Erica shares how she found new passions in quarantine
The saying in Client Success is “no one goes to school to work in CS”, and it’s true. We all have a uniquely special story that led us to working at Indeed, more specifically, working in Client Success at Indeed, and I am no exception to that.
After several jobs utilizing my degree, I found myself lacking fulfillment, and pursued a position in CS at Indeed. It was so special to find a company that not only valued the need for a work-life balance, but also constantly provides training on emotional intelligence, how to communicate properly to certain types of people, and a litany of other things.
Making the most of quarantine
It’s because of Indeed’s intrinsic values as a company that I am able to move upwards in professional life, to check off huge bucket list items from my life goals and pursue my personal dreams in my free time. When the pandemic hit back in March of 2020, it hit me very hard.
As an extremely extroverted person, it was difficult being alone and at home so much, but I tried to make the best of our situation and picked up a long forgotten hobby — reading.
In 2020, I read about 300 novels, give or take. Where most people spent their free time watching every show on Netflix or scrolling through Instagram, I put my phone down and picked my Kindle up. It sounds insane to read that many books in a year, but going from traveling every weekend to bored out of my mind with nowhere to go, it helped me get through each day. After reading about 100 books, I said to myself, “I think I could write a book.” Then I did.
Why not write a book?
My first “book” I wrote in quarantine was a dystopian fantasy, and it was terrible. I stopped about half way through and tabled it indefinitely. Chalked up the loss as a lesson to learn from. “Don’t write a book out of order, write it chronologically, chapter to chapter.”
My second go at writing was much smoother. I approached it differently. I had a stronger game plan, a full summary to work off of, and a few first-time novelist lessons under my belt from my previous attempt. The words flew from out of me, and I completed the novel in about 2 months of writing.
One of the strongest parts of my novel is the dialogue between characters and I attribute that to my personal communication skills. The way we effectively communicate to clients without muddling the message is the key to my success at Indeed. Having that emotional intelligence, ability to work through difficult conversations, work with others who solve problems differently than yourself were all things I pulled from my experience around my work at Indeed and with my clients.
Freedom to pursue my passions
The work-life balance and ability to work remotely has made it possible for me to pursue more activities and hobbies in my free time while also being able to dedicate time to focus on my job as well. With the book titled “Flight Risk” on its path to self-publishing (should be on sale on Amazon soon), I also joined up with two friends to create a comedy book podcast to chat about our favorite reads.
We created the podcast as a way for us to bring a little bit of laughter and light into the darkness of the quarantine. Little did we know, the podcast would blow up and we’d get listeners from over 80 different countries around the world with over 16,000 Instagram followers!
It was such a dark year, but the time I spent working towards professional and personal goals, then actually being able to reach them, has made it all worthwhile. I’m very excited for what the future brings for me as a writer, podcaster, and Team Lead in Enterprise at Indeed!
Read more Indeedian stories on the #insideindeed culture blog.
