This morning I heard this verse while listening to the audiobook Spiritual Disciplines.
Col 1:29 – For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
That’s what I’m trying to do. His energy, not mine.
This will be my status for what I’ve done this week. A way to track the experience and hold myself accountable.
Prayer and study:
The Spiritual Disciplines audiobook has kept me convicted about the time I spend in the word. I wrote up a reflection in my journal of a sermon a few weeks back and read 1 & 2 Kings for the Wednesday night Tree to Tree study. I am also reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom and that is a great book for 1) putting things in perspective and 2) godly witness about how every day should be lived for the glory of God.
I started the week still high on the spiritual encouragement I had last week. But Monday and Tuesday I got busy with other stuff and wasn’t reading The Hole In Our Gospel or the Bible. That coupled with a few conversations was getting me pretty depressed. I had to get back into it on Wednesday to combat the fear and frustration that was setting in.
Outplacement service:
I signed up at the Outplacement service last Friday and got frustrated Tuesday when I hadn’t heard from them so I sent an email. I got a phone call and also woke up Wednesday remembering that I hadn’t been checking my new “get a job” email address that I created. Sure enough, last Friday I had received an email from the Outplacement service with directions for how to get started.
So, Wednesday I sent my resume to my Coach and listened to the Jumpstart webinar. I also looked over the website and found the elearning modules, live and recorded webinars, forms and handouts, and more. They even have an organizer so I started scheduling live webinars and listing tasks.
Thursday I attended a webinar on approaching finances during this time of transition (sounds so much nicer than panic). The session was very good and I got an email listing even more services I can get from them to discuss and review some of our financial decisions. I also did the elearning on creating my Resume. I got a few tips from there to make my resume better. And I did the Birkman First survey to learn how I like to work and what motivates me – no surprises there.
Friday I attended a webinar called Career Assessment which explained all the things the Birkman First says about me, plus discussed a values exercise, and then discussed the importance of the Career Survey (which I’ve been working on today). I did the recorded Resume Development webinar and finalized my resume.
Job Search:
Monday and Wednesday and Thursday a friend at work sent me various job postings within my company to look at. I’m not qualified for any of them but at least it gets me into the tool and looking.
Wednesday I contacted a contract company that provides candidates for my old department. Thursday I reviewed their benefits and contract and today we agreed on a rate and confirmed that I want to be submitted for the position. So, I may very well come back to work for my old department as a contractor. At least for a while.
Friday I sent out my resume to a classmate and a friend. Then I checked out the Express job site at the outplacement service and posted my resume. No job postings jump out at me as fitting.
One thing we heard on one of the webinars is that it is all about networking. Applying for a job online gives you a 1 in 200 to 1 in 1600 chance of getting a job (or was it just an interview). Networking brings that down to 1 in 12. She suggested no more than 8 hours a week posting your resume to ads, and the other 32 hours networking in one way or another. So, next week I’ll be attending the Self-Marketing and Networking webinars. (These are not my strengths.)
I have updated my LinkedIn profile and this week I requested a few recommendations from coworkers at IBM.
Work:
I did do work this week. I’ve updated my procedures, finished a few tasks/projects, and sent out emails to people to start moving things over to my replacement. Our training won’t happen until next week because she doesn’t have anyone to hand her work to yet. One struggle is that people I work with in other departments are also being let go but they don’t all have people to hand their work to. That leaves us folks at the bottom trying to make sure the management chain understands why the work is important enough to have someone carry on with it after we leave at the end of April. Mostly, we are warning the people who are left, because it will be their mess to deal with if we leave without training anyone.
Physical:
I did some reading and planning last weekend to get my cholesterol numbers down. I went into this week with a plan and I have done very well diet-wise. I’m using the food tracker in Sparkpeople.com and focusing more on fresh foods.
I also worked out 5 days out of the last 7. I did some yoga this morning and I am tight! But I’ll get there. The month of March was pretty empty of exercise.
