Amy Middleton Loves New York

Thanks to the magic of the wayback machine, I found this page (titled “why am i so depressed?”) from the 2002 archives of a site I no longer maintain, written a few months after a completely unexpected move to the Bay Area. If it comes across as though I was not grateful for the leads and support I was getting, I’m sure that’s not the case. But you know how it feels when you have a real, complex problem and someone gives you flippant “worked for me” advice? That’s the scenario at play:

sample conversation of my life

part one
(you are any random person)

you: what sort of work are you looking for?

me: well i studied advertising, but i haven’t found anything up here. it’s a tough market right now, so i’m doing admin work until i can find something i enjoy.

you: you just have to know the right people. here’s someone you should call….

part two
(you are a friend of random person)

you: why did you come to Northern Cal? this is the last place anyone should come.

me: yeah, i’ve been discovering that.

you: seriously, why are you here? there are no jobs here. San Francisco is the worst place in the world for you to be. call me before you pack your bags. oh, and by the way, did you know your degree is worthless?

me: yes i did.

you: okay, as long as you knew.

me: um, okay, thanks for your time.

you: good luck.

I’m no good with checks. I’ve had the same bank-issued checkbooks for four years at least, using them mostly for church tithing and rent, and not even rent these days thanks to roommate’s paypal acceptance. I’m also no good with depositing checks, much to the annoyance of my grandma, whose birthday thoughtfulness sits in a paper shortstack on my dresser for months every year.

I think what I’m worst at is the check memo. I converted stacks of bank statements (aka “list of subway sandwich purchases”) into shredded paper today, and noted with amusement and horror the things I write when I write checks to people. Among them:

• gymnastic lessons and paper
• bruised apples
• boyfriend allowance
• glasgow miracle #7
• twelve thousand pennies
• keeping quiet about “that thing”

Maybe if I treated a checkbook as a financial tool, and not a 5 year old’s scribble pad, I would be in better shape. Then again, maybe if my church accepted paypal, I could forget about the whole thing.

Update Turns out I also saved physical checks that were returned to me (my bank must have stopped doing that in 2004), but here are a few more from that pile:

• Bands beginning with “R”
• wounded bird session #7
• Ethan’s Mullet Fund
• being completely awesome
• defeating Trogdor

About a year ago, deeply unsatisfied with my cushy ad agency job, I got an unsolicited email titled “Freelance” from a creative staffing agency I’d signed up with the year before:

Wanted to see if you’re still looking for work. We just got a 3 month freelance assignment in. It’s doing search optimization coordination and seems like a good fit. Fun agency, good pay.

Turned out the company was Razorfish and I’d have about a week to interview and put in my notice to my current employment. Leaving the full-time salaried world so hastily was nerve-wracking, but I saw it as my ticket out. I took it.

I’ve been doing freelance work ever since. Mostly on a W-2, but as an hourly contract employee, paid by small agencies rather than the bigger companies I was working for. I always had work, but having to go into an office every day where I’d never be promoted or get benefits was tiresome, and I wasn’t interested in hiring on.

All this changed last month. I’m now only on 1099s, a sole proprietor, and completely freaking out. I’m meeting with an accountant in a few hours.

Last night I went to a meetup group discussing whether incorporating is a good idea (answer: it is. S-Corp here I come). We all introduced ourselves, what we do, and why we were there. When I said I freelanced on a W-2, I was told that was an oxymoron. I tried to explain, but was shot down. “That’s fine, it’s in the past,” I said, trying to move the awkward spotlight off my apparently mis-categorized employment history.

A few other people spoke up at that point, and said they were in the same situation. The lawyer presenting insisted that W-2 is NOT freelance, even if you work for two hours a month, you are an employee. For tax purposes, he’s definitely right- I’m shocked and amazed at how different it is to be off the W-2. But for the purposes of how we classify what we do and how we work, isn’t “freelance” (or contractor) the appropriate term?

First off, thank you to everyone who has given me nice comments about the cover letter presentation I did. I’m glad it’s useful! I want to give you another example of a way to frame your experience when writing a cover letter.

When listing required software or skills, many job descriptions focus on the product rather than the candidate:

• Must have deep understanding of Omniture.
• 3-5 years’ experience w/ Photoshop.
• Must know MySQL.

Naturally, when responding to such statements, our emphasis is on the product as well:
“I have a deep understanding of,” “I have experience with,” “I know how to use…”

We are better off focusing on the value WE bring, not the value of the tool. To illustrate, here is part of a chat I had with my roommate today:

Becca: how do i say i understand the value of a rigorous and aligned assessment
without saying i have a testimony of it?
me: what is the value?
Becca: rigor and alignment ensures that you are assessing the right things and can get the most useful data out of it
me: For the past 2 years, I have been using rigour and aligned assessment to get useful data and meaningful results.
or
By using rigour and aligned assessments, I have helped my team extract useful data which we have used to improve our success rate by 23%.
(obviously i don’t know what i’m talking about here.
please don’t let that distract you.)

The point is, you have to convey value, not just demonstrate loyalty. “I’m a fan of the product” is stronger as “I accomplish ___ by using the product.”

Returning to the chat:

Becca: by focusing on rigor and alignment in assessments, i’ve been able to more than double the efficacy performance of my corps members over the past 2 years
me: i’d hire you!
Becca: yes!
Becca: how do i say this so it makes sense:
Focusing on the data gleaned from rigorous and aligned assessments has allowed me to almost double my corps members’ effectiveness over the past two years from about 30% in the significant/solid range by end-of-year last year to about 55% currently.
me: first pass:
Focusing on the data gleaned from rigorous and aligned assessments has allowed me to almost double my corps members’ effectiveness over the past two years (from about 30% in the significant/solid range by end-of-year last year to about 55% currently).
Becca: i like that
parentheses
magic

I hope that is helpful. Just remember, if you are a fan of a tool, you probably also rock at using it. Communicate the value and not just your enthusiasm, and your cover letter will be stronger for it.

My grandpa is the cutest, most service-oriented person. Today I got an email with a link to a Meals on Wheels article featuring him. Check out this slideshow (be sure to have Sound on). Go grandpa!

I have a notebook with a “to-do” list on one of the pages. I can’t rip it out until I’ve crossed everything off. Somehow, between “wheat recipes” and “verizon bill” is the entry: “Ryan.”  What I meant by that, I have no idea.

(note: this is a long but truly awesome narrative by my dad about a disneyland trip that happened when i was in high school. i loved it then, and i love it now.)

Unbelievable. There are other words to describe the experience, but it still comes down to this: unbelievable! I am referring, of course, to my surprise birthday party at Disneyland last night. Since my actual birthday was last week, I had no way of anticipating that Jolynne had anything sinister in mind for me.

The evening began innocently enough. Jolynne had wanted me to take her to Disneyland for a couple of hours before we went out for dinner and a movie. She was rushing me quite a bit, but said it was because she had cabin fever. Actually, she had made arrangements with four other couples to meet us at the Main Street railroad station at 5:15 pm. I had to go to the bathroom when we first got there, and Jolynne almost got mad at me.

So here I am coming out of the bathroom next to City Hall, and off in the distance I hear some people yelling something. As we proceed to the train station (Jolynne said she wanted to ride that first), the yelling gets louder, and I see some people in blue shirts pointing in my direction. Even after I comprehend that they are yelling “Dave!”, and even after I recognize that they are friends of mine, I still don’t catch on that they are here for me, because Jolynne had done such a great job of convincing me that they all had other plans for the evening. So I figure that they are just as surprised to see me as I am to see them, and in the back of my mind I begin to wonder why we hadn’t been invited to come to Disneyland with them.

So now we are all together in front of the train station, and my head is swimming as they say “Happy Birthday!” and start handing me gifts. Consistent with my reputation for not noticing details in my environment, it is only after I am presented with a bright turquoise T-shirt with the bold inscription “I’m Dave”, that I realize they are all wearing the same bright shirts proclaiming “It’s Dave’s Birthday!”. I am still wondering if this means that I’m not going to the movie later, but I don’t have time to think about it. My friends tell me that while they were waiting for me to arrive, some guy came by and, reading the message on their shirts, inquired about me. He asked that they tell me “Happy Birthday” for him. So they do. But then the double decker bus drives by us, and this same guy yells out “Hey, is that Dave?” My friends yell back in the affirmative, and so he screams back, at the top of his lungs, “Happy Birthday, Dave!” And then several other people on the bus, who don’t know me or this guy, join the “Happy Birthday” chant. It has begun.

We walk up main street towards Tomorrow Land, and I am trying to let the idea of a surprise party at Disneyland with my friends sink in. But they won’t let me. They are relentless. The entire population of Disneyland seems to notice me at once. What is this? How is this happening? My friends are as amazed as I. We have not traveled more than 50 yards, and already we have lost count of the number of people who have wished me Happy Birthday. It is only later that we realize how our little group of 10 adults, wearing the same bright blue T-shirts with home-made signs, attracted so much attention.

So we are still walking up Main Street, and we are all laughing hysterically at the unanticipated responses from everyone we meet. Although it would be inaccurate to say that no one passed by without asking about “Dave”, or wishing me “Happy Birthday”, you could not have proven it by us. Our cheeks were already sore from smiling and laughing, and we were not even out of Main Street yet.

So now we are approaching Captain E.O., and the response continues. In line next for Space Mountain, we are barely able to hold our own conversations for all the interruptions by well-wishers passing us in line. And then we get our first of (how many?) countless renditions of “Happy Birthday”, sung this time by an enthusiastic group of 8-10 people beside us in line.

The Disneyland employees seem to get a kick out of the phenomenon also, and they are frequently approaching us to find out what this “Dave” thing is all about. Then while our car on Space Mountain is heading up the tracks, the loudspeaker comes on with a special announcement to all present: “Happy Birthday, Dave!” It is accelerating.

We settle into a routine of giddy acceptance of all the attention we are receiving. We continue to be unable to proceed more than a few steps in any direction before we hear someone yell “Where’s Dave?”, or “Happy Birthday, Dave”, or just “Hi, Dave”. And when I am by myself on the way to the bathroom, people approach me and ask how my birthday is going, and in the distance on either side I see people pointing and saying “yeah, that’s him…that’s ‘Dave’”. Everyone in my group of friends compares our experience to the TV commercial for Toyota which shows “Bob’s Freeway”, and shows Bob almost getting a parking ticket, until the officer recognizes him and says “Oh, it’s YOU, Bob.”

So we have eaten dinner now, and enjoyed the food and the break in the Blue Bayou restaurant. And it was cute when our waitress brought another waitress by to point out “Dave” to her. “I just had to see who everyone was talking about”, she says, adding “Happy Birthday, Dave.” And during dinner we hear two other tables receiving birthday songs performed by a few of the servers. But when they come to our table later, it seems that every waiter and waitress in the place has surrounded our table, and while they are singing “Happy Birthday” to me, guests at other tables throughout the restaurant join in. Do these people know how to party, or what?!

And now we are on our way to the Haunted Mansion. Once again we are serenaded while in line waiting to enter the ride. The people are all so friendly, and those in the distance are all wondering what the commotion is all about, so there is no end to the interest and enthusiasm we are shown. Then we are about to enter the foyer of the Mansion, but there is not enough room for all ten of us, so we wait. And the people in front of us complain that they want out of the foyer, “Hey, we want to go through with ‘Dave’!”

We enter the foyer when it is our turn, and people continue to talk and laugh about “Dave”. The doors open, and we enter the expanding room. But before the room starts to move, the narrators voice is drowned out by people calling “Happy Birthday” to Dave, and then the entire room, packed with people, moves back a few steps so that Dave is on display, and they all start to sing, loudly, “Happy Birthday” once again. The volume is amazing, and the narrator’s voice is not even perceptible. Finally, the song ends, just as lightning flashes and the hanging figure above the ceiling is revealed. And everyone yells: “Oh, no! It’s Dave!”

The doors of our expanded room open, and our group of new friends bursts out. The people who were ahead of us in line now turn and welcome us, shouting “Hey, everybody, it’s Dave!”. And still it continues.
Our cheeks are exhausted from the constant smiling and laughing, but there is no break in the attention our party is being so generously offered. When we enter the Train ride, the conductor is infected by the excitement of our group, and he announces over the loudspeaker to everyone on board that this is “Dave’s birthday”. Later, when the conductor makes an announcement about “no flash photography”, he opens with: “Ladies and
gentlemen- and Dave,…”

As midnight approaches, I realize with a mixture of sadness and relief that my celebrity status will soon end, and I will regain my identity as a private citizen once again. Walking down Main Street at 12:20 am, we are recognized by people who had greeted us or sung to me earlier in the evening, and they continue to pass on their genuinely enthusiastic regards.

Finally, we leave the park and head off in our separate directions. I am wearing my jacket now, which covers my bright turquoise shirt with the magic powers.

A shirt which, in the company of my lively friends, afforded me a brief (seven hours did not seem brief at the time!) passport to the world of the celebrated, the distinguished, and the noticed. I now return to the land of the common, but with a memory forever etched in my mind of how it feels to be known by the whole world, the star for one evening at the “Happiest Place on Earth”.

The hinge on my cell phone broke this weekend, so for the first time ever, I applied my “new every two” with Verizon and upgraded. Here’s the first pic taken on my new enV phone (my work food stash in all its glory):

I have been so excited about this gadget acquisition that the anticipation of its arrival actually SLOWED DOWN my week. I’ve never invested the time necessary to figure out Verizon’s easy way to spend money on additional ringtones, videos, “get it now” or any process that is preceded by a “v-”  or followed by a (TM), but my goal for this baby is to get through the two manuals at some point and at least know what I’m missing. Then it’s just a matter of time before i’m v-launching vMobile Instant vCast 2.0(TM) with the best of them.