I Quit My Job, and I Feel Great

Those of you who have been following this blog for the past 11 years of its existence know that I've gone through a bajillion life changes, and they often happen in quick spurts of anxiety and chaos all at once.

Well, welcome to another installment of "What did Chaviva do now?" I keep wavering between "This is going to be awesome" and "This is going to make me vomit." It's an epic place to be.

I'm happy to say that every job I've ever left, with the exception of two, I've left on my own free will and at my own time. The two jobs that this didn't happen with were soft "letting go" situations and both happened after I moved to Israel and the two Denver companies I was working for decided they needed people closer to home to make things work (thanks Marissa Meyer). Every other job I've ever had I left. I quit. I walked away Most of the time, I leave a job because I grow impatient or bored.

This time? I left a job because I was stressed, depressed, and felt terribly devalued. No job is worth those feelings.

So what now? Well, I've got three part-time gigs I'm juggling, and thanks to a close friend who lit a fire under me, I'm going to start developing my own company. And this time, for one in my life, I'm going to start charging what I'm worth. I have this problem where I just want to make brands amazing, so I'll take whatever they pay me to get the chance to make them awesome. No more, folks. I'm a pro, I've been doing this for a very long time, and I'm really, really good at what I do. If I continue to devalue myself, my clients will, too. If I say it's $100 or $150/hour, you better bet I'm going to work my tuches off during that hour and you're going to shine because of it.

Onward. Upward. It's time for me to take the reins of my destiny instead of someone else's. I'm ready to get back to where I was all those years ago where Chaviva was the brand, where my expertise was sought after, where I was the pro on panels. That's the person I am.

Stay tuned for a website geared toward my marketing prowess, a new logo and name, and more. Exciting times ahead, folks!

Good News, Better News

I've had a surprisingly uplifting few weeks. Even spending all day shopping and cleaning the apartment for Passover couldn't get me down. You're probably wondering why I turned my house over for Passover so early, right? Okay, let's start at the beginning. 

The Good News: I got an unexpected email last week from someone I'd been speaking with about a job opportunity back in November. The talks back then stalled and I was told they'd be hiring in mid-2015, so I took a job at The Jewish Experience and life plodded on. So the unexpected email came at a time when I needed a bit of a lift up. Finances have been really hard, life has been hard, everything has been impossible, but I've been doing it because I have no choice. In the span of a week, I talked to several people, and on Friday got the official job offer. 

I couldn't, absolutely couldn't, turn it down. 

I'll tell you all more about the job once I actually start it after Passover, but let me just say it's going to be exciting and it's going to give me the flexibility I need as a powerhouse working mother and the career boost I've been waiting for my entire career. 

The job has me trekking out to California on Sunday/Monday to meet the team and get jazzed about the awesome things coming, hence why I turned the house over for Passover today. I won't have Sunday, there's no daycare next Thursday, so ... there we are. Two weeks of matzah! Yay!

The Better News: I woke up to an email from my mother-in-law, which sent me into a tizzy searching my email inbox for ... yes ... a notice from the National Visa Center that they finally got around to looking at our paperwork, everything is in order, and Mr. T has an interview scheduled for May 15 in Jerusalem!

I'm going to pretend it was me sending an email every week for the past month reminding them that they received the revised paperwork on February 24 at 12:34 p.m. and it was signed for by ... you get the idea. I hope my nudging actually worked. Nothing else seemed to work (we were denied an expedite twice). 

So. Yay! Theoretically, from everything I've read, once the interview is complete they let him know on the spot whether he's been approved or denied. If he's approved, the process of getting the physical visa is quick. 

Please, please, please pray for a Shavuot reunion for us. On Shavuot, HaShem gave us the Torah. I pray that this year, for Shavuot, he'll give me my husband back. 

I want to thank everyone for the constant support, the kindness, the love, the understanding. The cheerleaders have gotten me through this madness, and I know you'll continue to get me through. I also want to thank the haters and the trolls for representing everything about myself that I could hate and complain about if I had the energy or time. The haters and trolls are the personal slam book that I've never had to write or open. Thank you for that. 

I'm 31 Today

Yea, verily, today I am 31 years old. I have been on this earth for 31 intensely perplexing, often stressful and emotionally exhausting, years.

I started my birthday with a 9-month-old pretending I was some mighty mountain to be conquered while spouting "Bahhhh" sounds and a notification that my bank account was overdrawn.

Then I got dressed in my birthday outfit (thanks inlaws!) and took off to Comcast (aka Xfinity), where I've been now three times over the past several days because some stranger managed to cancel our cable and internet over Rosh HaShanah. "We really don't know what happened," they continue to tell me.

And then? Then I went into my former place of employment and picked up my things and stuff and said "see ya!" That was both awkward, super awkward, and depressing.

Now we're trying to plan for -- G-d forbid -- the worst as Mr. T's grandmother appears to not be doing very well back in the UK, which means a nightmare of immigration problems as we are still, still, still waiting for his green card, travel documents, and work permit to come through. If we leave the country without getting approval, then the paperwork is canceled and we start again from scratch. Yay!

But hey. There's an ice cream cake in my future, a gift card to Old Navy to be spent, and, who knows, maybe I'll land an amazing job in the next few days or so. Unfortunately KISSmetrics was a bust (killed me, it was the perfect job).

Do I sound kvetchy? I am. Maybe Aimee Mann said it best in "31 Today." Minus the Guiness, of course.

"I thought my life would be different somehow."

Planning: What Happens Now?

We all know the saying: Man plans, G-d laughs. 

Several weeks back, I listened to a podcast -- a repeat from years prior -- on Plan B, that thing we have when life doesn't go the way we want the first time around (our Plan A). As I listened and considered my current situation, I began to think about my own plans and how many of them I've had.

My first plan, when I was a child was to be an artist. My entire childhood I longed to be involved in the arts, and my parents put me through art lessons, I entered art competitions, and I saw myself attending the Kansas City Art Institute. When I was in middle school, that all came to a crashing halt as I realized that my friend Kim was much more talented than I could ever be. Suddenly, it was all about writing and photography. The latter dream died when I was in high school and shadowed a photo journalist for a day and decided that it was the last thing on the planet I was willing to do.

After that, I decided poetry was where it was at and pursued that effort for the rest of high school and into my first semester of college with a degree in English. After a visit to the dentist and seeing an English degree on my dentist's wall, I realized that maybe it wasn't the most useful degree on the planet and quickly switched to journalism with an emphasis on copy editing.

As it turned out, copy editing was my true Plan A. I dreamed of working my way up and through internships and jobs to a post at The New York Times. I worked at the Daily Nebraskan for four years, landed a prestigious Dow Jones Internship at The Denver Post, was picked up by The Washington Post for an internship that turned into a job, and I was ready to stick to it. But unhappiness drowned Plan A.

Plan B didn't come about for quite some time. I moved to Chicago and worked for a Nobel Prize winner as his "Devil Wears Prada"-style assistant before applying to graduate school in Judaic studies. It was at that time that I realized Plan B was to teach. After a graduate degree from the University of Connecticut and starting up at New York University, I suddenly became aware that this Plan B wasn't exactly going to work out -- my Hebrew wasn't quite up to snuff and social media in Jewish schools wasn't something anyone had in mind.

And then?

While in graduate school I realized the power of my social media prowess and decided, well, maybe this will work out as Plan C? In Denver I put it to the test and landed three different jobs doing social media, building my skills and talents, and I was pretty set that this is where I belonged. After aliyah I kept those jobs and forged forth learning, doing, being.

Now? I'm at a crossroads where my superficial childhood plans and the various plans of adulthood seem to be saying "nope, this isn't it," and wondering what I am supposed to be doing. Writing? Back to editing?

I spend my days searching for work and mulling about on Social Media, trying to stay fresh, but I can't help but feel that I'm losing my edge, that my talent isn't exactly a talent so much as a skill I acquired that anyone could acquire. I've always said that it isn't that I know how to do all of these things perfectly but rather that I'm resourceful and willing, eager and able. I know where to look to find the answers to any problem, I know how to troubleshoot anything with a quick Google search.

Some people take comfort in the search for the next job opportunity or the next experience, but I find myself bored and frustrated. This blog hasn't seen much out of me recently because the truth is I'm best at blogging and working when I'm busy, when I have a million things going on at once. When there isn't much going on, the day just floats by and productivity slacks.

I'm trying to figure out what HaShem has in store for me exactly. Is the lull a nudge to look inward? Is it a push to reexamine my strengths and talents and figure out who I'm menat to be? Is it a forced vacation after 11 years of work, work, work?

Perhaps, then, I should be thankful instead of angry, happy instead of forlorn. What do you think?

A Change in Plans

Wait, stop, don't hate me! I spoke too soon. I had anticipated doing a video with Mr. T, but things beyond both of our control means we're putting it on hold. Stay tuned but I promise that there will be something in the future, I'm just not sure when.

I apologize that the blog has been so sparse, but I'm devoting 99 percent of my days these days to trying to find full-time work. It's amazing how difficult it is to get hired here -- I had no clue that it was going to be this difficult.

If aliyah were easy, everyone would be doing it, right?

An Unexpected Turn of Events

Listen, it was really bright outside. But hey! Snow! It's our first

snow together as an "us." Talk about a highlightable moment.

Life has this funny way of being completely and utterly and ridiculously unexpected an oftentimes unpredictable. Some of those unexpected mometns are horrifying and scary and some of them are amazing and uplifting.

It's me and the illustrious Laura Ben-David at the engagement
party. Mad props to Mr. Ben-David for the excellent photo.

Last week, Mr. T and I gathered with dozens of friends (who spanned my life in Connecticut, Colorado, and Israel) of ours at Ha'Gov to celebrate our engagement. People just kept coming! There was a lot of laughing, noshing, reminiscing, story-telling, and general joviality. The most unexpected result of the evening for me is something of a PSA for any and all naysayers:

My dearest Melissa, a friend who helped pick me back up a week after my get when I arrived in Colorado, thank you.

The news below impacts my coworkers Sue (left in the picture) and
Melissa (right in the picture). But we're still happy to be together!

Here's another case in point from this week of the unexpected and unpredictable. Many of you will read this and say, "Aha! Things aren't going so smoothly now, are they Chaviva!?" But I urge you to read all of what I write and then 

On Monday night I got fired from a job I have absolutely loved and done nothing but kvell about at every conference and to every Jewish professional I've run into. Yes, the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education has let me go starting January 15, 2013. The moment I found out, the feelings I had weren't so much of panic or devastation but more a sadness that another Jewish agency is losing it's ties to any kind of presence in social spaces. Immediately I put the call out on Twitter and Facebook: "Help find me a job!" The next morning, I had a half-dozen jobs in my inbox sent by dozens of people. I've applied to them all, and I have a very important and hopefully fruitful call on Sunday afternoon. B'ezrat HaShem (with the help of G-d), I might have this full-time loss filled up more quickly than I can possibly imagine. This job loss was unexpected, and I had no clue it was coming. I anticipated at some point the distance with Colorado would become an issue, but the reality was finances -- not distance. Mr. T, the amazing man that he is, has reassured me time and again that we'll survive, and it's amazing how much I feel that. I'm not panicked, I'm not worried, I'm not stressed out. It's a funny feeling to be in the right space and to know that somehow HaShem will provide.

So, with IKEA bookshelves in our possession, a dryer on its way, wedding plans just about finished, life is moving along. The amazing thing about Mr. T and me is that we have something unique going on in that we manage to communicate everything, and even when we disagree, we don't fight. It's funny, and really unexpected, but I didn't know that having an argument didn't require yelling, crying, and hurt feelings. (Yes, we looked up the Merriam-Webster definition of argument just to be sure.) I feel incredibly lucky to have someone so easy-going, hilarious, and positive in my life. May things always be this good, even when they're not.

Onward and upward!

New Year, New Gig, New Dilbert!

I started a new job today, and it's going to be awesomely intense. I can't say much about it exactly, other than that I'm a Social Media "Intern," and my work is massively cut out for me (and I am crazy stoked). And now? I give you Dilbert.

:)