Showing posts with label newspapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspapers. Show all posts
Friday, June 18, 2010
Green Laptop
By Patty Jane Maher,
(Writer's Note: This story is part of my series Poor Journalist Gets To Business. Visit http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Poor-Journalist-Gets-To-Business/364775722055?ref=mffor for the index and to be a Facebook Fan of this series. I'm documenting my career transition from journalist to saleswoman and my goal to earn $57 K in Michigan in 2010 during the recession.)
I'm a little sad about moving my "Poor Journalist Gets To Business" series to this quiet Google blog from its birthplace on Open Salon. I really appreciate many things about Open Salon. Truly, that boisterous cyber cacophony of writers, dreamers and fanatics is what gave birth to this series.
In a way I feel like I'm letting my Open Salon friends down by retreating to this veritable dirt-road blogging oasis -- out of the rapid-fire-speed-race of the Open Salon Autubon of blogging.
But let' face it. In my heart, I'm a small-town girl. I'm a paper newspaper lover. All that cyber dagger throwing -- I'm just not cut out for it. I don't want to feel compelled to talk about my religion several days a week just to prove that I belong to a group of people who are extremely diverse and shouldn't be put in a box. I don't want to defend the religion of my childhood or anything else. But out there on the Open Salon, all's fair in love and war and blogging. And as a journalist, I can't just let really inflammatory comments and stories go unaddressed when they refer to something very close to my heart.
So, here I am -- blogging in the Googlesphere. It's pretty cozy, especially with my new laptop computer. I bought it off of Craigslist for $250 this week with a loan from my dad. Thank you, Dad! Happy Father's Day! It's lime green on top, a Dell Inspiron 1520. I like it. It's easy to type on. And it's all mine! Yay! No more driving to meet another guy on our sales team to exchange the computer a few times a week. It was a pain in the neck. Plus there were some real problems with that computer that interfered with a few business transactions. Eventually I would have understood its quirks. But I really like having my own laptop. I'm typing here on the couch in my sweat pants. It's snugly! I like this.
I sold more insurance this week than I think I ever have so far. I felt more involved in the sales. I feel like I'm really learning to be a saleswoman.
This morning I sold a cancer policy to a barber before seven o'clock. We had a nice chat in his business. He made me a cup of coffee and told me about the hot dog stand across the street that has been in business (through different owners) since the 1930s. He has been in business for twenty-nine years and his barbershop was established in the 1950s.
I enjoy historical little old small businesses and their owners and I really had a fun week.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Taking Business Ownership
By Patty Jane Maher,
(Writer's Note: This story is part of my series Poor Journalist Gets To Business. Visit http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Poor-Journalist-Gets-To-Business/364775722055?ref=mffor for the index and to be a Facebook Fan of this series. I'm documenting my career transition from journalist to saleswoman and my goal to earn $57 K in Michigan in 2010 during the recession.)
I’m not just learning to sell stuff. I’m learning how to own a business.
That means I’ve no time for monkey shines.
Blogging has been an interesting part of my career transition from newspaper journalist to saleswoman/small-business owner. For one thing, I do much of my best thinking when I’m writing. So it’s a way of organizing my life, of setting goals.
The downside of blogging is that it has pitfalls. It’s quite a bit like junior-high school when it comes to social etiquette (that is if you happened to go to a junior high school with a ton of really mean and loud kids who liked to use foul language and get in food fights).
There were some things I liked about blogging the Poor Journalist Gets To Business series on the Open Salon. For one thing, I liked the attention of occasionally being picked by the editors. Everyone likes recognition – especially in junior high. Feeling like a teacher’s favorite or an editor’s favorite can ease the pain of you feel when you’re a bit of a misfit. And isn’t everybody a bit of a misfit in junior high? For another thing most of the commentary is quite thoughtful. Probably only about five or ten percent of it is mean spirited. But the culture is worlds away from the culture of the daily newspaper. Light years away, really.
In the end, it was too time consuming to keep blogging at Open Salon with all the dust ups and social expectations. That’s why I’ve retreated here to the Google blog neighborhood where the commentary is quite sparse. Comments are welcome, of course. But hardly anybody does that here. And there’s no social expectation about commenting. Or if there is, nobody has clued me in to it yet.
Time organization and keeping on task and schedule will be my theme in the week ahead. Also, I am investing in a $300-$400 laptop computer to enable me to do my business more efficiently. I have been sharing a computer with another agent and I find it is just too time consuming to pass it back and forth. The computer has our company software on it and belongs to our district sales manager. It was generous of her to let us use it but it is time for me to get my own laptop so that I can have better control over my time and business. In addition to spending money on the computer, I will have to spend $500 on software.
Where did the poor journalist come up with the cash for these business investments, you ask? Dear old dad! Thank you, Dad! Happy Father’s Day! Honestly, I don’t know where I would be without my eighty-year-old dad. He has been incredibly supportive of me in this venture I began in February. He has given me $3,000 so far. It’s a loan and I intend to pay him back. But the fact is, he isn’t holding his breath about it. And he isn’t a rich man. He’s a generous man. God bless him.
Seriously, I’d never be able to do this without my dad.
I think I’m going to make it. I think I’m going to beat poverty and nail this career transition. I think one year from now my life is going to be much different than it is today. There’s a bunch of hard work ahead, no doubt. But thanks to my supportive family (sisters have given gas cards and stuck $50 bills in my purse when I visit. My brother paid for me to take the course and exam for the Michigan Insurance License) I believe I will make it.
When I think about the support I do have, I feel blessed. And I wonder how anybody could make it through such a major career transition without the support of a family. Honestly, I think most would not make it. I don’t think I could. Without my family, I’d probably have given up a month ago and taken a job at a coffee shop.
(Writer's Note: This story is part of my series Poor Journalist Gets To Business. Visit http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Poor-Journalist-Gets-To-Business/364775722055?ref=mffor for the index and to be a Facebook Fan of this series. I'm documenting my career transition from journalist to saleswoman and my goal to earn $57 K in Michigan in 2010 during the recession.)
I’m not just learning to sell stuff. I’m learning how to own a business.
That means I’ve no time for monkey shines.
Blogging has been an interesting part of my career transition from newspaper journalist to saleswoman/small-business owner. For one thing, I do much of my best thinking when I’m writing. So it’s a way of organizing my life, of setting goals.
The downside of blogging is that it has pitfalls. It’s quite a bit like junior-high school when it comes to social etiquette (that is if you happened to go to a junior high school with a ton of really mean and loud kids who liked to use foul language and get in food fights).
There were some things I liked about blogging the Poor Journalist Gets To Business series on the Open Salon. For one thing, I liked the attention of occasionally being picked by the editors. Everyone likes recognition – especially in junior high. Feeling like a teacher’s favorite or an editor’s favorite can ease the pain of you feel when you’re a bit of a misfit. And isn’t everybody a bit of a misfit in junior high? For another thing most of the commentary is quite thoughtful. Probably only about five or ten percent of it is mean spirited. But the culture is worlds away from the culture of the daily newspaper. Light years away, really.
In the end, it was too time consuming to keep blogging at Open Salon with all the dust ups and social expectations. That’s why I’ve retreated here to the Google blog neighborhood where the commentary is quite sparse. Comments are welcome, of course. But hardly anybody does that here. And there’s no social expectation about commenting. Or if there is, nobody has clued me in to it yet.
Time organization and keeping on task and schedule will be my theme in the week ahead. Also, I am investing in a $300-$400 laptop computer to enable me to do my business more efficiently. I have been sharing a computer with another agent and I find it is just too time consuming to pass it back and forth. The computer has our company software on it and belongs to our district sales manager. It was generous of her to let us use it but it is time for me to get my own laptop so that I can have better control over my time and business. In addition to spending money on the computer, I will have to spend $500 on software.
Where did the poor journalist come up with the cash for these business investments, you ask? Dear old dad! Thank you, Dad! Happy Father’s Day! Honestly, I don’t know where I would be without my eighty-year-old dad. He has been incredibly supportive of me in this venture I began in February. He has given me $3,000 so far. It’s a loan and I intend to pay him back. But the fact is, he isn’t holding his breath about it. And he isn’t a rich man. He’s a generous man. God bless him.
Seriously, I’d never be able to do this without my dad.
I think I’m going to make it. I think I’m going to beat poverty and nail this career transition. I think one year from now my life is going to be much different than it is today. There’s a bunch of hard work ahead, no doubt. But thanks to my supportive family (sisters have given gas cards and stuck $50 bills in my purse when I visit. My brother paid for me to take the course and exam for the Michigan Insurance License) I believe I will make it.
When I think about the support I do have, I feel blessed. And I wonder how anybody could make it through such a major career transition without the support of a family. Honestly, I think most would not make it. I don’t think I could. Without my family, I’d probably have given up a month ago and taken a job at a coffee shop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)