Jana Says

Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe (and other questions I’d like answered)

June 3, 2013 by Jana 9 Comments

Last week, my friend Steph wrote a post wondering what happened to Baby and Johnny. Her questions about them got me wondering: what happened to The Breakfast Club after they left detention? Did John take Brian out to the parking lot to get high? Did he return the earring Claire gave him? Did Andrew win his wrestling match? Did Carl rat on Mr. Vernon for reading those basement files? Did Larry Lester’s buns ever heal? And where did they go once high school was over?

Burning questions, right?. And I need answers! So I made them up:

Claire Standish (“The Princess”)

Although Claire’s future seemed secure with an Ivy League acceptance and promise of an internship in France after she finished college, her obsession with John Bender has all but ruined her life. After that Saturday detention, she and John kept a clandestine relationship that lasted through their freshman year of college. When he broke up with her the summer after that year, she went crazy (like Amanda Bynes, Charlie Sheen level crazy), developing an obsession with John (leading to a restraining order) and a wicked shopping addiction that eventually landed her in rehab nine times over the last 20 years. Her final stint was 2 years ago and she has replaced her shopping addiction with tanning. She looks old and leathery but she no longer shops for comfort. And the fact that she looks old helped her meet her husband, a wealthy older man who paid off her debts and finances her tanning habit.

Unemployed, Claire currently spends her days Googling for information on John Bender and making her stepchildren hate her.

Andrew Clark (“The Jock”)

He did, in fact, win that last wrestling match.

Plagued with guilt over what he did to Larry Lester in the locker room, Andrew went to a mid-western college (on a wrestling scholarship, of course), studying psychology. He took a few years off to work as a professional wrestler, although he mainly performed on the state fair/high school gym/fire hall circuit. After breaking his nose for the 8^th time for very little pay, Andrew quit wrestling and went back to school. He graduated, obtained his PhD and now works as a therapist, specializing in traumatic childhood duct tape incidents. He volunteers for an anti-bullying organization and has recently taken up archery as a hobby.

Financially, Andrew isn’t wealthy but he’s finally paid off his student loans and is working his way through Dave Ramsey’s baby steps.

Allison Reynolds (“The Basket Case”)

As expected, Allison barely made it through high school. She moved to NYC shortly after graduation, working odd jobs, making just enough money to scrape by but never really needing or owning a whole lot, just what she could fit in her giant purse (which she still carries with her). In her mid-30s, she settled down in Brooklyn, where she owns an art gallery featuring art created by school children and lives in a small loft apartment with her lifemate, Stu (who makes a living dressing as Peter Pan for birthday parties), and their 6 cats, 4 dogs, and a rotating number of guinea pigs and rabbits.

Money isn’t a concern or a care for Allison. An active Freegan, she runs classes at her art gallery teaching others how to live on as little money as possible.

Brian Johnson (“The Brain”)

He did not get high with John. But he wanted to.

Brian, sadly, did not graduate as valedictorian (due to the tragic lamp incident) but he did graduate in the top 5 of his class. This perceived failure haunted him in the years following high school, even causing a small breakdown in his first year in graduate school. He dropped out, was ostracized by his entire family, and became a hermit until his 40^th birthday. A pioneer user of the internet due to his hermit existence, Brian honed skills he didn’t know he had is now a successful app developer. His most successful app, to date, is an app for kids called “Pull the Elephant’s Trunk”.

As a result of the apps, Brian is now incredibly wealthy and lives in a large, sprawling mansion in California. He’s still a bit of a hermit, but has been spotted at some of Hef’s parties.

John Bender (“The Criminal”)

He did return Claire’s earring when he broke up with her.

A career in criminal justice never seemed farfetched for John, although most would assume it would be behind bars rather than on the outside. After spending 11 months in jail for a bar fight with Mr. Vernon (John finally did take that swing at him), he regrouped, went to law school, and found his calling working for those who needed a good defense. He met his wife at a very high profile trial (he was the attorney, she was a spectator), leading to some speculation that John won the trial under shady circumstances. Like most things in his life, he rose above that, and, after the media caught wind of his childhood, jail time, and subsequent successful law career, his life was made into a Lifetime movie. With money earned from the movie coupled with his prolific law career, John retired from law to work on novels (a la his hero, John Grisham).

His restraining order against Claire remains active.

A little inspiration for your Wednesday

May 29, 2013 by Jana 5 Comments

A few inspirational words to get you through the middle of the week:

10 simple ways to suck at life

May 24, 2013 by Jana 12 Comments

I’m not one to push products but today I’m going to. You see, I’ve devised a very handy guide that will give you a set of 10 very specific instructions on how to do epically fail at anything or everything you choose. And the best part about this guide is that it’s 100% free. You don’t have to spend a single cent to learn these well kept secrets.

But you might be thinking Why? Why do you need this completely free guide? Well, I’ll tell you. You need it because staying stuck in one place, depressed and miserable sounds like something you’d like to do. You need it because having goals just seems like too much work, being successful and accomplished is overrated, and you prefer to sit back, dreaming of the things you’d do if only you could. You need it because you want to figure out why your life isn’t turning out the way you wanted and you just can’t understand why. You need it because you need to figure out what you’re doing wrong. You need it because maybe you don’t want to suck at life and this will tell you exactly what not to.

How’s that for a great deal? (You don’t have to say it. I know.)

So, without any further ado, I give you the absolutely free, completely informative, Daily Money Shot’s Simple Guide to Sucking at Life:

Overwhelmed and eliminating it, day 5: At home

May 16, 2013 by Jana 8 Comments

Home is a funny place. Home is where we’re supposed to go to escape from the stress of friends, work, and the outside world in general. But home can also be a place of stress and feeling overwhelmed if you’re not careful. That’s why it’s important to do what we can to eliminate it as much as possible when you’re inside the 4 walls of your home.

While it’s not possible to control everything that causes anxiety and overwhelmedness (I’m starting to think I need to petition to make this a word), it is possible to take some action:

Have a budget. This goes without saying. One of the biggest causes for being overwhelmed is money. Bills, savings, long term planning, day to day expenses—money is part of our day, every day, whether we like it or not. And there is just so much to do! However, trying to do it all at once is frustrating so I recommend, like almost every other personal finance writer that has ever existed, have a budget. Having a budget will eliminate a good deal of your sense of being overwhelmed. You won’t have to figure out how much to pay the credit card company or decided what you have for groceries or put off that necessary haircut or contribute to savings. You’ll already know because you put it all on paper. If you don’t know where to start, Dave Ramsey’s website has a great free tool to get you started.

Having a budget sounds like a lot of work and it is. But the outcome is worth the effort, and your stress level will thank you.

Create a meal plan. I was not blessed with the ability to look at raw ingredients and whip up a meal at a moment’s notice. I know this because, for a while, I tried. I would go to the supermarket, buy what I wanted, and hope that meals would come out of it. They did not. And I would get overwhelmed because I knew I had to feed my family but I couldn’t figure out what so I would maybe freak out a little, perhaps throw in a bit of yelling, and then declare I was not cooking and we needed to order in (like the dad in A Christmas Story. “Everybody, upstairs. Get dressed. We are going out to eat”). Needless to say, it wrecked our budget.

So I decided that I needed to meal plan. And while meal planning does help keep our grocery budget under control, it mainly gives me a sense of calm regarding what to make for dinner. I don’t get overwhelmed at the thought of having to cobble something together that would probably taste terrible and my freak outs are kept to a minimum. Everyone appreciates that.

Organize. We’ve already discussed why it’s important to get organized and methods to do so I’m not going to rehash that. However, I do want to add a bit. Getting organized at home makes everything run much more smoothly and it prevents those “everything is going crazy all at once and I need a break or I’m going to build a blanket cocoon and stay in there with my wine and only my dog is allowed to visit me” moments (although, admittedly, that does sound like a pretty good day). Having your home organized means you’ll get out the door on time. Having your home organized means you won’t have to buy a birthday present 20 minutes before the birthday party nor will you have to feverishly search for wrapping paper. Having your home organized means you get free time back because keys don’t get lost, backpacks aren’t misplaced, and bills are paid on time (you can also accomplish this by automating your bills, something I highly, highly recommend). Having your home organized means you can do activities as a family in peace instead of chaos (controlled chaos is okay. Actual chaos, not so much).

In fact, being organized is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a Pinterest worthy organizational system. It just has to be something that works for you and your family. (Note: lists are my go-to organizational tool. Actually, I love lists so much I have a whole post planned discussing how lists can keep you from feeling overwhelmed).

Whether you live in a household of 1 or 10, there’s opportunity to become overwhelmed. Stressors come with every circumstance and it’s important to find a way to combat that.

Readers, what do you do in your household to keep from feeling overwhelmed?

Overwhelmed and eliminating it, day 4: At work

May 13, 2013 by Jana 2 Comments

This week, we’re going to talk about how to handle being overwhelmed in 3 key areas: home, work, and obligations to others. Today, we talk about work.

If you ask anyone how work is going, they’ll probably answer “busy”. It’s just the standard response because if we say anything other than busy, others might assume that we’re not busy and don’t have enough to do and that just looks bad. No one wants that. At least that‘s how it was for me when I worked in a traditional office.

Besides not wanting to look bad, I liked being busy at work. I figured if I was going to get up, get dressed, put on makeup, get my daughter to daycare, spend 9 hours away from her every day, and sit in traffic, I better have a lot to do. Otherwise, I felt my job was a waste of my time, regardless of the paycheck I received every 2 weeks. Usually, I was pretty good about finding work to do. If I wasn’t working on a project, I would tweak my training program, write case notes (when I was a probation officer), edit reports…any little task that needed to be done but often got pushed aside for the major tasks. And yes, I would read the news and blogs and maybe browse Amazon. Even busy people need breaks!

For the most part, I maintained a system that kept my workload manageable and the quality of my work up to my standards.

However, I had one particular job that managed to keep me overwhelmed on a daily basis. This job, as a social services administrator (state lingo for “we don’t really know what to call this job so we’ll give it an important sounding title that’s not really important at all”), kept me busy to the point of being chronically overwhelmed. We’re talking so overwhelmed to the point that on some days, I just didn’t do anything because every project was a top priority and no matter which one I worked on, it was going to be wrong. So I did nothing. All day. Maybe some days I cried. Maybe some days I yelled. Most days I looked for a new job. But until I found that job, I had to find a way to manage the overwhelming workload and the complete lack of direction and input from my supervisor.

I know I’m not the only one who’s been in that position. Many people I’ve talked to over the years have, at one time or another, been so overwhelmed at work that they just can’t function. They miss deadlines, make mistakes, forget meetings, and slip up in other ways that negatively impact their performance reviews and potential bonuses and raises (and promotions). Enough mistakes and you can be out of a job.

And that really, really sucks. (Unless you really, really hate your job and then you’re thinking of getting fired as sweet relief. That’s totally okay, too.) Since most of us aren’t fortunate enough to be so wealthy that we can forgo employment, it’s crucial to learn how to handle being overwhelmed at work. Here’s a few ways to do that:

Ask for help. If you’re tasked with something you just don’t know how to do, seek out someone who knows how to do it. Sitting at your desk, staring at the information you can’t process will only make you more frustrated and overwhelmed. It’ll make you do shabby, incorrect work, particularly if you’re just guessing at what you need to do. Then you’ll have to redo it all and that’ll just make you angry and cause mistakes and the cycle will repeat. So, instead, just ask for help. Remember, though, if you are going to ask for help, don’t ask someone to do the task for you; rather, ask if he or she can show you how to do it. Make sure to schedule a meeting and put it in writing. Also, make sure to come to the meeting prepared with specific questions and information. Not only does this make you look more professional, it shows a respect for the person’s time which may make him more apt to help you in the future.
Close your email. Leaving your email open all day is not only a complete distraction but it’s a surefire way to get overwhelmed. Imagine you’re working on a big project and in the midst of it, an email from your boss pops up. You feel that, because it’s from your boss, you need to attend to it right away. So you stop what you’re doing to deal with the email, come back to the abandoned project three hours later, forget what you were doing and freak out that you’ll never finish in time. That’s not good for anyone. So, close your email. Eliminate that distraction for the time being and when you’re done, open your email back up and deal with those new tasks at that point. Believe me, if your boss wants something from you that badly, she’ll interrupt you anyway.
Take breaks. I’m not talking about calling out sick every time you’re freaked out about your to-do list or the 16 mandatory yet pointless meetings in 2 days or the major presentation you need to put together and deliver in front of an entire department. I’m talking about stepping away from your desk, getting some fresh air, going out to lunch with a co-worker, or anything else that gets you away from the never ending list of items to finish. Getting away, doing something fun and non-work related allows you a mental health reprieve that, when it’s over, leaves you feeling empowered to return to your desk and deal with whatever it is that’s staring you in the face. Having that break snaps you out of the sinkhole of overwhelmedness that causes you to freeze in the middle of a task, or worse—stop caring about the quality of the work you do. And, while it’s important to take breaks no matter what your industry, it is essential to do so if you work in a service oriented field like social work or retail.

Being overwhelmed is not a fun feeling. It’s even less fun at work. It’s important to learn how to manage that feeling in this environment because when you can’t, those negative emotions seep into other aspect of our lives. And that really sucks.

Readers, what are some ways you handle being overwhelmed at work, whether you’re self-employed or work for someone else?