Category Archives: Work

Retreat at Work

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Having a “regular job” the past 7 ½ years hasn’t been the norm for me. Project work, consulting, tutoring, along with freelancing, sprinkled a few other “moonlighting” gigs have gotten me through. This followed what felt at the time was being “kicked to the curve.” A role I was perfectly suited for and really loved being in, ended when our idiot governor at the time thought he knew better than anyone how the state’s workforce development system functioned, and de-funded parts of it. His petulance at the time affected me directly and ended six years of successful local and statewide initiatives.

In August, I went back to work. My new position is a part-time one. I’m still surviving as a writer. This requires maintaining a patchwork-quilt of income streams. I’m also spending a few Saturdays each month advising young drivers on safer practices behind the wheel.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure embracing change would end well, or even last more than a few weeks. But I’d been a satisfied consumer at this not-for-profit committed to delivering healthcare in a way that still values the patient, so I knew firsthand that their core values were genuine. When I learned they were looking for people with customer service experience and skills, I applied.

Being in a healthcare setting as an employee isn’t that far afield for me. One of my better jobs I had found me landing at Healthsource back in 1997, when they were still locally managed. Continue reading →

Changing Lanes

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A lifetime of work experience leaves many of us adrift at some point in our “work careers.” I love that phrase in that it glorifies what’s basically a soul-killing enterprise.

After freelancing and being primarily self-employed since mid-2012, I’m back in a work environment similar to the previous world I once inhabited. Working at home seems romantic to many who haven’t done it for any significant period. The reality of staying home and working remotely is pretty isolating. At least I found that to be true, especially since Mark was killed.

I did spend the past two years being out five nights a week, tutoring at a private school. That gig helped pay the bills and I did get out of the house. But the students were difficult, save for a few that I felt I might have made some small difference with. Then again, I might be deluding myself. The tutors I worked with and saw every night aren’t people I’ve remained in-touch with.

Find your lane and stay in it.

I’m in week four of a new job. It’s the “honeymoon” phase, so my expectations are minimal. They pay me, so anything more than that will be a bonus. Continue reading →

The Tutor

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After the interminable summer of 2017—a summer oppressively sad following a major loss—I ended up taking a position: I would be tutoring youth at a nearby private school. Since it was 10 minutes from my house in Brunswick, the location seemed right. It was at night, so I had my days to be down and depressed (or in theory, be able to write).

I told the academic dean who hired me “the story.” I let him know that I couldn’t commit to anything long-term. Amazingly, he was okay with that. That was the extent of what I could handle at that moment in my life.

On my third night, I ended up paired with a young man who needed help with statistics. I hadn’t done statistics since I’d been taking night school classes during my CMP days in the mid-1990s. Somehow, I remembered enough to provide some help to my protégé.

He was back the following night. The two of us became a team, an academic Odd Couple of sorts. Over the remainder of the 2017-18 school term, we worked on English, History, and fortunately for me—he dropped statistics. The person supervising the night Guided Study program asked me if I’d want to work with Billy as a one-on-one assignment. Since I had nothing better to do with my evenings, I agreed. Continue reading →

Choosing My Religion

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Two weeks ago, the phone rang at 5:00 a.m. It was the automated call system that school districts now use in assigning substitute teachers when there are staff vacancies. I was being directed to report to a nearby junior high. I’d be covering 7th grade math. 90 minutes later, I was dressed and driving to my assignment.

I found out last year that tutoring was an amenable fit. It was more than that—I actually enjoyed working with youth and the assortment of experiences across my life allowed me to bring some breadth to my nightly tasks at the private school located 10 minutes away.

Last spring, I initiated an inquiry to my local school district about the possibility of subbing. It was near the end of the school year so getting started was impractical at the time. I made a note to follow-up during the summer. Then, I was off on my road trip and returned with issues related to my SI joint. Substitute teaching ended up on the back burner.

Summers now have morphed into completing my CMS/AHIP certification for Medicare, at least that’s what most of August is now about for me. I did manage to complete the required paperwork for the municipal school district and turned it in. Just prior to the first day of school, I received a call to complete my final payroll forms. I made an executive decision to do the same at a neighboring RSU. Now I’m on the roster for two school systems. I have the option of working daily if I want.

I am busy again and have been since the beginning of the school year. So far, my high water mark has been three sub assignments in a week. Not once have I regretted my decision or any assignment. Inevitably, there will always be a student or two who is determined to challenge a substitute. Somewhere along the line I must have picked-up some classroom management skills.

I’m enjoying being a substitute teacher.

Continue reading →

Better Days

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During the summer of 2017, and even at times, this past summer, recovery from grief and loss seemed improbable. Losing a son like Mark assured me my spot in line, stuck in a position and place I never asked to be in.

Life is now pockmarked by sad anniversaries. These will be forever oriented around an event that turned lives upside-down: the last time we saw Mark; the start of his final walk; his birthday, Christmas, his death…and on and on the calendar turns.

When I returned from my Father’s Day road trip in late June, and with July’s swelter, once more I was moored in sadness and hopelessness. The odds that things might dramatically improve were not any that a successful gambler would take.

We’re fortunate to have an exceptional grief counselor. At an appointment prior to summer, in May, she reframed how I was feeling as “moving through grief.” Her suggestion and semantic reorientation from “moving beyond grief” worked for me.

I’m not dismissing that my physical malady and SI joint issue contributed to the darkness I experienced most days. Sitting at home with nothing to do and with no prospects of anyone intervening dropped a veil of interminability over July.

My walking partner and friend, Paul, was also experiencing back issues. Both of us had dusted-off our tennis games during the summer and fall of 2017. This tennis season, neither of us was capable of swinging a racket, or chasing balls on the baseline—we were simply struggling to remain upright.

August forced me to dig into my Medicare certification requirements. I wasn’t eager for this three to four-week period of completing modules in order to pass the federally-mandated certification exam that allows agents little wiggle room. You basically have to know your stuff if you want to sell this type of health insurance. On top of these strict federal mandates, each plan imposes additional requirements before being deemed “ready to sell.” The good news for me this year is that I’m contracted with three plans, instead of last year’s solitary option.

Tutoring at the private school nearby may have saved me in 2017. No matter how dark and difficult things felt, I knew I had to gather my wits about me late every afternoon in preparation for the student I was assigned to work with.

Driving onto the stately grounds of the school replete with a 19th century mansion always managed to enhance my mood and remind me that it was time for me to “perform” for two hours. And that’s what I did beginning in September through early December when the students left for Christmas break.

Teaching and tutoring are noble endeavors.

Continue reading →

Cover Letter Writing

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Mark was a content-creation machine. Just look at all the fucking stuff he’s posted on the feeds since 2006!! He puts most of us who call ourselves creatives (and writers) to shame.

I wrote about our last in-person visit with him. The week following that visit, we had this exchange via email about blogging and a post about creepy clowns that he liked.

I’m glad you are enjoying the Jeff Buckley book.

I liked your blogpost today. Have you ever thought of returning to the blog daily? I know you have a lot going on, but I really like what you wrote today. Especially the paragraph linking the governor to a creepy clown. I think sometimes you put pressure on yourself to create these fully formed blogposts of a certain length. If you were to do a daily blog again I think maybe you should abandon the notion of word count and focus on observing/saying one thing once a day. When you feel inspired to go long then definitely still go long. Maybe keep the same schedule of Tuesday and Friday to go long, but fill the other days with smaller things. Anyway, it’s just a thought.

 I hope the repairs are going well. 

Oh and here’s a neat tweak on cooking sweet potatoes that looks good: 

I’m not committing to any kind of schedule for blogging or anything else for that matter (at least remaining somewhat in charge, as is humanly possible in money-driven America), but I think I can blog more often, even if it’s following Mark’s prescription to riff on something observed or some other element of living.

Today, in addition to blogging, I’m intent on finishing a lengthy package for a freelance writing gig that matches much of what I’ve been doing for the past 10 years. No matter what kind of skills you have, however, there’s no guarantee you’ll get noticed.

I was thinking about that along with something that a Brown MFA colleague of Mark’s, Darren Angle, shared via Quora. Darren who I’d describe as a life coach for people who think life coaching is a crock of shit, uses this tagline describing what he does—I help people quit their jobs (and do work they love). Sign me up!!

Darren offered the most unique response to the Quora question, “What is important to include on [sic] a cover letter? Please read it now—do not pass Go until you do!

It was Darren’s reality-based advice that made me decide to change my own approach to cover letter writing. Why the hell not? What do I have to lose at this point—grief and loss, if anything is freeing and it helps you to feel like Teflon.

I’ve included my “new” cover letter that I plan to continue using. Key details like employer name and contact person have been redacted. My approach is the “getting real” method. Your own cover letter may likely contain something slightly different.

While preparing to post this, I was also reminded of Mark’s calls to agents. Oh Mark, you were a one-of-a-kind soul and I miss you each and every day (and all the moments in-between).

A real, live draft of my cover letter, with edits.

Continue reading →

Rainy Mondays

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For a year now, I’ve been leaving the house at 8:00 in the morning and spending part of my week working at a part-time job that helped supplement my income and offered a bit more than most part-time gigs tend to proffer. That all ended last week.

Once again, I’m sitting at home on a Monday, in an empty house (no offense to our cat, Lucy), wondering what’s next on the horizon. The last time I found myself in this place of uncertainty, I could always send an email, text, or call my biggest fan and cheerleader—that would be Mark Baumer. Today is also Mary’s first day back at work since Mark died, so there’s a bit of a double-whammy effect.

I’m not sure what happened other than my son was killed, I probably went back to work too soon, and my manager lacked the capacity for empathy. I dared to point that out. That’s the Cliffs Notes version, anyway. Continue reading →

Shopping Season

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Thanksgiving week is an odd one. A national holiday tacked onto the tail-end of a work week makes for a disjointed flow at best, when breaking rocks for Whitey.

For those of us punching in on Friday, it’s essential to keep in mind that the day has been hijacked by commerce and consumption. Any business transacted will likely take place between Black Friday bargain hunting.

If you are one of the people cursed to be a retail worker, it’s the start of a month’s worth of madness leading up to the high holiday of shopping and crass commercialism, Christmas. I’m glad that my part-time merry-go-round this year doesn’t include a seasonal stint for a well-known online retailer headquartered in Freeport. I’m not feeling overly-Christmas-y this year, with all its uniquely American decorative flourishes. I’ll be keeping it as simple as can be.

Indeed, I’m opting for as much normalcy as I can latch onto here at the close of 2016. So, I won’t be shopping on Black Friday, and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll find me out at the mall or Big Box any other day in December, either.

Bargain-hunting on Black Friday

Bargain-hunting on Black Friday

What’s the Call?

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I am a baseball umpire. I enjoy telling people that and I’m proud of my development over the past four years.

Baseball is a sport that I’d say is “in my blood,” one I’m intimately familiar with—I played it, then served as a coach and later—ran a summer college league (one of the oldest in the country) for five years. I can say with authority that I know the game of baseball. I think that’s played a role in helping me advance as an umpire. This spring and summer, I’ve done 65 games and save for a couple of miserable games in the rain, enjoyed every experience of being on the field and calling games.

Several weeks ago, I learned from one of my umpiring partners that volleyball is growing rapidly in Maine and that there is a need for new officials. He had begun attending rules classes, and he encouraged me to check it out.

I asked Joe if he had played the game and his answer was, “no.” That piqued my interest because like him, I have never played volleyball, save for the backyard-variety version of the sport that many of us have dabbled in at a party or family gathering. I’ve also been interested in picking up a “second sport” to officiate. Perhaps volleyball could be added to my repertoire? A secondary question could be added;  “Do I need to add yet another task to my already loaded list?”

I'll be calling a brand new sport this fall.

I’ll be calling a brand new sport this fall.

Continue reading →

No Longer Resilient

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Over Memorial weekend, I finally had some time to put up my feet and do some reading. Lying on a book shelf was Robert Pike’s wonderful Tall Trees, Tough Men.

Much like Colin Woodard’s The Lobster Coast, Pike’s book offers a snapshot of a place and time in Maine, a state of vast natural resources. Pike’s is filtered through the lens of 18th and early 19th century logging. Actually, Maine was but part of a northern New England focus that included the logging stories and history of New Hampshire and Vermont, also.

Pike wrote his book in the mid-1960s. W.W. Norton & Company published it in 1967 and reissued it in 1999. It’s a book that all Mainers ought to familiarize themselves with simply to have a sense of what the state used to be—mainly a region of tall trees (and rivers to float them down)—with entrepreneurial types finding ways to turn logs into gold.

Because I was curious about Pike, I rooted around the interwebs for more info on why he might have written his book. His obituary (he died in 1997) from the New York Times was a worthwhile read for me.

It’s becoming far too common in our digitally-distracted world to think that life was always about tapping a touchscreen, rather than the kind of dangerous, back-breaking labor inherent in these parts 100+ years ago. Not all jobs included an “easy button.” Pike details the rugged, resilient men necessary for extracting value from the region’s forest resources. Likewise, Woodard’s book offered a similar story about the rebels (and rusticators) that were part of our maritime heritage. The threads are similar and point to a time of hearty souls, rather than the spleeny types dominating the present.

Driving logs down-river was part of logging in Maine.

Driving logs down-river was part of logging in Maine.

Continue reading →