April Showers bring May Stress

A woman moves to comfort a co-worker who is slumped over her desk in despair, circa 1940. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Oh hey. Another post nearly a month after the last. Trust me, I’m not happy about it. It’s been a whirlwind since my last post on April 14^th. First, the hockey team I work for won the league championship on the 22^nd. It was hands-down the most amazing experience to run out onto the ice with my best friend (the team massage therapist) and spray our boys with champagne and get tons of smelly, strong hugs while being swung around in front of over 2,000 people. I spent the rest of the weekend celebrating with staff and players before the majority of the guys left that Monday. See pics from A+D Photography by clicking here.

 

Photo by A+D Photography

 

While the whole experience was very surreal, I’m just now starting to realize our season is over. I’ve never ended a season on a “good” note. Ever since I moved from being a beat writer to a part of the game day staff, I’ve worked for teams that were never quite good enough to lift a trophy at the end of the year. The first team I worked for was in dead last place nearly all season long. We were the first to be eliminated from playoffs. The boys were unhappy, but glad to see the tumultuous season come to a close. The following year, I jumped ship and went to a team that really wanted my experience on game days – and paid me nearly twice as much. They held first place all season long, a complete 180 from the year prior. However, playoffs are playoffs for a reason. They were eliminated in round two against the second place team aka the team I had left. Aca-awkward. Fast forward a few weeks (or rewind on here to about two years ago) and that team up and left the Mitten for “greener” pastures. We all know how that turned out. If you don’t, head back to my archives.

 

 

Photo by A+D Photography

 

So this season was amazing to me. The guys were great all year long. It was a bit of a shift for me, working for an older, more experienced group of guys. Sometimes they still acted like toddlers and whined about the dumbest things (but don’t all men, hockey player or not?).  In the end, it was all worth it to see the euphoria on their faces as we ran – yes ran – out on to the ice to celebrate with them and all of our fans.  I’m definitely looking forward to next year.

Photo: The Times Herald (Jeffrey M. Smith) | Port Huron, MI

That whole ending-of-the-season engrossed my life for the past couple of weeks. I started to feel under the weather by the time my body knew that it had time to relax. Before I knew it we were hit with Mother’s Day and obviously I had to see Captain America: Civil War on opening weekend and then last weekend, I joined some friends at Motor City Comic Con to help sling some books. .
Secondly, during my new-found weekend life, I’m trying to view apartments and get a better idea of when I can move and where to. It’s been nearly as exhausting as working a triple-header weekend.  A lot of disappointment, a lot of discouragement. Suddenly, my plan to move in early June has been pushed back to September. It’s just too hard to find  someplace that is in my budget, a decent neighborhood but isn’t a shoe box.

SAN FRANCISCO – JULY 08: A sign advertising apartments for rent is displayed in front of an apartment complex July 8, 2009 in San Francisco, California. As the economy continues to falter, vacancy rates for U.S. apartments have spiked to a twenty two year high of 7.5 percent, just short of the record high of 7.8 percent set in 1986. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

What’s funny is that I was much more pressed for time when I got my last (first) apartment. My mom and I picked up and drove from Lapeer, MI to Connellsville, PA to a town we had never seen before and knew absolutely nothing about. We found the rink the team would be calling home, picked up a newspaper or two to see what rentals were available and looked at a grand total of SIX. In three different towns, we could only find six rentals to view. Some were houses (one much better than the other), and a few were actual complexes. We ended up with one that my grandmother – all the way back in Michigan – found online. In two days, 36 hours at most, we were able to travel 400 miles away, find apartments, book viewings and even apply. Now? I can’t even get a crappy complex on the Pontiac/Auburn Hills border to call me back about a viewing appointment.

 

I’m not being picky, I don’t think. Obviously, I have a budget that I need to stay within. I also know that I want certain things in the place I will be calling home for an undetermined amount of time. A private entrance is important to me, mostly because it makes it feel more like a “home” rather than a number on a door in a hallway. Having laundry in the building would be amazing but having it in the apartment would be even better. Mostly, I want a balcony/patio to solidify that I won’t be living in a closed-off box. Having a space of my own to go outside and get some fresh air, take in the view – it seems simple, right? Trying to find a place with all of those plus sticking within my budget is nearly impossible.

 

One of the most stressful factors has been commitment. This is not to say I’m afraid of commitment, but it is intimidating. By signing a lease, I’m committing to my lifestyle for the next 12 months. That means I’ll be this far away from friends and family for 12 months. Most importantly, it means I’m committing to my job for the next 12 months. That means a possibility of committing to being unhappy for 12 months.
I didn’t sign a contract with my new job. I’m an at-will employee, meaning anything can happen at any time. It’s a stressful industry and one I’m a rookie at (if there was something less than rookie, I’d have that title instead). We’re in a serious surge of activity right now, prepping for upcoming trials with many saying the company hasn’t been this busy in at least a decade. A few co-workers have mentioned, I’m sure in a positive way although that may not always come across clearly, that I’ve had a lot of jobs. No one likes to have a job on their resume where they held that position for a year, or less. It makes you look unstable, which isn’t good in any capacity.

To be totally honest, the vast majority of my jobs were taken out of necessity, not desire. When I got a call back from a hotel a few months after I graduated college, I wasn’t thrilled. My mom was, but I wasn’t. I was about to accept a job that didn’t require the degree I had just worked so hard for. But it was fall, the holidays were coming and I had to start focusing. It was to be a stepping stone to get me to the next job, hopefully in media somehow even within the company. What I initially thought of as a stepping stone turned in to a nearly three year-long job. Looking back, I don’t necessarily regret it. I met some amazing people that I’m still in contact with to this very day. And let’s not forget the hotel discounts I received. Lord have mercy, that saved me thousands of dollars over my tenure and I definitely miss it at times.

 

Hands-down, the two things that scare me the most about this whole apartment thing is the budget and the commitment.  When I was at the hotel, I was making a fraction of what I make now. Sure, I went from driving 57 miles round-trip between the hotel and home to 74 miles between this job and home, but that shouldn’t be enough to completely break me financially like it is. True, I’m much more appreciated here than I was at my last job at a salon, but that wasn’t hard to beat. So what do I do to balance it all? The pay is better, the emotional abuse I faced at the salon is nonexistent here, but I’m spending far more in gas and car maintenance, more stressed out with much more expected of me.

 

Recently, I spoke with another gal that is apartment hunting in Oakland County as well, so I know that I’m not alone in this. Knowing I’m not alone has been a recurring theme here. When I get upset about not working in the industry I truly want to be in, my mom always reminds me that I’m not alone in the thousands of thousands of college graduates still struggling. That’s great. It doesn’t help my situation, at all, but that’s great.

 

Between not being alone in this struggle and being unable to balance everything, it’s been incredibly difficult. I’m trying to focus on friends and family, sticking to kickboxing (even adding more when possible), eating better and just trying to enjoy the time I do have away from work.  It’s not easy. You may be asking “how is it not easy to relax?!” but trust me, it’s possible.  I recently spoke with someone that asked me to take them through a standard week in my life. At the end of my spiel, he was shocked – literally, I left him with his jaw on the floor. He had no idea how I managed so much in such a small amount of time. To me, it was normal. That was my normal.

 

I’m now focusing (at least attempting to) on finding some balance in my everyday life. It’s hard to not get emotionally distraught while at work, because I am an emotional person at my core. It’s not only my job/my income, but huge accounts and very wealthy corporations as clients. It’s all new to me which is making it much, much more intense. I don’t want to screw it up to the point I would lose my job, but I certainly don’t want to screw anything up that it compromises our cases. Plus, I’m there for 9 hours a day total not to mention the 2+ hours driving to and from. It doesn’t help to go home and start a new batch of stress when I get home by searching for my dream job. In fact, it often makes it worse.

 

 

Please stick with me on this journey. I’m hoping to see some small changes rather soon. If there is anything you would like to share on how you find balance in your own life, please feel free to leave it in the comments.