Project Unsubscribed

5 months later, a whole new world and a bit to talk about.

How the summer played out.

This summer was the weirdest – and most carefree – time I’ve had in the past 31 years. It was glorious and depressing, all in one. It wasn’t until August that I started working again. And the unknowns associated with not learning that I would be back at all until a few weeks before that did not come without a good amount of stress. We ended up losing a coordinator and two directors from our team, and and 400+ others throughout our North America operation. I will always be grateful to my organization for retaining me. That said, I do have some thoughts to share on the work front and I’ll get to that in a bit (for those of you who know me well, I’m sure you’re shocked <<laughing so hard I’m crying emoji here>>).

Outside of the underlying where the eff is my life headed now tone of the summer, it was actually rather splendid. I slept in, did all of the digital workouts a girl could handle – looking at you Doni Fit Fam <3 – , cooked – er, sometimes – swam in our pool A LOT, hosted a multitude of parties – yes Phil they were all outdoors and under 25 people – visited The Cornerstone in Hillsdale for a weekly face stuffing of waffle fries and wine, helped the organization I volunteer with, TRUE Mentors- solid cause, def look them up – figure out a marketing communication cadence and raise $10K+, and saw my parents and brother even more than I ate and swam. By late July, I felt rejuvenated and thoroughly ready for something to focus on besides whether to open another red or another white.

Effing work, man.

Enter my 9-5 back into my life. At first it was so quiet I thought they kept me by mistake. But things picked up a bit and as should have been expected, my role was just as clear as mud as I had left it and my questioning of that only made it more confusing. “Yes, you are working on 2 categories but I’m not sure it makes sense to divide by categories anymore so maybe you should work on product marketing entirely except for these categories, but also there’s packaging – can you just jump on packaging for a week since the person who is in charge of that resigned two weeks ago and I don’t really have a plan and actually no, now my coordinator can’t handle her workload so she’s going to unload some of her less desirable projects on you – it’s all fine right? We are all fine. You are heard. You matter. You are a unicorn. Thank you for being you. #CareBearPower.” By the way, my question was “in this role, what should I be focusing on at this point.” But I should have known based on the answer I’ve been given previously, that our role is to “connect the dots and move projects forward”. Arguably the one of the goals for almost every manager in the global organization but I guess it’s a good answer when placating the curious. The strategy, tactics and action items to get us there? I’m not even hopeful that we will ever know.

So here we go. Folks, INEXPERIENCED ZOMBIE CHILDREN RUN CORPORATE AMERICA. And so I’m going to make my advice to you very clear. Literally, run. Take your $$$ and your 🍑, and get the eff out of corporate America. Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200. Just get out. Those of you who were brought up to value adult non-emotional reasoning, thinking and planning in the business world spare yourselves the traumatic and exhausting journey of realizing for yourself that this no longer exists and just GET OUT NOW.

I live in the tri-state area. In fact, I am currently in the process of pseudo-buying my grandparents’ old house so duh, I can’t go anywhere. And I need the $ for the house and I don’t really invest, and so as long as I don’t have a nervous breakdown from dissonance or find something else foreign – more on that later – I’m here and I’m in the thick of it. But I feel it’s my responsibility to tell you that I don’t see this getting better.

Enter my old job, in new form, back into my life. I’m a believer in the Universe and Law-of-Attraction. I’ve read more Abraham Hicks and Rhonda Bern materials than I can count. I do Gabby Bernstein meditations daily. I am a fan of Wayne Dyer’s and Deepak Chopra’s work. But I have to say that even myself – when I see the universe work as quickly as it can sometimes – I stand in awe of it. About two weeks ago I was having some less than pleasant thoughts about my current work situation – I’m sure you can’t imagine why – and as I started a lunchtime workout – #WorkFromHomeLife – I found my mind wondering back to an old colleague who I used to work very closely with right before moving to my current company. I wondered how she was, and if she’d ever even thought about me after I left. At the end I had actually been in talks with her and her manager about a role on their team that I desperately wanted. In fact, had that worked out I never would have left the organization as it was pretty much the reason I started working at that organization in the first place. I wondered – dreamed really – how things would have been different for me had that position worked out, but then I quickly concluded that she probably forgot about me – after-all, she was always entrenched in work and while our partnership was strong it was transient with the nature of the projects we worked on together. Any-who, I finished my workout and returned to the glories of whatever TF I was doing that day and around 4pm I received a text, “Sasha! Remember me!!??” Holy effing moly.

A way out! And not just any way out, she presented me with literally the way out I’ve been seeking for the past six years. I had given up on it last year after everything fell through – eagerly looking to make the best of what I then saw as an opportunity to be a leader in a field I was confident – ahem excellent – in – but #CorporateAmerica <<Insert the laugh til you cry emoji again here>>. “YES, TAKE IT!,” you say. Ha. But as with everything in life this comes with a catch – I’d have to apply for it and go through the formal interview process – F.M.L.

A little side-note about me – I’m an introverted soul. While I am not one to hide behind a rock – I’m fully confident in being the center of attention when I know what the eff I’m talking about – I am also not one to fake confidence and security. Further, I’m awful at small talk. I don’t think there’s anything to say about the weather unless you are thanking God for it, which for obvious reasons doesn’t need to come up in a conversation with your future manager. I’m also an over thinker – and often my overthinking smacks right into my introverted self yielding all sorts of gibberish and usually hurting way more than helping. So I avoid preparation. Kids, this is stupid AF. This is not a successful strategy. I do not recommend it. Preparation is key to success. But for the sake of my mental and emotional well-being – which lately seems to be hanging by a thread due to my current work situation – I chose to sit the interview preparation segment of this one out.

I can’t say it went poorly – in fact, I haven’t heard a single peep from my potential future manager since we clicked the X on our video chat on Wednesday – but as they say sometimes silence speaks volumes. I’m trying not to see it that way. I thought the outcome of our conversations seemed good enough – albeit not great, I suppose. But to go from texting and emailing me every day to completely dark just seems odd. But it’s 2020, where both dreams and nightmares alike seem to come true so I guess, as with everything else, I guess we shall see.

Oh, have I mentioned that I’ve been on the Whole30 since mid-September? Day 30 is Thursday, followed by a 6 hour ride to Pittsburg – so keep an eye out for all of my thoughts and my crazy town results next weekend – LOL I know what you’re thinking but with 2 six hour rides and a weekend in Pittsburg I’m giving myself the benefit of the doubt. And hopefully I’ll have an update on the work front too.

I’m a rebel.

Actually, no, I’m self-destructive. One of the MANY things I’ve learned about myself during this reacquaintance with me. I set goals, and then I do my very best not to achieve them.

My mom tells me I’ve “grown more beautiful” since Qunemployment started, which I find ironic because I’ve only worn makeup twice in the past 54 days – once to my grandmother’s funeral, and then again a week later for my birthday. These past few weeks have felt somewhat surreal. I have none of the normal stresses – no work, no commute, no traffic, no friends pulling me in different directions to parties and gatherings (which are literally illegal right now for groups larger than 10). These are weird, weird times. And yet, the stranger things keep getting the more normal – the more myself – I feel.

Did you know that Oprah and Ellen are allegedly under house arrest for sex trafficking at this very moment? I didn’t either. Apparently a pandemic will do that to news – cover it up before it catches wind and spreads like rapid fire. In fact, if you Google this situation (much of what I spent last night doing) you will find numerous articles about these allegations being a “hoax” or a “conspiracy theory”, and how shame on us for making poor Oprah…

<Insert eye roll here, please – I have no patience for celebrity privilege>

…tweet that it’s fake news at 2:15 in the morning one day. But you’ll also find photos of Oprah donning a cast on her right foot (from a tumble she took on stage in March after which continued her speech and then walked off the stage). And of starry eyed Ellen at home, always in sweatpants and sitting cross legged with her right ankle tucked underneath.

Supposedly – and if you believe the… malarkey?… they aren’t the only ones. In, er, not fact, a trip down the YouTube rabbit hole will reveal that Hollywood is basically a big group of pedopheliacs who run sex trafficking rings and drink the blood of children to stay attractive and serve their leader who is obviously Satan (duh). This all sounds absolutely ridiculous, I know. Except that if you Google it you will again find a bunch of pictures and an alignment of observations and happenings that make it all just the tiniest bit believable. I mean, it was only a year ago that we learned about Jeffery Epstein’s Orgy Island. And if Orgy island could… nope, DID… exist, then why couldn’t another rich, high profile personality be running a devil worshipping pizzagate ring on his – or her (power to the she, ladies) – own weird island?

I promise you this all gets so, so much weirder but I won’t spare you the sleepless intrigue of investigating for yourself.

So back to me. Why on earth do I feel more normal now after almost two months away from everything that used to be the very definition of that term for me?

Because I’ve been able to T H I N K.

I’ve been able to research and Google whatever I’m interested in to my heart’s content. I’ve been able to stay up late and sleep in during the morning. I’ve cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner numerous days in a row. I’ve finished one book, read another and started a third. I’ve taken 50+ fitness classes. I’ve help raise close to $10K for a non-profit and build them a content marketing plan. I’ve nurtured my relationship with my boyfriend and rekindled one with my dog. I’ve mourned the loss of my grandmother and felt celebrated on my birthday. All without feeling rushed or distracted.

These last few weeks, where time has almost quite literally stood still, I’ve finally felt human again.

Ok, it’s technically Day 3 (and if you want to be really technical, it’s Day 4 as my qunemployed life began Monday). But I feel that part of this project should be dedicated to unsubscribing – detaching – from the usual pressure I put on myself to achieve perfection in every move I make. More on this at a later time I’m sure.

Anyway…

Having worked under the excruciating pressures and exorbitantly fast pace of the marketing industry throughout the past 14 years, I really thought I’d find myself bored or even depressed at the start of this weird time. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The thing is that for a while now, I’ve haven’t felt that my mind has actually been me. The last decade has seen leaps in the advancements of smartphone technology, and society has reactively followed suit. Now-a-days in digital marketing we create every experience “mobile first,” which assumes that our users will be engaging with most of our content using a smartphone. We as consumers – or at least I – prove this true. They – we – me – always have our phones with us often bringing it to bed, or even to the bathroom for goodness sake! We “need” it by our side whether to entertain us or (in my case) simply to ensure that we don’t miss an email… phone call… social post… sport score… the time… a text… you name it. And thus, throughout the past 10 years we have become always on.

Always on. Let that sink in.

As if being ‘always on’ in your personal life wasn’t enough, employers often reimburse your data plan, or in my case simply hand you a second phone to carry around. Whether they intend so or not, this becomes yet another portal to staying connected to yet another community at every single moment of every single day.

A few weeks ago, I was a girl commuting 90 minutes to work, dragging along my two mobile phones to ensure that I met all of the expectations of my personal and professional lives by staying on top of everything. When the pandemic hit, I became a girl who was telecommuting and thus surrounded by her two phones, computer and iPad all day long. While I’m a fan of remote work, I’ve found the underlying always on mentality of it all – remote or in-person – to be a bit much.

Perhaps it’s undiagnosed insanity but with the rise of the always on society, I’ve experienced a significant uptick in an always on mind. The mind that used to rest… that used to focus… that used to be able to sit and write and finish something in one shot… is now so damn busy dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s of my inbox – or more accurately, ensuring that I do. It simply doesn’t have time for the nonsense we call focus, let alone rest. My body, along with my consciousness, try to trick it every night by going to sleep. We wake up in the morning “feeling rested” but the joke is always on us, because – disguised as dreaming – my mind finds a way to stay busy overnight. Although undoubtedly helpful in many ways, the same has been my experience with meditation.

Since Monday, in parallel with the decline – or really the abrupt stop – in the influx of my work-related emails, alerts, and all work-related responsibility, it comes as no surprise that my mind has seemed to follow suit. Further, given the current pause on my social life and pretty much all personal responsibilities outside of my home – I think I’ve hit the realization of just how exhausted I truly was.

My mind is still trying to trick me into doing things – for example starting this blog, always on cooking, organizing my new home – there truly is no rest for the weary, LOL. But it seems to no longer be managing my penmanship. Now I’m in charge of that. And I’m intrigued to see where this shift in roles and responsibilities takes me.

This has been a weird month… a weird year, really. Andrew’s and my 2020 started as “Roaring 20s” party with a small group of close friends. About eight weeks later, we moved to the suburbs to live in a charming home that used to belong to my grandparents. We had literally just celebrated our new space (and an early St. Patrick’s day!) with our parents when the world shut down. St. Paddy’s and all other celebrations for the foreseeable future were canceled. Now, a month later, we find ourselves amidst not only a major recession but at the very heart of a global pandemic. All of US society is practicing “social distancing,” washing their hands as if their life depends on it (it does), self quarantining and hoarding groceries. Everything is canceled. Concerts, shows, parties of all sizes, entire seasons of sports… the 2021 summer olympics. Tens of thousands of people are dying, and hundreds of thousands across the country are sick. This is serious and this is weird. Terrifyingly weird.

My world was further shook last Tuesday, when the world renowned fashion brand I work for placed me and 75% of my colleagues on a “furlough”. This means we can’t work or get paid for approximately 90 days, “give or take”. 90 days? I’ve worked pretty much every day since I was eleven.

So now what?

I started this blog about three years ago with no concrete idea of where to take it. While I’ve since had some ideas here and there of topics and posts, etc. I just haven’t felt certain enough to start writing.

But now here I am with all of this time, but basically prohibited from going anywhere or doing anything outside of my home. Pretty much unsubscribed from my normal life. Perhaps this is my moment.

I’m still not sure what to write about, but as part of this quarantined and unemployed – QUnemployed – period of my life, I suppose I can at least hold myself accountable to post once a day about something.

So consider this Day 1.