CDTalent Enterprises

Adding a strong, sweaty, twenty minutes of thumping a tennis ball against a blank wall Sunday evening to the above list, it would still be a sincere wish to America and its varied people about actively enjoying these last four days even more than that.

At times the relentless pounding of political negativity and Us/Them division on everything has to take a break, and a good time with friends always seems to provide such healing moments. Brother Mike saying Wednesday that he’d gotten tix for corporate luxury box treatment for a Charlotte Knights game, plus obvious post-game fireworks, raised the long weekend a couple notches.

Telling maybe ten kids that this would be the fireworks they’d compare tired, one shell-one more-pause-one, two more to string it out events for years, was 100% sincere enthusiasm.

You have to give attaboys! to WBT radio for sponsoring an outstanding, full-bore thirty minute display, one that hit every expectation morning host Ramona raised in saying it was going to be the best in the Southeast. Coming after a sell-out crowd of over 10,000 saw the home team win in their last at bats, with all the extras of being so close to refreshments and players, this celebration of the 4th was a sneaky fastball – more than you’d expect, coming at you strong.

Yep, hope you got a bunch of that over four days. If you want to (literally) water down that attitude by being glad Trump’s parade got rained on, this is ‘Merica, you can still say things like that out loud.

Was USWNT and World Cup win a shared experience?

Admitting to having a ton of pride in how this team carried itself, so strong and confidently, was reflected in the wonderful advertising that wrapped around these warriors and the younger generation of girls they inspired. Count on seeing more daughters with purple ‘dos in the near future, and that Big – Bigger deal, with Alex Morgan giving a youngster her jersey as *just* the Big, congrats to every talent person involved in ALL of them.

Working remotely, it was a guilty pleasure to have the games – all of the World Cup was worth watching – on in background of laptop these past few weeks. That several people at the baseball game said the company had screens for games going during the work day, that makes predictions of  women’s soccer REALLY blowing up a fact.

The smart $$$ is already in on it, not still waiting for success to happen. VW giving their ad time up to let things roll regarding the team? That’s what we’re talking about!

Working on content for a CBD oil company this year, there’s an analogy in how the legal hemp industry has gone wild over that particular molecule, with expectations of becoming a $20 billion market in three years. As terrific as the US women’s ‘Golden Generation’ has been, this fourth Cup was forged over time – but with a very similar trajectory going forward.

How the equality in pay lawsuit goes, that’s news for another day. Soon, but not before Wednesday.

First, America has a big ol’ parade to show off it’s pride in what pulling together, loyalty, well-honed skills and enough Attitude to strike a pose looks like – or have a sip of tea if the moment seems right – when all the brights lights are on.

During a recent run as a content creator in an SEO-focused area of a CBD manufacturing company,  all the research kept showing how far hemp/CBD oil had come while quickly morphing into a product sector.

How much online information there is about a LOT of things – monetizing writing skills draws me – is like tapping Will Smith’s SHAZAM! genie for assistance, with less craziness.

Having read plenty of online material about CBD and ‘less than 0.3% THC industrial hemp’ over several months, it’s been chillingly good to develop a handful of online possibilities related to writing style and  experience, in exactly the same way.

Having a beer for lunch while you work the proposal systems? Not a problem.

Post-college (for me), you were expected to blanket the world with resumes about experience you didn’t have, today its keywords and SEO. Face-to-face with an employer is still desirable, but three consistent days on a keyboard can set up a future course in bigger ways, and your doggie is the only one seeing you work.

When your materials (like PDFs and links) are set – let’s add ‘interesting’ cover letters for the heck of it – and you followed submission directions, qualifying oneself with four good prospects in a couple half-day sessions could become a kickin’ week towards achieving quality critical mass.

Commission-based companies promote a ‘You want it, go get it!’ mantra, set at high levels. You’re working for yourself in The Gig Economy – conduct yourself accordingly about wanting.

There are a plethora of help sites of course, but without schilling, I like FlexJobs. It kicks butt with results, quantity and quality possibilities, support functions are out the wazoo, and its a super-reasonable price.

Boomers to the rescue?

There are still problems with the recruiting process,  and thankfully, more awareness of ageism as diversity, a topic for another day. Employers think tech-kids know all the latest tricks, BUT… that talent thing doesn’t disappear when silver foxes appear in the hairline.

It’s no lie to say experience and perspective still counts. 

Ask a Boomer, the Forever Young generation. We’re not all DeNiro, starting a late career as ‘The Intern,’ but while the Great Recession messed up a lot of Boomers timing on retirement, some of us never intended to go quietly into that good night. 

If you recognize some of your professional skills are actually sub-par though, online is a great teacher, my Boomer brethren. Checking what the market looks like is legitimate. At many points we all probably got “what the position paid,” and in Charlotte, NC, the going rate for content creators is almost $56k,  about 6% less than the national average.

My first gig of the year produced just under 25% of that. I’ll be conducting myself appropriately going forward.

Glenn Shorkey

The acquaintance that asked how things were going on the second book and other writing projects I’d mentioned last time we met was the difference maker, bless her soul.  Admitting I’d gotten – if not actually fat, very definitely lazy – about handling my personal blogging and project follow-up, was a thwap! in the back of the head.

Now that Awareness is right-er, Action is following.

It’s not like my thoughts are the second coming of the Mueller Report (un-redacted and with all supplements), and the world’s been waiting these past few months to hear from me. I did a 3,000 word guest post on world waste and recycling along the way though. Just sayin’…

Content creation is my forty hours a week job now, and economically I’m glad to have bennies, regular auto-deposits, and PTO! that I’m going to use some of for a golf outing this Friday. Still, blogging is not brain surgery, just a matter of discipline. I’ll stow any excuses about change in schedules, and state positively that I’ll never go this long again without doing MY blog.  Twice a week actually, count on it.

Absolutely nobody else to blame for non-production. Guilty, history now, mea culpa, Next.

* * * * *

Memorial Day weekend is my anniversary in Charlotte, although its a week earlier this year than when I actually landed here, back in 1995. I’ve got a concert date at the National White Water Center next weekend, and if the great weather we’re finally getting cooperates, I expect a great deal of psychic satisfaction coming.

Over the last couple months I’ve enjoyed getting a bunch of such satisfaction. Socially the Queens Cup Steeplechases last month were truly All That, and volunteering my communications skills for three scholastic events with the Community in Schools program was ‘social capital’ well spent.

I don’t really know if anybody got inspired during 3-25 minute talks at Career Day about my being a Writer, but one simple truth I mentioned was, the most important thing I ever wrote was my LinkedIn profile. After years of using it as an electronic resume, changing to a 1-1, tell-the-story-of-Glenn style produced a job offer in ten days, which was a terrific way to start 2019.

Having made a connection with a leader in the Marketing area of my company, I had the opportunity to discuss the benefits of our CBD oil company relative to a super organization called TEAM RUBICON. TR is about ‘veterans and kick-ass civilians’ doing disaster relief missions all over the country and world. It involves lots of intense physical labor, and I suggested our RECOVER product might be an element that would be greatly appreciated and (hopefully) have some PR value.

We’ll see how that rolls. I’m trying to help the world with some bigger stuff too, y’know?

Whether or not my golf game comes through in Friday’s captains choice format – three good putts can make you a hero – hey, its a PAID day off. It’s a specious analogy, but I haven’t put any effort into that golf area in a lot longer than I haven’t written a blog.

I may fix that practice thing after taking Mom to church though.

Writing is often about personal pride, and it definitely isn’t always about the money. I’m working on the Next One Thing though, and I promise it won’t take all summer to figure it out and let you know the results.

To all our veterans – and I told this to a couple active duty people in the tent at the Hotwalkers Ball for post-Queens Cup par-tayh! – the collective ‘We’ appreciates your service, and individually you are all loved by many.

Glenn

First off, I’m not a Grinch-type, nor do I have an attic full of ornaments and lights and reindeer waiting to be planted on the front lawn. I have yet to try peppermint latte, and while I have a red stocking hung by the chimney with care, its more because my Dad made them for all four boys about 1,000 (okay, 50-something) years ago, with our names in felt and a glittery star at the toe. Putting it up is a reminder how we– and I include family and the many, many friends he treated so kindly– miss his cookies and good cheer. Like Santa Claus, everybody liked Dad.

Several cousins are coming to visit this holiday season, mostly because they want to be with Mom, who at 84 moved to the assisted living side at her senior community at the end of August, but hopefully because we haven’t seen each other in a while. Frank– who was Skip for the first thirty years I knew him– retired this year, and he is financially set to do whatever the heck he wants over the next couple years. He even mentioned going to Minnesota for some *really* cold weather, not something you normally hear from a true Florida Boy. He’s got three terrific kids, as do two of my brothers, Steve and David.

That’s where the ‘Tweener’ thing comes in, because having someone truly special in life to share such times with is way ahead of wondering what you can or should be considering gift-wise. While I could actually use a new basketball, how fully I’ll throw myself into this season of cheer is open to debate. I’ll drink your spiked egg nog, I’m good with any Woman who wants to walk around with some mistletoe and surprise me– hopefully its a worthwhile kiss– and I travel with a small bag of food behind the seat in case I run across someone on a street corner who needs a break from that necessary worry, even for a day. I’ve got six stamps on hand, so a couple people get cards.

Okay, I just signed up for a Hawai’ian pig roast, and my experience on that is, no problem smiling about next Saturday. Brother Steve has an oyster roast on 23rd, and THAT’S always a winner, with enough testosterone–guys only at this event–  to float a battleship. Our church group’s 33rd annual Christmas tree sale ends in a couple days, and that’s been an uplifting experience, too.

The hitch of not being a Grinch– a role that’s soooo easy to slip into– or (overly) Super Positive Person for holidays– is over-thinking the Why not? that kind of comes with being a single guy, mistletoe or not. Yeah, yeah, I know its supposed to be about the Christ child’s birth, Peace on Earth-Good Will towards Men (and all other categories of humanity), but isn’t there some “What about me?” when you see a hottie elf nuzzling a geeky guy in one of those super-ridiculous tree lights suits? Without being disrespectful of the many who have much less, not having a couple things to open and wow! at someone’s thoughtfulness for getting it (or perhaps a negative if you recognize its a re-gifting with zero thought), that you’re getting the coffee on (as usual) and hanging out till church, football games and dinner is a relative downer.

It doesn’t seem legitimate to protest that things aren’t exactly as you’d want them to be

When brother Dave, Donna, Maria, Curtiss and his wife, Stephanie came down a couple years ago it was a great couple days, and even the recent Thanksgiving I got to participate in with twenty others in Gastonia, with food and beverage aplenty, was a harbinger of why many find the holidays somewhat depressing: It doesn’t last. We watch Trump being good (for Trump, no excessive butthead Twitter-ing, and there’s got to be PLENTY on his pea-pickin’ mind right now) at President George H.W. Bush’s funeral for a couple days, but there’s no doubt in our minds that’s going to change real damn soon, right? You don’t expect a three-year old grandchild to be perfect after the 26th either.

In the bigger picture, it doesn’t seem legitimate to protest that things aren’t exactly as you’d want them to be at a specific time. I pity the millions who will make New Years resolutions for 2019, knowing that 99.7% of whatever weight, job, relationship, economic, personal or altruistic promises they make to the Universe or whomever they’re accountable to in their goal-setting awaits failure. I’ve never worried about ten pounds too much-not tanned enough for swim suit season, never sworn I’d move into a perfect new, high-paying job before New Years. I loved the insurance commercial about Mayhem, who was resigned to doing the mundane safety stuff until he found out resolutions rarely make it very far into the new year, because he could be his regular self, the pressure was off at that point.

Of *COURSE* I’ve asked for the stockings I put in my stocking to be filled appropriately with a desirable Her. What I’m going to be glad about is Mom still recognizing me (most of the time) when I pick her up for church, for Mike, who never asks for the rent money absolutely on time (unless its poker week), and if he fixes the head he broke off the choir boys cutout, I’ll be glad to put it on the porch and put some framing tree lights in the window behind them. I’ll kiss under any mistletoe when prompted, just because. I’ll watch ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ (original version) with spiked egg nog and know I’m not him,  watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and consider whether I’m that kind of difference maker in other peoples lives. I will *never* say “Bah, humbug!”

That it probably only takes getting another good gig work-wise (half a loaf is still good) to brighten things brings HOPE, and isn’t that what the season is truly about? Positive expectations people, and Season’s Greetings! to all who might need a little extra cheering to make it though. I’m not a Grinch, you probably aren’t either. Tweener isn’t *bad*, not with all the alternatives and/or blessings we have to help us over The Small Stuff.

And while you’re up, could you get me another egg nog?