Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

My job is depressing. And I want to leave.

by Jana 21 Comments

I’ve talked before about how self-employment scares the crap out of me. That still doesn’t change the fact that I have a burning desire to leave my job and pursue freelancing full-time. Why? My job is depressing.

I don’t mean my job is depressing in the normal “I hate working in an office on somebody else’s schedule and my boss is a douche and my co-workers are lame” Office Space-type depressing. I mean my job is literally depressing. I don’t know how much I’ve disclosed here, maybe some drips and drabs, but I’m going to describe it for you so you can fully understand the depths of how depressing my job is and why I feel compelled to leave.

I as a case reviewer in my state’s Kids’ Department. What this means is that typically when a case blows up for a bad reason, I get the job of looking at all the records and determining if policy was followed, if there were any systems issues…stuff like that. These are typically some of the worst cases imaginable and they hurt my head and my heart. What some people do to kids is just disgusting (I’m not talking people like Jerry Sandusky who do it to strangers. I’m talking about what parents do to their own kids). The crowning jewel of all of this is sitting on my state’s Child Death Review Panel.

Yup, twice a month I get to attend a meeting where we talk about kids dying. Actual cases, too. And all sorts of reasons for the deaths–car accidents, illnesses, SIDS, suicides, homicides, drownings, fires…all of it except deaths or near deaths by abuse or neglect. That’s reviewed in a separate panel that I don’t sit on (which is a really, really good thing). I also get the pleasure of being the liaison for the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review panel. Uplifting stuff, right?

When I took the job almost a year ago, I knew that I was going to have to do this. I didn’t care because it meant getting away from a very toxic work environment and into a much healthier one. I had previously worked for my supervisor in a different capacity and she is wonderful. I can’t say enough good things about her and my other supervisor (I have two, for two different functions of my job). But what I failed to realize was the emotional toll that a job like this would have on me. It’s one thing to supervise juvenile criminals (have I mentioned that I was a probation officer?) or investigate physicians for Medicaid fraud; it’s another to review how babies and children die. As a parent and general human being, it’s become sadder than I can handle.

I have talked to my supervisor about it and she is willing to step in for a few months to give me a break. I appreciate that so much. But eventually I’ll have to go back which makes me even more depressed. I’m tired of seeing the bad side of humanity. I want to see some good stuff. I want to affect change in a positive way, not retrospectively review what could have been done to prevent something bad. I want to see some results of what I do, not have my work linger in committee for 3 years (which is also why I’ll never be a politician). I want to know that I’m actually making a difference.

I recognize that those are pretty tough demands. But I feel that with blogging and writing, I can affect change in a positive way. I can help people learn to make changes in their mindset about money and debt. I can become an advocate for financial freedom and, if I want, I can take up an advocacy role for these kids rather than feeling like a helpless drone. I can actually use my policy background for positive, rather than negative, reasons.

Walking away from this job is not going to be easy. I work with wonderful people, I have a great office with lots of windows, I have a ton of freedom, paid vacation and sick time,  a steady paycheck, a pension, medical, vision and dental benefits, a casual dress code–pretty much anything you can want in a job. But it’s just too depressing and I’m sick of the politics that go along with having a government job (the straw for me was not related to my job but to my husband’s. That’s another story for another time. Let’s just say that just because you have a PhD and are friends with a Cabinet Secretary does not mean you are qualified to run an entire division). So I’m working on a plan. I’m not leaving this kind of job, which I do feel lucky to have, without a concrete plan. But I can’t do this job much longer.

It took a lot of soul-searching to come to this conclusion. While I still don’t feel confident in my ability to earn a living as a freelancer, that lack of confidence has got to be better than being depressed every single day. I can overcome the lack of confidence; I’m not sure I can overcome the depression.

 

 

 

The year I made a difference

by Jana 29 Comments

Now that holiday season is in full swing, there’s no shortage of people asking for money. I’ve already discussed how I manage the holiday creep. But this story is a little different. This is a story about how I, along with 3 friends, changed Christmas for one family. We didn’t do it because we wanted anything in return. We didn’t do it because we felt overwhelmed with the holiday spirit. We didn’t do it because we needed a year-end tax break. No, we did it because this was a hardworking, kind family with 2 parents doing all they could to provide for their kids and Christmas wasn’t in the budget. There was no way we were going to allow this family to forgo Christmas. So we changed it.

First, a little background about the family. At this time, they were a married couple with 4 children (they’ve since added one more). For years, she was a stay at home mom and he worked in a hospital as an X-ray tech I believe. They owned a modest house in rural Indiana and were doing fine. Then he lost his job. The family had to obtain food stamps and Medicaid (if I remember correctly). They worked themselves into debt trying to pay bills on his new salary as a fast food worker. She gave up being a SAHM and went to work in a school cafeteria. The money was enough to keep them afloat but it didn’t leave a lot of room for extras.

She took to a money forum to learn how to control her spending, pay down debt and manage their finances. Watching her progress in her thought process and money management skills was incredible. She came so far in such a short time that it broke my heart reading the desperation in her words when she would talk about Christmas. She wanted to so much to provide for her kids but in her heart of hearts, she knew she couldn’t. Enter me.

Having been in a situation where I didn’t know how I was going to provide Christmas and/or Hanukkah gifts for my child, I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else being in that position. So I got the idea that I would adopt her family. Except I couldn’t do it myself. I enlisted 3 other women from our forum and together, the 4 of us adopted this family. Since there were 4 kids, we each became Santa’s little helper for 1 of them. And because the parents worked so damn hard, we gifted the couple with something. I also snuck a little gift for the mom into my package.

At first it seemed like it would be a daunting task. I wasn’t sure that the other women would agree to do it but sure enough, they did. Once I had the crew assembled, I contacted the mom to let her know what was going on. I didn’t want to insult her and I was so worried that I might. To my sheer delight, she was not only not insulted, she tried to convince me that they didn’t deserve it (guess who won that debate?). From there, we were able to collect a list of the children’s likes and interests and clothing sizes. We each used our own judgment and budget guidelines when selecting the gifts, and we tried to stagger the arrival of the packages so nothing seemed conspicuous to the kids (2 of them were roughly preteen age at the time).

To make sure that the parents didn’t feel totally left out, we made sure to leave all the gifts unwrapped. By letting them wrap the gifts, it gave them that sense that they could still do something for the kids (also, it let them preview the gifts so that they were not totally surprised and they could screen for anything they might not approve of). When she sent me the email that all of the packages had arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief that everything had gone smoothly and as planned.

The words of gratitude that I received after Christmas reinforced to me that not only had we done a good thing, but that we had picked a very deserving family. Working in the field that I work in, it’s easy to see families fail to appreciate what it done for them. They feel almost entitled to it. But not this family. To this day, she still feels that they weren’t deserving of what we did. Let me put that to rest. They were. They absolutely were. And she still tells me what a difference we made to their family that year and how that gesture continued to give them hope and reassurance that things were bound to get better.

I know what we did was not a grand gesture or elaborate or even that expensive. But knowing it made a difference to that family, even for just one year, was absolutely worth it. And, if given the chance, I’d do it all over again.

Care Bears: The Exiled Bears edition

by Jana 6 Comments

This is a post originally published on my food blog, The Empty Kitchen. On another note, I’m thinking of resurrecting that blog. What do you think?

My daughter has recently discovered the Care Bears. I couldn’t be happier. I love the Care Bears! They’re cute, come in multiple colors, and one of them has a cupcake as his tummy symbol!

Not as sweet as they seem

Unfortunately, my brain has gone where it shouldn’t go. While reading the books and watching the DVDs, I could not help but start to think of all the poor, rejected Care Bears  that so very badly want to live in Care-a-Lot but the Care Bears, wanting to keep the seedy element in another part of town and having  a lengthy list of rules for acceptable Care Bear behavior, have exiled these wannabes to neighboring island of the Land of Misfit Toys:

Convict Bear–the local criminal element. The original exiled Care Bear. Known for assaulting others with unwanted Care Bear stares and stealing clouds. He is black and white striped and his tummy sign is jail bars.

Porn Star Bear and her cousin, Stripper Bear–exiled for corrupting the minds and bodies of the male (and some female) Care Bears and violating the morality clause in the home owners association of Care-a-Lot. Porn Star bear is off-white and her tummy symbol is a bed; Stripper Bear is gold and her tummy symbol is (obviously) a pole.

Glam Bear–a true 80s throwback, Glam Bear loves hair band music, especially Poison and Motley Crüe. Known for driving an unnecessarily flashy car, he was exiled for dress code violations, specifically wearing spandex and way too much eyeliner. Glam Bear is blue with black zebra strips and his tummy symbol is star-shaped sunglasses.

Mullet Bear–Glam Bear’s sworn enemy. He was also exiled for dress code violations, except he prefers sleeveless flannel shirts and rocking a really awful Dee Snider mullet. Mullet Bear is mud brown and his tummy symbol is a Trans Am.

Spinster Bear–lives alone in a dark, creepy house surrounded by 1400 cats. She was exiled for never marrying or having Care Bear offspring, an essential tenet of the Care Bear Code. She is gray and her tummy symbol is a cat.

Jersey Bear–idolizes Snooki (an exileable offense in its own right). In fact, she looks like Snooki. She was exiled, like Glam Bear and Mullet Bear, for dress code violations. Instead of a regulation tuft of hair, Jersey Bear has coiffed her hair into a poof. She was originally beige but after applying way too much tanner, she is now more of an orange. Her tummy symbol is the state of New Jersey.

Smart Ass Bear–exiled for violating the cheery and sweet manner in which Care Bears are required to speak. Loves the Michael Scott phrase “That’s what she said”.  Smart Ass Bear is red and his tummy symbol is a set of rolling eyes.

Midlife Crisis Bear–this poor guy was living the perfect Care Bear life until one day, he realized that he wanted a younger Care Bear wife, a sports car and his hair was falling out. He started frequenting Stripper Bear’s workplace and was exiled for violating the Care Bear morality clause, as well as the penguin clause stating that each Care Bear will mate with only one other Care Bear. Midlife Crisis Bear is light gray, has a comb-over, and his tummy symbol is a Porsche.

Thrifty Bear–the only bear to be exiled for his financial status. Thrifty Bear loves a good bargain, manages his money and is completely debt free. This made the other Care Bears jealous and they threw him out. He has appealed the sentence and is currently awaiting his reinstatement hearing. Thrifty Bear is green and his tummy symbol is a dollar sign intertwined with a coupon.

Those are the names of the exiled Care Bears that the President of Care-a-Lot will make public. I have submitted a FOIA request for the others.

The one thing that struck me was how often they were exiled for dress code violations. Kind of strange for a bunch of bears that walk around naked…

 

 

Keys, money and a challenge

by Jana 6 Comments

Last week, during one of our daily conversations that tend to get sucked into a vortex of crazy, Andrea at So Over Debt and I were discussing quotes. She found this quote and issued a challenge. Here are both:

“I hate women because they always know where things are” James Thurber. Relate to finance…GO!

Andrea, challenge accepted.

My husband has a problem with his keys. The main problem is that he usually can’t find them. In college, he and one of his fraternity brothers decided that the only way to find lost keys is to take another set of keys and shake that set until the lost keys magically appear. They believed it was some sort of mating call that only keys responded to. Sadly, it worked more often than not and sadly, I believe that they were sober when they came up with this theory.

Although my husband will swear up and down about the 100% success rate of this method, there was one time where I distinctly remember this theory/method not working. I was at his house and we were getting ready to walk to class together.  Except we were held up because—wait for it—he couldn’t find his keys. He looked everywhere, tried shaking another housemate’s keys—nothing worked. So I, being of sound mind and body, walked upstairs and retrieved his keys from the coffee table in the upstairs living room. I brought them down to him, tossed them on his bed. He looked genuinely surprised that I had found them. His comment? “Oh, yeah. We were drinking last night and I must have left them upstairs. Guess I forgot.”

This is just one example in a thousand of me finding my husband’s keys. I will say, though, that since we put a basket on our foyer table, the amount of times he loses his keys has decreased exponentially (although the amount of times he’s washed his wallet has increased exponentially. I think I’m going to commission a scientific study for this one).  And it always makes him angry that I can find them, thus proving the quote above.  But I still haven’t proven how this relates to finance. I promise I’m getting there.

Another thing you need to know, and I believe I’ve expressed before, is that I am primarily responsible for paying all of our bills and keeping track of our daily finances. Although we’ve developed our budget together, I’m the enforcer. I’m the one responsible for making sure that we stay on track, our checkbook is balanced and that we don’t have to borrow from one category to pay for another. We also have an all cash budget.  To monitor this, I bought one of those multi-pocket folders that most people use for coupons and this is where we keep our cash. Each section is clearly marked with its category and the money for each category goes behind the appropriate label. Sounds easy, right? Not for my husband.

When he needs money for something, he consistently pulls money out of the wrong section. For instance, I’ll go to pull our grocery money and $50 will be missing. Why? Because the husband keeps taking gas money out of the grocery section. Then he gets mildly angry with me because I again have to walk him through the intricacies of labels and pockets. This is a man with a Master’s degree yet he can’t figure out something as simple as pockets? It’s frustrating and amusing at the same time. Yet he gets upset because I know where things go. It’s annoying to me to keep explaining something so simple that my 5 year old can understand it (I guess Denzel Washington was right. Talking to people like a 5 year old is effective). But as the responsible one, and the organized one, it’s my job to know where everything is. Even if it makes him angry.

To his credit, he at least remembers where the money is kept (which is more than I can say for the checkbook. He can’t keep track of that thing. So I’ve accosted it, along with my budget notebook. He is free to look at them whenever he wants but I can’t stand not being able to find them so I keep them in my desk). I try to enable his good habit by not moving the money to anywhere that is not on top of the microwave. I am a bit concerned for when our countertop microwave gets replaced with an over the stove microwave, and my husband’s ability to get used to a new location for our money.

Oh, well. I guess he can always shake a few quarters at the folder. That should work, right?

 

 

This one? Right here? This is MY dream!

by Jana 21 Comments

When I was pledging my sorority, my big sister gave me a poem entitled “Dream Big”. I still keep the poem in my office at work because although I can’t stand my sorority and the frame has our letters, the message of the poem is one that really hits home for me. Every single line in the poem is powerful and meaningful and applies in to so many aspects of my life, especially right now. Because right now? Dreaming big is exactly what I’m doing.

Over the years, I have amassed quite a collection of dreams I’d like to fulfill and goals I’d like to accomplish: publishing a fiction book, traveling to Europe (not France. I went there in high school. France and I are cool) and spending a month in Australia, living at the beach, attending the Emmys (any awards show will do, really), having a professional photo shoot, starting a charity, and being published on the Huffington Post. Some of these dreams and goals are practical and I have the ability to make come true with some ease. Others are a lot more difficult. Like the one I’m currently sitting on. That dream? Interview Jason Segel.

I have been obsessed a fan of Jason Segel ever since I first saw Freaks and Geeks in 1999. First of all, if you haven’t seen the show, rent the whole season (yup, it’s only one season) and watch it. It’s created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow and also has Seth Rogen, James Franco, Busy Phillips, Martin Starr and whole host of other amazing actors. His character on the show, Nick Andopolis, is a) someone I absolutely would have been friends with and b) absolutely someone I would have had a crush on. That’s what drew me in at first. Since then, my fandom has grown with everything movie or TV show he’s in, every movie that he’s written, every interview I’ve seen or heard. And now, the chocolate covered cherry on the cake made entirely of buttercream frosting? He wrote the new Muppets movie.

I am equally as obsessed with the Muppets as I am with Jason Segel. So that fact that he wrote the new Muppets movie (and is starring in it as well), has sent me into a slight frenzy. I mean, it’s totally normal for a 34 year old woman to take the day off of work to go see the new Muppets movie on its opening day, right? Anyway, the fact that Jason Segel is a Muppet purist like me has made me want to sit down and talk to him even more than I did before.

Now that I have this dream, I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it happen. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

  1. Put it on a vision board, read The Secret and know that the universe will bring it to me. Magic 8 Ball success rating: Highly unlikely.
  2. Try to use the one family connection I have in the entertainment business to see if he has contacts in Jason Segel’s management. Magic 8 Ball success rating: More likely than #1 but still highly unlikely
  3. Contact Jason Segel on Twitter and try to engage with him that way. Hope we become Twitter BFFs and then he’ll be more than happy to hang out with me. Magic 8 Ball success rating: Plausible plan but not grounded in reality. Will not happen.
  4. Move to California, apply for a low paying job on the set of one of his movies or How I Met Your Mother, hope I get the job and then get to know him that way. Magic 8 Ball success rating: The outlook is not good. 

So that’s what I’ve got. As you can probably tell, my plans to make my dream come true are not exactly…good. But that’s all I could come up with. So I’m asking you–do you have any suggestions for me? Do you know Jason Segel or even his mother or siblings? Can you help me?

 

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