I’ll start off with a couple of Downtown food recommendations that were shared with me yesterday.<\/p>\n
The hiring manager who I interviewed with told me she’d been to Supper Club on 2nd<\/a> recently and had a great experience there. She recommended it highly. I have not had a chance to check it out yet. Sounds like an elegant place.<\/p>\n This second recommendation I’m gonna need some help with: A friend of mine was eating tacos from a new restaurant in the Medical District just east of Downtown. He said it was located at Jefferson and Manassas, and it was a beautiful building, “like something you’d see in L.A.” The restaurant’s specialties, he said, were craft burgers and gourmet tacos, and the food was affordable and delicious.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, he did not have a complete name for the place. “I think it’s like… something bistro,” he told me. Anyone got a name and\/or a website link for this place? Email me at paul.ryburn@gmail.com or hit me up on social media.<\/p>\n Women’s World Cup action tonight: USA (1-0-0) vs. Netherlands (1-0-0), FOX, 8 PM. Oddsmakers have Team USA at -150 (a 60% favorite).<\/p>\n Southbound headlines the Peabody rooftop party Thursday night. From the hotel’s promotional email: “Southbound is a dynamic band that expertly blends the catchy beats of pop, the heartfelt melodies of country, and the soulful rhythms of rock & soul. Their captivating vocals create a musical experience that transcends genres, uniting audiences from all walks of life.”<\/p>\n The rooftop parties usually run from 6 to 10 PM, but when there is a heat advisory they tend to get started an hour later, at 7. $15 to get in, $30 for access to the VIP Lounge. If you’re in VIP this week, you get a buffet of BBQ chicken drummies, spicy meatballs, and fried pickles.<\/p>\n To be given away at this week’s rooftop party:<\/p>\n Enter the drawing at the Skyway kiosk. The drawing will happen at approximately 8 PM. You must be present to win.<\/p>\n Pre-game for the party in the Peabody’s Corner Bar. They’ll have drink specials from 4 to 7 PM. They have a new summer cocktail called the Blackberry Bourbon Smash.<\/p>\n From the Memphis Beer Blog: Memphis Made Brewing Co. adds second location.<\/a> Skee-ball machines!!!<\/p>\n The MBJ reports<\/a> that Caribbean restaurant Curry N Jerk is moving a block down Monroe to the space formerly occupied by Bon Ton Cafe.<\/p>\n Specials at the Blind Bear this week:<\/p>\n There will be a debate<\/a> featuring eight Memphis mayoral candidates on WKNO at 7 PM August 15. No, make that seven. King Willie was invited but declined to participate.<\/p>\n The CA’s Jennifer Chandler listed her 5 picks for the best wings in Memphis<\/a>. Two of those picks are Downtown:<\/p>\n You can use AI to create a resume<\/a>… and it’s free. I haven’t tried it yet.<\/p>\n That’s it for the “news” portion of today’s post. The rest will be about me personally. TL;DR – I got offered the job I interviewed\/auditioned for yesterday.<\/p>\n Let me give you a little background. From age 24 to 29 I had a job that was both a blessing and a curse. I was a full-time instructor of math and computer literacy at the University of Memphis.<\/p>\n It was a blessing in that I connected with my students. I inspired them. I helped them grasp a subject many of them didn’t ever think they would understand.<\/p>\n It was also a blessing in that it was a job that worked the way I did. There was no dress code and I wore T-shirts and shorts to work. I wasn’t a morning person back then. So I went to the associate department chair and asked, “Is there any way I can not be scheduled for 8:00 classes?” My request was granted.<\/p>\n However, the U of M teaching gig was a curse in that I knew from the get-go that it wouldn’t be a forever<\/em> job. You see, in that department (and in many major university departments) a faculty member can’t be employed for more than 5 years without being awarded this thing called “tenure.”<\/p>\n In my department, you had to have a Ph.D. to be considered for tenure. I only had a Master’s degree. So I knew that before the end of my twenties, I’d be looking for work. And I’d probably never find anything as fulfilling, anything as good a personality fit, as college teaching.<\/p>\n From 2000 to 2018 I had several corporate IT jobs, the type of job I was “supposed” to have, given my degree.<\/p>\n And I hated them.<\/p>\n They were such a stark contrast to my college teaching job in terms of fun and freedom.<\/p>\n “How do people do this?” I wondered in the early years of my corporate IT life. “People come here in their boring polos and their boring khakis and sit in a cubicle with low walls so everyone is looking at them and they bang away on a keyboard writing code from 8 to 5 five days a week, fifty weeks a year. And that seems to be ENOUGH for most people. They’re SATISFIED with it. HOW?????”<\/p>\n It wasn’t enough for me. I felt like a little piece of my beautiful free spirit died every morning that I took a seat in a cubicle.<\/p>\n From 2020 until 2022 I tried to make a go of it as a professional writer. But my income never reached a sustainable full-time income. By April of this year, I was rapidly running out of money. It was time to hit the job market again.<\/p>\n Some of my friends, while meaning well and wanting only the best for me, offered suggestions I didn’t want to hear.<\/p>\n “You should go back to corporate IT. After all, that’s your bread and butter.”<\/p>\n “Why don’t you take a job you hate for a year or two, then try to move on to something better from there?”<\/p>\n I wished I would go ahead and have a heart attack or stroke and get my life over with. I seriously did.<\/p>\n I went on ZipRecruiter and Indeed and LinkedIn and applied for a bunch of remote corporate IT jobs. But those drew from a national pool. I’d apply and then get a message, “Thank you for applying. See how you compare to the other 237 applicants for this position.” With 5 years since my last IT job – an eon in that world – I didn’t stand a chance.<\/p>\n Then about 2 weeks ago, I was cruising Choose901’s Memphis job board<\/a> and saw two part-time jobs for a local tour company.<\/p>\n One position was a tour guide who’d be giving walking tours of Beale Street and bus tours of Downtown and Midtown.<\/p>\n The other position would be handling sales and customer service responsibilities, freeing up the events manager to focus on other aspects of growing the business.<\/p>\n Are you kidding me? Getting paid to meet new people, walk around, and promote the city I love? Maybe a job DID exist that would be as fulfilling as college teaching! I applied for both positions.<\/p>\n I auditioned for the hiring manager yesterday, giving her part of a tour of Beale Street. She said it was one of the best auditions she’d ever had. I even taught her a piece of Memphis history she didn’t know about – the Hadden Horn<\/a>.<\/p>\n When we got back to the “office” – the tour registration stand on the patio of Alfred’s – she tried to bring up details of the jobs, especially the customer service role, that might dissuade me.<\/p>\n Every time I responded with, “Yeah, but that’s still way better than sitting in a cubicle from 8 to 5.” Turned out the hiring manager holds cubicles in the same low esteem I do, so that response resonated.<\/p>\n So it looks like I’ll be giving two tours a day, logging 15 or so hours a week at the tour registration desk, and the rest I can do from a location of my choice. “And additional duties as assigned,” I’m sure, since that’s part of nearly every job description.<\/p>\n “What should I wear to work?” I asked the hiring manager.<\/p>\n “Clothes,” she replied. “Whatever you want.”<\/p>\n “T-shirts? Shorts?” I asked.<\/p>\n “Yes to both,” she said.<\/p>\n So I’m gonna have a FUN job in which I get to interact with people, dress as I choose, talk about topics I love, and which has no expectation of being in a corporate office at 8 in the morning.<\/p>\n I’m gonna be happy.<\/p>\n My work life has come full circle.<\/p>\n Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy yet<\/em> – I am way behind on my bills and to tell the truth, I’m terrified. I don’t have enough money to buy toilet paper, pens, or laundry detergent, all of which I’m close to running out of. But I have to have faith it will all work out. The tour job is a huge step in the right direction.<\/p>\n Thanks for reading. Back tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ll start off with a couple of Downtown food recommendations that were shared with me yesterday. The hiring manager who I interviewed with told me she’d been to Supper Club on 2nd recently and had a great experience there. She recommended it highly. I have not had a chance to check it out yet. Sounds … Continue reading “I got offered a job! … + Wednesday news”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26867,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863\/revisions\/26867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n