Speaking Of...

I just think DW wants me out of the house.

I've become a real homebody. It goes back to the early days of COVID but it started getting worse after I got laid off from my job.

In a way, losing my job was a godsend. I had an idea for a book I wanted to write but a full-time job was going to make it a long and stressful challenge. "If I can only find the time," I said to DW when I told her my idea.

The very next day, I was laid off. As soon as my online meeting was over, I turned to DW, who happened to be walking by my desk as I received the news, and said, "It looks like I have that time to write that book."

Speaking of that book, Dark Water is still with a publishing company that showed an interest in my query and asked for the manuscript. I expect it will take time for the publisher to get through what I can imagine are the many stories that people have submitted. I also know the publishing company is in the midst of releasing a compilation of mysteries, so that's probably taking a lot of attention.

When I know more, you'll know more.

I've only been laid off twice in my life. I was working as a technical writer for Corel, a job I liked with a product that I actually used—WordPerfect—before I was hired. I would still be working there today, had they not asked me to leave.

When Motorola Solutions let me go, I wasn't sad. For almost 19 years, I was writing about virtually the same product, or line of products, and it wasn't something that particularly interested me. Yes, I believed in the product‐software and hardware for 9-1-1 call centres—but I never got excited about it.

I did my job well and believe I was well-respected by my peers, but the job brought me no joy. I was actually starting to count the days before I could retire.

When I was laid off from Corel, I was still fairly young. I had a mortgage, a child, and car payments. The motivation to find work, fast, was overwhelming.

A colleague suggested that I join Toastmasters, a public-speaking club. He said it was a great way to boost my confidence and to network. It would teach me skills that would be helpful in interviews, something that I seriously needed (I blew an interview, two days after getting laid off from Corel, because I was still shell-shocked and couldn't get my head around being suddenly unemployed).

Toastmasters was great. I found my voice and overcame one of my weaknesses, which might shock some of you and always makes my friends laugh: I'm morbidly shy.

Yeah, sure, I can talk in a gathering and command attention. I sing to strangers in public. I've done stand-up comedy. I put myself out there, in this blog and on my YouTube channel.

But speaking to a stranger, one-on-one or in a small group, I shut right up. I don't know how to start a conversation with someone I've just met.

Toastmasters helped me overcome that shyness, to some degree.

I was a member of Centretown Toastmasters for nine years and gave more than 50 speeches. I became a member of the executive committee: mostly, VP of Education but also president of the club. And I mentored many new members.

I left Toastmasters after I had nothing left to say. Or rather, I had taken all of the paths that I wanted to take and didn't want to take any others. I no longer wanted to be on the executive team, so I left the club around the same time that I started The Brown Knowser blog.

After leaving Motorola, I took the time that I needed to write Dark Water. With no job to take up my days and leave me mentally drained in the evening, I was able to write the first draft in no time. It took me many more months of re-writes and edits before I would consider the book publisher-ready, but by September of last year, I promised DW that I would start to look for work again.

It was then that I applied for EI and started searching job sites. I'm still looking.

When looking for work, it was hard to find documentation jobs within 50 kilometres of home. I applied to a few but never received a call for an interview, save that one time I was interviewed by an AI bot.

I never received an invitation to a follow-up interview.

I started looking for other jobs, outside of writing, but I've only been interested in jobs that I feel would bring me joy. I worked far too long at Motorola where I didn't feel a sense of joy.

I seem to spend many hours, each day, sitting at my desk. I look on job boards but there's not much. I applied to one job as a photographer but the résumé that I submitted was heavily focused on my writing skills (though, I did give them a link to my Flickr account, which shows my photos).

I should create a résumé that focuses on my photography skills and experience.

Now that I'm a year into making myself available on the job market, DW suggested that I should return to where I could network. After all, getting out at karaoke nights got me to the background acting gigs that I've been doing. She said that returning to Toastmasters will get me out there, where I can maybe find someone who can help me find work.

Last week, after more than 15 years, I returned to Toastmasters.

I didn't return to Centretown Toastmasters. It's out of my way and parking was always an issue. Instead, I decided to check out the club in my neighbourhood, Barrhaven Toastmasters.

I arrived about 15 minutes before the start of the meeting, and happened to follow the person who had the keys to the clubhouse and would be setting up the room. I helped him set up the tables and learned that he had only been a member for six weeks.

The members were welcoming and I learned that there were quite a few newbies. There were a few hiccups with the meeting, as people were learning their parts, but overall it was a good experience, coming in rusty.

I participated in their Table Topics segment, where you are asked a question, based on the theme of the evening, and you have no time to prepare an answer. You must talk no less than one minute and no longer than two.

In truth, the question I was asked was easy to answer: the theme was 'resilience' and the question was, "You've made a big mistake. What do you do about it?" The challenge was to give a thoughtful answer that would take, ideally, 90 seconds to answer.

The brain is a funny thing: it remembers patterns, no matter how long it's been since you last saw the pattern. Or when you followed the pattern.

I learned long ago that in Table Topics, you answer the question directly, which can take only a few seconds. Next, you follow up with a story or anecdote that illustrates your answer. Finally, you summarize the answer.

While I remembered the pattern, I don't think I executed it as smoothly as I would have at the peak of my Centretown Toastmasters days. I rambled a bit, back-peddled, and repeated myself a couple of times. But I answered the question, gave an anecdote, and summarized my answer in one minute and 14 seconds.

The room votes for the best Table Topics speaker and the winner receives a ribbon.

Yeah, I won the ribbon that night.

I liked this club. The members were welcoming and there's a great diversity in the people who attended. It's also five minutes away from home.

But I'm not sure if I'll make it my home club. There's a branch that meets at the Bells Corners Legion Hall, to which I'm a legion member. I'll check it out, later this week.

I also checked out the Kanata branch, which meets on Thursdays, but half of their meetings are online and I'm not interested in video meetings. For me, I feel that Toastmasters is seeing people face-to-face, to step out of your comfort zone.

I can feel at ease, sitting at my desk, at home, and can often find distraction. I think the temptation to drop off a meeting, if you're not fully engaged, in person, could be too great.

It's the reason I didn't join a writing club.

But visiting the Kanata club was disastrous. The Toastmaster seemed to wing the meeting, missing items on the agenda. People talked overtime, and the Table Topics questions, which are supposed to encourage impromptu speaking, were all centred on a single question. It was easy to formulate an answer before I was asked to participate.

I won the Best Table Topics award again, by the way.

There were too many factors that made me say no to this branch but I'll keep looking. Toastmasters was good for me in the past and I hope it will be good for me again.

I'm hopeful that Toastmasters will once again re-energize me. I hope that I can make new friends and gain new contacts, possibly people that can help me find a job that brings me joy.

And for DW, it'll at least get me out of the house.