The Career Game

As my life is settling down a bit. I'm not playing Manic Monday any more. At least not until I have a manic day. I am back at "that" house so things may change at any moment.

I was looking at my DD's keyboard and the ten key at the side and remembering when I was a bookkeeper. That bought me to think of all the careers I've had. I'm going to try to remember them all and list them for you. Some, you will not believe.

My first real PAYING job was at age 16. I did evening billing for a local department store. It was long before computers, and we used adding machine to tally receipts and hand write the amounts on cards for the customer's permanent file. We also subtracted the amount of checks paid. I wasn't very good at it, and I quit before I screwed up too many bills. I've always been dyslexic, and was much worse as a teen.

Next career was more in my line. For several years as a teen, I did freelance crafting. Macrame accessories and clothing, hand painted leather jewelry, beaded jewelry. But for the most part, I didn't get money, only trade. But for me, that was awesome. I kept some of the trade clothes (my fave) for years.

I finally got another Real job when I was 19. It was temporary, but real money and something I could do. I managed a booth at a local mall, selling little glass blown figurines. I found I was actually good at handling money, and managing employees, even at 19.

The next job was selling memberships at a national auto club. It was pretty horrible. I had to make cold phone calls and even drive out to the clients houses wherever they were, even in the city, to close the deal. I discovered that I REALLY hated solicitation.

I moved right from phone sales to department store sales. Quite different. First I was a floater, moving from department to department, then jewelry took me. I liked that, and much different when the buyer comes to you. I had my eye on the art department and the pet department, and when I finally took an offer from  the pet department, I got an offer for art. Too bad I didn't take it. Might have changed my life. Pet department was mostly fun, I wore a snake around my neck at work, and occasionally brought home bags of frogs or snakes to transfer from one store to another. I became a supervisor at 20, and things were great until my married boss made advances. It was a whole different world back then. No protection for employees. I quit.

What would a young girl of 21 choose to do next? Why become a store detective of course. I started with a national detective agency as a store detective and eventually progressed to an undercover detective, working in factories to ferret out thieving employees. It was a lot of hours, writing reports every day, and the deceit was hard for me to handle. I couldn't tell anyone what I was doing, especially friends I made on the job. I finally quit. Not something I was cut out for, but interesting all the same.

I had met the man who I would marry while I was a detective and during our transition from dating to marriage, I got another job in sales at a clothing store. I also did a little repair sewing when they found out I was a seamstress, having taken tailoring in High School. But it was time to have kids and I stopped working for a few years.

Finally when my youngest was only 3 months, I decided enough was enough. If only there was online sales back then, how different my life would have been too. But I got a part time job as an evening bookkeeper at my husbands auto service garage. I worked there and other stations for quite a few years while also going back to school. School would end up taking 11 years to complete.

Bookkeeping turned to station management and eventually computer accountant for the entire Cleveland Area. But I was stubborn, when the company refused to give me the $.25 an hour raise they promised me, I quit. It cost them quite a bit too, because my replacement payed every employee holiday pay, and corporation payed them too. No employee told, my husband was one of them. Karma will get you every time.

While I was finishing school a friend offered me a job at her interior fiber design studio making drapery and slip covers. It was fun, but interfered too  much with my difficult program in industrial design. So I had to quit that job too.

While at school I took various jobs, like part time assistant in school departments, summer school art instructor, and computer tech. I loved computer lab tech, because I was so strict, no one came to use computers on my watch and I could do my own work on several at a time. They were pretty slow for graphics back then.

Graduation time and I had my hopes set on toy design. that was my focus at school, but actually I had more experience in home fashion and lighting design it was. That was supposed to be a temporary move, but lasted over 15 years. My focus was Tiffany style lighting and painted finishes. I decided to move around to get better positions and well, that was my downfall.

After my last full time job as designer, and art director, I got some work as a freelance paint finish designer, working for a US lighting company a few times a year in China. Money was good. I also sold supplies and children's clothing on eBay.

Then came the market crash and a little place called Etsy. Lighting wasn't selling, but handmade crafts were. I still sell online and do a little freelance lighting design. Not sure what the future holds, but I'll keep you updated. I'm thinking of writing an illustrated children's book.

I Want to be a Writer

I've wanted to be a writer for some time now. It's not like I haven't done enough things in my life that I need to be successful at something else.

Maybe because of the ADD, I really seem to like variety. I do a thing for maybe 5 to 7 years and then I get bored with it. I can't imagine ever doing the same thing for my whole life. So not me!

So I'd like to write, maybe a book. But what do I write about? How do I compete with all the other with all the other writers out there? There are so many writers, what do I write and how do I complete? I'm obviously not that great at competing in the handmade jewelry business. I am however, fairly decent in residential lighting design, as there are very few of those by comparison, but I've been doing that for 17 years on and off.

Maybe I need to do a little research and compare book subjects. I can pick a seldom used topic. There, that's it. Or maybe I could just spam away on twitter like others I get followed by do. Follow and drop, there, that's the ticket.

Or maybe I should just join a convent. I've never done that before. Are there convents for agnostics?

Putting it Together - Four Months - A Diary of Progress

Some of you may know that I've  been writing a blog called Four Months - A Diary of Progress for ... well ... almost 4 months now. I started to write it to keep me honest about making a plan to improve my income by either selling my jewelry wholesale or going back to product design. See, my daughter Poppy, is sick and tired of sharing her tiny house with me and wants me out of her living room, so I feel inclined to oblige.


My plan is to prepare my jewelry business for wholesale by:

• Increasing my product line
• Rethinking my current product and approach
• Calculating profit by spreadsheet to get a better handle on worth
• Making a Website geared toward wholesale clients including wedding
• Revising packaging for retail stores
• Creating a brochure for wholesale
• Making a Press Kit
• Reading Posts on improving my business
• Utilizing social networking 

I planed to work on my potential Product Design business by:

• Designing a Portfolio website for potential clients
• Improving my Design skills
• Adding new Open Designs to my portfolio
• Making updates and adding contacts on linkedin
• Contacting potential Clients

I've been working very hard on both plans and the idea was to decide between the two businesses. It turns out that my work has increased my business already, And I hadn't planned to put it all into action until May. I just added product to my jewelry, that has attracted attention, and I updated my linkedin account and that got clients calling.

In March my total income (not profit) increased by $800. $400 was for product design, and nearly $300 was for jewelry. I think I didn't sell that much in jewelry in 2011 altogether. I reinvested a lot of that profit into my plan. I sold more on Etsy, but since the move to Artfire, I haven't had that much traffic. Now with the boost from sales increases and the extra promotion (wanelo and pinterest) I rank higher and get much more traffic there.

I made daily posts on the blog, so there are a lot of posts, but there is a lot of ideas and links to where I got my ideas. If you are really interested in improving your business, you might get some great tips there.