit--you made this word up."

"THEY know what I mean."

"Who's THEY? Other people with poor grasp of the English language?"

"Hey, all I wanted was an overview here, OK. An overall review, not a line edit."

He doesn't understand. I spent the first few years of my publishing career line editing text on weekends to make ends meet. I know the NY Times Stylebook backwards and forwards. I still hesitate before using the word "since" when I could use the word "because." And he wants to pull this jargoncrap with me?

I tell him: "But if I can't get through the first sentence, how can I give you an overview?"

"Just skip that line and move on."

"Whatever, fine (Reading the next line): 'This project envisions an urban prototype for the City, introducing a vibrant new pattern to the neighborhood...' Huh? A project can't envision anything. YOUR vision of the project can be an urban prototype for the City, but the project itself can't envision anything. Gotta fix that line. And prototype seems superfluous here..."

"It's jargon!"

"It's bullshit."

"Forget I asked." 

Another point of tension: The airport transport provision in our implied Co-habitation agreement. I would swear that it reads:

"In all events when a cohabitant requires a ride to the freakin' airport at such times when second co-habitant is not a) in class or b) in an unreasonable vicinity of cohabitants' home (i.e. "out of town," "hospitalized") or unable to perform chauffeur duties (paralysis or death), he/she is required to provide timely transportation to and from the airport, without complaint or guilt trip."

I asked b-friend for a ride to the airport today, and he said, "You're on your own, Babe."

Say wha?

The Relationship Chronicles: My &^%*ing Office Mate (Part I)

It's become a ritual of sorts: I wake up in the morning and check my email. If I don't have any meetings in the City I don't bother getting dressed. I just keep going and worry about things like brushing my teeth later in the day.

I know this is a departure from the ritual I devised when I first began soloing, but, I don't know--things happen. Now I have calls to make; people need answers for things sooner rather than later. I tried conducting a few conference calls in Starbucks, but it was distracting, and getting dressed and walking over to coffee shops has become more of a time suck than a means of sanity maintenance. Leaving my house has become, well, a luxury of late.

B-friend's in a similar boat. He's almost done with school and working on his thesis (I've been reminded countless times that it's not just "a paper," and I've reminded him countless times that I don't mean any disrespect when I refer to it that way.) He's also a finalist in a national design competition, and working double duty to finish his concept with his team this week before flying out for his final presentation.

And did I mention the size of our house--more like a standalone apartment? It affords us comfort, yes, but very CLOSE comfort. Our second bedroom subs as his office, my office, and the runover room for whatever personal effects won't fit in our other bedroom. His station snakes around the south and east walls, and my station lines the north side. On the west wall is a shelf unit where we've stacked everything that won't fit on or under our desks--old files, conference schwag, magazines we think we'll read someday; and on b-friend's exclusive shelf, greasy towels, a bike crank, a tool caddy and a head scratcher.

On the floor he has clothes strategically strewn into the following piles-

1. stuff that might need washing (he'll let it sit for a day, and if it still smells he'll wash it),
2. sweaty stuff that needs to air out, and
3. stuff that needs washing but that he won't be wearing in public and can have another go round.

I mention our shared office to illustrate the atmosphere we've been stewing in lately. It's a little, shall we say, tense.

The Blogomatic! It slices, dices, and even transforms a career!

I was asked by a blog buddy if I could speak with his daughter about her career path. I've had a number of requests like this, I suppose, because I've become the Poster Child of occupational change. Let's see, in roughly 12 years of post-collegiate employment I've had roughly...10 gigs (three of them fall into the self-employment category). I suppose this gives me master certification at how to help other people effectively jump ship.

In this way I consider myself something of a diving instructor; I help people adjust their oxygen so they save some for the tough parts of their dive into career self-realization. I offer ways that they can pace themselves and take on new avenues without burning bridges or burning out. I help them avoid panicking and running back to more secure, but less fulfilling corporate jobs so fast that they get the bends.

Truthfully, I love helping people with career planning. If I can help someone avoid overthinking and undercrediting themselves as early in their lives as possible then mission accomplished.

This woman, in particular, reminded me of me, or who I wanted to be, at age 25--a go-getter, confident, and a good networker. She told me of what she'd studied in college and the jobs she'd had. Like me she was a "liberal arts" type, who liked a little bit of everything. People like us have a hard time nailing down what we want to do with our careers. Put us in any job and we'll find something redeeming about it. We'll fantasize about working there for years and running the show. We'll toy with the notion of "Director of Such-and-Such Department" as our purpose in life, and then we'll wake up in the morning wishing we worked somewhere else. I understood this woman, a tightly packed ball of potential who wanted the right place to unleash it.

I listened to her story and avoided telling her outright what was on my mind; it seemed too typical of me to offer it up. Too facile. Too ... Silicon Valley woo woo.

To hell with it.

"Have you thought about blogging?" I said, wincing.

This seemed to be my panacea for everything from career dissatisfaction to relationship dysfunction. Somehow, in my world of open expression, just getting stuff out on digital paper for the world to see was the first step toward everything.

But I had a point.

Why you should be grateful for that tedious, White-Collar Job

I had a little reminder of how decent even my worst jobs have been in comparison to a few others. Even though I had to sign out to go the bathroom--I wasn't docked any pay. These people weren't so lucky. Posted on the BlogHer site.