The long and winding road to fitness, day 67

I had the day off work today and accomplished virtually nothing all day.  I worked 12 hours yesterday, woke up aching this morning.  It hurt to walk, my hands were hurting, everything was hurting.  I pulled myself out of bed, wobbled around for a bit until I loosened up.  Then I  fed the cats, gathered the trash and took a walk.  The sun hadn’t even peeked over the horizon yet.  There was a cool breeze ruffling my hair, the birds were serenading me, and there wasn’t another person in sight.  I love walking in this kind of weather, early in the morning before the rest of the world wakes up and gets crazy.

When I came back in to the house, I was still hurting so I decided to take a couple of Advil and go back to bed.  I laid in bed reading, constantly shifting positions trying to find  some way to make the pain go away.  I eventually dozed off and slept for a little over an hour.  I felt a little better after napping, but still didn’t feel like doing much of anything.

That’s pretty much how my day went.  I did hop on the exercise bike (okay, “hop” may be too active a way to describe what I did…maybe I should have said “I gently eased myself onto the exercise bike”) and stuck with it for 15 minutes…I have to tell you, I really wanted to quit after about 3 minutes, but I didn’t.  That kind of feels like success to me today.  I also did six core exercises today and some stretching.  So not a bad day of exercise considering how lousy I felt for most of the day.

Today was going to be a day of pushing myself as far as the exercise went, but I just couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t lack of desire on my part, it was just my body telling me to take it easy.  I guess working 12 hours the day before might not be conducive to a power workout, at least not for me at this point in my life.

My eating was okay today primarily because I just didn’t feel well enough to eat much.  I finished the day with a little under 1400 calories.  I did prepare a pasta salad with veggies and hard-boiled eggs.  I ate that for my dinner tonight (sorry, no pictures) and will take it for lunch for the remainder of the week.  I almost always use whole wheat pasta these days, so it’s a little healthier…very quick and easy lunch for tomorrow.

I’m going to make myself go to bed a little earlier tonight and keep my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be a day with less pain.  I’m not even asking for a day free of pain, just to be able to manage it a little better than I did today.

Are you looking for a job?

Image by Leader Nancy Pelosi via Flickr

With the economy still struggling from the recent recession, a lot of people are looking for any job they can find….part-time, something they may be over-qualified for, just anything to bring in some money.  Knowing this is the case, knowing that there are literally hundreds of people applying for every job opening, why would you not do everything possible to make a good first impression?  After all, in this job market, that first impression may be the only chance you get to make any kind of impression.

I speak with job applicants almost every day, most of the time on the phone, but there are the people who just walk in and want to talk about employment.  If you’re just going to show up and expect to talk with us about hiring you, there are a few things you might want to consider.  First, and possibly one of the most important things for you to do on any job hunt, dress appropriately.  Don’t show up wearing shorts and flip-flops.  Don’t come in wearing dirty clothes or with your hair oily and stringy.  I can guarantee you we will not hire someone who comes in looking like that…if you can’t be bothered doing some basic grooming before you come in to ask us for a job, why would we assume you’d do so after we hired you?

Don’t tell us you’re looking for any job you can find, even if that’s the truth.  Be able to tell us why you want to work for us, what you can contribute to our company, why you’d be a good fit.  Yes, this takes some time on your part, but you need to be prepared before going to any job interview.  You will be asked those types of questions.  Saying, “I don’t know.” or mumbling some evasive answer won’t get you the job.  Being able to tell us how we can benefit from hiring you will at least get you considered for a position.

Open availability is a plus.  Don’t come in and tell us you can only work weekdays…this is retail.  We all work weekends and holidays…that’s what you do in retail.  On the other hand, don’t lie to us and tell us you can work any time and then change that once we hire you.  You’ll find yourself with very few hours in that situation.

Speak up.  Shake hands with a firm grip.  Make eye contact.  Smile.  Speak intelligently.  We want to hire you if you can show us that you would be an asset to our company.  Believe me, we see so many people that we wouldn’t hire under any circumstances, that to see someone who manages to impress us is a treat. 

We’re looking for good help.  Have you ever heard that good help is hard to find?  Believe me, it is.    And the sad thing is that it’s really not that difficult to convince us that you can be that good help, but so few people are willing to take the necessary steps.   

Related articles

• The Secret of the Job Hunt (regretfulabuser.wordpress.com)
• Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 26 – Ask the Experts how to use Recruitment Agencies (cathrich.wordpress.com)