So tell me about yourself…

I’m currently interviewing for 6 different jobs. Each job will have at least 2 rounds of interviews, some will have 3. So far I’ve had:

• 3 x phone interviews
• 1 x skype interview
• 4 face-to-face interviews

On top of that I still have 3 x 1st round face-to-face interviews this week. The thought of answering any of the following questions again makes me want to shoot myself.

Below are the questions I get asked at every. single. interview. And below each question is what I’m really thinking in my head when I’m asked these questions:

1. So tell me about yourself? My brain: I hate commitment and I generally don’t like people. It takes me a while to warm up to people and it takes a lot for me to call someone a friend. Since entering the workforce I’ve been constantly amazed at the number of completely incompetent people in every organisation, especially in management and I am astounded that more of them have not been fired. Sometimes I wonder to myself, how have these people managed to stay alive for this long?
2. What made you apply for this position? My brain: I need a job. I need to get paid so that I can feed myself and my cat. Your job ad listed all the skills that I have so I thought to myself the chances of getting hired are higher than if I applied for a job I’m totally unqualified to perform.
3. Why are you looking to leave your current position? My brain: Because I was made redundant by my manage who is an asshole. Even if I wasn’t made redundant I would’ve left because the place was a hell hole and every minute there was excruciating. Had it not been for the 4 good friends I had there, I would’ve literally thrown someone out the window. Friends save lives.
4. Tell me about a time when you had conflicting opinions with someone? How did you work through that situation? My brain: I had to physically restrain myself from punching them in the face and grit my teeth for the entire 3 months project so that I didn’t say anything that would’ve got me fired or do anything that would’ve got me sued. Again, I’d like to reference back to my complete amazement that such incompetent people have jobs.
5. How do you prioritise different tasks, especially when there are multiple competing tasks? My brain: I pick the task that is most likely to get me fired if I don’t do it on time. I work this out by seeing who gave me the task and where they are in the pecking order. If their title starts with Chief, then they will usually be priority one.
6. How do you deal with change? Are you comfortable with an environment where change is constant? My brain: I deal with change the same way I deal with idiots. I bear through it and hope to God that the person making the decision relating to the change is not a moron and that if we’re really lucky then that person also has a somewhat coherent plan on how they actually want to carry out the change. And most importantly, I hope in my heart of hearts that there is a logical reason for the change and its not just because “they felt like it”. My comfort for change is directly proportional to the IQ and capability of the person making the decision at the top.

I truly wish I could just record myself answering these questions and just email each employer a copy of the recording so that I don’t have to go through this again.

High on Finance

Can I just say that the Barefoot Investor is hands down the best book I have EVER read in my ENTIRE LIFE. No exaggeration, I am dead serious.

In less than 24hours, my whole life perspective has been changed. I have never felt this level of clarity ever before in my life. Never have I ever been as excited and optimistic about my finances either.

The advice author Scott Pape gives is so logical, so straightforward and yet so priceless. Its not just what he says, but the way he says it that somehow flipped a switch in my brain and everything started to make sense.

Especially for those living in Australia, I don’t think you can find a more relevant, more easy to understand, easy to follow book than this. Every piece of advice he gives is accompanied by specific steps of action e.g. not just the usual “you need to save”, but the “you need to save”, “this is how you save“, “this is how much you save”, “this is where you save it”, “this is where you invest it“, “this is how you spend it“.

I started reading this book at around 10pm yesterday. I went to bed at 2am this morning. I got out of bed at 9am and I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a huge buzz from looking at my finances. I had such a productive day, not just in terms of organising finances but also getting through my general to do list. I am so hyped…its like I’m high on drugs (which I’m obviously not), except in reality I’m high on finance.

 

Well Fuck Me Dead

MIND BLOWN.

Who would’ve thought that reading a book about managing your personal finances can trigger a life changing epiphany?

It’s 1:02am on 15th April 2018. This is the exact moment my life has changed forever.

Up until this moment, I have been treading water. From now on I’m swimming in the fast lane.

For YEARS I have been trying to change myself, change my life, bit by bit, step by step. The progress has been excruciatingly slow and I ALWAYS lost steam. And the worst part, I never understood why I couldn’t motivate myself to do the things I wanted to do, like save money, or exercise, eat healthy, sleep earlier, yada yada yada. Even getting up at 5am has been a struggle for the last couple of weeks. I have failed overwhelmingly more than I have succeeded. And now I get it, I get why I always failed – its because I never really understood what it was that I wanted and why I wanted it. I always got distracted and veered off course.

Well no more. Fuck no. 

Instead of seeing the forest, I was examining every single fucking tree with a microscope.

What I know now:

1. I have everything I need
2. What I really want:
   1. Find a job that makes gives me satisfaction
   2. Travel the world
   3. Be healthy, fit, with a killer bod
   4. Spend more time with friend and family & treat them better
   5. Own my own space and do with it as I please

Everything I have ever done was to achieve these goals, but I never looked up to see where I was actually heading, which meant I never made a path to follow and had no map to guide me.

Instead I focused on the minutiae and went down every conceivable dead end.

• All the clothes, bags, shoes, perfumes I’ve ever squandered money on was a quick fix to looking good – it was easier than eating healthy and working out
• Endlessly buying furniture and useless decor to make my apartment look how I like how I want it to look, when in truth it never will because I don’t own it and I can’t change it
• I’ve spent years working at jobs that didn’t make me happy so that I could make the money I needed to waste on useless things
• Instead of spending it on travel or buying an apartment or going out with friends, I wasted all my money on useless crap

All these goals are linked. Now I see that. Now I have clarity and focus.

From now on, EVERYTHING I DO needs to feed into my goals. If it doesn’t then it needs to not be a part of my life.

Promises to myself:

• I will find a job that brings me satisfaction and use and save my income only for things related to my goals
• I will no longer buy clothes, bags, shoes in order to look good. I will look good by being healthy and fit and it will be better than any item of clothing I can ever purchase.
• The money I save will go towards travelling, buying my own place and spending time with friends and family. Outside of this and my living expenses, my money will go no where else.

I can’t believe I’ve watched over 100 youtube videos on minimalism and decluttering and I never fully got it. I can’t believe a finance book would be the thing that connected the very large and obvious dots to help me finally open my eyes.

I know it may sound dumb, basic, exceedingly obvious – but you know sometimes even though you understand it in theory, you don’t fully grasp it with your whole self? Well, I finally got it. Thank the lord.

 

Uncomfortably Awake

Day 16: Impending failure. It’s currently 1:36am, which means I’ve screwed up my sleep pattern – yay.

I had two interviews today (or more accurately, yesterday), along with lunch with my old work friends. Added to that, I was fielding calls from recruiters throughout the day and ended it with a mad rush to get my references ready.

I was so tired by the time I’d finished dinner that I ended up going to bed at around 9:30pm (which is unheard of) and I actually fell asleep straight away (another miracle). Unfortunately, I was woken up at 11:45pm by a woman screaming outside my apartment building (not sure if she was drunk or crazy or both).

And since then I haven’t been able to get back to sleep, mostly because I now have all this job stuff swirling around my brain.

My job hunt has been going well since last week where I decided to put some effort into it by actually applying for a few jobs. At the moment I’m in the reference check stage for one role, about to have a final interview for another role and have two other employers interested, who I’ll be meeting over the next week.

The job that is currently in the reference stage is a role that I’m quite interested in and one that ticks a lot of boxes.

Upsides

1. The best brand out of all the roles I’ve applied for (good especially if you’re in marketing like I am)
2. Biggest corporation out of all the companies
3. The role specialises in one particular area of digital marketing (which is a plus because now days most of the growth in marketing is in digital and for the best paying jobs, its usually in the digital area)
4. I get along well with the hiring manager who this role would be reporting directly to
5. The location of the company is quite close to home (30min door-to-door via bus in peak hour) – it’s close enough that I can probably run home as part of my exercise routine

Downsides:

1. The role will most likely pay less than what I make now (by around $5k)
2. The role seems like it will be very challenging, especially in the beginning (this isn’t a complete downside as I think a role that isn’t challenging at all would just be boring)

I guess it’s the pay that is causing me the most reluctance in accepting the role. Even though I know it is WAY more important that I am working somewhere that I enjoy and makes me happy, it’s still hard to agree to lower pay. Every job I’ve had previously, I’ve always increased my salary by at least 20% every time I got a new job. Also, considering this will be slightly less than my current salary (which has been unchanged for 3.5 years), it’s hard to accept that this lower salary will probably be this rate for at least a year if not more – that means that by next year my salary will not have increased in 4.5 years. That’s pretty hard to swallow, even for all the upsides this job has.

The biggest attraction is the role itself and what I’d be learning in it. Even if I stayed there for a year or two – the skills I’d gain would mean by the end of it I’d be able to easily demand at least a 20 – 30% increase on my current salary elsewhere in the market.

But the other consideration is that for some of the other roles that want to interview me, they are already offering at least a 10 – 20% increase on my current salary right now, not in a year or two.

This role could potentially change my career completely if I’m successful. I think it will give me invaluable skills as a marketer, although the pay is not great. Should I just bite the bullet and take a leap of faith?

3 Steps Back, 1 Step Forward

Day 14: Improved failure. I am slowly making my way out of the rut that I was in. Getting 2nd stage interviews has definitely been a pick-me-up. I’m also meeting up with some old work friends tomorrow and I’m excited to see them.

I’ve realised that the older I get, the more I keep things in. Now days when something serious and negative happens, I tend to keep it to myself and I avoid talking about it. For example being made redundant – I haven’t told most of my friends. The only ones that know are friends that worked with me.

I guess its a psychological thing…I can already anticipate the conversations that I’d need to have if I were to tell my friends about the redundancy and the repetitiveness of those conversations is what I want to avoid. I know those conversations would evolve into repetitive questions every time I see them e.g. how’s the job hunt going?, have you got a job yet?, followed by the standard platitudes e.g. it’s ok, you’ll find a job soon, everything will be fine, you’ll find a job that you’ll actually like, etc.

I know they’d only be saying those things because they care and they want to be nice, but I don’t think they realise it just makes things more awkward and exasperating.

So I’ve avoided telling them, which is why I’m excited to see my old work friends because I have nothing to hide from them since they already know. To be honest, I’ve been avoiding going out with my usual group of friends as frequently as I used to, just so that there are less instances where I feel like I have to hide this from them. I don’t like hiding things, as I’m usually quite an open person, but I just can’t seem to summon the energy to have those conversations at the moment.

Anyway, I will hopefully get a job soon and be able to move on with my life.

 

 

Stuck in a Rut

Day 13: Abysmal failure. I’ve been stuck in a rut for the last few days. Ever since I lost my job I’ve been trying to remain positive and motivated but I guess over the weekend I just gave up a little. Yesterday I literally didn’t do anything aside from stay in bed, watch Netflix and binge eat. I watch the entire 2nd season of Designated Survivor.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve tried to maintain a semi-active lifestyle by making sure I left the apartment everyday, whether it was just to do the grocery shopping, go to the beach, go to the gym, go to interviews or to meet up with friends. Right now I don’t feel like going out at all or seeing anyone. All I want to do is to barricade myself inside my apartment and stay here for the foreseeable future.

I’m trying to get back on track and aim to get a few things done today. I also have a skype interview today and need to go get some groceries. Hopefully that will give me the push I need to slowly start crawling out of this rut.

Trying to Adult

Day 9: Success. Woke up at 5am. Got out of bed at 5:30am, stretched for 30mins, then prepared for my interview for an hour, before showering, getting ready and going to the interview.

I think the interview went well, just in case anyone is wondering.

The issue I’ve been mulling over the last couple of days is whether to text my ex to apologise. The last time we saw each other, we didn’t exactly end it on good terms. Admittedly, I was being a bit of a bitch in retaliation to him being an asshole. Yes, we’re both very mature.

Since that day I’ve had time to calm down, I’ve had time to miss him and I’ve had time to think about my actions. I know that apologising is the right thing to do and also the adult thing to do and I would be the bigger person for doing it. However, I have a few concerns/reservations:

1. I apologise and then instead of also being an adult, he decides to continue to be an asshole. He does this quite often (or at least often enough to make me regret trying to be nice at times). I’m afraid this will just anger me more and trigger me to do something even bitchier.
2. On the other end of the spectrum I’m afraid that if I apologise, he’ll see it as a reconciliation and potentially an opportunity to get back together. Although I still care about him and I do miss him and I do want to be friends, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be together.
3. I also still have a lot of his stuff at my place which he says he’ll pick up sometime this month. If I text him to apologise, I feel it will be better (less cold) than just texting him to pickup his stuff in the next week or two.

I am leaning towards apologising. I really do want to end this on more amicable terms and potentially be friends sometime down the track. I know a lot of people would say “why bother?”, but this is something that is important to me. I have managed to remain friends with all my exes (in some cases very close friends) and I genuinely value their friendships.

I can only hope that he won’t be a complete dick about it. I guess even if he is, at least I’ll know I did my best to try to mend things, and that’s what being an adult is all about right?

Revenge, best served cold.

Day 7: Mediocre attempt. I’m good at going to bed at a respectable time now and I’m good at waking up by 5am. The thing I’m not good at is actually getting out of bed. Today I stayed pretty much awake in bed until 8am. That’s 3 hours of literally lying around and doing nothing.

I have been exercising though, which is another thing I’m not particularly good at doing consistently. However, I realise whenever I watch shows about weight loss and exercise, I’m more motivated to go and do something myself. Over the last few days I’ve been watching Revenge Body, the show by Khloe Kardashian. Although the reviews weren’t great for it, I actually quite like it. The format of the show is a bit repetitive but I like the trainers that feature on it and most of the contestants. I also find it quite motivational, which is probably the biggest reason I like it. When I see that there are people who are a lot more overweight than I am and how hard they work to lose that weight, it really gives me the kick up the ass I need to get myself moving.

A lot of the contestants lose 30lbs+ over 12 weeks and go through amazing body and also life transformations. When I first started the show, I thought to myself “gee it would be nice to have the time to workout so much and lose weight like that” and then I realised “omg, I actually do have time like that”. So here is to my attempt at a body transformation. I’m aiming for 33lbs, but probably over a bit more time than 12 weeks…I’d say maybe 16-20 weeks is more realistic for me.

Let’s see how I go 🙂

Lol…when she said “You don’t have to fake cry just because I said that…” to a contestant…love her.

Annoyed.

Day 6: Mediocre attempt. In bed at 11pm, woke up at around 4:40am again but didn’t get out of bed…just laid there awake and thinking. Fell asleep again at 7am and finally got out of bed at around 9am.

Every night I go to sleep with every intention of waking up early the next day. I go to sleep with so much motivation and when I wake up its my mind resets and forgets all the reasons why I wanted to be more productive. Then it takes a whole day for me to build up my motivation again, only to go to sleep and wait for the next day before I can do anything.

I am very annoyed with myself at the moment.

 

Saved by Daylight Savings

Day 5: SUCCESS! Went to bed at 10:30pm yesterday, fell asleep around midnight, woke-up at 4:40am, got up at 5:20am and DID NOT GO BACK TO BED!

It did help that daylight savings started (ended? – I’m never sure which one is which) today and that means 4:40am is actually the old 5:40am. So I guess I succeeded due to a technicality, but I’m happy to take wins where I can get them 🙂

My prep last night:

1. I knew if I wanted to get up early this morning, I’d need something to get up for, so I found some exercise videos on Youtube that I like and set them up so they were ready to go first thing in the morning (abs, butts 1, butts 2)
2. I started prepping for bed at 10pm
3. I took melatonin (although since I haven’t taken it for a long time I feel like its not working as much yet)

What I did this morning:

1. Woke-up at 4:40am. Snoozed a bit.
2. Cuddled my cat
3. Got up at 5:20am
4. Did 10 minutes of stretching
5. Did 25 minutes of exercises (videos linked above)
6. Drank green tea
7. Showered
8. Took probiotic
9. Now writing this post – and I can’t believe I’ve gotten all this done and its only 6:40am. This is why waking up at 5am is worth it!

Hopefully if I keep up the momentum, I’ll be able to reach some other goals as well.

Vicky Justiz: Body and booty goals – she looks amazing