Trying to Figure it all out

It seems every time I write a personal blog post on here something bad occurs. Earlier this year when I was writing about a girl I was really into it turned out poorly. Then when I thought things were getting better with her, I wrote about it and shortly there after, she started a serious relationship with someone else. Maybe if I talk about something bad here, I'll have the reverse effect.

I absolutely hate my job. For the last 3+ years I have been at the same company, in fact, it is the only real paying job I've had since I moved to Vancouver. At first I thought this would be a fantastic career opportunity. I was starting a job at an improving apparel firm and I was confident expansion and growth within the company were my ticket to bigger and better things. I started working as the Office Floater assisting where-ever necessary. That meant some days I was working in HR, other days I was helping out the Sales department. Heck, I was even covering receptionist when she was away. It was the best job a new person could ask for; you get to interact with various departments and you learn about every aspect of a clothing company.

A few months later I was offered a permanent position in the Customer Service department. At first I didn't want it since I am not a Sales Person in that vein. I didn't want to have to call people up and demand they buy our stuff. Luckily, this wasn't the case. Instead, people would call me and I would simply place their order and/or check on the status of their orders. I viewed it as the potential of moving up in the company and took it. The first few months were nice, I was in charge of the most important region of the United States (The eastern Seaboard) and I got the opportunity to travel to Virginia Beach where I ran my first half-marathon.

But of course, I wanted more. After about six months in this role, a position that on-paper sounded interesting opened up in our Operations Department and I jumped at the chance to take it. It was our Production Planner position. I took it for a number of different reasons, it sounded like a cool position, according to the web, it was a higher paying position and I wanted to grow. Unfortunately, no one told me that it would be a position of waiting. Since so many of our off-shore vendors were Asian, with the 16 hour time difference, we never interacted in real-time. In the morning I would reply to all the messages I got from the evening then the rest of the day was done doing nothing. It was so boring since I was so used to working in real-time with people. If I sent an e-mail, I expected a response within hours not days.

HR could tell that I was not happy in my new role and offered me my old position back. It seemed that CS didn't find someone to take my old position and wanted me back. I took it and I've been stuck there ever since.

I was always promised the potential of moving forward. They could see that I got bored easily; I tend to do things quicker than most which leaves me with a lot of free time. Since they saw me spending more time doing things other than work, they tried to give me more responsibilities. Thus began what I thought would be my integration into Marketing.

I had quickly became the Marketing department's administrator. Whenever they needed something done, they came to me. On top assisting them when needed, I was also their main point of contact with anything PR related. Our outside PR agency would send their requests directly to me and they never needed to deal with anyone else in Marketing. It worked well; we got our products to magazines on time and I did my best to ensure the company's name was held in a positive light in the media. I had the opportunity to deal with O Magazine, The New York Times and even Wired just to name a few.

It looked like I would be permanently moved into Marketing, as an informal offer was made but then our company, which was recently purchased by a large Corporation, decided to do a wage/employee freeze and I was stuck in CS.

What hurt the most was that my salary was still very low in comparison to most employed people in Vancouver. I should have moved on to a better job but I honestly thought I had the chance to move up and everything would turn out in my favor. A year later and nothing changed. It continued to go against me when the Marketing Manager who made so many promises to me decided to leave the company. At that time, I didn't understand her leaving but now I do (I'll address that later on).

After she left, so did others in that department. I should have taken that as a sign but I didn't. The two people that left, who I both worked a lot with, were in positions that I thought I was qualified for (Events Coordinator and Public Relations Liaison). I applied for both position and of course, I didn't get them. What was worse was that the new Marketing Manager invited me into her office and told me that the new corporate outlook was to hire outside rather than to grow from within. I had so much experience but they wanted to bring in fresh people; essentially people that they could mold rather than someone who already was established. Funny thing is that both position still require me to assist them which really angers me.

I honestly don't see myself working at my current job for very much longer. While I haven't given my notice, I am passively looking for new work. The problem with that is finding a job is 1) a full-time job in itself and 2) my CS background limits me to where I can work.

For the last two years I have been a staff writer over at a small Video Game site based in Quebec. It's essentially a "work-for-free" position but I've enjoyed it thoroughly. At first I was doing it just because I enjoyed writing and I liked the idea of getting free games in the mail to review. But what initially started as a hobby is now something I want to be more active in. I want to be a more vocal person but because of my 9-to-5 job, I could only do so much. I couldn't quit my regular job since the writing was being done for free. What I was really hoping is that my writing gig there would push me to somewhere better, either with a large publication (eg. A National Paper/Site) or working for one of the many gaming companies in Vancouver (eg. Electronic Arts).

The problem there is that regardless of my hopes of writing for a larger site or working for a gaming company is that it is highly competitive. I have applied for so many different positions with various companies and never once heard back from anyone. I am more than qualified but it feels that either my requests are being automatically rejected or that is always someone better. I wish I knew people at these companies that could give me the edge I need as so many companies used automated services for their job positions. If I had a direct contact person, I could e-mail them asking if they got my resume rather than just assuming someone got it.

I have every intention on leaving my current regular job but not before finding something better. I still hold out hope that I'll get a job in the field that I want since I know I would make it work. I will do what I can and hopefully with how much crap I've gone through this year, something good will come from it.