Category: Robyn

The First Job(s) I Ever Loved- Part 1

posted 21st December 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

When I was 14 years old I was sick of babysitting, and I was eager to earn a real paycheck. I started working at a neighborhood pizza joint to make some extra money, and that was the beginning of the rollercoaster romance I would have with the restaurant industry.

At the pizza place, I immediately felt at home. The people I worked with became my closest friends. I found myself stopping by even when I didn’t have the work. I found myself hanging out with my coworkers on the weekends when we all had the day off.

And even more strangely, when I did have to work, it never seemed like work. I just had fun with my friends while we made pizzas and served customers. I loved the fast-paced yet laid back work environment, so I continued working at the pizza place for four years until I had to leave for college. Leaving my first job felt like I was closing a huge chapter in my life, and I knew I would be coming home for the summers to get back into the restaurant industry.

Sure enough, each summer I came home to work. This time I started serving and bartending at a busy bar close to my home. Once again, I loved the work. I loved the people I saw every day—my coworkers and my customers.

Each summer when I had to leave to go back to school, I was sad to leave. Something about working at a restaurant/bar makes you feel like you are part of a team. The people you work with see you have good days and bad days. They see you get angry, stressed, sad, frustrated. Then they see you get an awesome tip, have a great shift, get hit on by that regular customer over and over again.

You help each other out when things get busy or customers get difficult. You exchange stories about what you are saving your tips for. You exchange stories about your tables and your drunken customers. You bond over the whole shared experience of working in the same restaurant or bar. You share the same feelings about your job—you complain about it, but deep down you care and love every second of it.

Eventually you become much more than coworkers and much more than a team—you become family.

Even after graduating from college and starting a “real” job, I missed the restaurant industry so much that I started working one weekend night a week at a restaurant close to my apartment in the city. There I found the same close-knit team and fulfilled that personal need while doing the whole 9-to-5.

My younger sister, Holly, just graduated from college and is preparing to move back home until she finds a job. With my new flexible work schedule, I was able to spend last week in Iowa City helping her pack and move out of her apartment. In between jamming boxes full of clothes and giving resume advice and job interview tips, we took a break to grab a beer at the bar she has been bartending at for the past year.

Holly talked about how much she was going to miss the bar, her coworkers, and the regular customers. While she had started bartending for the money, the bar had turned into much more than her workplace. It had become her second home and the people she worked with became her second family.

It made me remember my days in the restaurant industry. I’m not sure how many readers have worked as servers or bartenders, but it’s something I would definitely recommend. There is no other job like it, and I am a firm believer that people who have worked in this industry are all-around better workers, better communicators, and better people.

I started in the restaurant industry more than 10 years ago. The person I am now is completely different from that person who first walked into that pizza place.

The industry shaped me and forced me to open up to people and new relationships and, ultimately, changed me for the better.

photo credit : star3112

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Escaping Reality While I Can

posted 14th December 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1, Travel, Travel/Adventure

Montezuma, Costa RicaIn between my writing and my dog walking and my attempt to make more solid plans for the future, I have booked a trip to escape reality for three weeks.

I figured I might as well take advantage of my current work arrangement. Since I’m my own boss right now, there was no need to fuss over dates or worry about vacation time.

Right after Christmas, I am hopping a plane to San Jose, Costa Rica! I plan on bringing a camera and a backpack and that’s about it. My goal is to keep the whole trip under $1,000, which I think should be pretty doable since I found a great flight deal!

Right now I don’t have much of a plan, except that I will be spending New Year’s Eve in a coastal hippie town called Montezuma. I decided to splurge and booked three nights in a beachfront bungalow in the small town. After celebrating the New Year on the beach (supposedly beach parties every night!), I am planning to spend my days eating delicious seafood, hiking to find secret waterfalls, relaxing on the beach, and enjoying the wildlife and nature all around me.

It sounds too good to be true, and I cannot wait!

After Montezuma, I have tentative plans to work my way up to Arenal, which is famous for volcano hikes and jungle canopy tours. I also plan on trying zip lining for the first time and also whitewater rafting as I have on my previous trips. There seems to be plenty of options for adventure and new activities.

So far those are the only plans I have.

In the past, I have found it best to go with the flow and not have too many firm commitments when I travel. After all, you never know who you might meet, what place you might randomly and suddenly fall in love with, and where it may all lead you to…

I booked my flight out of Panama, so I know I will be heading south after Arenal. Hopefully after some more research I will be able to sign up to volunteer somewhere for a week. There are lots of opportunities to work on a farm, work with wildlife, or help with different camps or schools for children.

I’m thrilled to explore a new place, meet new people, and have new experiences.

Most of all, I am excited to feel inspired and revived all over again. Traveling always has this exhilarating effect on me, and I plan on taking advantage of this once I return to Chicago with new ideas, a new outlook, and a new attitude.

robyn-bio1

photo credit : isotaupe

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A Restless Generation

posted 7th December 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

Older Generation at WorkHas our generation been set up to be disappointed?

Lately I have been thinking about how restless I have been, and the majority of my friends in their twenties all seem to be in the same boat. Many aren’t happy with their current careers. Many are clueless as to what the future holds and how they can have any say in it.

I’m convinced that we are all restless as a result of how our generation was raised.

If you think about it, our grandparents and parents grew up in times when you worked to make a living; you didn’t work to “be happy.” My grandparents acquired skilled trades. They worked because they had to feed their families. My dad found a mentor after high school and decided to learn the sales business. He started working immediately because he wanted to marry my mom and buy a house. My mom went to college to be a teacher so she would have a work schedule that would make it easy to have kids.

Historically, generations before us have worked jobs in order to live. Our generation is different, because we not only want to work to live, but we want to work to be happy and enjoy our profession. This makes us a very picky generation that finds it hard to settle for just any unfulfilling, routine job.

We think we deserve exactly what we want.

We expect to have jobs that are interesting, exciting, and well-paid. When our jobs prove to be anything but these….we are left restless, attempting to figure out how to make things right.

Growing up, we were told: “You can be anything you want to be,” “Follow your passions,” “Do what makes you happy,” etc. Of course these are pretty sayings that people want to believe, and I’m trying not to be too bitter or cynical here, but these sayings just aren’t realistic. I wish I had been told that making a living is not always going to be fun. It’s going to be hard work that isn’t always interesting, exciting, and well-paid.

Because we weren’t told this, many of us in the midst of a Quarterlife Crisis are stuck trying to figure out where we went wrong. The thing is…we didn’t go wrong. We simply finished college and went through the job application process, expecting exactly what we were told—that we could be anything we wanted to be and use our major in any way we wanted to and that we could make a living doing anything that makes us happy.

Now we need to realize that our generation was raised with false pretenses. We have grown up to expect the unrealistic.

I’m still beyond thrilled that I gave up my corporate job from hell, but I’m slightly anxious about what my future holds. I am constantly trying to make a plan for myself—one year down the road, five years down the road—just struggling to create some kind of direction for myself and my career.

I continually remind myself that I need to change my way of thinking when it comes to a career. I can’t expect something that thrills me each and every day, but I can expect something that is interesting and allows me to use the skills I enjoy using the most.

robyn-bio1

photo credit : pjern

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Sharing My Gratitude

posted 30th November 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

Robyn's FamilySo I am starting off the blog this week with the theme of the month: Gratitude.  Of course, Thanksgiving was the perfect time to really think about what you are grateful for and all the things you should be appreciating on a daily basis.

When I narrow it down, here’s what I am grateful for:

My Family and Friends

Despite the freezing temperatures in Chicago, I always look forward to the winter season because that means the holidays are here, and that means my loved ones will all be together.  I have a small extended family, which should make it easy to all get together, but sadly, getting everyone together under one roof is actually a rare occasion.

That’s why the holiday season is so important to me.

I have family members fly across the country to come home for the holidays. I have two younger sisters in college out-of-state.  I have cousins who have grown up and scattered themselves from California to New York to Texas.  I have high school friends and college roommates who come home for the holidays.

Between job commitments and school and geographic locations, it’s tough to find time to get everyone together. During the year, I can always count on phone calls, emails, and even Facebook statuses to know what everyone is up to, but those things could never compare to being face-to-face with those I care about most.

I’m so grateful for this one time a year when we can all gather to catch up and hear about each other’s lives in person.

My Health and Well-Being

I have been quite lucky this year!  I can’t even complain of a simple cold that I got this year, let alone H1N1!  (Knock on wood)…

I have never felt better.

After leaving my horrid corporate job, I truly rid myself of a lot of stress and negative energy that I had built up day after day. At the time, I didn’t even realize what an effect it had on my well-being.  Many times, I would feel tired or sluggish or just plain lazy after a day at my desk, but now it’s just the opposite.

I have been revived!  I am bursting with energy and so over-the-top happy that I have actually been stopped in the middle of the grocery store and asked why I was so “smiley”. I didn’t even have an answer… I am just plain happy with my life and happy with myself.  I find that I am more active and taking better care of myself, and I am so grateful for my recent life changes and the positive effect they have had on my body and mind.

Speaking of happiness, I’d also like to do a little shout out for Molly’s online course, The Joy Equation: A 30-Day Guide To Living Life On Purpose.  I recently completed The Joy Equation and found that it gently guided me as I dealt with my Quarterlife Crisis head on.  It helped me to get all my thoughts out on paper so that I could consider what my current concerns were and work through each one.  It guided me through forming a plan to take one day at a time with the only goal being to lead a happier and more fulfilling life.

I definitely give this course some credit for my current level of satisfaction regardless of all the uncertainties that lie ahead. And I am definitely grateful for that!

robyn-bio1

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Things I Don’t Miss About the Corporate World

posted 23rd November 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

Alarm clock 6amFirst of all, I don’t miss my alarm blaring in the morning. Desperate to start my days right, I used to try to trick myself into getting excited for the work day by having my alarm go off with a funny song. I rarely fell for my own tricks.

These days I wake up when I feel like it. There’s no alarm involved, and there’s no bribing myself with Dunkin’ Donuts to get out of bed and get to office on time. Actually, I now naturally wake up earlier than I did when I had my 9 to 5. I think I am happy to get an early start and do my own thing.

Secondly, I don’t miss the boredom, the meaningless work…the unimportant deadlines. I think the biggest problem I had with my past job was that my company seemed to be comprised of people who always took themselves so seriously. Everything was so structured and needed to be so flawless. There was no room to be creative or flexible or even to just question something and try a different way of getting it done.

There was always protocol. And it needed to be followed.

I always had a hard time taking my meaningless work seriously because it meant nothing to me. In the back of my mind I was constantly thinking about all the things that were important to me—things I truly cared about that could better benefit from my energy and dedication.

Now, I choose the work I take on. I make sure it’s interesting and challenging and forces me to use the skills I want to use. I aim to always have a variety of work so that my days never feel routine. I make sure I like the people I work with and that they are constantly open to change. Of course there is still the “bitch work,” but along with that comes the good stuff, and I get to put my hands in it all. Every ounce of work can be traced back to me, and that gives me a sense of accomplishment. Even when I have busy days or deadlines, I am doing it all for myself, and I get to reap all the benefits of it.

Lastly, I don’t miss being fit into this little box of “marketing coordinator.” At my past job, I was hired to do a certain type of work. Expectedly, I was given that type of work day after day. Even when I went above and beyond, I never got rewarded with different work or more challenging work… Instead, I got more of what I was good at. The position never offered me room to grow or to explore and develop new skills.

When I wake up each morning—whether it’s to edit a manuscript, write a blog, or take a dog for a walk, I am constantly thinking of new things I could learn or try to do.

Some days I think I need to take a cooking class or join a triathlon training team. Some days I think I should really start writing a book or learning some basic web design techniques. Some days I think I should go back to travel writing and photography.

The options are endless, and as of right now, I am the only one who can really stand in my own way.

robyn-bio1

photo credit: Living Now

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