Monster.com offers a test via Jasper, a job asset and strengths profiler. This ten-minute test of sorts offered a description of me as a working individual. It doesn’t really aid me in figuring out what I’m doing, what my ideal career is, and where I’m going with my life, but it’s at least interesting!

“It is time for us to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.”-Vince Lombardi

TYPE 8 (ACHIEVER)

What You Want Out of Work: To have your hard work lead to a sense of achievement, prestige, and financial reward.
Your Colleagues See You As: Motivated, fueled by a desire to be successful, and driven to reach your goals.
What You Have to Offer: Unparalleled passion and commitment, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve success.

Leadership Style: Empowering. You are encouraging and motivating, which likely means that you help others reach their goals and dreams. People probably see you as a good mentor due to your patience and talent for giving direction.
Work Personality: Composed. You have a calm temperament about you and function in a relaxed manner. As someone who does not get highly emotional about bothersome work issues, people tend to rely on your calming presence.
Universal Skills: Multi-Tasking. you are likely effective in managing multiple things at once and are talented in producing work quickly. You are sharp, tend to be a quick learner, and don’t get daunted in the face of stress.
Work Style: Collaborative. While you’re not at a loss when working by yourself, you feel much more productive when you can work with a team and bounce ideas off of other people. You also likely enjoy the camaraderie of group work.

Something in the office smells like bologna (or ‘baloney,’ if you’re one of the people who spells it as it sounds), probably my favourite lunch meat ever, which is affecting my gut. I’m so hungry! Ack. I could take lunch now, but that wouldn’t make an even split in the workday. Must … hold … off … just … a … little … longer …

The lady who works nearest to me - I’ll call her ‘Alice’ because she reminds me of that character from The L Word - let me know today that all was not as simple as it looks. That is to say, I mentioned that I was going to sign up for the 8-day insurance course that is occuring the week of the 24th of July, and her jaw dropped. “That’s not enough time for you to prepare for it!” she exclaimed. Personally, I’m appalled. Sixty-four hours straight of studying seems like overkill for any test, really. But the way she put it, it’s “extremely intense, and the test is really tricky. They’ll try to get you on a lot of the questions, and the material is not going to be stuff you’ve seen before.”

The question is, how am I meant to get this done - pre-studying and all - before my four months are up? The answer: it ain’t gonna happen. Let’s hope Big Boss Man doesn’t notice this. I’m getting it all done as quickly as I can, but you don’t realize how much stuff there is to do and how much information there is to take in (interesting though it may be) until you’ve been here awhile.

I read in a Yahoo! Health blog today that the human brain loses its attention span six to eight times every minute. Crazy, innit? But it makes sense for me. I’ve been getting more bored/distracted/otherwise occupied so frequently lately, it’s not even funny.

Props to Alice, though. If she hadn’t told me about the insurance program, I assume I would have gone to the late-July course grossly unprepared. For a training program, those in charge aren’t doing much ‘training’ at all. Maybe it’s a ploy to get us all used to working independently, but let’s be honest, the Firm and its business is a complex thing, and a little guidance would be helpful! As is, it comes as no shock to me that no one is left out of the last fifty-two trainees, as stated by a friendly neighbourhood informant. Little is being done to keep up the morale of the trainees, I’ll tell you that. And it frustrates me to death.

Well, I didn’t pass. And it’s not so much the embarassment of walking into work this morning and having people automatically blurt out, “Congratulations!” before I’ve had a chance to say anything, but rather the fact that I’m just pissed off at myself that’s the problem. It’s amazing how a little screw-up like this - because, let’s face it, nothing was really riding on this test, not like the Series 7 - can make me want to pack up and ship off back to my mom’s house in Virginia. Gah. I hate this self-pity bullshit, but I can’t help it sometimes. It frustrates me. But anyway, Big Boss Man just wandered by and asked me what happened. “I choked,” I said, “but rest assured I will get it done in the next week or so.” He looked at me gravely. “You know you only have two attempts.” I nodded. “Just two. Two.” I nodded again. And then he said, “Don’t do this to me,” kind of helplessly as he strode off. I guess he’s frustrated as well because of the extremely high fail rate of trainees in this branch of the Firm. I would be. Oh my god. Now I’m going to be freaking out about this test. The pressure again! Ah!

To top it off, I really think my car is about to die. My dad emailed me the other day and said that one of the problems - the humming when the car is in reverse - is the result of some kind of belt that he’s had to replace before … at “a couple hundred bucks a pop.” *sighs* Just what I need. At least I managed to find a decent dress this weekend for my mom’s wedding, $69 on sale. Not bad.

I just need to stop being so materialistic. Just because I don’t have ‘the next cool thing’ doesn’t mean I’m lacking in any way. It is written in The Millionaire Next Door that “most people have it all wrong about wealth in America. Wealth is not the same as income. If you make a good income each year and spend it all you are not getting wealthier. You are just living high. Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.” And I want to be wealthy one day. I must begin to start living, as Dawn of Frugal for Life puts it, “below [my] means” and “seeing treasure in items with as much as you can imagine using [my] creativity.” So I don’t have that awesome iPod dock/speaker set that Chris has. I’ve got fifteen dollar computer speakers that work just as well for the size of my room, and it cost me almost three hundred dollars less. That’s not to say that I won’t buy myself that toy one day … but I have to really work for it.

Ugh. I just want to go to bed and stay there for a couple of weeks. Make it late July, and I’ll be a happy camper.

On an unrelated tangent, Chris and her brother had a party on Friday night at their house in celebration of the fact that their parents were down in Atlantic City. To be honest, initially I wasn’t up for a party, but I hadn’t seen Chris in what felt like a really long time, so I agreed to make an appearance. Meg was still kind of suffering from her stomach thing and, though she insisted I go to Chris’s party without her, got into a bit of a pissy mood when I agreed to it. Whoops. Ultimately, though, she called me over to her house and jumped into my car. It turned out to be a gorgeous evening, not too hot and not too many bugs, with a bunch of twenty-somethings shooting the breeze, playing beer pong, and basically just hanging out. I got a bit drunk somewhere in there, but it soon passed with the drinking of a can of Red Bull, and even managed to hold my own somewhat in beer pong. Amazing. It had been awhile since I’d be sociable, and this felt really, really good. And as an added bonus: no hangover! Woot!

Also … ladies (and gents who love the women in their life), if you have a moment, take a look at this video. I must admit that I usually don’t pay very much attention to breast cancer stuff, but this report about IBC, which was sent to me via the Firm’s office manager, was pretty shocking. Like many in the video, I’d never heard of it, or if I had (which is possible, given that I have the memory of a goldfish), I didn’t know any of the details. The fact that such a disease killed a 16-year-old who was, as they put it, “too embarrassed to tell her mother that her breasts looked weird,” is a scary enough thought as it is. Just take a look. It could be worth your while.

Yesterday, on a whim, I typed in the name of the marketing company for which I worked about a month or two last summer, just to see if anyone I knew had made it into management. Yes, I had fallen for one of those pyramid schemes, the ones wherein new college graduates are recruited to sell or market a product door-to-door for as little money as possible. On paper, it looked amazing: the opportunity to make $45K your first year of working, flexible hours, no day the same as the day before, potential to reach management within six months, et cetera, et cetera. I was interviewed by the head honcho, an intense woman, probably in her mid-twenties, who was dressed impeccably in a very expensive suit. After the usual questions - “Tell me about yourself,” “Why are you interested in this position?” and “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” - she took me into the back room, which was full of excited twenty-something-year-old people. I remember the thought striking me that those people all seemed strangely happy and enthusiastic, but I took that to be a good sign.

I was asked to come back the next day for an eight-hour interview. Yeah, you read that right - eight hours. I should’ve seen the warning signs right then. And of course, no one told me to wear comfortable clothes, so I show up in my suit and stilettos only to be dragged out the door by one of the so-called ‘leaders’ for an incredibly long day of going door-to-door, from business to business, trying to gain or retain Verizon customers.

I honestly thought it would get better. Once I was put out on my own, I figured I had the flexibility to create my own selling style, and actually did pretty well - but the fact that work was commission-based hit me hard. I made approximately $120 my first week, putting in nine- to ten-hour days. And this is without benefits, mind you.

I pulled out about a month later. The place seemed too much like a cult to me; many of the people working there seemed, well, almost brainwashed, if I can say that. As in, they seemed devoid of logical thought. One of the young women who trained me actually freaked me out when she was talking to potential customers; she got this wild-eyed look and leaned forward as she shot out her spiel. Honestly, if I were a customer, I’d wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her. And as her trainee … well, damn. Even on our ‘business trip’ to Lynchburg, VA - classy, eh? - she refused to talk about anything but work, even at dinner, or when we were chilling in the hotel room after an extremely long, hot day. Let’s face it, she lacked personality. Hell, she practically didn’t seem human. But this was the same for quite a few people working there.

Well. You live, you learn, I guess. It was certainly an experience!

But anyway. As I was saying, I looked up the company yesterday, just for fun, and guess what I found? Surprise, surprise. Dozens of comments about the company and its CEO on web sites dedicated to revealing scams and rip-offs. Ha. Apparently head honcho woman had had problems with legality in the past, and has actually changed the name of the company three times to avoid pursuit. One former employee said, “I became … aware that we were ripping people off. When I would voice these concerns, I was hushed and reassured that everything was protocol by legal standards. After reviewing [a worksheet for sales reps from AT&T] I realized that I had been committing fraud.” Well, it’s true. I saw numerous people flat-out lie about what we were marketing, and it was just awful.

It’s amazing to me that people can get away with things like this, but head honcho woman certainly has. While I was working there, she drove a BMW, flew down to Miami every Thursday for a long weekend with her boyfriend, and came in with a new, expensive suit every day. I’d like to be in her position one day, but not if it’s the result of exploiting my employees. I have too much pride for that.

I’m just happy that I now have a secure job with benefits and a set salary.

Should I pass the Series 66 exam by the 21st, I’m to jet off to the exotic land of Texas in July for a week-long (read: 52-hour) national training course for new financial advisors. Each day commences at 7:30AM - kill me - and incorporates classes on building one’s business, prospecting for and acquiring clients, making cold calls, networking, and so forth. We are required to bring the following to the event:

• a business plan [including, but not limited to, personal goals, the type of practice desired, types of clients involved and target markets, the differences between you and the competition, who and what will help build your business, prospecting strategies and activities, and sales goals]
• a prospecting list [the names and phone numbers of at least 150 people, either ones you already know and with whom you are in contact, or those who you simply found in a phone book or from 'buying' a list - I don't know where I'd go about doing that, but never mind - because we'll be making calls over the course of the week and are expected to set up numerous appointments]

I don’t like the idea of going to Texas in the middle of summer anyway, especially since formal business attire is required. Gah. In the off chance that I fail the exam and miss the RSVP date, there is another training session in August, which could be more tolerable … but it’s still not that great. I should have found this job in October or November; going to Texas in February would have been quite lovely, thank you very much.

But then … it’s all-expenses paid, and I guess it’ll be nice to get it over with and finally be a certified FA. Then I can start doing something more interesting than studying. And trust me, it wouldn’t take much.

I’m still rather intimidated by this, though.