Another New Job, American Family Life Assurance Company, better known as AFLAC

Okay, so I decided that the other company was not for me.  There were many, many reasons, the first being that I could not list my company name on my Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or anything else.  They were afraid of Social Media and had decided that all people over the age of 50 do not use computers, email, social media and they are absolutely certain that all computers are opening them up for identity theft.  Crazy, I know!

Everyone else in the working world has learned that email, text messaging, social media and electronic signatures are more secure than paper carried in my car.  So, I looked for a company that will allow me to be me and has a viable business that I can make a profit in.  The company I think best meets my needs for a flexible job, an income, and the ability to say where I work online.

I know, I had just started at the other place, but really their was more than one reason to look elsewhere.  I decided I needed a company that had longevity, long-term employees, flexibility, future growth, and a product that is in a market I am already in: under 65.  Though I think that I could make some good money in the Retiree market, I think that I need to learn far more about them then would allow me to make significant money quickly.  So, I jumped to start with The Duck, because I understand small business, and most small business owners are under 50 and have a lot in common with me.  Having something you can talk about other than your product is critical for starting a long-term relationship with clients.

Anyway, I remain overwhelmed, and under productive due to a computer snafu!  Frustrating.  So much I want to learn and do!

What I will be doing as an AFLAC Agent:  I will be offering Employers a way to lower Business Tax Liability, ease Benefit programs management, and provide employees with critical life planning products for that just in case circumstance. My job will be in Employer and Employee Education to reduce their risks in life.   

A question. What would you do?

What to say... I am stressed again.  It's a never ending roller coaster of self-doubt and optimist hope about the future.

Right now I have a case of the I don't want to do anything.  I am content doing nothing but surfing the internet and reading books while I avoid making any decisions.  The list of I need to's, was getting shorter but has started to grow again.  The list of I want to's has begun to befuddle me.  My list of want to's reminds me of an episode of 'Hoarders' where the stuff is about to bury alive the occupants.   Grr...

A slight bit of frustration regarding my inability to make a decision presides over me.  It should be easy.  For heaven sakes just do a SWOT analysis, that is what my brain shouts when I am driving and need to be somewhere on-time.  WIth no time to stop and start a SWOT my brain quickly forgets something important that should be done and needs to be a priority.  Grr....

So I was at the grocery store and I used one of those self check out machines.  I needed cash so I could pay the electric bill.  I selected $40 and retrieved if from the machine to find $50.  I counted it three times, I double checked my receipt, then I asked the supervising cashier to count it.  Sure, enough there was $50.  I gave it to her and said that someone either forgot to pick up their $10.00 or the machine gave me extra money.  Should I have kept it?  And why weren't the kids their to see me doing the right thing? Oh, right it was like 9:30 at night and I was there for milk, bread, and beer.
So, I get where I am going and the questions I need answered aren't fully taken care of.  I get the first and the second question out and then I am suddenly overwhelmed by the need to take in the information and answer the questions it now poses.

On the new job front:  I have serious doubts about the place I am working at.  I have some doubts about my abilities which I think only come from the place I am at.  I still think I can be a great success in Sales, err, insurance sales.  I think I have the natural ability to look and see problems, unfortunately I don't know how to answer them all, and the follow up on questions that can't be answered today is a bit poor.  Boorish!  It bothers me that I forget to follow up with people, or fail to be loud and persistent enough to get all the answers right away.  Which suddenly reminds me about a section in a book I was reading called "is it You, Me or Adult A.D.D.?"that people with ADHD seem to have two different ways of prioritizing; Now and Not Now.  Unfortunately, I am beginning to see that pattern, things are either immediately important and I must hurry and do it right now; everything else falls away when this happens.  Things like the laundry don't get started or finished, books are suddenly left on the floor as I go to answer the phone, or read some Facebook message.  If it doesn't need to be done right now, I usually forget about it.  Like when I have known for weeks about a doctors appointment and keep repeating the date and time, the day finally comes and the time arrives and I am doing something else that needs to be done right now, like buy some ice cream sundaes.

Logic says that I shouldn't be doing that.  But somehow my brain has completely forgotten about that thing it was repeating for weeks at the time its needed.

Oh, back to the doubts about where I am a contracted Insurance agent.  So I took this job, mostly because it sounds really interesting, involves constant changing scenery, meeting new people, and a wild and extravagant lifestyle that seems achievable with it.  But my doubts arise from the fact that the office management, while veterans, they are not veterans with the company.  The result is many questions go unanswered or are superficially answered.  The office is also all married men with stay at home brides.  Which has worked to their great advantage.  Their wife is home taking care of paying the bills, waiting for the plumber, and carting the kids every which way they need, while they are able to focus 100% on the job every day they work.  This has lead to a severe deficiency in our ability to relate to each other when talking about efforts to grow our individual books of business.  Bummer, when you boss tells you that you need to make more dials, more appointments and be available for your new clients even on Cub Scout nights and Saturday when you were really busy washing the laundry, grocery shopping, taking the kids to the library, potty training the 2 year old and somehow getting the toilet cleaned.  Worse still the 2 Field Trainers that were charged with showing me how to be a successful insurance agent, suddenly quit.  Bad right?  Well, they then badder still the boss men were too busy doing things that did not focus on me, err, the new hirers, and we were basically left to try and figure it out on our own.  What did they do to mend this terrible situation?  They promoted a man who has been with the company for about 7 months to trainer and another who has just 4 weeks more time at the company.


So my bosses don't relate to being the chief parent/mom, they don't satisfy my questions with complete answers, they fail to take us on appointments to show us how this job is to be done, they promote people with no experience to trainers, and even worse they hired a new crop that also need the same limited resource I do, them.  I am sure they also plan on hiring another class to start next month too, which just makes it seem like a bad thing.

To be clear, as of this moment I have not quit.  Though I admit I have taken a 2 day sabbatical to evaluate this place.  But I did look at a competitor that seems to be in a better position to facilitate my learning experience and build an actual career as an Insurance Sales person.  I also began searching the job sites today to see what other options I might have.  It does kinda feel nice to have my biggest problems being that my ring is in danger of falling off, my clothes are too big and I can choose where I commit to work.  Oh, I am also thinking about taking a seasonal job doing taxes in addition to insurance sales.  So, What would you do?  Would you take the job with the other company that seems better able to answer your questions and train you for success or would you wait it out and see if someone suddenly becomes successful where you are so you can emulate them?

potty training and not throwing up

hi!  So I have been complaining about being busy and I still am.  I have been working for nearly 2 months in the Insurance Business for a company I am loosing faith in.

Since potty training is far more interesting than self doubt lets talk about that.  First my baby boy Danny finally turned 2 last Sunday!  Yea!  I just wish he was already potty trained.  Since he is not and he seems to know how to hold it,  I took away his diapers.  For those of you thinking,  eww gross!  Yeah, I get it, it can be gross to step into a warm or cold puddle of pee, but this is the fastest way for babies to get the message that they need to do something less gross.

I have stepped in a few puddles!  Thankfully not stepped into any steaming hot piles!  That is not to mean I did not pick up any steaming piles to promptly be flushed.  Yuck!

I spent the weekend with a baby going commando which ment there was not any leaving the house.  Bummer, I wanted to do something, but I guess you need to make some sorta plans with friends.  Making plans with friends is something I not in the habit of doing and need to start doing.

I am glad to announce I only needed to clean up one small puddle.  Soon I will need to clean the carpet because I can bet that as he goes commando with his babysitter and daddy.  I will be keeping the carpet steamer handy over the next few weeks.


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SuperMom!?

So at this moment Blogger.com is down and my computer is acting weird and slow.  Why did Blogger.com decided to do maintenance in the middle of the evening?  Weird! 

Obviously I am busy.  I haven’t posted anything new in a long while.  Such is the way of the work world.  I am trying to balance too many things and I seem to be succeeding rarely at any of them.  So my new job is tough.  Being away from home is tough on the kids.  My husbands ever changing schedule and his lack of communication is just making everything impossible to do. 

My biggest obstacle is figuring out what to do first.  I got a phone so I could stay in tough, I got him a phone so we could communicate.  I have an iPad so I can actually check my emails and keep a calendar.  (though for the last month my new job kept trying to force me into a paper calender! That was a complete disaster!) 

I know I have ADHD and this not knowing what to do first or even where I am supposed to be at different times in confusing as all heck!  I want to check in and be be with my family.  I also need to start seeing success with my new job or I am going to need to find another new job.   

So on the days I do figure out what to do first I struggle with trying to build my business clientele and my lack of availability to reach them on their schedule.  First, most of my clients are between the ages of 50 and 70, the problem being that the majority of the clients that are over 65 are home but I can’t talk about their health care until October 1^st, 2011 due to Federal Regulations on Medicare supplement and Advantage Plans.  Most people in the over 65 bucket already know they can’t make changes so they just aren’t interested in talking.   And of their younger siblings under ages 65 are just not home during business hours!  Well I am not able to work much after I regular work hours. 

However, the more I reconnect with my old friends and family members the more I see that I know an awful lot about what peoples real options are and when I have something that they really should be taking advantage of.  I now know most of my products to a point where if only I had enough hours in the day I could make appointments to visit them and see my family.  What I need is a way to pause life so I can do all I want to and need to. 

I need to be the idealized Super Mom, somehow capable of running an independent business, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, keeping the house clean, the bills paid on time, the dogs fed and walked, exercise herself to maintain optimum health,  loose weight, recruit new business, take the kids to their activities, potty train the toddler, read the latest magazines, books, watch the latest pop culture phenomenon, catch up with old friends, make  new friends, participate in the PTO, car pool the kids, be the star in the office, lead the way, train the mentee, communicate perfectly with the husband, know everything there is to know about my industry: insurance, entertain guest, make the perfect taco and margarita, have the grocery shopping done, the laundry put away, the kid in bed and somehow not fall asleep before the husband gets his turn.  Somehow that is what I need to be.  Or is it just simply being home by 6, and managing to have a few minutes to pick up dinner in the drive thru?

an afternoon of sorrow

This afternoon has been filled with many burst of anger, frustration and tears from nearly all members of my household.  You may not believe this but I hate my situation.   I hate poverty, I hate living in the semblance of middle class only to be too broke to actually get the time the middle class has to enjoy my children. I think that is the worst part about being poor, not having the time to cherish your children.

So maybe there are those that have large incomes that are poor in that way too, but at least they could change it this afternoon if they wanted too.

For the rest of us being poor is actually a bi-product of something else, lack of drive, acceptance of servitude, comfort in accepting welfare, or mental disease.  Mental disease is mine.  Many people may not put this together, but that is because they rarely find the cause of the effect.  For me and my family, being poor is the effect ADHD has caused.  I didn't always know I had ADHD.  I retrospect, I believe someone somewhere in my life knew, or at least suspected it but refused to help.  And that makes me angry, because knowing is more than 70% of the battle.

Why would knowing about ADHD earlier been beneficial to me?   Well, as an adult a lot of things like being on time, or impulse shopping, credit and debt management, choices in employment, choices to start and stop education, failure to prevent unplanned pregnancy, lack of direction and many, many other "little" things can be attributed to ADHD.  Knowing the problems that others suffer from could have prevented years of suffering and bad choices.  I believe I may have been able to lessen the suffering of my family and even averted many things.

Being on Time:  I know it's important to employers, but you may not realize how important it is to other things in the world of a girl.  Yeah, friends like it when you are on time, and I have lost friendships because I couldn't be on time.  One that many people don't realize is: Being on Time or lack of it can lead to unplanned pregnancy.  After all the directions on all Birth Control pills say to take at exactly the same time each day, and warn that a pregnancy can result when it is not.  It happened to me, twice. This is also a financial thing; you and I have bills and they need to be paid on-time.  Consequences of not being on time for bills can be, late charges, overdraft fees, added interest and other weird penalties that happen after these snowball like not being able to get a better job because of poor credit.

Impulse Control:  well, well, this is big too!  This encompasses how I met my husband, (a good thing, but caused by lack of control), blurting things out, speaking out of turn, following something shinny instead of what your supposed to do, of course shopping, eating, sex, things that Catholics claim will send you straight to hell and finances.  If you lack control, you may do things like quit a job, tell off a friend, threaten someone, file for divorce, or decide to redecorate a room when you don't have cash to pay rent.

Just these to traits have lead to some catastrophes in my life.  I can't change what I did.  I can now know why these choices made absolutely no logical sense and have an idea on how to prevent them.  No knowing I have impulse control issues did not stop me from buying an iPad 2! or some clothes 2 weeks ago for my new job( something I did need, but really should have prioritized other things over it like rent).
But knowing does give me and those around me a little bit of advanced notice, kinda like knowing a kid may dart out in traffic so you can save them before they do.

Hopeless?  I think not.  Angry and tired!  Embarrassed at my lack of anger management this afternoon! Embarrassed that my situation played such a huge factor in forcing my family into welfare.  Damn that welfare is so hard to get off of.  Damn that finding a new job with a bankruptcy is so impossible!  Angry that I quit a good job years ago because I thought I was depressed, when if I had simply known it was ADHD frustration and confusion I could have found someone to help me manage my way.  So tonight I instead hope that impulse buy of Juicy Fruit from the grocery store with the Win $100,0000.00 pays off.

Dog Days of Summer

Well, duh it's hot here.  It is a tad too sticky to sleep well and the air conditioner refuses to turn off.  The kids are grumpy, and eating everything in sight.  The dogs refuse to go for a walk and the cost of food seems to be higher this summer than last.

For some reason I am out of shorts and had to wear jeans this morning.  I was supposed to do a lot of things this weekend and last weekend but failed  for many different excuses.  Mostly it is time to buy, buy, buy for back to school; and since I lack the cash to buy it myself I must do it on my Mother's schedule and with her money.  Sucks.  Not that I have ample time during the week due to learning a new job.

So the new schedule my family is learning is challenging.  I went back to work, my husband went back to college and kept a full time job, my kids are on summer vacation and my mother's friend has been kind enough to babysit my kids for nothing.  I was going to say nearly nothing by to be honest I did not pay her last week and did not pay this week and there is little hope of being able to pay her next week too.  Sigh.

So now I need to focus on building my business practice and I am quite shy.  You may not think so, but reaching out and offering help, let alone asking for it is a huge road block for me right now.  I am self conscience and overly worried about everything.  I need to ask for help but don't know how...

I also don't know how to stop talking or keep to a schedule very well.

Anyway.  The house looks slightly better than last week.  It smells better too.  Unfortunately the building here is going to be painted and the windows have this apocalyptic plastic covering them.  Every window in my home has been covered since Tuesday and they still haven't painted the building.  I am not sure what they are waiting for.  The plastic reminds me of the time people over reacted to the threat of biological terrorist attacks.  I have a picture.....  Somewhere.  Anyway it is making me crazy, I feel so tense.  I don't like it. Resisting the urge to rip it from the building!  I want to see the sun.  Maybe that is why the kids are so disgruntled this week?

About to tear it down.  I also don't like having all the things that belong outside, inside.  The kids bikes are all over the house and they keep trying to ride them in the house.  They are all covered in pine needles, spider webs and dust from last weeks dust storm.  Disgusting!

Someone please help me.  I don't know what I should do next.

Fun and exciting!  I finally got an invite to Google+ that works.  I set that up this morning instead of doing things I had intended on.  It took awhile.  It is now up and I am happy to have it.  Something about being a techno geek and needing to be and early adopter of things.  ooh look a kitty thing, sift and toss, if I had a kitty I would buy it.  So if you want an invite let me know, I think everyone should be invited to something so cool.  I like using it on my phone, ipad, mac book and I am sure I will like using it on my husbands boring pc. 

Ancient Alien

I am I bored or avoiding doing important things?

It has been an unusual day.  It was supposed to be simple, after all I had a plan.  But like all good plans it went horribly wrong.  1st I slept a bit too long.  Not so long that I was going to be late, just very rushed.  I slept an extra 20 minutes.  I got myself and my kids all dressed.  

I called my Mom onetime!  We prepared to be picked up.  Waited and then found that it was not going to happen.  Why?  My mother started her truck only to find that it was suddenly loud like a hog without a muffler.  What had happened?  

Turns out a thief had taken the trucks catalytic converter.  Sometime during the night a thief had slid under the truck and taken a power saw to the trucks environmental capture systems and exhaust system.  Now my mother heard nothing and the car alarm which is so sensitive that it goes off every time a hog goes by, wasn't triggered.  

A neighbor heard a racket, but by the time he was curious enough to look the noise had stopped.  The noise lasted just a few minutes.  

It changed the plan, instead of hitting the local IHOP, we had to wait for police to arrive, then the insurance company to open for business, and finally for a tow truck to take the damaged truck to the dealer.  It took hours!  We finally had to take my mother to pick up a rental.  

In an attempt to get back on track, we took the kids to the toy store, where they bought a Mater tow truck and some Lego ninjas to defend their toys.  We dropped off the two younger kids and hit the drive thru for some grub and went to Kohl's for school clothes.  

So instead of being on this great schedule where school cloth shopping was done by noon, we were not finished until 4:30pm.  So we ordered take out at 5 and now the kids refuse to sleep.  

Instead of calling prospective clients and washing all the laundry as I had planned to do this afternoon I am behind.  So why didn't i call before I wrote this?  Well, dang, I was tired.  In order to relax I turned on Netflix and found a new documentary series to watch.  It is strange~  it is called Ancient Alien.  It is a story about how the ancients on earth built things like the pyramids and how every culture on earth seems to have the same stories.  The same tales and similar images of extraterrestrial beings and flying crafts that supposedly didn't exist in our past.  The series challenges the idea that we were stupid and that we were alone in the universe.  Are they right?  Does our past show we were not alone?  Does our past show that we have been influenced and enjoyed visitors from other places?