There are perks to being unemployed... really.
I have been writing a series of diaries since becoming unemployed a week and a half ago. Many of you told me that I should take a breather and I stubbornly refused. I was wrong. You were right. So... here's what I've been doing... (more after the fold)
I have discovered that being unemployed isn't all bad. The not having money part hasn't kicked in yet, because I just got my last paycheck. I won't feel the pinch for another month, and then I'll just have to make some adjustments, maybe some painful adjustments.
In the mean time, I've been working hard on my Linkedin Profile and working on getting recommendations. I don't even want to start putting out resumes until I have that nailed down. Linkedin has a nifty little .pdf conversion that allows you to print out your profile in a resume format and send it electronically. I have found that more often than not, when you're looking for an IT job of any sort, the recipient of the resume is concerned with content and they want it electronically, not via snail mail. The less frills, the better.
I wanted to get back into doing voice-overs, but I have been out of the business for a long time. Referring back to Linkedin again, I joined all kinds of professional groups. I really didn't understand how belonging to these groups made much of a difference, until I joined one, (now ten). Once accepted into each group, I have access to their forum posts, which often have links to profession-specific help articles. This was exactly what I needed. I was googling information about buying new equipment but getting way too much information. Filtering it seemed to be a daunting task. My Linkedin groups solved the problem! Several groups had forum posts about buying microphones, getting studio time, and setting up a home recording environment. There were posts on software, hardware, as well as marketing. They even had coaches available to review air-check recordings. What a gold mine! I'll be digging around those forums for a long time.
Based upon recommendations and reviews, I went to my local recording hardware guru and bought a Snowflake podcasting microphone this week. It is so cute! It's definitely entry level, being only $70 retail, but it will be enough to start doing some voice overs and sample recordings. I also started to construct a sound isolation box for the mic. I have to be able to isolate it from as much environmental sound as possible and give myself an acoustical dead space so I can record. My first construction effort failed. I have foam board that I am using to construct the box, which works well, but I'm still playing around with sound absorbing material to place inside the box. I have a ton of ideas that I want to try, especially using items that I already have. If I can recycle materials, all the better. Unfortunately, my most-used phrase of late is, "I know I have some _______ somewhere! I just can't find it!"
That brings me to a big activity this week. I've started my spring cleaning a bit early. I have found that when my life is in complete disarray, doing physical cleaning of my environment also clears my head. As Mom always said, "start in one corner and clean your way out of it." So, I started in my bedroom and did serious cleaning by moving all of the furniture, cleaning baseboards, and throwing stuff away! All the laundry has been done, folded and put away. (where do all of those socks come from, and where are their mates?)
I had to travel to the storage garage to find materials for my sound box, but instead, decided that the storage area is going to have to go too. $200 per month is real money that really needs to be reclaimed. My sofa is going to get taken out of the storage unit and recovered once and for all, since my sister has volunteered to drive over and help me do it. the other items are either going to find a place in the house or get donated or sold on craig's list.
Things yet to do:
*Clean the rest of the house
*Re-upholster the sofa
*Clean out storage garage
*Sell and donate crap...I mean valuable 'stuff'
*Work on constructing sound box
*Practice working with recording software
*Make audition recordings.
What are you doing while you are unemployed?