KirstenL4W

It seems that every now and then I go through a period of restlessness. Every few years, I crave more. I don’t want to be tied to a schedule. I want flexibility. I want to be able to travel more without having to cram it into a weekend. Unfortunately, the way things are, I would have far less money if I were to pursue these wants.

For the most part I enjoy what having a regular schedule and decent job bring. I do remember a time when I was working retail, with hours all over the map, and I wanted more. Ok, not really more. I wanted to sleep at the same time every day, and eat at the same time every day, and not have my meals relegated to 15 minute stuff-your-face breaks. My basic bodily functions needed a schedule.

But then again, there’s the excitement of more that keeps calling me, but I don’t quite know how to reach it.

I read a lot of blogs. I read personal blogs, blogging blogs, home decor blogs, and a bunch of other blogs. I think I would love to be a professional blogger. They say that the best way to make money at this is to find something I’m passionate about. I just don’t know what that is yet. Or I can write what I know. What do I know enough about that other people want to hear?

Sure, I can find a few things that I like. I like home decor. I like blogging. But what would I have to say that hasn’t been said a hundred times before? How would I be able to stand out in these categories? That’s the part I don’t know - what do I love that would hold my interest long enough for me to create a successful blog?

I know I want more. I just don’t know how to go about getting it. In the meantime, I’ll go to work, on schedule (more or less) to a job I enjoy working with people I love, and I’ll continue to blog as a hobby.

I told you how I signed up for the Corporate Challenge, right? Well, yesterday was the bike race. A 12-mile course was marked out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, on the track and all over some parking areas as well.

As the race approached, I knew I wasn’t ready. A co-worker and I have been riding at the Equestrian Park on Saturdays, but that’s only a 2 mile course, and we’ve only been there 3 times. (That’s 6 miles, for those keeping count.) I also went on a bike ride around my neighborhood last week, which was probably 3 miles or so. Since I started “training” for this race (and by training I mean dusting off my bike, pumping up the tires, and getting my overweight, out of shape ass on it), I probably have about 10 miles under my belt. Yeah! I’m ready for a 12 mile race!

Or not.

I was hoping I’d get sick or something over the weekend. I purposely didn’t take any allergy meds so I could help this along. I thought of other ways to legitimately get out of having to ride, because I didn’t want to just flake out. However, my allergies would not cooperate. I even discussed it with my co-worker, who was also riding, and she said to just go slow and have fun. So slow it was.

I started out near the back of the pack, because it took me that long to get checked in and get my bike tagged. Since I was so far back (I think there were about 200 riders), I was pretty beat by the time I reached the start line. Then we went around a curve and hit a nice head wind. Oh, that was fun. Seems like no matter which way the course turned, there was a head wind. I don’t know how the race planner figured that one out, but it was brilliant in an evil sort of way. Then we went up a hill. I had to walk my bike, and by this point I was last. The pilot car bringing up the rear was right behind me. That’s a bit unnerving, riding your bike and having an unmarked van follow you like that.

Anyway, I kept going. I got to the top of the hill, got back on my bike, and just kept pedaling. I pedaled under the grandstand, around a bend, down a hill, across the parking lot, around the bullring, and pretty much wherever I saw cones that marked the course. I was kind of wishing that there were mile markers, because I had no freaking idea how far I’d come or how much further there was left. Somewhere along the way I lost all feeling in my crotch. All I can say is thank goodness I have a cruiser with a nice big seat, because I don’t think I would have made it that far otherwise.

When I got back on to the racetrack, the course attendants were cheering me on. One of them rode alongside me, encouraging me and telling me I could do it. They pointed out the finish line. Woohoo! The end was in sight! I pedaled my little heart out, sucking air like a dying fish, and made it across the line. I wasn’t last - I think there were a couple people after me, but I know that for a long time I was last and I don’t remember passing anyone along the way, so maybe they got lost. But I finished. I finished a 12 mile race, a longer distance that I’ve ridden collectively in my entire adult life.

I was still out of breath when I got home, and I don’t know what my time was, but I figure it was just over an hour. No matter, I was glad that I finished before dark, and I did. I finished the race.

Most nights, I surf the net, rapidly clicking the Stumble button, looking for some sort of inspiration for a blog post.  Most nights end up slumped over my keyboard, still stumbling, no closer to to inspiration than when I started.

Tonight was different.  After finishing up the rounds on my usual hangouts, I clicked the Stumble button just once and happened upon this gem.  It spoke to me.  You see, I used to be a supermarket checker.  A beepeuse.  It was a job that no matter how hard I tried, I kept going back to.

The grocery store was not my first job.  That was in a popular ice cream shop chain at the mall when I was 15.  That was hard work, and towards the end of the summer, when I realized that I totally misunderstood how the whole tip reporting procedures worked, screwing myself out of quite a bit of money, I decided that I was never going to work a tipped job again.  So when I was 17 and the babysitting job I had fell through, I went to the local supermarket - one of the major chains in New England.

I was hired right away, and got to work learning how to bag groceries.  It’s not as easy as it looks, but eventually I got into the groove.  There were all sorts of rules to bagging: pack a square bag so things don’t roll all over the place (this bit is kinda like playing Tetris), pack like items together - no soaps with food, packy leaky meats separately, etc.  Once in awhile you get the customer with a special request.  There was a regular customer who would buy quite a lot of stuff, and want it all in one paper bag, double bagged.  After awhile I think he sought me out because I was the only one who could fit it all in properly.  Another customer would buy about a million of those tiny cat food cans, and wanted each flavor bagged by itself.  At least she was nice and put them up on the belt by flavor so we wouldn’t have to sort through them.

After a few months of bagging, it was on to cashier training.  To prove my worth, I had to take a math test.  It was simple enough - basic arithmetic questions that I could have answered correctly when I was in the third grade.  Then we learned about all the buttons on the registers, codes, and produce.  We had to learn to identify all the produce and pass a 20-item produce test before we were let loose on the customers.  One thing I remember learning, that no cashier seems to know how to do these days, is count back change.  You can’t just tell the customer the total of their change and dump it in their hands.  Count it back to show the customer that you can count and that you’ve got a handle on this cash thing.  Plus, it shows them that you’re being honest and meticulous with their money.  In over 10 years of running a cash register, not once have I had a customer get upset for counting back their change.  Ever, even though it’s a bit slower than dumping their cash at them in one big pile in their hand.

Anyway, I like cashiering, for the most part.  I like scanning - scanning’s my favorite.  (Said with all the enthusiam of Buddy the Elf.)  Customers don’t always pay attention to the bagger, but they will definitely notice how the cashier handles their stuff.  As a cashier, I took more notice of the strange things that people would buy.  For example, older people love bananas.  Put bananas on sale at 19¢ per pound, and watch the frailest old woman in the world buy 30lbs of bananas, along with two bottles of prune juice and a single can of cat food, store brand.  Then, when their order total ends up needing 4 cents in change, they’ll pull out the biggest change purse you’ve ever seen, rummage around in it for a good five minutes, and declare that they haven’t got the change and just take it out of their $100 bill.  Good times.

After a few years, I got promoted to being a checkout assistant, or as Officer Friend liked to call me, The Bitch With The Keys.  Now I was someone!  I got to make change for the checkers, help the managers schedule breaks, make sure we had enough lines open for the number of customers we had, and of course take the brunt of customer’s complaints.  It was stressful at times, but I learned to appreciate the mangement hierarchy.  As a Key Bitch, I’d tell the cashiers that if they ever had the smallest issue with a customer, call me over.  That’s what I was there for.  And I knew that there was only so much I could do, so I would be able to call in the store manager (or manager on duty) to take over for me.

I also got to learn the service desk.  This was interesting because people come up to the desk for all sorts of stuff.  Returning chicken that doesn’t smell right (that was allegedly purchased yesterday and has a sell-by date of 3 months ago).  Western Union.  Check cashing.  Lottery tickets.  Yeah, those were fun.  Especially the Christmas Eve $314 million Powerball.  Do you know how many people got losing lottery tickets in their stockings that year?  And then there was Claire.  Claire (aka “Coupon Claire”) would come into the store and immediately have to make a phone call, using the store phone of course.  She had to call her 90-year-old mother to see if she needed milk.  We’d see her coming and call the checkout just to keep the phone unavailable for her.  The coupon part of her moniker referred to her penchant for coupons.  She’d scour the reduced rack to find things we might possibly pay her to take off our hands and hope for an inattentive cashier.  I was not that cashier, much to her chagrin.

So bagging, cashiering, being the Key Bitch, and working the service desk.  I did a lot at that supermarket.  I also got sick a lot, because a supermarket is the one place that everyone has to go to, and can’t always skip when they get sick.  We’d get customers buying lots of cold remedies and other illness accoutrements, coming in looking like death warmed over.  They can’t stop coughing, and they cough into their hands before handing over their cash.  Can I just say that hand sanitizer is the best thing ever?  When I stopped working at the supermarket, I stopped getting sick every other month.

I kept trying to quit working at the supermarket, but the fates had other plans for me.  I tried other retail jobs, but honestly I didn’t like any of them as much, and the pay was usually better at the grocery store.  I even quit in an effort to get into office work - regular hours, weekends off, a real wardrobe instead of a uniform - and that worked for awhile until I got laid off in late 2001.  So back to the store I went, and because the economy sucked, I had a hard time finding another office job until I sold my house, quit the store for the last time and moved here to Vegas.  I put in over 10 years at various stores in that chain.  And I learned a lot.  Here’s a few things to remember:

Customers:

• Lottery tickets make lousy gifts
• If you are deathly ill, please try not to go to the store and get the staff sick.  Pay someone else to do it for you.
• If you have no intention on using exact change, please don’t go looking for it.
• Spend a little time reading shelf tags.  They all have the item and size listed on them.
• We won’t pay you to go shopping, so watch your coupons.
• If it’s unusually busy (as in, right before a storm), it’s darn near impossible to get extra staff to come in.  Please be patient with us.

Supermarket workers:

• Learn to count back change.  And hand the customer the coins first - don’t just pile it in their hands!
• Pay attention to what you’re bagging.  Do not put a customer’s cake frosting-side down (this actually happened to me when I was shopping once).
•  A smile and a friendly greeting can go a long way, and don’t carry on conversations with your co-workers as if the customer doesn’t exist.

Has anyone else worked in a supermarket?  What did you learn and tips can you pass on?

Well, not by myself.  And not because of any of my knowledge, which is sorely lacking when it comes to all things mechanical.  But Mister had purchased some new rotors, brake pads, ball thingys, and some other parts for his truck, so he spent the weekend replacing all that stuff.  I started my Saturday by unpacking a few more boxes and trying to do some stuff around the house, but eventually Mister wanted some company so I sat and chatted with him and helped by handing him some tools.  Soon, handing tools to him became “hold this” and “bang this in place” and “put that nut in when you can see the hole” and other important, mechanic-type stuff.  And since we didn’t have a lift to put the truck up on, we were rolling around on the (by now) greasy garage floor.  And since we didn’t have power tools, this was all done by hand.

Saturday took a lot longer than Mister estimated with the help of a super high-tech estimating program he has access to for work.  So by Sunday morning, we still had the left front and both back sides to do.  We started out by stopping at Home Depot for one very important power tool that would save much time.  We also happened to buy a range-hood microwave oven, which we were wanting since our house did not come with one, so as soon as that’s installed we can regain some counter space.  (BTW, does anyone in the Las Vegas area need a microwave?)  Anyhoo, back to the truck.  I stayed out and helped Mister all day Sunday, because he likes my company and I’m a great tool-hander-offer and part holder.  Except when I can’t remember the name of the part and I have to scan the entire collection for something to trigger my memory.  And when I don’t know what size wrench or socket he needs for the but or belt he’s pointing to saying “to fit this one.”  We did finally finish, much later than we thought we would, but it’s done.  And we are very sore.

Today I took the day off from work, which after this weekend turned out to be an excellent idea.  I am going through all sorts of things that need doing for my legal name change.  I spent nearly an hour in line at the social security office before they opened, and got the first step towards changing my name done.  Then we went out for breakfast, which was a nice meal out, and because of work and busy or lazy weekends, we don’t eat breakfast out a lot.  After that, Mister and I dropped his truck off for an alignment, and we went to the insurance company so I could get proof of insurance with my new name so that I can change my registration.  Now I’m off to run a couple errands and head to the DMV to get a new ID.  I can’t blog from the waiting area at the DMV, but I’ll bring a book.  The waits there get really long.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

This is what happens when you share happy news about your personal life with your co-workers:

Except for the fact that I don’t like people making a big deal over me, it’s kinda fun.

I don’t often write about work, mainly because I work for Big Company and I don’t want to get myself in trouble for anything that might end up on this blog. But this I have to tell you about (without giving away any major identifying details, of course).

We had what was being sold as a mandatory departmental meeting, being held at an off-site location. Of course, this location was a well-known video game arcade. We were supposed to be doing team-building exercises. Most people I know aren’t keen on these forced fun activities, but hey, it was an afternoon out of the office on their dime, so who cares if we have deadlines!

I headed over to the meeting location and was shown to a room with lots of tables set up, and sat down at a table with the rest of my group.

We found out the meeting was being catered, so we all lined up to fill our plates with yummy fajitas and enchiladas. Good stuff, man. The brownies and eclairs were divine. Oh, and there were drink tickets. We were assigned 2 each, but there was very low security surrounding the tickets, so obtaining more than the alloted 2 drinks was really easy. But, I did have to drive home, so I only had 2 of these, which went perfectly with the Mexican food. Did I mention I have a camera phone? Comes in really hand, let me tell you.

After stuffing our faces, we were let loose in the arcade. We had a list of 10 games in the place, were put into teams, and each team had to have most of its members play every game on there. Each teammate had to play at least 3-4 games. Then there was scoring and shit. Our team ended up tying for 2nd place. Woo hoo!

I’m generally not an arcade person, but since it was for the team, I decided to play. (We had cards for free play, btw.) First up was Indy 500 racing. I came in 1st when racing everyone else on my team, then in the finals came in dead last. It was cool, though, because you sit in this car that moves so you feel all the bumps in the road. They are really hard to handle! But way fun.

Basketball is kind of basic. I got 14 in like, a minute or something. Then it was on to skateboarding. I had no idea what I was doing, but ended up with 34/50 coins, which is pretty decent on the tutorial level, I hear. Ms. Pac Man was easy, since I played that as a kid. The motorcycle one was really hard. I ended up getting lost INSIDE a building on that one. And the pinball game we were supposed to play was broken, so I played another one. Good old fashioned fun! I did skip the Dance Dance Revolution, since I was being a responsible driver and not swiping everyone else’s drink tickets, which would have been the only way you could have gotten me on that game. Also skipped 2 shooting games and the Star Wars one, since I suck at all those kinds of games. All in all, a decent day, even if it was supposed to be for team building. But I do think that mission was accomplished, because we were all put on teams with people we didn’t really know all that well, so I met some people I had never seen before in our department.

Check out these other pictures I took with my camera phone:

Here’s the Coke Bottle from inside the building.

The Lion in front of the MGM Grand.

Snoskred had a great post today about an internet friend who was this close to getting sucked in by a scammer. Although she didn’t lose any money, she lost her kids’ spots at the daycare she works at, which, as anyone who has ever dealt with daycare knows, daycare wait lists are a mile long, so if you lose your spot the kids might be in high school by the time it comes back up.

Since this particular scam involved the job boards (online job postings), and I have some experience in that arena, I wanted to talk about that. Not only have I searched for a job using the major job boards (Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.) but I have also worked in the recruiting industry and it was a daily task to search the boards not only for resumes but also what other jobs were available that were in our specialty.

Having been on both ends of it, I know that there are 2 likely scenarios when you post your resume online. The first one is that you apply for jobs, and a hiring authority from that company either will or won’t call you back to schedule an interview. The second thing that can happen is that you will start getting random emails from people saying that they saw your resume on (insert internet job board here) and they would like you to call to set up an interview.

How Can I Protect Myself?

When you’re looking for a job, the internet is an excellent resource, and that includes the job boards. Many legitimate employers post jobs online, so it’s worth the time to check them out. But be sure of who you’re contacting. When you read the job posting (not just the title in the results), make sure you can identify which company it’s for. The legitimate jobs will usually tell you who they are, so you can do your own research. And if you’ve never heard of them, do a search. This is useful because not only do you want to know who you are applying to, you also want to be armed with information about the company should you be called for an interview.

Also, don’t discount using a recruiter. Never pay a fee to a recruiter, but if they like you and they’re sure they can place you somewhere, they are usually specialists in their field or the industry they recruit for - even the temp agencies, who recruit for clerical, administrative, light industrial and manufacturing. If they’re advertising online, chances are they have plenty of positions, even if the particular job they listed isn’t available. (A side note about Appleone - my personal experience, and word on the street, is that they are “resume farmers.” I don’t know anyone who has had a decent experience with them.) No matter who you apply with, be sure to keep records so you can keep it all straight. If you’re hunting on the boards, chances are you’ve been putting in a lot of resumes. Being organized is a definite advantage here.

Now, since Monster and CareerBuilder, and to some extent HotJobs, are the most popular job boards out there, be aware that there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there paying the fees to be able post jobs and search resumes. There are lots and lots of work at home “opportunities” listed. These are the scams. One website I subscribe to, I’ve Tried That, makes a point of listing scams of this sort. Their viewpoint is that there are basically no legitimate work at home jobs being advertised online. If you want to work at home, there’s no easy way to do it. You must either be in a position to telecommute, or be enough of an entrepreneur to build something yourself. The rest of us are working for the man.

A special note about Craigslist: While here, too, are many legitimate job postings, there are just as many that are not. Craigslist makes it even easier for the scammers because it’s free, which is always a bonus, and it offers even greater anonymity than traditional job boards. Here’s a few ways you can find the legit jobs on Craigslist:

• The posting will list the approximate location within your metro area along the posting title. Example: Administrative Assistant (Downtown)
• The pay scale will be DOE (dependent on experience), competitive, or will give an actual dollar amount that is low to reasonable for the job.
• The job ad will list duties involved and experience needed. It might be very detailed, like you see on the big boards, or very light, like in the newspaper. Either way, the job description is not vague.

Like I said before, don’t discount the recruiters. Most of them are specialists in their fields, so they can be a valuable resource - just don’t ever pay a recruiter. Their pay should come from filling the job, not taking your resume. And if you’re still shy about the big job boards, do a search for smaller, more focused boards. If you’re in the technical/engineering field, Dice.com is the leader there. There are job boards for medical, government, banks, even temps! Do a search and see what you can come up with. I’ve also searched on the specialized job boards and found a lot less spammy job postings than the big guys.

A good job can be found through the job boards. I found my current job through CareerBuilder. I applied to a job posted by a recruiting firm (Accountants, Inc.) and was called for an interview. It’s interesting to note that I do not have an accounting background, but I found out during the interview that they will take “outside the box” job orders from established clients. I wasn’t considered for the original job posted, but a week later I was on an interview for another job, which I am still in. I’m still there on a contract basis, but the requisition was filed with HR to make me permanent, so I’m hoping for a long career here.

In Summary:

• Know who you’re applying to
• Keep track of who you’ve applied to, and through what resource
• Vague job descriptions are not worth applying to. Know what job you’re applying for.
• Job salaries should be reasonable, possibly on the low side. “DOE” and “competitive” are also found in legitimate job postings.
• If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

An extremely inebriated me, courtesy of Boyfriend’s birthday present of Grey Goose Vodka. Boyfriend keeps laughing at me for some odd reason. Anyway…

I went into work feeling pretty good today. First of all, it’s Friday, so that in itself is a good thing. Plus, I was still high from the success of Boyfriend’s birthday celebration last night. Yes, his birthday was yesterday, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. I still managed to pull it off. I’ll detail that in another post, though - hopefully tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m at work, doing the menial shit that I do, and something happens to burst my bubble. On the one hand, I like my job because I do mindless busy work all day. I’m very good at mindless busy work, and it’s very low stress. On the other hand, I have to deal with my superiors who I feel don’t really know my full value. I am constantly questioned about how much work I have to do and how I’m keeping up with it. Here’s a hint - my inbox is empty. I always have things that people ask for - if I couldn’t produce these things, I wouldn’t be doing my job. It’s that simple. My desk is not a mess. So what’s the problem? Apparently, because I am in a clerical position, I am not supposed to have an IQ of over 80. Now, I’ve not been professionally evaluated, but various online quizzes, both simple and in-depth, put my IQ at around 125. So it’s not that I’m overqualified for my job. Well, maybe just a little bit. But I’m way over intelligent for my job. This is where the problem lies.

I have never really been in a job that I haven’t done extremely well at. But I also haven’t really been in a job that I’ve been really passionate about. Talking with most people, Boyfriend included, I get the idea that it doesn’t matter so much about what the job is or how much I like it, as long as the paycheck has lots of zeros on it I should be happy. Well, that’s not me. I want enough to pay the bills, sure, and enough to do a few things outside of work that I want to do, like eat and maybe buy a CD once in awhile, but the paycheck is not what I live for. Think about it. If I’m going to spend most of my waking time working, shouldn’t I enjoy that work? Shouldn’t I get some sort of satisfaction from that job beyond my bank deposits? I think so. So why is it that despite the fact that I am good at nearly everything I have tried thus far, I do not like most of it?

Take retail, for example. Retail jobs vary wildly in what is being sold and the clientele that the product or service is being sold to. I know that I do not care at all for commission positions. No matter how much I like the product, knowing that there are quotas that I need to meet kind of kill the passion for me. But knowing my product, knowing it well and enjoying it to some degree are all things I like, as are making the customer happy with that knowledge. But everyone knows that retail hours suck, as does the pay. Unless you are in management, in which case you get much better money and way more regular hours, but you don’t get to work with the customers as much unless you are the last ditch effort to placate them. So that kills retail for the most part.

I got burned out on retail, so I decided to get into office work. I started with a temp agency and kinda floated my way around the admin assistant world, where I still wander aimlessly. I like admin work to a certain degree. I like being the indespensible person who is the “glue that holds the office together.” (I think one of my old bosses said that once, when I worked for a graphic design firm.) I like being the one, a la Jennifer on WKRP in Cincinnati, who doesn’t seem to do much of anything but has the office totally fall apart when not there.

I also noticed that I like being in a somewhat creative environment, which allows me to be my regular wacky (though somewhat closeted wacky) self. I wrote about more creative desires a few months back. My feelings haven’t changed much. I still have very creative inspirations, however pent-up they may be. I have creative desires, though I don’t know much what I want to do with them. I like fabrics, because it’s a very tactile thing. I would love to sew my own clothes and have everyone ask who the designer is - not be that person who looks so obvious that they only know one pattern when they sew their own stuff. I like paper crafts - not scrapbookking so much, because those who know me know how I feel about jumping on the popularity bandwagon. I feel more drawn to cardmaking and collage stuff. I like little bits and bobs, and scraps of stuff and imagining how they will all go together - and this is where I get stuck. I can’t quite seem to turn the ideas that are in my head into a tangible object that someone might actually want, and maybe, just maybe, even want to pay money for.

Right now I am working in the finance department of a big company, whose name and industry shall remain nameless for the sake of my job security. I am a clerk. Myself and one other clerk that I work closely with are the lowest common denominators in the entire finance department, as far as I can tell. Everyone else does actual finance stuff. I am still there on a temp-to-perm basis, and going perm would be nice. The company has good benefits of which I would like to take advantage. They have educational reimbursement, and ever since the hell of setting up a company in Quickbooks, like I did in my previous job despite the lack of any accounting education or real experience, I found that accounting would be a safe and practical vocation to get into. So the plan is to stay where I’m at, get shit on daily, and eventually get hired so I can actually take advantage of their benefits. I’ll get my accounting degree on their dime, already have my foot in the door and be friends with everyone in the department so I can learn as much as possible, and then, um, do something with the degree. Not sure yet. Accounting bored me silly in college, but that was all classroom and no practical experience. Now I find I am good at it when I can put it into practice, and like it ok, but there are so many facets to accounting. Cost? A/P? A/R? Corporate taxes? Personal taxes? Audit? Revenue? General Ledger? Which one do I choose and why? Do I fall into one because the job is offered or will one of those actually hit me in the head and say, “Hey, shithead, THIS is the facet of the accounting world that you will excel at, be deliriously happy at, and make lots of money at!” I just don’t see that happening. So how do I get myself psyched up for that kind of career?

I read at Aurelius’s New Direction today a post entitled What’s Your Specialty? I swear, someone out there is reading my mind, or at least living a parallel life to mine. I have not specialized in anything. I started working retail because that’s what most kids in high school and college do to earn some cash. It was ok, and I stayed at it even after I graduated college. College, by the way, was a study in existence rather that goal-achieving. I started out as a candidate for an assiociate’s degree in interior design, based on my monthly spending on interior decorating magazines and books and lack of spending on fashion magazines. I drank too much first semsester and stumbled around a bit. Second semester, I decided to major in the only class I passed - business. Small business management, to be exact. Good skills to have, if you know what kind of business you want to run. But along with business came balance sheet and accounting stuff that I couldn’t grasp as long as it was conceptual and not practical. So after bullshitting my way through an English Lit final, I convinced myself along with the professor that I wanted to be an English teacher. I finished up my last two semester of the two-year college as a Liberal Arts major, transferred to a four-year school as a double English/education major, and all of a sudden - I felt like I was in the wrong life. So very wrong, it was overwhelming and my life had taken on this echo-like outside looking in feeling, like I had been reincarnated in the wrong life. So I quit school and continued on with my supermarket retail life.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. How the hell do you people do it, day in and day out? Are you passionate about your jobs, or more passionate about the paychecks? I have a theory that people who bring home the bacon in a big way do actually really like what they do. Either that or they like being a miserable, backstabbing ass just so they can get ahead in whatever their mind determines to be ahead, but that’s not me. I want to be happy. I just haven’t figured out how to do that, at least career-wise, without losing what I already have. I can’t afford to take a step backwards. I still have bills to pay. I want to really enjoy my time at work as much as I enjoy my time off work, and I don’t want to do that with any mind-numbing, zen like exercises that my Dad taught me, the same ones he uses to deal with my stepmother and other idiots in his life. No, I want organic on the job happiness, enough of a paycheck to live off of and be able to adequately enjoy my off time, and perhaps another drink.

If you are a list freak, check out 1001 Lists You Must Read Before You Die.

Today I learned that a good set of claws will make life easier.

My first day of work went well. The company that the agency placed me at seems decent, and the position is temp to perm for the right person (meaning me). Right now I have to get a whole bunch of documents ready to scan, so I spent the day removing staples from packets so they’ll go through the scanner. It was mindless busy work, but it was busy, and the day went by pretty fast.

Tomorrow I have a bunch more stuff to un-staple, then I get to learn how to scan it all in. It all seems really easy, and I was told it’s pretty hard to screw up royally, but even so, there were 3 temps before me who couldn’t cut it. But having worked in the staffing industry, I know that those kinds of people are exactly why temping has a bad name.

I spent the better part of the morning online doing the job application thing, like I have been nearly every day since unemployment. I was also in touch with one of the employment agencies I signed up for, but I was really not thrilled with what they had to offer me at this time (I told them I could work retail for more money and more hours). Then, late this afternoon, I got a call from the other agency regarding the interview I went on last Friday. Long story short - I got the job! I thought the interview went really well, and I seemed to have a good chemistry with the interviewer (who will be my direct supervisor), but I came away thinking it was a great shot, but I probably wouldn’t be selected. I was so wrong on that second part. They need someone asap, so I’ll be starting on Wednesday. It’s with a great company, and it’s temp to perm, close to home, and all that good stuff, plus it will give me a chance to learn a bit more about accounting, which was my original goal months ago when I parted ways with MRI. So yay! Time for some ice cream and vintage movies with Boyfriend.