5 posts tagged “insurance”

Well, now that I've gotten my feet wet again by posting, I'll update a bit more. The past two weeks at my job have been hard because my co-worker has moved on to another office, and I'm having to take up some of the slack, even though my boss has been putting in a good bit of time and effort there too. I'm having to stretch myself to do things I'm unfamiliar with, which can be frustrating because I'm learning by trial and error (mostly error) and this can be slow and often seemingly unproductive. I'm also having to get to work an hour early, so I'm putting in extra time every week. Honestly, I'm often exhausted and frustrated, but won't be much longer.

The GREAT thing is that help is on its way! They have hired a replacement and my new co-worker will be a very good friend who has known me for ten years or so and who helped me when I did this career change to insurance. We are both looking forward to her starting at the first of February. I will be so happy to have someone to work with all day, and in all the years we've known each other, we've been very much kindred spirits, and mostly because we often have the same interests outside of work. This is EXCITING.

Even more exciting, I'm starting to take steps to develop my skills in people photography, something I have neglected. I've been saying I wanted to do more of it for months, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I was motivated to do something more than just give it lip service.

Recently I've gotten acquainted with a wonderful guy (who unfortunately lives in another state) whose feedback has helped me remember my goal, made over a year ago, to do more people photography, both for the pleasure of doing it, and to also get paid as well. (Steven, I appreciate you so much for that!) With that in mind, I did two things to make this goal a reality...

First of all, I contacted a friend of mine and asked her to let me use her as a model, and we're planning to meet next weekend. I'm excited and am searching through Flickr for inspiration. Do you have a favorite people photographer? Please let me know who they are and where I can see their work online.

The other thing is that I've gotten involved in a local Meetup.com group of photographers, and have learned there is another one a few minutes away from where I live with access to a studio, and opportunities to meet and learn studio craft with other more experienced photographers. This has thrilled me to the tips of my toes! At last! This reminds me of the Learning to See workshop from over a year ago and how great that was to learn and experiment with studio  photography.

I'm excited when change is on the horizon, especially when it is in a creative direction. More to come.

It has been far too long since I posted, but in my defense I want to say that, while I've not been here on Vox, I have been journaling, either on another site, or in a more analog version that I keep with me. Life has not been uneventful, even if things have settled into more of a routine, with no major moves to deal with, and my career going in a steadliy upward direction. I'll try to fill in the gaps here a bit.

I'm now working at a different Allstate agency than the one I'd been employed by last December. This past August I learned that office would be closing because the agent was not renewing his contract and had been unable to sell it, though he had on three occasions thought that it had been.

When I learned this, I was sitting in the waiting area of the Nashville airport on a Sunday afternoon after a wonderful four days at one of my friend Chris Marquardt's Learning to See photography workshops that I serve as US liaison for, and to my shame I have to admit I had a meltdown, surrounded by strangers who looked on me as perhaps a bit mentally imbalanced as I sat there with racoon eyes, sobbing to myself. I worried that soon I'd be on the street, sign in hand, much like the woman I saw in my last post, as perhaps some punishment for not emptying the contents of my wallet into her outstretched hands.  Because I still needed much more training and experience, I worried at my employability, especially with comments from those in the industry about there not being any open positions and just how tight the market was. But, wonder of all wonders, my fears proved utterly unfounded, as I actually had my choice of at least three positions in a matter of weeks, and the long and short of it is that I was offered, and accepted, a job at a wonderful agency, where I am very well treated, and where I'm learning many new things.

I simply cannot account for this turn of circumstances, whether total chance, a product of my positive mental imaging, or divine intervention. Suffice it to say that I am incredibly grateful, every single day, a feeling which has only gotten stronger since our economy has gone on the terrifying rollercoaster ride it started in October of last year. I have so very much to be thankful for, and I hope to never take it for granted.

I'm a bit reluctant to even post this, as I know many who are out of work. If it's any consolation, I spent a year looking  before getting my first position in my new field over a year ago, so I think I have paid my dues here. To those of you who are looking I can only tell you not to lose hope. Some days I thought it would never get any better, but it has. Much better.

And so I want to wish all of you a good 2009, no matter what the news predicts. To ask you to value the everyday things...friends, the beauty around you, food on the table.  Take it from someone who has experienced it firsthand that these things are more important than having a healthy stock portfolio.

And fortunately or not, it is true. When you take the cram course to get the license I have, there's no way if you have no experience for all that info to adhere to your brain, so you come out of it legally allowed to sell insurance, but I wouldn't recommend it!

And so around the middle of the week my boss Bob commented that I was beginning to get the hang of things, at least when it came to quoting homeowner's insurance. I had begun to feel as though much more was making sense to me, and I wasn't constantly barraging him with questions. So I did make the above saying into a little framed sign for my desk, as a reminder as well as an encouragement.

It was a good week I felt. The routine of commuting, the interaction between the three of us in the office, and keeping myself focused and busy was much easier. And we closed my first sale too, from the cold calling I'm doing no less.

Another thing that made it a good week was I finally replaced my very worn out cellphone, which had been superglued twice and was now being tenuously held together with scotch tape. I'm now the very happy owner of an iPhone, and even though I must have listened to a dozen or so reviews and critiques about it when it first came out, I was still bowled over by it! It is literally light years above and beyond any phone I've used, as well as any iPod, and I'm loving the fact that I can access my email when I'm on break now, or when I'm sitting in the park watching boats cruise by on the river, or wherever.

All in all it was a pretty good week, I'd say.

If you've been reading my posts at all, you know I have spent many, many months in search of a job, first of all in the printing/publishing/graphic arts area and when I could find nothing there I made the decision to get my license to sell property/casualty insurance and seek employment there over this past summer.

Now it has seemed the obstacle has been the fact that I don't have experience in the field, as I've been told over and over as I have proactively contacted agencies. Very few of them have been willing to train, and when they have openings, they have lately been getting over 100 applicants for a position. Having been an employer, it didn't take me long to know that in this current job market, even with my license it would not be easy to get a position. Just because I'd been responsible, entrepreneurial and had a lot of experience dealing with the public basically didn't carry any weight with many potential employers. And who could blame them really?

But finally, finally I was contacted last week by an Allstate insurance agency I'd interviewed with in the past month with an offer of employment. It was actually someone I'd known from my printing business, a former client of mine, who has decided to ramp up his business and believes I'd be a good match for him. It's not quite full time but hopefully will become that in time, and I think it will be a good environment for me to learn all about homeowners, auto, liability and other insurance. And so I will start on Monday. Hooray!

For me this feels like I'm finally getting my life out of neutral gear, to be moving in a direction, to allow me to get on my feet at last! It feels like putting a pin on a map, of saying, "You are HERE." I'll be working in Palm Beach county, where I had wanted to be, where my friends, my former contacts from work and my roots are. And now I feel I can finally start to move forward and rebuild my life.

So yes, you could say I'm excited.