FROM UNEMPLOYED TO 3 JOBS AT ONCE

pic: my first day at Adobe

Life’s been a little hectic lately – but it’s all been GREAT!  Last week I started a new job at Adobe, and I’m absolutely loving it. Adobe is one of those Dream Companies to work for, and I feel incredibly blessed that I have this opportunity. Like when I interviewed at Apple a few months ago, and it was for a position in Texas – yes, I would have packed up my life and moved to Texas to work for Apple, because Apple is one of those Dream Companies too.  Fortunately, the Adobe Office in Lehi is only 20 minutes from my house – so I get to continue to sleep in my own bed EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT!  (You have no idea how amazingly wonderful that is.)

   For the past few months I’ve been working a Temporary Contract for Unisys. It was only supposed to be for 2-3 weeks, but it’s been 4 months – and they’ve really been great to me. I haven’t touched the work they originally hired me to do because they’ve had me working on a few big client projects for them instead. In fact, when I told them I’d be leaving to go to Adobe, they said “No!” They begged me to finish “just one more” project they were desperate for, and since they couldn’t possibly match the offer I got from Adobe – I made a concession:  I’d stay-on for a few extra weeks and finish their project (as long as they’d work around my new Adobe schedule). Fortunately they were frantic enough to agree. But that has also meant that for the past 2 weeks I have been doing BOTH jobs, making for some very long 16-hour days. [Hopefully the extra money in the paychecks will make it worthwhile.]

   And (because apparently I am insane) I have taken on a new side-gig too. When I was interviewing, I met with Traeger Grills about their eLearning needs – but they don’t have enough work for a fulltime person. So I made a deal with them to work on their projects on the side – which has taken up every spare second that I have had for the past few weeks.

pic: 4 laptops but only one lap

   So that explains my FOUR laptops: one is my personal laptop (which hasn’t even been opened for more than a week), and one each for my other THREE jobs at Adobe, Unisys, Traeger. Luckily I have a HUGE rolling backpack to haul them ALL around with me from job to job each day. And fortunately I’m almost done juggling 3 jobs, and next week will transition to having only 2 jobs.

   It’s a lot of work, and I have barely had time to eat and sleep – let alone anything else (like blogging). But I am having the time of my life! I love new adventures, and there have certainly been quite a few of them lately. And because I have always worked, I have really tried to build a career that I enjoy – and I am truly blessed in that area of my life.

   Although I’ve considered myself “Unemployed” for the past few months, the truth is that I was only not-working for a few weeks – not even long enough to enroll for Unemployment Benefits. Never in my life have I collected Unemployment, Welfare, Food Stamps, or anything similar, and although those programs definitely fill a need for many people, I feel very fortunate to have never needed to rely on any programs and always had enough resources to cover my needs.  Being debt-free and having an Emergency Fund has made all the difference in being able to weather this most-recent storm, and being willing to “settle” for a temporary position in the interim meant that I could likely have remained “unemployed” indefinitely (because I still had money coming in).

   I’ve learned something interesting about myself too. Because for the past 20 years I always had to be the breadwinner, I was always about “Stable Work” — whether or not I was happy. I had to carry the benefits, I had to pay all the bills, I had to “play it safe” because I wasn’t with someone I could count on to take care of those things. And that meant that I generally stayed where I was working, no matter how miserable I was, because it was expected of me. Once I even had a great opportunity, but it was a little risky, and he talked me out of it because he didn’t think it was worth the risk – and looking back, it’s really something I not only wanted to do but it would have been a fabulous thing to have done. “You always miss the shots you don’t take.”

   And now that I’m single again, I’ve taken a few risks – and they’ve paid off very well.  Since my divorce 3 years ago, my income has doubled and I’ve done more, seen more, lived more in those 3 years than in the past 20 years combined. I’ve been everywhere, seen everything, and I have truly learned to “Go For It” – and I’ve never been happier. I have learned to be adventurous – because life is an adventure. Sure, I ponder, study, and pray about big changes – but I’ve also learned that if you’re willing to take a chance AND you’re willing to work your butt off for it, you can have some incredible opportunities come your way.