So remember that awesome job that back in February I was so excited to have? Yeah, well... not so much anymore.
Back when I first started, I had heard nothing but complaints from pretty much everyone that worked there. Everyone would grumble and groan whenever they were asked to do something, they would stand around and talk about how horrible our bosses were to them. And back then, I didn't see where it was coming from. Everything seemed fine. Sure, the day could get a little hectic at times, but hey, that's any office, right? I heard that there had been five people in my position in the last two years, not including the person doing it before me, who had the responsibilities of my job tacked onto her actual job. But I didn't know why. It just seemed like maybe people gave up too fast. Now looking back on that time, it seems like they were taking it easy on me, getting me sucked in to the system before they started showing their true colors. Since then, I've become just like everyone else in the office. I grumble and groan, I cry in corners, I come home drained every day, I dread going to work every day, and I've just become a zombie. And why have I become this way? I'll tell you.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
My Last Day
I am currently one hour away from no longer being a YMCA employee.
The past three weeks, having to get up and be out of the house by 5 am, working at the Y, then working at QDx, then going to Miracle Worker rehearsals and not getting home until 10:30 or 11 pm have been absolutely grueling. But I think these past three mornings have been the hardest. Somehow, knowing it was my last week here made it even more tempting to stay in bed (I mean, what could they do if I didn't show up? Fire me?). But it is such a wonderful feeling to know that I have a regular schedule, and to know that I never have to work another weekend shift or have to give up going out with friends because I have to get up early the next day ever again!
I will miss my boss and my supervisor at the Y, because they really are great. I'll also miss the people I work with. And I'll really miss the free gym membership. What I really won't miss (aside from the early mornings and the weekends) are the members (with a few exceptions). These people here just have this huge sense of entitlement. They're never satisfied.
On Monday, we opened up the probably million dollar expansion to the Y that has been in construction for over a year, and all people can do is complain about it. It has a new weight room with brand new equipment, a room for the spin classes with new bikes and a new stereo and speaker system, and some new offices and such. So now that all of the weights are moved out into this new room, the room that had everything in it before is now all cardio, so there was more room to add new machines. And we accomplished all of this by only increasing the prices of two or three membership categories by no more than $2 a month. But this still isn't good enough for some people.
Apparently, some people were under the impression that they were getting a second set of locker rooms and a second pool in the expansion. Also, the people who regularly take the spin classes are used to it being in one of the multipurpose rooms, where they have to move the bikes out from the wall to set up for the class and then put the bikes back when the class is done. Now that we have a cycling room they don't have to do that anymore, but they're complaining that the room is too small (because its not the size of a basketball court like the multipurpose room is). They're also pissed off because now that the room is smaller, they can't chit-chat during the classes, because now everyone in the room, including the instructor can hear them. One man actually came up to me and told me that since the middle of January (when we changed our opening time from 5 am to 5:30 am), all we had accomplished was pissing people off, and that we were going to lose hundreds of memberships.
Seriously, all these people do is complain. I'm so glad that I am leaving now, because it's gotten to the point where if I had to be here any longer, I would get fired for telling people where they can shove their complaints.
The past three weeks, having to get up and be out of the house by 5 am, working at the Y, then working at QDx, then going to Miracle Worker rehearsals and not getting home until 10:30 or 11 pm have been absolutely grueling. But I think these past three mornings have been the hardest. Somehow, knowing it was my last week here made it even more tempting to stay in bed (I mean, what could they do if I didn't show up? Fire me?). But it is such a wonderful feeling to know that I have a regular schedule, and to know that I never have to work another weekend shift or have to give up going out with friends because I have to get up early the next day ever again!
I will miss my boss and my supervisor at the Y, because they really are great. I'll also miss the people I work with. And I'll really miss the free gym membership. What I really won't miss (aside from the early mornings and the weekends) are the members (with a few exceptions). These people here just have this huge sense of entitlement. They're never satisfied.
On Monday, we opened up the probably million dollar expansion to the Y that has been in construction for over a year, and all people can do is complain about it. It has a new weight room with brand new equipment, a room for the spin classes with new bikes and a new stereo and speaker system, and some new offices and such. So now that all of the weights are moved out into this new room, the room that had everything in it before is now all cardio, so there was more room to add new machines. And we accomplished all of this by only increasing the prices of two or three membership categories by no more than $2 a month. But this still isn't good enough for some people.
Apparently, some people were under the impression that they were getting a second set of locker rooms and a second pool in the expansion. Also, the people who regularly take the spin classes are used to it being in one of the multipurpose rooms, where they have to move the bikes out from the wall to set up for the class and then put the bikes back when the class is done. Now that we have a cycling room they don't have to do that anymore, but they're complaining that the room is too small (because its not the size of a basketball court like the multipurpose room is). They're also pissed off because now that the room is smaller, they can't chit-chat during the classes, because now everyone in the room, including the instructor can hear them. One man actually came up to me and told me that since the middle of January (when we changed our opening time from 5 am to 5:30 am), all we had accomplished was pissing people off, and that we were going to lose hundreds of memberships.
Seriously, all these people do is complain. I'm so glad that I am leaving now, because it's gotten to the point where if I had to be here any longer, I would get fired for telling people where they can shove their complaints.
Monday, February 4, 2013
But Wait, What About Acting?
For now, I have decided several things about being a professional actress:
Since December I've been in rehearsals for The Miracle Worker (we open this Friday) and then I'm starting rehearsals this month for Olympus on my Mind, which I'm not only doing with AJ, but with a cast that includes some of our best friends. And because I'm not just sitting around bored all day and eating, I've lost weight. And people have noticed. With the prospect of a career and steady, decent paychecks, thinking about the future isn't stressful. Things like having a wedding and buying a house and having kids don't seem so unrealistic.
And these past few months, I've been happy. Unbelievably happy. That's how I know I've made the right decision; I haven't once regretted it.
- It's a lot different as an adult than as a kid
- When Mom and Dad aren't footing the bills for travel to and from the city, it gets really expensive really fast.
- When I was a kid, the money I got from booking jobs was put towards my car and clothes and college stuff. I didn't need it. As an adult, I was depending on booking those jobs for any source of income.
- It is very hard to do without an agent.
- Getting an agent is just as hard as everyone says it is. Even agents that I already worked with as a kid.
- You can't get an audition for TV and film without an agent.
- Equity open calls are more often than not a huge waste of time and money.
- I am considered very overweight for my character type and the overall look that. The industry is mostly based on looks, not talent.
- Even getting an agent and booking a job doesn't mean that it will happen again.
Since December I've been in rehearsals for The Miracle Worker (we open this Friday) and then I'm starting rehearsals this month for Olympus on my Mind, which I'm not only doing with AJ, but with a cast that includes some of our best friends. And because I'm not just sitting around bored all day and eating, I've lost weight. And people have noticed. With the prospect of a career and steady, decent paychecks, thinking about the future isn't stressful. Things like having a wedding and buying a house and having kids don't seem so unrealistic.
And these past few months, I've been happy. Unbelievably happy. That's how I know I've made the right decision; I haven't once regretted it.
My First Grown-Up Job
It's official. I have joined the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 working world.
After months of looking and the help of a staffing agency, I have a job working as the administrative assistant to the director of operations at a pathology lab. Today starts my third week here (my first as an official employee and not a temp), and I really like it. It is a little nerve wracking sometimes, because I'm still very new at this and don't always know what I'm doing or how to do it, but my boss is really great. Her boss can be a bit of a jerk, but I think he's warming up to me. I love having my own desk. I know where everything is, it's all organized the way I want it to be, and I even have pictures of me and AJ on it.
The lab is very busy, and it can get a little overwhelming at times. But then there are days like today, where my boss is traveling and I have no projects of my own to work on, so I'm really only here to take messages for her and distribute the mail. So I guess those days even out the crazy ones. The first two weeks were a lot of back and forth days of "I really love this job! This is going to be great!" and "Oh my God I don't think I can handle this. Maybe this is too much for my first job. Maybe I should start in a less intense office setting." But, I'm trying really hard to just remind myself that I was this nervous when I started working at the Y and didn't know what I was doing too. I also try to keep reminding myself that when she hired me, my boss said that she really wanted to hire someone to start out as her assistant and then eventually train them to be the associate director of operations, and then maybe even take over for her. So this is not just a job. This could be a career and a future.
So, I'll just keep taking deep breaths, and see what the future has in store for me here!
After months of looking and the help of a staffing agency, I have a job working as the administrative assistant to the director of operations at a pathology lab. Today starts my third week here (my first as an official employee and not a temp), and I really like it. It is a little nerve wracking sometimes, because I'm still very new at this and don't always know what I'm doing or how to do it, but my boss is really great. Her boss can be a bit of a jerk, but I think he's warming up to me. I love having my own desk. I know where everything is, it's all organized the way I want it to be, and I even have pictures of me and AJ on it.
The lab is very busy, and it can get a little overwhelming at times. But then there are days like today, where my boss is traveling and I have no projects of my own to work on, so I'm really only here to take messages for her and distribute the mail. So I guess those days even out the crazy ones. The first two weeks were a lot of back and forth days of "I really love this job! This is going to be great!" and "Oh my God I don't think I can handle this. Maybe this is too much for my first job. Maybe I should start in a less intense office setting." But, I'm trying really hard to just remind myself that I was this nervous when I started working at the Y and didn't know what I was doing too. I also try to keep reminding myself that when she hired me, my boss said that she really wanted to hire someone to start out as her assistant and then eventually train them to be the associate director of operations, and then maybe even take over for her. So this is not just a job. This could be a career and a future.
So, I'll just keep taking deep breaths, and see what the future has in store for me here!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
I Never Thought That I Would Have to Ask Myself, "What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up"
I was always going to be an actress. It was simple. I started doing it when I was eleven. There was never any other job I would have even considered myself qualified to do.
Or, at least, that's what I thought.
I got very lucky with the start of my career. I was literally discovered; my manager found me at a summer camp and introduced me to agents. I learned very quickly after graduating college that it is very difficult to get anywhere in the business without an agent. Equity open calls are pretty much only held because they have to be by union laws. Casting agents send assistants of assistants of assistants, and most of the time they already have people who auditioned through agents lined up for callbacks. So, in order to be able to afford the train tickets and the time to go on these mostly hopeless auditions, I am currently working two part time jobs at odd hours of the day. And even though I'm working 7 days a week at one of them, I'm still not making anywhere near enough to live off of. I have been putting so much financial strain on AJ and it's not fair. We can barely afford to pay our bills, and are living paycheck to paycheck. I don't want us to continue like this.
Even if I were to begin booking professional acting jobs, I would need to keep the part time jobs. In a business like acting, one success doesn't guarantee anything in the future. I worked professionally for 7 years, and I added one small role on an episode of a tv show, one professional show, one workshop, three staged readings, and one commercial to my resume, along with some other work like commercials that never aired and commercial samples for focus groups.
In addition, my priorities have changed since I was a teenager. I always knew that I wanted to get married and have a family, but I figured that the family part wouldn't come until well in the future. Now, AJ and I have lived together for almost a year, and we know that we are going to be getting married, hopefully within the next few years. Our age difference has been brought up several times in the discussion of having children. Both of our fathers had our sisters late in life and will be in their seventies when the girls graduate college. My grandfather died when my sister was only three. I want our kids to know their grandfathers, and I don't want AJ to have to deal with being an "old dad". And as more people around me become pregnant / have kids, the more I want to too.
But probably the biggest reason I'm considering making a change is that I don't like what I've become. I am jealous of my friends who work regular 9-5 jobs Monday through Friday and have the weekends to spend with friends and family. I'm jealous of women who get to wake up and shower and make themselves look presentable before work. I'm jealous of my friends who do community theater show after community theater show, while I'm stuck sitting in the audience dying to be on stage with them. I'm jealous of people who can afford to stay up and wait for their significant others to get home from a late night, and don't have to be in bed by 9:00 in order to get up the next morning.
So, I've decided that acting professionally no longer fits into the life that I want. It is kind of an overwhelming decision, seeing as for the past 12 years it's the only career I've known. Right now I'm going to focus on finding a full time job to just get out into the workforce and get money coming in and saved up. I submitted my resume to three jobs today, so we'll see what happens.
Or, at least, that's what I thought.
I got very lucky with the start of my career. I was literally discovered; my manager found me at a summer camp and introduced me to agents. I learned very quickly after graduating college that it is very difficult to get anywhere in the business without an agent. Equity open calls are pretty much only held because they have to be by union laws. Casting agents send assistants of assistants of assistants, and most of the time they already have people who auditioned through agents lined up for callbacks. So, in order to be able to afford the train tickets and the time to go on these mostly hopeless auditions, I am currently working two part time jobs at odd hours of the day. And even though I'm working 7 days a week at one of them, I'm still not making anywhere near enough to live off of. I have been putting so much financial strain on AJ and it's not fair. We can barely afford to pay our bills, and are living paycheck to paycheck. I don't want us to continue like this.
Even if I were to begin booking professional acting jobs, I would need to keep the part time jobs. In a business like acting, one success doesn't guarantee anything in the future. I worked professionally for 7 years, and I added one small role on an episode of a tv show, one professional show, one workshop, three staged readings, and one commercial to my resume, along with some other work like commercials that never aired and commercial samples for focus groups.
In addition, my priorities have changed since I was a teenager. I always knew that I wanted to get married and have a family, but I figured that the family part wouldn't come until well in the future. Now, AJ and I have lived together for almost a year, and we know that we are going to be getting married, hopefully within the next few years. Our age difference has been brought up several times in the discussion of having children. Both of our fathers had our sisters late in life and will be in their seventies when the girls graduate college. My grandfather died when my sister was only three. I want our kids to know their grandfathers, and I don't want AJ to have to deal with being an "old dad". And as more people around me become pregnant / have kids, the more I want to too.
But probably the biggest reason I'm considering making a change is that I don't like what I've become. I am jealous of my friends who work regular 9-5 jobs Monday through Friday and have the weekends to spend with friends and family. I'm jealous of women who get to wake up and shower and make themselves look presentable before work. I'm jealous of my friends who do community theater show after community theater show, while I'm stuck sitting in the audience dying to be on stage with them. I'm jealous of people who can afford to stay up and wait for their significant others to get home from a late night, and don't have to be in bed by 9:00 in order to get up the next morning.
So, I've decided that acting professionally no longer fits into the life that I want. It is kind of an overwhelming decision, seeing as for the past 12 years it's the only career I've known. Right now I'm going to focus on finding a full time job to just get out into the workforce and get money coming in and saved up. I submitted my resume to three jobs today, so we'll see what happens.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Barbie and her POSITIVE influence on me
Dear women of the world,
This is me, and this is one of my Barbie dolls. I have had her since I was about 2 years old (when I saw and fell in love with Beauty and the Beast). And I love her. In fact, I love Barbie in general.
I spent my entire childhood playing with Barbie dolls. I was an only child with two parents who worked full time, so I spent a lot of time by myself. My Barbies (all ninety-kajillion of them) had a house and cars and a motorhome and horses and a jetski and all kinds of fun things. Most of my Barbies didn't have carreers. They did have color-changing hair, or rollerblades, or ballet slippers, or fun sparkley party dresses, or PJs that glowed in the dark. One was even a mermaid. In addition, Barbie had friends and a family for me to play with; Ken, Skipper, Kelly, Stacey, Midge, etc.
Any of my childhood friends would tell you, whenever I went over to their houses, or when they came over to mine, the first question was always "Do you want to play Barbies?"
So what's my point in all of this? I want the world to know that I was not negatively affected in any way by playing with Barbie dolls.
Let me repeat myself, just to make sure you heard me. I WAS NOT NEGATIVELY AFFECTED IN ANY WAY BY PLAYING WITH BARBIE DOLLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If anything, I was positively affected by playing with them!
It seems like ever since the internet was invented, concerned mothers and feminists have been bashing Matel and it's most famous creation for her ridiculously impossible proportions and the negative body image that they give to little girls. Matel even redesigned Barbie to give her a more realistic physique (although she's still very thin).
So, since I spent my whole of my 90s childhood dressing and undressing Barbie, did I grow up to have a negative body image? Far from it. I am 5'0" and I currently wear a size 8. Do I want to be thinner? Sure. Is it beause of Barbie's influence? Nope. It's because when was in high school I wore a size 2 (because I spent almost every night at dance class or rehearsal for a show), and I felt much better about myself because I was physically active.
Me in a show in 2006, 
and me in Walt Disney World this past May
Am I going to starve myself to get thin again? No, because I love junk food. Ramen noodles, cheese burgers, and really salty Wendy's french fries dipped in chocolate Frosties are some of my personal favorites :)
Ken gets criticism for his looks too. I smushed my Barbie and Ken's faces together to make them kiss all the time. Did I grow up looking for a GQ model to marry? Nope. I met a wonderful, sweet, crazy, sensitive, weird, supportive, silly, amazing man, and I couldn't imagine finding a more perfect person to spend my life with.
Just about everything Barbie owns is pink, from her shoes to her clothes to her cars. She is what people think of when they think "girly girl". So, am I a girly girl? Sometimes. Do I love pink? Yup. Do I love to dress up and shop? Sure. Do I love other "non girly" things? Yup! I love watching football, and I love nerdy, sci fi stuff like Star Wars and Doctor Who.
Recently, it seems like Matel has gotten really concerned with what Barbie is doing with her life. There's an entire sub line of Barbies called the "I Can Be" collection, where Barbie gets to be things like an architect, an olympic athlete, a news anchor, even a presidential candidate. The line was created to inspire young girls in their career goals. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all, but as I said before, when I was growing up, most of my Barbies didn't have a career. What made the ones on the shelves appealing to me was that they had different outfits or accessories from the ones that I already had. So, did I grow up wanting to marry a rich man so that I wouldn't have to work and could spend every day shopping? Nope. Do I have career goals? Pretty big ones.
So, according to all of the criticisms that I've heard about Barbie and what she does to little girls, if I played with Barbies as much as I did, shouldn't I have turned out differently? Well, you want to know why I didn't grow up wanting to be just like Barbie? It's because I never looked at Barbie as a role model. She was a toy. She was a doll that I could buy things for and dress up and play with. She wasn't someone to look up to and emulate.
But even though she wasn't a role model, she did so much good for me.
Barbie was a creative outlet for me. I was a shy, socially awkward girl who loved to make up stories and act them out, but usually had no one to act them out with me. Barbie nurtured my love of every aspect of theater (which became one of the greatest passions in my life), from acting to props to costuming. "Playing Barbies" as I called it made me a better creative writer, because I came up with stories and adventures for her.
So mothers, please, if your daughter wants to play with Barbies, let her. If you don't, you could be doing more harm than good.
I'm Corinne. I'm 23 years old. I love pink. I love the Dallas Cowboys. I love shoes. I love Kevin Smith movies. I love Sherlock Holmes. I love makeup. I love theater. I love my boyfriend. I love Disney. I love the Boston Red Sox.
I am a strong woman with a college degree and a self esteem.
And I love my Barbies.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Cori's Trip to Walt Disney World - Epcot (day 2)
The main tip of this post is, don't go to Epcot (and I would assume the Magic Kingdom) on a Friday at the end of the school year. I can't tell you how many "____ Elementary School Class of 2012" t-shirts we saw that day. And the Fast Passes for everything were gone by 12 o'clock. This is a picture of the food line at The Electric Umbrella at about 12:45. Glad we missed that!We still had a good day though. We rode Mission: Space (my first time doing it with the G forces. I'll stick with the non-G force one next time. It didn't make me sick or anything, I just didn't enjoy the feeling, and had a more fun ride without it). Next we headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure, which I love, because I grew up watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, and still curse PBS that that show (along with Wishbone) was never released on DVD (yeah, they have individual episodes available for science teachers, but who wants to buy all of them and then have to get up and change the DVD every half hour?)
On the way back over to the World Showcase, we caught the Epcot Jammitors. These guys are crazy talented! Very Stomp-esque. If you see them, definitely stop and watch. At one point, one of the guys was drumming with two sticks in each hand!
Once we got to the World Showcase, we headed to The American Adventure (AJ's favorite) to catch the Fife and Drum Corps. They were awesome, and I don't know if they're a permanent thing, or were just there especially for Memorial Day Weekend.
In addition, we caught the Voices of Liberty in the rotunda before the American Adventure show started. They are an a cappella group, and are always amazing. They ended their set with a beautiful rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel, dedicated to all of the men and women serving in our armed forces.
After America we hit the rest of the countries we hadn't done yet (or at least the ones that we wanted to hit). In Morocco, AJ found the Fez House, and we had to take a picture to send Khy (every time AJ makes a lame joke, Khy calls him a fez. He says it's because AJ talks like an old Freemason or Shriner, and should be wearing a fez). We went to Germany to get some beer, and for AJ to put me on the spot and tell me to "speak German to the cast members!" After we walked around some more, and finished our beers, we were ready to go. So we walked around, saying good bye to Walt Disney World as we left. We left the next morning. We were sad to go, but at the same time, we were glad to get home. We missed our babies terribly, and they missed us! They wouldn't stop cuddling us!
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