That Unemployed Life

I am going to sway away a little bit from the restaurant business in this entry. At the end of the day though, I believe it is all relevant.

There was a point in time where I could easily drop working at the restaurant to pursue other career opportunities. So one day when I saw an assistant position for a small TV station in Queens, NY, I jumped on it. The opportunity didn't seem too promising as the station seemed to be having issues, but I wanted to work in TV and this gig looked fun (plus I was looking for change). They offered me the job, and when I hopped onto craigslist that day to find a roommate, I thought it was fate that I found a cheap room for rent about 2 minutes from the job. Well long story short I moved to Queens on impulse, into an apartment with a total stranger (who ended up being an amazing person), for a "fun looking" job. Three months later I was out of a job. I didn't even make it 3 full months. Those 3 months are a story in themselves, but in this entry I am going to talk about what happened afterwards. I didn't want to give up my apartment and awesome roommate so I attempted to move on to plan B: find a waitressing job until I find a permanenant job. Well plan B turned out being harder than plan A, and after 7 months I moved back home with my parents. I never found a waitressing job, nor any permanent job. Some may say I wasted my time and money by making this move, and at times I even doubted myself. But when all is said and done, I don't regret any of it.

The other day I was going through email drafts and found two messages I had sent to myself while living in Queens. One was titled "Things I did while I was in Astoria" and the other was titled "Lessons I learned living in Astoria" Keywords here being "did" and "learned." Maybe I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did a lot of new things and I learned a lot of things. Here are some things from my lists:

Things I did while living in Astoria:

-Went to the Jimmy Fallon show twice

-Interviewed with Queens newspaper; interview went great and could have seen myself there; I really had interest in working there but I wasn't sure if I could commit at $8 an hour and I don't like doing things if I can't full commit to them

-Interviewed with Baked by Melissa

-Interviewed with Sales VP at Fox News; nice guy, opportunity fell through

-Interviewed with LIC partnership for a job I was interested in but when I showed up for the interview that position was not available anymore; people were nice

-Interviewed with the Harvard Club of NY for a job I wasn't really interested in but I thought I'd practice my interview skills

-Signed up with Atrium Staffing; first temp job they sent me on I stuffed envelopes for 4 hours, wasn't fun but met cool people, mostly aspiring actors/actresses

-Took a trip to the Empire State building with a long lost friend; she showed me weird things in the sky, she claimed they were UFOS, not sure if I really believed in UFOS; but I love looking at the city at night

-Interviewed with another Staffing agency Taylor Hodson, they sent me to interview for one short term job, I didn't get the job and they never contacted me again; gave up on me too soon?

-Failed open call for waitress job at Astoria Brewhouse; I went to find a waitress job at a small little bar in Astoria, there must have been 40-45 people there waiting

-Went to the Museum of Moving Image in LIC

-Interviewed with D S Simon for an unpaid internship position; declined

-Tried Zumba for the first time

-No job=lots of free time to exercise; I worked out a lot, was probably the skinniest I've ever been in my life

-Visited several other restaurants in astoria; everywhere I went was either not hiring or wanted full-time workers; I didn't want full-time because I was still trying to pursue career; could have lied, but I am not the best liar, nor do I like lying

-went to career fair at MSG

-Interview for a few jobs at USTA through a job recruiter; not for me; recruiter was not the same page with me

-Interview with production company Original Media; girl was Greek; followed up several times no response; I thought interview went well, but no feedback...oh well

-Interview with Meetinghouse Productions; girl was nice; never heard back

-worked as a temp at media giant Omnicom for a few days; met a lot of nice people; made some contacts, several VPs reached out to help me with job search, but no leads that were right for me

-Did a one day temp job running a guestlists of for Ed Sheeran at Artists Den, was cool and got to see concert for free

-Ran event at the UN building, never been in the UN building before; met security guards there, shared some cool stories with me like how short the president of Iran is; met more aspiring actors/actresses on my team

-Another event at the Pierre Hotel running a an auction for a charity event, met some cool Greek waiters that worked there, fun talking with them

-another temp job at fashion designer Vivienne Tam; they actually liked me there and I liked them, but extremely boring temp job

-Did another event for City Harvest at the Cipriani; saw some celebs like Mark Sanchez, Richard Gere, and Johnny legend. Particularly remember Johnny legend because he was the only celebrity to acknowledge my team and tell us thank you and to have a good night

-Interviewed for a temp job with a company MRY; don't think I was the right fit, but cool place

-Saw Jersey Boys because of my awesome roommate who always chose to take me to any events she got tickets for through work

-Went to the movies by myself for the first time ever; saw Great Gatsby

-Signed up for another temp agency Force One Entertainment/Bond Group; made me go in 2-3 times to interview just to get registered in their database; made take an excel/word test, passed with flying colors; owner of company made me feel like a million dollars when talking to me, never heard from them again, even tried following up many times

-would often pass by Kaufman studios and always wondered what it looked like inside, would really have liked to work there but it was very hard to get in touch with anyone there, one day I tried to walk in to the front desk to see if I can drop a resume to anyone; I was immediately turned away, wouldn't even let me talk for a second; but thats just security doing their job, can't say I didn't try

-Walk/ran (mostly walked) the 6 mile loop at central park

-Somehow coughed up the money to go eat at almost every place in Astoria (eating is obviously high on my priority list) Here are some of the places: Ovelia, Grand Cafe, Avenue, Chicken Shack, Cavo, Tu Casa, Organics, Pointe Brasil, Stamatis, Gleasons, Omonia, Cedars, Crave, 31st Ave Gyro, Steinway Pizza, JJs Asian Fusion, Lefkos Pyrgos, Pita Pan, Flo Cafe, Il Bambino

-went on job interview with RMA of NY; nice people and got the job offer; probably the only legitimate job offer I got, but I just couldn't accept it; I could not see myself in this place; job could have kept me in NY but this was when I decided I need to move back home and reevaluate

-Event at Marquis Times Square, met interesting characters

-Signed up for New York Cares; made easter bunny masks with little kids; one girl put bullets in her bunnies ear because she hated bunnies and claimed hers was dead -Went to PBR (professional bull riding) for first time; it was cool; again thanks to awesome roomate -Starting reading more book: Veronika decides to die, Be here now, Flowers for Algeron, normal gets you nowhere

Lessons learned living in Astoria

1) They're are many people out there experiencing what you are experiencing, you are not alone in that aspect

2) I learned to enjoy doing things by myself, I went to the movies alone for the first time, visited and spent countless hours in coffeshops and starbucks alone, wandered around the city with no destination in mind.

3) You can meet random amazing people on craigslist

4) The importance of networking

5) Failure is a good thing and tests how strong you are and means you are trying

6) Everytime I encountered a rude person on the subway, I always encountered a few more people who were opposite...keep positive

7) Don't take things personally

8) TRYING is very important, but most people will not give you any credit for trying unless you prove you can actually do something, but at least respect yourself for trying because most people don't try at all

9) Rejection sucks, it's probably the worst thing in the world but as long as you keep trying all it actually does is point you into a new direction which may end up being better in the end

10) When someone believes in you they magnify your strengths and downplay your weaknesses....I had a boss once who I knew believed in me, she always told me how great I was at certain things, and for the things I didn't do right she didn't make a big deal of them but worked with me to fix them.....If someone doesn't believe in you they'll do the opposite, so it's best to hang around people who believe in you whether it be friends, colleage, family member, especially boss, etc

11) Never, ever feel bad for yourself. There is always always someone out there that has it worse.

12) Waitressing jobs in the city are just as competitive as corporate type jobs