my rutland job[s]

Everyone always seems to be talking about the lack of jobs in Rutland or at least the lack of good jobs. I realize I've been blessed with a fairly privileged life and my parents priority was always education. My family and husband have always supported my crazy ideas and overactive imagination, allowing me to follow my dreams in any direction. So, where are all the jobs and why can't millennials seem to find them? I searched long and hard and applied for anything and everything so maybe I just have good luck or good timing? I'm not totally sure but here is my personal experience with finding jobs in Rutland. 

I graduated from Ithaca College a semester early in 2009 with a B.S. in Communications Management and Design (fancy for marketing, leadership and graphic design). Many of my classmates were taking any job they could to pay their student loans, a significant number of them not related to their degree. My husband (then fiance) and I made the move to Rutland in December 2010 after he also applied for jobs in upstate NY that paid anywhere from $15-25k less than the job he had applied for and taken at Rutland Regional Medical Center. People are shocked when they hear that because most assume that every job in NY pays better than in VT but, for Physical Therapy at least, that's far from the truth. RRMC has also provided us with amazing health benefits that we have not seen elsewhere and even comparable to other local businesses they are pretty extraordinary. 

My mom and I at graduation. A slightly terrifying time for college graduates looking for jobs. But I'm determined and when I want something I go for it and I wanted a job using my degree.

But back to me and my marketing degree and a little history. By my sophomore year in college I had decided that I did not want to move to LA and work in entertainment like many of my classmates had. It's a running joke that LA is owned and run by Parkies (what everyone in Ithaca calls students in the Park School of Communcations). After taking many environmental courses and traveling to Copenhagen for the COP15 United Nations Climate Control Conference, I knew I wanted to use my degree and career to make a difference. I attended SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry for a semester of grad school before we left for Vermont but decided that environmental marketing was not the career path I wanted to take. And hello, VT was full of tree huggers so I'd be good!

Ugh, so young! Our first visit to Rutland when Tom interviewed. Having a chicken of wine at Three Tomatoes.

Moving to Vermont I was honestly scared if I'd find a job related to my degree given how small Rutland was in comparison to Utica, Ithaca, Syracuse and Rochester (everywhere I'd ever lived prior). But by mid-February I was working part time as Community Relations Assistant for Rutland Area VNA and Hospice where my boss took me under her wing to make sure I succeeded. I was managing all areas of graphic design, rebranding all marketing collateral and heading a state wide marketing piece with my manager that is still in existence today 5 years later. My boss taught me the ins and outs of not just the VNA but of the community, making sure I was involved and attending everything I needed to. She'd introduce me to everyone as her prodigy letting them know how amazing I was and to keep an eye out for me. When I applied for my job at RAVNAH I had also applied to about 20 others, a few I knew I wasn't qualified for and many I was over qualified for. 

Laura, my boss from RAVNAH who was at my wedding just 8 months after I started working for her. I'm still not sure she understands what an impact she's had on my career and life. And since I know she'll read this - thanks Laura :)

2 years later I took a full time graphic design position at the Mountain Times newspaper in Killington. As much as I loved my boss at the VNA I knew I needed to push my design to the next level and honestly needed a full time job (I was 30hrs at the VNA). The Mountain Times may be a small town newspaper but it's look and feel was anything but as the new, and young, owners had taken over a few years prior. To say that I grew during my 2.5 years there would be an understatement. Not only did my design skills expand but I had learned what the word deadline actually meant. After 18 months I took it upon myself to go to the owners with a new position for myself as Creative Director and for the next 7 months I worked harder than I ever had before. I was completing projects like the yearly magazine from start to finish, managing layout, content, sales leads based on content and the overall look and feel to really push us to the next level. I loved my job but crazy deadlines and not always predictable hours were becoming hard now that I was pregnant with our second son. As I sat in my publishers office in January 2015 telling her I had to give my 2 weeks notice, I'm pretty sure it took me 10 minutes to get it out through all of the tears. I still tear up thinking about that day as I left some of the best friends I had since coming to VT, amazing people that argued like family but would do anything for one another - something I truly feel you can only find in a small Vermont city like Rutland. And how lucky I was that not once, but twice, it was exceptionally hard for me to leave a job because I loved my coworkers and managers that much.

This was my baby while at The Mountain Times. It pushed me to my creative limits and is still one of my favorite pieces.

Two weeks later (and 25 weeks pregnant) I started my current job at Heritage Family Credit Union as AVP of Marketing. The salary and benefits along with the more predictable work hours had, at first, been the main reason I switched jobs. In all honesty I had no idea what a credit union was prior to being hired and had assumed it was a type of bank. As I quickly learned, all credit unions are a non profit, cooperative financial institution that were founded to help the under-served in its communities. Remember my short lived time in grad school? Well my thesis was to be about social responsibility and the effects of climate change on the under-served populations of the US. My inner hippy couldn't contain itself as I'd found a career in my field where I was also helping to make a difference.

Working at HFCU has pushed me in a direction career wise I didn't think was possible. Getting involved with the community on a more meaningful level, allowing me to professionally develop beyond what I thought possible. 

So in 5 years I have managed to have 3 jobs, using my degree in the so called city that doesn't have any jobs, in a time when many companies needed to cut their marketing department in the rest of the US. Did I work hard, of course I did. Did I make sacrifices, take salaries that were far less than what I had paid for a single year at Ithaca, you bet. I went in taking what I could get but put my stamp on everywhere I was, pushing the envelope and pushing my companies to do bigger and better things. I had a degree, I had knowledge and I wanted my companies to use it, to benefit from it and to hopefully make lasting changes.

Just a little plug for the National Credit Union Marketing award we won this year :) 

I cannot speak for other industries, but I have seen some amazing professional jobs available in Rutland. And the most amazing thing about the Rutland workforce is that they want their young employees to succeed, they push their young professionals to do more and be better. When they find someone willing to work hard, they see their future and foster those relationships, even if it means letting them go on to bigger and better things.

Find what you want and go get it, be willing to make sacrifices and work hard. The right job is out there, it's in Rutland, now you have to go get it.

end of year house update

I figured I should give you all an update before the year is over. Selling, buying and renovating our new house has by far been our biggest adventure of 2016 and I must say I'm a little happy we're finally at the tail end of it all.

This post will be a lot of pictures so here ya go and happy new year!

 

Our cabinets came in [that's the new island] so it was time to deconstruct and have them install two days later [we were going to install ourselves but for $300 it was worth it!].

Cabinets everywhere!

Two days with no cabinets is not as fun as it seems...

And the boys thought this was their jungle gym :/

Love at first sight! Thanks to Kitchen Encounters!

Left our mark before attaching the island - hopefully when we sell [very far in the future] those owners don't want to remove the island since this is in sharpie :)

Everyone is a helper now.

Finally tiling our bathroom that has been without a toilet or a sink since we moved in.

 

So black grout for your first grout job may not be the best idea...

But we love it :)

And it's done! First room in the house to be 100000% finished!

 



And the plywood countertops are still there but that should change in 3 weeks for a grand total of about 11-12weeks with no countertops.



We love our slate colored stainless steele GE appliance - thanks Best Appliance for all the help!

 

Added lights over the island [they weren't there before so we had to run new lines] and over the dining room table [we've since shortened the rope]. The house is soooo bright now!

Holy crap we have molding! We now have molding on the entire first floor minus the bedrooms [that will get finished up in the next two weeks] and now all we have to do is fill in the nail holes and paint another coat - yeah that could be awhile!

In case you were wondering what has kept us going the past 3 months! Plus logging ALOT of running miles too!

We finally got around to painting the entryway.

 

From this angle we look like the house is totally put together - just don't look to the right!

And will finish it off with a cute 1.5yr old who is playing with his sleeping brothers legos that say they are for 4-7yr olds :)

the rutland i know [and have learned to love]

I realize I'm technically an outsider and am certainly not a "Vermonter" by local standards so my point of view is vastly different from those who were born and raised here.

So often I hear locals complaining about how Rutland was once this great small city with no drug problems or crime. Honestly, I think every town and city, big and small, says the same thing. Our populations have grown and changed drastically over the past few decades. We have access to information at our fingertips and even the smallest happenings are posted all over the internet - something that was impossible a few decades ago since you can only fit so much into an hour of news or in a newspaper. I do believe that drugs are a national issue and unfortunately Rutland has seen this epidemic first hand.

However, I will say that as an "outsider" [ who has lived in cities such as Syracuse, Utica and Rochester, NY ], Rutland is an extremely safe city. As a runner I feel safe running any street in the city and often run through the "gut." There were streets in Syracuse and Rochester where I knew I shouldn't go and never did because my life would actually be in real danger. Tom went for a run in Syracuse while I was living there and got extremely lost. He was yelled at and mocked while running down streets he could tell were not safe and he was actually scared. He came back having run 5:30minute miles and when he told people the streets he had run on they were scared for him.

The streets in Rutland are fairly well maintained and yes there are some boarded up houses but for the most part the lawns are mowed and people wave. An older runner once told me that you can tell if a street is safe or not based on how many lawns are mowed - not sure if any other runner follows this standard but I do and I've never been down a Rutland street where a majority of the houses have hay fields out front. Actually, the only time I have ever not felt 100% safe while running in Rutland [ on a lonely back country road, not in the city ] was because I had watched too many Criminal Minds episodes and thought "a farmer could feed me to his pigs right now and no one would hear me scream." Trust me, your mind would go there too if you were running 10 miles on a single back country road in rural Vermont!

Every city and town has their problems but it's how we deal with them that defines us. Rutland is by far the most supportive place I have ever lived. We all want to see it continue to improve and everyone is there to help. Most people live near their families so they have help when and if they need it which was a huge concern of mine when we started our own family 3 hours away from our hometown. But ya know what, Rutland has been there for us through every up and down - Rutland has become our family when we've needed them the most. Rutland has made us feel like we are in fact Vermonters through and through. We moved here for jobs and have stayed for the Vermont lifestyle which Rutland embodies perfectly.

Running through Downtown Rutland.

Running down Grove St from McKinley Ave is by far my favorite stretch of Rutland to run.

Why We Transplants Love Rutland

I love lists so here's another one. It's an I love Rutland list similar to the one Steve Costello wrote that went viral a few months ago. Mine may not be as eloquent but here goes nothing.

 

 I love Rutland from the view of a transplant.

1. It's in Vermont. We love Vermont. Win win.

And now, in no specific order the rest of the list!

2. Downtown. To a native NYer it's quintessential VT with beautiful buildings. The businesses downtown have grown exponentially since we moved here 5 years ago and we try to frequent them as much as possible. It has everything you could want in a downtown and more.

3. Palms square cheese pizza extra crispy. Us NYers are picky pizza eaters and this is one of the best.

4. RRMC. It has provided my husband with a job that he loves. When we first moved here the HR dept was beyond helpful with helping us find housing and even helping me find a job. The hospital is a cornerstone of the community and just keeps getting better.

5. Roots the Restaurant Grilled Caesar Salad. I honestly dream about this salad daily it's so amazing. I am a vegetarian though and wacky salads are my thing, but then again so is ice cream and pizza. But this salad, yep, it's the best.

6. Hop n Moose. They may have beat us to the punch of being the first brewery in Rutland (owning a brewery is our pipe dream) but they have some stand out beers - my favorite is Head Doctor!

7. Dancing with the Rutland Stars. I may be biased since I'm on the committee but it is a fantastic event that raises funds for a fantastic organization (Kids on the Move). It is a sold out show that is guaranteed to entertain all!

8. Halloween parade. We've been going since before we had kids and it's easily the best parade we've ever been to.

9. Paramount Theatre. They have world class acts and each year is better than the last. I can't even begin to list all of the acts they've had that you wouldn't think would make it to little ole Rutland.

10. Friday night summer series. 3 Friday's in July Center Street is closed off and restaurants and bars open into the street and fantastic music acts perform. It's transformed over the years into more of an adult event but we take the kids down and have a quick bite and drink outside.

11. Art in the park. It's twice a year in Main Street park and all of the exhibitors are great. I've purchased some of my favorite jewelry there and have gone every year.

12. Killington summer concert series. Not the city but still Rutland County, this is a ton of fun and the kids love it since they can run around and dance and not bother anyone.

13. The Bakery. This addition to downtown has everything and the employees are amazing. Everything they make is sooo good and when I walk in every Monday the baristas always knows I need a red eye!

14. The parks. There are so many parks in Rutland and, at least for us, they are all in walking distance and our kids love them all.

15. Whites Pool. It's in the process of being rebuilt to open in 2017 and it's going to be like nothing else in Rutland. We took Finn there when he was a baby and it was always filled with kids and families and is just an all around great place.

16. Fruition Fineries and Raw Honey. My favorite dress and sweater come from Fruition and my favorite jeans from Raw Honey. Rebecca is beyond helpful whenever I'm in and always pulls exactly what I didn't know I wanted!

17. Rutland Rec Halloween 5k. So I kind of love Halloween especially now that we have kids and I can force my family to dress in ridiculous themed costumes. So this 5k is perfect and a ton of fun and a great course through the city.

18. Hops on Top. Again, I'm biased but I do have the backing of at least 500 people. A beer fest with a view and some of the best beers there are. It's seriously one of the best events in the area and is a step up for Rutland for sure. You will not want to miss it!

19. Veggie burgers at Table 24. Even if you aren't a vegetarian, these burgers are amazing. We travel a lot and have eaten our fair share of veggie burgers and nothing compares.

20. Hope. Super cheesy but the Young Professionals (I'm admittedly not a member of the official Rutland Young Professionals but this is directed at ALL YPs in the area) in Rutland have more hope and passion for our small city than anyone I know. They/we know how amazing Rutland is and want everyone else to feel it too. We know Rutland is kick ass, now everyone else needs to figure it out too!

Another Vermont Weekend(s)

And just like that life takes over and my poor blog is neglected. Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been doing some freelance work and then we went to the Cape for a small vacation where I ran a half marathon I've been training for.

Sooo, here is a little update:

We have awesome friends that let our 2 year old drive an excavator as they put an addition on their house.

Declan loves Long Trail Brewery as much as we do! It's a summertime staple for us with their amazing outdoor space right on the water.

White's playground is just down the street and is easily the best playground in the city!

The hospital and 802 GO put on an awesome event for kids where they helped plant pumpkins and sunflowers behind the hospital.

We were able to take home a shovel and some seeds and we actually planted the sunflower seeds once we go home. 

The Rutland Rec Department took their awesome wooden playset to the event as they do most city events.
The kids LOVE it and it's one of the best attractions wherever they show up.