Description:
Bernard the Organizer!!!
Hello, my name is Bernard and I invite you to join me in this new life journey: Professional Organizing. Truthfully, I never planned to be a Professional Organizer. Especially because as a child I hated cleaning and doing chores around the house. Not until my adult years, did I realize how therapeutic organizing is for people. Not only do you benefit by living in an organized home, but the “doing”, and the “organizing” helps compartmentalize, and declutter......
Bernard the Organizer!!!
Hello, my name is Bernard and I invite you to join me in this new life journey: Professional Organizing. Truthfully, I never planned to be a Professional Organizer. Especially because as a child I hated cleaning and doing chores around the house. Not until my adult years, did I realize how therapeutic organizing is for people. Not only do you benefit by living in an organized home, but the “doing”, and the “organizing” helps compartmentalize, and declutter the thoughts in your head like, family, work, expenses etc. (But I digress.)
My early years growing up, I quickly realized that I had a very philanthropic family. Many of my family members have dedicated themselves to some type of social service career. Even today, it feels like everyone in my family is some type of Social Worker. It should come as no surprise that I myself also eventually became a Social Worker. (Copycat, I know!!!) For 17 years, I worked for non-profit organizations with lofty missions to save the world. Yep, I was that guy the “do-gooder” with a new pair of single vision rose-colored glasses. All jokes aside, my work was fulfilling. Most cases I got the chance to see how my role would positively affect people with real problems get a little closer to self-sufficiency, success, and hopefully happiness. But still I felt as though there was something missing in my life. It would be a while before I would find out what that thing was.
Skip ahead to 2013, I had just accepted a wonderful job offer to work in Washington, DC with one of the largest Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault prevention and advocacy organizations in the country. During this transition, some personal shortcomings regarding my proven ability to not only see the “big picture” for a project but also know every intricate detail from beginning to end started to affect my job performance. It became more and more self-evident to me that my focus was not there, and I was not on my “A” game. I dismissed these episodes, as stress-related events blaming the chaos and stress of the move from Chicago to DC. My role in my new job was project manager, and my core focus was training. However, many times, instead of focusing on the upcoming training curriculum, I would find myself revisiting and revising Pre-Training items such as “room design” or layout. Even post-training, I found myself refusing assistance to transport items to/from the event (packing, shipping, and receiving of all the materials. I could not delegate any tasks because I needed to be certain it was done correctly. Around that same time, I noticed many of those same eccentricities were creeping into my personal life as well.
While in Washington, I was fortunate to make several good friends as well as connections with individuals as professional colleagues. On a few occasions, however I began to see a pattern emerge surrounding invitations by previously mentioned friends and colleagues, to “packing parties” or to help finalize everything in a new apartment. Unbeknownst to me, I had acquired the label of “Eric the Cleaner” by many of my cohorts. true there are worst things to be called, I did feel that this title needed to be laid to rest, and fast!!!
Unfortunately, every time, I tried to let others carry on that mantel I would find myself right back as reigning supreme “cleaner” talking about the energy of the room, Sometimes, I just could not help myself guiding my friends to live in a more fengshui or the chakra positive life.
At the time, I did not have the words for this new interest that was bubbling up inside of me. Mainly, because in 2013, I did not know that Professional Organizing was a thing. A hobby, sure, but not a career.
Ok, now Fast Forward. I moved back to Chicago for 3 years, and now I am back again in Washington, DC. Some might think that I am just trying to avoid a winter snowstorm in the Windy City. Maybe?!? But as I am quickly approaching my 44th birthday. I am still struggling with how to have a healthy work/life balance. And I am totally lost at how to get to a place where I can say that I love my job. Let me reiterate, I am incredibly happy with my tenure in social services. I’ve work with amazing organizations doing amazing work for underprivileged and underrepresented communities. But for MY life, I just knew there was something more. There must be! I need something that would provide a helpful service to the community, but also leaves happiness and joy in my heart with each project. So, I resigned from my job. You will be happy to know that I neatly, and in a highly organized fashion put my social work loafers in the closet and picked up some professional organizer sneakers.
So, what is my plan?
Right now, I am looking for Organizing Assistant positions with Professional Organizing companies in the DMV area. Also, I plan to test, pass, and become a Certified Professional Organizer.
So, follow me and stay tuned! It is my life, so it is certain to be filled with bumps and unexpected turns. Let the journey begin!
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