Half Time Report

I apologize for not writing as frequently as I had planned to but I have been busy working on the coming out of  retirement portion of my life and finding a pair of shoes for the dress I will be wearing to my sister's engagement party. Since most of next week will be pretty much a write-off when I travel to an undisclosed location for said affair, I have a lot going on this week. Here's a quick update until this weekend when I can elaborate on a few things. Please note the names of the companies referenced below have been changed to protect the innocent. The innocent being me.


Monday, May 16, 2011
1. Received an email from one of my recruiters in reference to what was supposed to be the next steps for a position I had interviewed for 2 weeks ago today. An interview that I thought went very well, (and I don't say that often) and from the feedback the recruiter gave me, it did. There will not be a second interview because the shareholders rejected all of the candidates presented for consideration and have decided to take a different direction with this position. The recruiter said that they (they, because they are a team of two people) would contact me when they received a revised job description which will more than likely be for a VP of Worldwide Operations position, which was the title of the person who I interviewed with, and who is no longer with the company as of Monday.
2.Did some additional research for interview #2, scheduled for 12PM on Tuesday, with a company which at this time will remain nameless until I can come up with an appropriate moniker. You will understand why it's not as simple as calling it company ABC when you read the full story this weekend.
3. Researched for a phone interview scheduled for 2:30PM Tuesday.
4. Received a call from one of the freelance placement companies that I am working with regarding a contract position with a very large media company. This company would need the person to start at 9AM the next morning. I guess the project wasn't that urgent because that 9AM Tuesday morning job never materialized.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 (Pouring Rain)
1. 12PM: Went for interview #2 with the nameless company mentioned above to find out that the person I would be meeting with was not in the office and would not be returning that day.
2. 4:15PM: 2PM interview rescheduled for 4:15PM. The assistant to the person who I would be speaking to was extremely professional and emailed me every 30 minutes to status me on her employer's timing. I truly appreciated that. In the interim I did some more research. The interview went well. I received an email today inviting me to their offices the first week in June for interview #2


Wednesday, May 18, 2011 (Raining heavier than Tuesday. This weather is not conducive to going on a job interview.)
1. 1:45PM-3PM: Meeting with a client (As I said in a previous post, if the job allows me to work from home then it does not constitute coming out of retirement.)
2. 4:45PM: Meeting #3 but really meeting #2 with nameless company.
3. 5:15 PM: When meeting #3 with nameless company began.


Thursday, May 11, 2011
1. 9:00AM-11:00AM: Applied to some jobs and sent a recruiter some samples from my portfolio to send along with my resume to the hiring manager. There is no point on me going into more detail here because I find that when recruiters contact you and say, "I saw your resume online," that more often than not, I don't hear back. There have been exceptions. See the recruiting duo I mentioned earlier in this post.
2. Received an email from J re the status of the nanny position. They have two more people to interview and will make a decision by the end of the weekend.


After three consecutive days of rain, the sun finally decided to come out, and I spent the rest of my day doing things that were not associated with the above. I am leaving you with the following two images.

The rattan bag display at Club Monaco
on 57th Street. I love this image.
 It reminds me of something you would
see if you were shopping
a market in an exotic locale.

And then I ran into Super Man.

Thank You

I planned on posting this earlier today but I don't know where the time went. Overall, despite the awful weather, it was a rather busy and productive day. I received a call inviting me to a second interview with one job prospect and a phone screening/ first pass interview with another. I baked a pumpkin cranberry bread, worked on a press release for a contract client, (If I am working from home and not working at the client's office then it is not referred to as "coming out of retirement.") took a Zumba class (I love Zumba and I am getting very good.), followed by a ballet barre class to work my core, (Did you know that sitting in front of a computer looking for a job or simply sitting in front of a computer screen period, is awful  for your back and neck.) and met a friend for a dinner. 
There are a set of questions that everyone should expect to be asked when they go for an interview and one of those questions is, "What are you most proud of?" My answer is and will always remain the same. "The friendships and relationships I have developed and retained in the last nine years."
I am using this post to say thank you to my family, friends, business associates, the people who have checked out this blog, and to you, my followers, (Who probably fall into the latter category.) by sharing some of my latest and greatest finds and all-time favorites.

Top Shop Flats $36
Once a season, I don my fashion armor to contend with the tourists that populate the streets of Soho, to purchase my favorite flats, only available at TopShop. Not only are they molto non-expensivo at $36 a pair but these ballerina beauties are very comfortable and have a rubber sole. Perfect for walking the streets of New York and chic enough to wear to an interview until you slip on your stilettos a minute before you walk into the door and up to the Fort Knox securities desk. (Seriously, if you have gone to an interview at the Conde Nast building then you know what I am talking about. There is a feeling of anxiety that envelops your entire body as security calls up to the person who you are meeting with and doesn't disappear until you hear the words, "I will send her right up.") They rarely carry the same styles season to season (but adding an element of surprise to your life every season isn't necessarily a bad thing unless that surprise is losing your job) and you always have to go up one full size so don't get too attached to one style and if you have issues with the size of your feet, these are not the flats for you. Check out this season's (spring/summer) purchases.

Arden B Leather Jacket $59 Yes, Arden B. I couldn't believe it either and feel free to add a French accent to the a in Arden if it will
make you fell better.

Gap Jacket $5.93
You can find some great pieces on the Gap sale rack especially before closing when the racks have been reorganized for the next day. This jack was priced at $15 but there was a store-wide 40% off sale that day, sale rack included. My favorite part about this purchase was when the person who rang it up said, "Where did you find this?" Maybe that is why Patrick Robinson got fired two weeks ago.

Dr. Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Glow Pads, $32 for a box of 20. Available on sephora.com.
These little double duty wonders exfoliate and give you a light, not orange, sun-kissed glow.

Color Blocking

I apologize for not posting this on Thursday as I had initially planned but blogger was down until Friday afternoon. You can imagine my surprise when I could not access my blog. Then, I had an internal freak out because I thought I lost everything I wrote after it took me a year to launch this. Wednesday morning I attended the keynote of the Spring Market at the Decoration and Design Building, titled What's Next in Decorating? hosted by, Deborah Needleman, Editor in Chief of the Wall Street Journal's monthly magazine WSJ and Off Duty. The panelists included were WSJ Columnist Sara Ruffin Costello, Contributing Editor and Decorator David Netto, and Decorator Miles Redd. There was not an empty seat in the house and I can confidently say that the seats were filled by accredited design industry professionals rather than the non-industry grazers or hoovers who attend the showroom sponsored events during market. (Q: What is a grazer/hoover? A: People who attend events strictly for the food and drink and have absolutely no interest in ever purchasing merchandise. The saying "There is no such thing as a free lunch." is N/A for this group.) My original plans were to use this post to write about the highlights from the discussion but a former business associate (no longer former but current) contacted me to request a product image from the company I was previously working for to post on his blog, furnitureandhomefashion.com. (That aforementioned company did not communicate to any of our business associates that I had left the company. I think they did that in order to continue to evade the numerous phone calls I had to take and the emails I continue to receive regarding bill payments. That is also how I found out that they are looking for my replacement. The job is listed as a manager and not a director but I compared it to the job description in the ad I replied to a little less than three years ago, and it is the exact same. You get what you pay for.) After I explained that I was no longer working there, congratulated him on his recent successes and his blog, and told him I launched this blog, he invited me to write a post on his blog. Since furnitureandhomefashion.com is a blog devoted to all things interior design I am going to use that post to write about each of the panelists choices for seminal rooms and style leaders. I will give you a head's up the day the post goes live. Today's post is going to focus on one of the trends called out during last week's discussion, COLOR BLOCKING. I know. I was thinking the same thing. We are all so over color blocking. Mondrian-inspired graphic prints. Been there done that. And if you saw the September Issue then you know that unless you can reinvent it like Grace Coddington can, then Anna Wintour isn't doing it either. But what if color blocking was reinterpreted in new and exciting ways that made you go hmmm. Or, what Debra Needleman referred to as an Aha moment. When a designer integrates that one and or a few surprising elements into a room like a bold stroke of color. So, I set out to find my Aha moments and I was successful.  I started searching for Robert Capucci, one of the designers that Miles Redd said inspired him, specifically how he integrates color, art, and fashion into his work. Wow! You really do learn something everyday and I wish I knew who Robert Capucci was years ago because he definetly is inspiring. His creations are incredible. This is just one of the images from the exhibit, Robert Capucci: Art into Fashion, currently on display until June 5, 2011, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Robert Capucci Exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art http://www.philamuseum.org/ I was on my own from there and this what I found.  Chloe Fall/Winter 2011 http://www.archive.org/details/Fashionstock- ChloParisFallWinter2011944-2  Designer Malene Landgreen http://trendland.net/2010/03/09/malene-landgreen-color-slate-walls/  Interior of bank in Italy designed by  http://www.gandana.com/italian-bank-interior-design-by-massimo-mariani/ I went to take my laundry out of the dryer mid-post and saw that someone had placed their copy of The Devil Wears Prada DVD in the trash pile. Right next to the most haneious excuse for a lamp I ever saw. Fashion crime.

From Showrooms to Shoes

One of the great things about "retirement" is that it allows you to do things that you may not have had time to do in the past. For example, accepting an invitation from your best friend to attend a Yankees game and sitting 8th row behind 3rd base, which I very gratefully did on Sunday, May 1. In the past I would have more than likely declined because I was working or travelling for work.

This morning, I attended the kick off keynote of  the Spring Market at the Decoration and Design Building, titled What's Next in Decorating? hosted by, Deborah Needleman, Editor in Chief of the Wall Street Journal's monthly magazine WSJ and Off Duty section (two titles of which both are on my essential reading materials list). See my next post for further details. This post is about what happened after the keynote.
When I returned to my apartment at 11:00AM (keynote 9:30AM-10:30AM), I immediately called my mother. My friend W is leaving for Prague next week and I was hoping that my mother would remember the names of the restaurants she went to. Mission unaccomplished but I did help my mother successfully complete her mission--Do these shoes work with the dress that I am going to wear to your sister's engagement party? Sounds like a yes or no answer, right? Yes it is but in this case it took more than 1 hour to answer it. The Internet is a new world for my mother and one which she does not have the patience for. Don't get me wrong, I do commend her for finally taking the initiative to learn how to use it but we all know what happens when you continuously click and re-click on a page that is not loading at an optimal speed. The screen freezes and or crashes. Sorry mom, you can't blame that one on the high-speed DSL connection. When I finally convinced my mother that neimanmarcus.com was not out to get her and that we were both looking at the exact same page on their website, she was able to show me the shoe, and I told her it was perfect. I have posted an image of the shoe below. Under normal circumstances I would have asked you to post your opinions (I would include an image of the dress as well if that were the case) but in this case I am not going to unless you plan on spending an hour of your time, perhaps even more, helping my mother find another pair of shoes that will work with her Robert Rodriguez sepia-print a-line, strapless dress.
How has the above activity helped my job search?
1. I have the patience of a saint.
2. Perhaps I should consider a career in teaching middle aged women over the age of ????? how to use the internet.
3. Perhaps I should consider a career in online shoe consulting.

http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/productImagesPopup.jhtml?selected=bg&item=prod127390019&pageProductId=prod127390019&yB=bg_prod127390019

The Nanny Diaries

As I search for opportunities that will make me an employee rather than a "retiree", I have discovered and applied to some jobs that are outside my industry but that I am completely qualified to do. For example, I recently saw a listing for a nanny. The letter I composed is below. I sent it on Friday, they called me on Sunday night, and I went for an interview yesterday. It went very well. They did express that I was over-qualified and that they would prefer to find someone who is not planning on coming out of retirement but that they loved my letter and had to meet its author. They said that they would get back to me in a few weeks. I will keep you posted.


Dear J,

I recently saw your listing regarding your need for a nanny. How I came to the website that the job was posted on is a long story but the net net of it is that there was a freelance marketing position listed on the same website. This is not a website that I have ever used before.To make another long story short, I was recently laid off. I could continue this email by telling you about my nine years of experience as a marketing director but you don't need to know that. What you do need to know is that I love children (I wish to have some of my own one day) and I am great with them.  I am an “auntie” to two children who are 9 ½ and 11 years old. They are the children of one of my closest friends who I met seven years ago when we both worked at Company XYZ. I am the go-to person when it comes to organizing baby showers and birthday parties, which comes naturally to me. (I have produced many events in the last nine years and whether producing a fashion show or an editor’s dinner, the skills and vendor contacts are transferable.) I am patient and fun but know when it’s time to do homework and go to bed. I know who Justin Bieber and iCarly are and if your children watch Glee and American Idol, I have been known to watch an episode or two. I can color between the lines, seen too many Japanese anime movies thanks to my friend’s son, and I could probably give Barbie a blow-out and find her a pair of manolos in her size if necessary. I recently found out that I am a very good chef and although my cuisine may be appeal to a more sophisticated palettes, I make great omelets, grilled cheese, pizza bagels, and pasta that does not begin with the letter K for Kraft Dinner. I am very healthy conscious and if your children’s after school snack is more granola bar than Oreo cookie, you won’t come home to empty ice cream containers and candy wrappers. I can do laundry. (I do not iron) I am very active and have no problem going to the park.

While I am fortunate that my schedule gives me the flexibility to take a 2PM ballet barre class, I can only sit in front of the computer and apply for jobs for so many hours of the day.

To top it all off, I live on the ????? and as you can see from the above, my schedule is flexible.

I would love to discuss the nanny position with you in greater length. I look forward to hearing from you and have a nice weekend.

Best,

Pink Lady

istockphoto_5925050-mother-and-baby-carriage

Secret Shopper, Copywriter, Consulting and More...

I can not give credit where credit is not due. My stiff shoulder and imbalance in my hips are not the after-effects of the hottest new workout or a killer spin class. These new aches and pains are associated with schlepping my portfolio to job interviews and offices of recruiters who say they have several jobs for someone with my experience. Yes, I am unemployed. While my initial intention was to use this blog as a way to share my favorite finds from the world of fashion, design, arts and culture, and everything else in between with you, these days I have been spending less time walking the streets of NYC and surfing the internet unless it is related to my job search. Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't completely thrown my passion to the wayside, and I am lucky that my profession requires me to keep abreast of the trends across several categories, it's just that my focus has shifted to the latter in the interim. Until I find my next dream job, I thought it would be fun to journal the trials and tribulations I have experienced and continue to encounter on this unplanned journey. From the small jobs that I have taken on to pay the bills to some interesting interviews I have gone on, I hope that my stories make you laugh and show you that even when the sun is not shining directly into your over-sized sunglasses, that it is still possible to find something to smile about.

Something that made me smile. This great picture that my friend
Tony took, accountant by day, aspiring photographer by weekend.

Welcome to the Orchard of Style

How many times have you been told, "Don't put off until tomorrow what you could do today.", to find that if you would have applied this simple prescription to cure procrastination, that you may have had the time to do the things you actually wanted to do. I created this blog in the summer of 2010. I wrote this post during the the first of the three big snow storms of 2011 (There was only one good thing about working in Secaucus-SNOW DAYS! And when I wake up in the morning feeling mildly depressed about the thought of sitting in front of the computer looking for a job and I hear the rain beating down on my air conditioner or turn on the news to hear that New Jersey Transit is delayed, I smile and thank god that I don't have to commute to Secaucus that day. I will leave the tales, trials, and tribulations of a seasoned commuter for a posting on another day. After commuting through Penn Station, against traffic, for more than two years, I became quite the professional.) As you can see from my first post, I did not take my own advice but I liked the image that I had intended to use. If you love fonts and colors then you will love Wordle.net. Follow the instructions, insert your name or phrase or any word you want, and see what the "Wizard of Wordle" comes up with. 

wordle.net