Category Archives: Unemployed Misadventures

Where I’ve Been and Who I’ve Done

September 15, 2016 Wander Lost Blog Leave a comment

A lot has happened between 2014 and 2016. I applied for and received unemployment round 2 (shout-out to New York and California states!), I did some dudes, and a lot of advertising clients screamed at me. I endured a lot of physical and mental pain, cried on a lot of 4/5/6 train cars, and also danced my ass off in between. Here’s a rundown of the last 48 months of July 2014 – July 2016.

Months 1-2: Welcome to New York. Everything so happy and shiny and new and warm!!

Month 3: Everything stopped being so shiny and happy.

Month 4: I became routinely the last person in the office.

Month 4.5: Halloween night 2014, someone stole my uber and rode it to Coney Island to the fine tune of $168 charged to my Visa.

Month 5: Officially entered noise complaint wars with the stomping monster upstairs in my adorable Lower East Side studio apartment.

Month 7: Broke my lease on said Lower East Side apartment and moved to the most boring part of Manhattan, Financial District. I sleep like a lamb.

Month 10: Rewind Guy #1.

Month 11: I realized I had attained more wrinkles in my forehead in one year in NYC than I had gained in 11 years on the west coast.

Month 12: I looked in the mirror and saw that I was the shell of my former self. I stopped smiling and I couldn’t remember how to start smiling. I went on a trip to Greece with girlfriends from Chicago and LA who said they didn’t even recognize me anymore

Month 14: I entered Therapy. Just what New York needed – another neurotic white privileged woman whining about her miserable life, sexist work environment, and requesting Xanax to sleep.

Month 17: I received The Talk at my job. Long story short, the company eliminated the Account Manager function because they felt that my skills and career goals didn’t line up with the new “sales role” and handed me a paltry severance package.

Month 18: Rewind Guy #2.

Month 19: Unemployed. Again.

Months 20-24: All a bit of blur. I relaxed at the thought of an empty inbox. I traveled to New Orleans, California, Chicago, and all the places that I missed in the last 2 years. I went on a lot of interviews with a lot of snobby companies, drank a lot of Manhattans, dealt with an ankle injury and moderate eye/vision issue (shout out to Obamacare!), and found my smile again.

Month 24: Employed again. I am cautiously optimistic.

random, Unemployed Misadventures

Oops I Did It Again

August 13, 2016 Wander Lost Blog Leave a comment

Once upon a time, a single drifter lived, worked, and dated in Los Angeles. It was full of Palm trees and Peter Pans. She chronicled her experiences in a dating blog named LAMatchbook. Over the course of her late 20s, she dated a plethora of douchebags, losers, boring guys, and some nice ones in there too. Then, she lost her job in LA on the eve of 30.

Bored, lost, and uninspired, she set her sights to go somewhere grander, costlier, and inevitably colder. Direction-less and man-less, she decided to go test her resolve in the place where all dreams go to die: New York City. Job offer in hand, she arrived in the Big Apple and immediately started working 10+ hour days. She dated when she had time, which was pretty much never. She joined the ranks of the other sleep-deprived New Yorkers and complained about her insane upstairs neighbors. She broke a lease, worked more hours, learned how to navigate Penn Station, yelled at ConEd when they jackhammered at midnight, and started seeing a therapist (Xanax prescription not included).

This is not a story of a princess who moved to a big city and found Prince Charming. This is the real story of a girl who took a chance, got robbed by Uber, stepped in vomit and on a rat, lost some hair and parts of her memory, and somehow keeps persevering through Manhattan. They say you’re not a New Yorker until you’ve cried on the subway in front of everyone and don’t care. I accomplished that by Month #3. Then the technology industry betrayed me again and I lost the job that drove me 3,000 miles across the country. And so less than 2 years after I left America’s 2nd most expensive city, I found myself unemployed in America’s #1 most expensive city.

I know that this used to be a blog about dating, but perhaps in my 30s I’ve learned the karmic lesson about not airing your dating dirty laundry. Or I’ve run out of material because it has become noticeable that men swipe left for women who are over 31. So we’re going to start a new conversation. Here’s a blog for the wanderers, for the clueless, for the childless those of us in our 30s who are wondering why we’re at our desks again at 9 PM on a Wednesday.

I don’t have much time to write; I have to keep the bonuses coming in to afford my 470 square foot downtown studio after all. But I invite you to read about my New York adventures and for those of you with the time and means to date, please share your stories! It’s a big, bad, hard world and we’re all just trying to navigate our ways through it.
Many cheers!

on Los Angeles, online dating, Unemployed Misadventures

It’s Not Good-Bye. It’s See You in the Next Life.

July 7, 2014 Wander Lost Blog Leave a comment

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I found employment. In New York City.

To say that I have mixed feelings about leaving LA is an understatement. After I decided to take the offer, I cried at least 3 times a day and didn’t sleep for a week. And then I had to pick myself up the ground and downsize my walk-in closet wardrobe (perhaps the most tear-inducing part).

Believe me — I know that I am leaving one terrible dating scene for an arguably worse one. But I didn’t take this job to find Prince Charming in the dungeon kingdom that is New York City. I took this job because it was a great career opportunity and it seemed like the right time to take a chance and go on a new adventure.

This new adventure will end the chapter known as LAMatchbook. But hey – you never know – maybe I’ll find inspiration and create NYMatchbook. Lord knows there are plenty of douchebags in NYC; they are just dressed better.

Thank you all for your support. It has been such a fun journey to share my LA dating fiascos with all of you.

This is not Good-Bye. I’ll see you in the Next Life.

xoxo,

on Los Angeles, Unemployed Misadventures

LA Bucket List – Update #2

June 29, 2014 Wander Lost Blog Leave a comment

You guys, I’ve hit 5 out of 11!

Hike Runyon Canyon
Visit Getty Villa
Bike down the coast from Santa Monica to Hermosa
Drive on Mulholland Drive
Visit Turtle Races at Brennan’s
Go to a Lakers or Clippers game
See the stars at Bar Marmont
Dim sum in Chinatown
Re-visit LACMA
Pizza at Pizzeria Mozza

11.Have a drink at Roosevelt Tropicana pool in Hollywood

12. Visit the Greystone Mansion (it’s a free and fun thing to do in LA!)

Unemployed Misadventures

It Was the Best of Times. It Was the Worst of Times.

June 13, 2014 Wander Lost Blog Leave a comment

Unemployment is nothing that I wish on any friend or enemy.

Unemployment is disturbingly similar to a breakup but it is so much worse because your entire lifeline depends on your career. At least when you break up with a guy, you have your friends, local bar, and job to throw yourself into. With a job loss, you can continually harass your busy, employed friends to hang out with you (but they won’t because jobs, babies, real life obligations…), attend the local bar (at a huge detriment to your savings account), and no longer have an office to escape your break-up pain from.

I never understood the term “the mat was thrown out from under me” until I lost a job. I can’t remember a period in my life where I have felt this miserable, angry and useless; and mind you — I have been dumped multiple times in my dating lifetime. Every other day, I crawl under a rock (and by this – I mean the corner of my bedroom…) and bawl my eyes out. Apparently, this is cathartic, therapeutic, or whatever you want to call it.

On the other days though — something funny happens. I embrace this ridiculous turn of events and do those sporadic weekday events that no one in an office can do (or people that live in cold climates can do). I go to the beach at 2 PM on a Tuesday, I sneak into a neighborhood pool at 3 PM on Thursday or drink at multiple locations on a Monday Cinco de Mayo. I book last minute trips to New York City on miles to see how the other coast lives (BTW, they have effing fun). Somehow, I find myself befriending the elusive group of “self-employeds” in Los Angeles and finding a very cool group of people that found a miraculous way to work for themselves. And I find myself smiling and having adventures that have not been possible since my college days.

There isn’t a moral to this blog story besides that on the nights that I behave like a drunken buffoon with no cares in the world, I smile more than on the days when I cry on the floor of my room.

WanderLost Blog