TechLatte: Cheryl Marquez

Learn how AI can help you create a month of content in a few hours

You are here: Home / Blogs

I went to work to take a break from job searching

Job searching is a full-time job, I had to go to the office today to take a break! First, I search for a job, look for which resume to send (product management or marketing), craft memorable sometimes witty cover letter. Then repeat process. Initially, I was keeping a spreadsheet of who I contacted, the date, the email address of the recruiter or hiring manager, salary range, and any other notes. This didn’t last long because after writing several cover letters, I was exhausted and forgot about my spreadsheet.


I have a new tactic, search Twitter for jobs, look on Mashable for new ideas and technology, see if any of those companies are hiring.


Plus follow up and follow through with friends and colleagues who have mentioned an opportunity to me. Here are my pros/cons and action list of what to do after finding out you are part of the workforce optimization (layoff) program.


Pros:
  • Free to explore the next big thing
  • Time to think about what I want to learn
  • Freedom to check out other companies
  • Time to chill out and have the government pay for my vac…maybe not this one, the gov isn’t paying enough

Cons: 



  • Liked the team I was on and the people I worked with a lot – this is probably a pro if I wasn’t leaving
  • Liked the job content and the frenetic pace
  • Not having income
Here’s a list of things I needed to do in order to score the next big gig. I like lists, they make me happy. Feel free to borrow or use these ideas in your big job hunt, use your own URLs cause we don’t want you to post my links and then I will get the job of YOUR dreams.
  1. Find and update resume
  2. Schedule meetings with hiring managers within HP
  3. Schedule live editing review of my resume with colleagues (great idea Brian!)
  4. Sign up for Women 2.0’s Startup Weekend in San Francisco 
  5. Search Plaxo, Linkedin, and cool companies for opportunities which sound fun and exciting
  6. Edit online presence
  7. Add content to Linkedin:  www.linkedin.com/in/cherylmarquez
  8. Create Twitter account: www.twitter.com/cherylmarquez to tweet during Startup Weekend
  9. Create Youtube account to create video blogs about job hunt, life, love, and other adventures
  10. Brainstorm and visualize the ideal solution


Feb 9: 1st night in Barcelona & review of Santa Maria Restaurant in El Born

Feb 9, 2008: Travel to Barcelona
I just arrived in Barcelona and lucky me, got upgraded to business class on my flight from SFO to London without my knowledge. The gentleman next to me and his wife paid $500 more for each of those tix…all this travel for work I FINALLY get free upgrades, yay!

Anyway, I arrive in Barcelona 24 hours after I leave San Francisco and I have to say this has been the best flight to Europe in the last 2 years. Baggage claims went without a hitch, no line at the taxi stand, and arrived at my hotel fairly quickly. I gave my colleague a call and said we should have dinner at Santa Maria Restaurant because I saw it on Rachael Ray’s vacation to Barcelona, fortunately I sent him the link via IM when I thought of it in California because the concierge couldn’t find the restaurant online.

Santa Maria Restaurant
Calle Comerc 17, Barcelona 08003
Numero: +34 93 315 12 27

It is an Asian Catalan fusion restaurant in the El Born area of Barcelona with innovative food. We had a 30 minute wait that we put to good use by having drinks at the bar, I had a limonade with anise liquor, I would recommend that you get the limonade suiza that we got with dinner, it is served with a mint leaf and doesn’t have the black licorice flavor as the one with the anise liquor.

Once seated we ordered the “menu disgutacion” which basically is a tasting menu of the restaurants specialties. Their foie gras is excellent, the outside is crispy and it melts in your mouth. We also had the fried frog legs, which I normally wouldn’t order if it wasn’t part of the tasting, was light, crunchy, and flavorful (I really enjoyed it). As part of the menu you get mussels which are smaller than the kind we get in the United States, however, the mussels have a sophisticated flavor and melt in your mouth texture. The most innovative thing on the menu was the “Dracula” dessert. It’s basically a creme anglaise (mousselike custard) with frambuesas (raspberries), with a whipped sort of topping, the waiter recommends that you scoop all the way to the bottom. The surprise in this dessert is that you hear a popping sound when you scoop to the bottom, this is from the hidden ingredient of pop rocks! It’s actually pretty good and the pop rocks popping in your mouth makes this dessert experience memorable. The only thing that I didn’t like was the citrus merengue cafe dessert, everything else, including the vegetables (vegetal in Catalan) was very good, of course no dinner in Barcelona is complete without a little vino. We ordered the house vino tinto (red wine), in general most of the wines I’ve had in Spain are pretty good and fairly inexpensive.

To digest some of the food, you can take a walk to the Museu de Zoologica, it was closed after dinner but a good way to let the food go down a little bit before heading back to the hotel.

I’ll be posting pics soon, I didn’t bring my camera, I have pics of the food and the restaurant.

Sunday: Fira de Barcelona – setting up the booth for Mobile World Congress, yes the unglamorous part of the job.