Tag: Learning

Tech Thursday?

So I appear to have received a new version of the software that runs my blog this week – JOY! I wonder what kind of fun upgrades they’ve hidden for me to find? I am an oddball in that I actually like new versions of software most of the time.

I also have a MacOS update waiting for me. The last one took forever to go through so I’m getting this published before I start running it. I don’t think it’s a big deal though since it just says bug fixes and security updates.

I’m hoping the WordPress update lets me publish links without using the full web address so it’s friendlier for you to see what a link might be. I’ll admit it – I’m lazy with my links because WordPress doesn’t have a feature like Microsoft Word that lets you edit how the link will appear. I could paste links into Word, fix them and then copy/paste them over to WordPress but I’m lazy! LOL!

I always laugh at how much of a techie I’ve become. I actually like figuring out software and making it sing. I’m also not above Googling how to make software features work – which has made me incredibly popular with coworkers at times. Because I will figure it out!

I’m also one of those people who keeps up with software updates – are you? Let me know in the comments!

Mental Health – Decluttering

You can always tell where I am mentally by how clean my house is. I tend to be a clean freak – but when I’m stressed out or down, I stop cleaning. Apparently that isn’t uncommon. And I often find that cleaning will lift my mood. Right now, the house is pretty good – but today is the start of Lent and I’m diving into the 40 Bags in 40 Days declutter challenge.

I did this a few years ago and it was fabulous mentally and for my home. All you do, is every day during Lent, target an area of your home and fill a bag to either sell, donate or throw away. It encourages you to have discipline about some extra attention to your home – and gets rid of a LOT of clutter. OCD person that I am – I’ve made a simple spreadsheet to track what I clean and what I’m doing with my bag every day.

Don’t freak out – the bag can just be a grocery bag. Or it can be a Waste Management bagster if you need an industrial size bag! But at the end of Lent, you’ll have a clean house and a leg up on Spring Cleaning. And I bet you’ll feel a lot better without the clutter too.

Need some more info about this kind of challenge? Check out these links!

Rewriting my resume…

My big to-do today is to rewrite my resume. Again. I met with my outplacement coach yesterday and we went through my resume. I thought I had done a good job updating it but BOY did she point out some places that need improvement. So I have work to do….

I’m also deep networking again. I spoke with a friend of mine yesterday that did a career change a couple of years ago. He’s in a good place now but says it was rough. I’m still all in on marketing but I always think it might be a good idea to get a project management certificate. I’m generally VERY organized, deadline driven and love to write presentations so project management always seems like an attractive alternative to marketing. I just can’t give up my love of figuring out how to connect a brand and a consumer though!

If I had my life to do over though, I’m wondering if I should have followed my first career ambition and went into physical therapy. The therapist at the hospital where I volunteered might not have done me any favors when he told me I was too petite to be a therapist. And life happened with my Mom passing away so going to college for business administration/marketing seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But it isn’t illegal to wonder is it?

OK – gotta go. I have a deadline to get my resume back to my coach!

Resilience

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a physical therapist. We had a neighbor with cerebral palsy and the work the physical therapists did with him was amazing. So in high school, I volunteered in the PT Department at the hospital where my Dad worked. I thought it would give me a better idea about the career path and maybe get me credit for observation hours when I started college. 

But then life happened. My Mom passed away when I was 17 and my college plans got a little messed up. I decided to go to the branch campus of Ohio State for a year rather than going away to school right away. And in that year, I decided I would rather study business and go into advertising. So I transferred to Bowling Green State University and got my degree in Business Administration.

The point is, life for me rarely goes to plan. My current “corporate hiatus” certainly wasn’t in the plan. I thought I would work at Walgreens until I retired – after all, they have a reputation for people staying there for their whole careers! But life had other plans and here I am surfing the job boards once again. 

I am resilient – I just need a new employer to see the value in that.

Disappointment – and moving forward anyway.

So remember that first interview I posted about? I don’t have category experience so the HR screen has screened me out for now. They interviewed me because I had an internal referral so I guess that’s something?

But it is disappointing. I actually WANT to work. I read a lot of postings on social media about people who phone it in. People who don’t show up for interviews and when they do, they make crazy demands or worse yet, bring their parents! I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around that. 

So I’m kind of gloomy today. Add to my disappointment that I got my packet about my severance and it’s a recipe for being out of sorts today. Thankfully I’m resilient and I’ll be right back at it – but I’m taking a minute to have a personal pity party this morning. Just a minute though!

Because I don’t think I always interview well, I’ve been looking at some resources to help me. If you’re on the job search, check these out!

  • Ladders Interviews Guide: 74 Questions That Will Land You the Job by Marc Cenedella
  • Anna Papalia on social media – she is the author of Interviewology. 
  • Check out Brigette Hyacinth on LinkedIn. She gives LOTS of good advice.
  • And this Golden Rule for interviewing I picked up somewhere along the way — be prepared, be professional and most importantly, be yourself. 

Analytics

Not really a throwback, but I’m getting enough new data on this site now to start having some fun. Today, I’ll be diving into my site data and seeing what I can tweak to get better readership results. I’m also looking forward to seeing where all my readers are from – in the past, I had a very faithful reader in Ireland so it will be interesting to see if that reader has rejoined me!

I’ll be checking my site using Google Analytics as well as the WordPress tools. Might even swing by SimilarWeb and see if I’m there!

I love diving into data and finding a story in what seems like chaos. I think it goes back to my first job at Young & Rubicam in their media department. I was responsible for going through the Nielsen ratings books and entering the ratings for each of the programs that an Advil commercial aired in as well as our competitors. Mind you, a computer would do this all on it’s own today, but back in the day, we had 2 computers for 40 people on my team so humans did a lot more than they do today!

It was a tedious job and most media planners hated it – but I didn’t. I used it to get REALLY familiar with ratings data and had a field day manually figuring out how to get Advil an edge over our competitors with our programming selections on Primetime TV. That granular knowledge of ratings has served me well over the years and even laid the groundwork for the logic I put into place when programming tools for budget tracking and incentive tracking later in my career.

I think what it boils down to is Curiosity. I am NOTHING if not curious about almost everything. I love puzzles and playing in analytics is just one giant puzzle. So excuse me – but I have some data that really needs to be played in today! 

Oh no!

Yesterday my Facebook memories reminded me that 10 years ago, I had the flu. Full out, high fever, sore throat, runny nose, exploding head flu. And this morning I woke up with a scratchy throat. Coincidence? Probably. I’m attacking it with hot tea – supplemented by honey and a slice of lemon.

After the past few years with Covid, it’s easy to get complacent about flu. So let’s look at some resources that could be helpful if you wake up with a scratchy throat too!

First up – the CDC has a pretty comprehensive overview of symptoms, how flu spreads and can link you to info about Covid or RSV at this link: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm#:~:text=Influenza%20(flu)%20can%20cause%20mild,cough

Want to know where flu is spreading the fastest? Try this link – of course it’s spreading in Illinois…. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

Need a good home remedy? I’ve done the steamy shower and hot tea already but there are more good suggestions here: https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/home-remedies#_noHeaderPrefixedContent

And for good measure – here’s some things to keep you entertained if you are down with the flu! https://www.spoonfulofcomfort.com/blog/the-top-21-movies-to-watch-on-a-sick-day https://www.buzzfeed.com/audreyworboys/shows-to-watch-while-sick  https://decider.com/2014/08/29/what-to-stream-when-youre-sick/

But the best medicine is prevention – so go get a flu shot. It’s not too late!

Employee Engagement

I had a really interesting conversation with an old friend yesterday about employee engagement. So I’m going to stretch my Wellness Wednesday topic to be about the health of a team. It’s my blog space – I’m allowed!

We were talking about the challenges of managing a team that is was fully remote during Covid and I remarked that I didn’t find it that horrible. Which seemed a bit surprising to my friend. My team’s engagement metrics actually grew over the course of the pandemic – and I think it’s because I actually listened to my team every step of the way.

Remember those first days of the lockdown when nobody knew what day it was? I used our Teams channel to do a morning greeting to my team EVERY day. To make it more fun, I used a Holiday Every Day website to give us something to “celebrate.” Some days I tried to tie the holiday celebration to what was happening with work – but most days, it was just a way to allow us to pretend we were still all around the table at the office and have a little chit chat to start the day. I did polls, asked for stories from the team and offered funny observations on everything from the weather to what I could see out my window.

More than that, I listened to what they wanted. We did a couple lunch meetings over video but ultimately, the team decided we would do a Friday morning meeting. It allowed us to talk over what had happened over the week, decimation of “news” from team leader meetings and make plans for the coming week.

And from time to time, I sent care packages to everyone. I did holidays with home made cookies and candy. When one of my team members had ankle surgery, I sent a package with all kinds of goodies to make the convalescence easier. I sent electronic gift card “prizes” for a weird trivia contest. I wanted them to have unexpected things that were just plain fun.

In other words, I cared about my team. And if there’s one thing most people respond to, it’s being valued. They were valued – and they engaged. I miss them!

First Job

I’ve read that 1 in 8 Americans have worked at McDonald’s. So I’m in good company since I got my first job at McDonald’s as soon as I turned 16. I loved the McDonald’s I worked at. The head manager there was great and really made an effort to schedule the high school students around their extra curricular activities. For me that wasn’t always easy since I was in Band and Show Choir!

Not me – but I wore this same uniform!!!

I look back at my time at McDonald’s very fondly. My co-workers were almost all people I had known most of my life so it made it really easy to be a tight team. You don’t slack on people you’ve always known!

But I learned a lot of things at McD’s that have stuck with me throughout my career. Shall we review?

  • Multitasking. I usually worked the drive-thru so at any given time, I might have been taking an order, picking up another order and collecting payment for yet another order. I had to learn to be fast – and absolutely accurate. All while being friendly to the customers too! This has paid off for me in almost every job since. I pride myself on my ability to work on multiple problems/projects at one time, keeping everything on time, absolutely accurate and with a smile on my face.
  • Responsibility. I never would have DREAMED of missing a shift without at a minimum calling my manager to let them know why I wouldn’t be there. I knew the team depended on me to be there for my shift and there was no way I would ghost them. Not only would I never ghost a shift – I was never late. Maybe that’s the way I’m built but then again, it goes back to not wanting to make the shift harder for my friends. That has also stuck with me to this day. I show up and give 100% to my job.
  • Attention to detail. The last thing 16 year old me wanted was a customer yelling at me because their order wasn’t right. Customization wasn’t necessarily a big thing at McD’s when I worked there in the old days but if someone ordered a plain hamburger, they got a plain hamburger from me! I was also sure that if you ordered coffee, I asked about cream/sugar and included a tiny spoon to stir. If you ordered nuggets – you got the right sauce for you. This has carried on through my career as well – I’m all about making sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed!

I’m a firm believer that the skills you learn in any job are easily transferable to your next job or just your life in general. What skill did you learn in your first job that you still use today? Tell us in the comments!