job search

The last post I wrote was about leaving TRG. A whole lot has happened since then.

Of course, there was a period of job searching. It's really not worth talking about.

The first position I took was a canvassing position I saw advertised on idealist.org. I tried out canvassing with Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE). It was great. In case you don't know, canvassing is when a grassroots movement goes door-to-door telling people about an issue. We were discussing the issue of e-waste to get legislation passed that would force computer and television manufacturers to establish take-back programs for recycling their products. It felt so good be doing something good for the world after working in an ad agency for eight months. But I didn't get home until 10:30 or 11, which meant that I would only see Donnice on weekends and while she slept if I did it full time.

So, instead, I took a full time job at Half Price Books. The company is all about reusing and recycling, so I could still feel good about working there even if I wasn't part of a grassroots environmental campaign anymore. Everyone who works there is really friendly, so it had a great atmosphere. Plus, the hours were 11-7 Mon-Fri during training, and you can't get much better than that working retail. The benefits (if I'd stayed long enough for them to kick in) were great too. But I was only making 8/hr, which (amazingly) was even less than I made at TRG. And the hours were going to change when training ended in six weeks, which would mean evenings and weekends. So, after three weeks, I left. I got my employee discount card on my second to last day of work and spent $100 (that's 50% off of the HPB price).

The job I left HPB for is the one I'm at now and the one I plan to be at for the foreseeable future. I'm working for e-Rewards, a market research company. The company has a huge panel of respondents that it basically rents out to other research companies. As a project manager, it's my job to make sure our clients get the respondents they need. It's a very specialized field within market research, so it's interesting to get involved at this level since research with an agency is pretty much the opposite end of the specialization spectrum. Plus, it pays about 30% better than The Richards Group did. Yea!