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The Employment Diaries
The last year of my employment goes as follows:
Gave notice at Crazy Town in late December. Wanted to quit after the 1st employee meeting four months into my Community Service Sentence when Crazy Owner showed her true colors and publicly ripped each employee. Stuck it out for another year. Gave a two week notice and two days later was told it was my last day. There is a Santa.
Took time off to write and purge the toxicity from Crazy Town. Purging took awhile.
Friend calls with opportunity to work at a local bookstore. Love books, love the shop, but am scared off by one of the partners, who acts like he might be related to owner of Crazy Town.
Answer craigslist ad for retail/creative type who is able to sew. Right up my alley. Had great phone interview and owner wants to meet me the next day. Hired the end of June for 20-30 hours per week. Worked six hours the entire month of August and was fired by mail due to lack of business. Never been fired before and by mail. Really?
Fill out application for J. Jill after noticing A Unique Opportunity sign while shopping. Turn it in and make a follow-up phone call. They’ll look it over and get back to me. They don’t and now they’re dead to me.
Have interview at floral shop where I want to shoot myself during the process. Got job offer, but declined.
Get lead on a home decor store that I LOVE. They get the lowdown on me from a friend then interview me for an hour. Decide I need to spend time “shadowing” at the store to get a feel for the place. I spend a Wednesday morning pricing, cleaning, sorting……… Tell me to call back in a week. Call back and told they’ll get back to me by the end of the day. They don’t and I need a tax receipt for the 3.5 hours I donated.
Filled out an online app for the school district. Within 24 hours get a call from a nearby school for an interview. Sat at a table with two women firing questions at me. Felt like I held my own and have years of volunteer experience to back me up. Next day get a Dear Speckled Trout email regretting to inform me, and good luck in my search.
Good luck. In an uncertain job market, I can say with certainty that luck is something I don’t have lately, which explains why The Big Daddy and I are nearly done with our third liter of gin since the start of summer. And what will be our cold weather cocktail? I haven’t decided, but I’d like to have one of these.
Now would be fine.
Eye of the Beholder
Nancy and I were discussing the lack of courtesy some women fail to show other women. Namely, 30 somethings towards 50 somethings. This recently happened to her, and when I worked at Crazy Town, it happened daily. They size you up, have judged you in ten seconds or less, and never see the need to make eye contact again. You have been dismissed, Getting-Old Woman.
These same women like to go through their day wearing work-out clothes. That way, you can say oh, are you going to the gym. What gym do you go to? Well, you look great. Only 36??? No kidding. You look great. Two kids in eight years? Of course you need to go to the gym. Oh, and a spin class, too? Well, you sure look great.
You look great to infinity.
Consistent propping up comes under the umbrella of motherhood, and there’s a limit to how many adults one can mother. Those of us of a certain age know that the day comes when “you look great” means “you don’t look tired.” It happens so much faster than one can imagine, and that’s why it pays to always be Mindful Of The Karma.
Passing The Test
In my little world, the subject of test scores comes up a lot. As the kids have gotten older, ACT and SAT scores are the numbers inquiring minds want to know. After three kids, I still don’t know what a good score is on the ACT. I know their name won’t make the local paper for a perfect score, and they won’t be taking online classes in their pajamas because their score was so low. That’s good enough for me.
The Boy Child is a horrible test-taker. He’s like his mother and freaks himself out on a regular basis. And if we’re ever required to do any public speaking, we sound like we’re about to cry. And by public, I mean more than two people. I’ve never looked at any crappy score on a standardized test he’s taken as much more than a case of nerves. I know he’s smart. I know he works hard at school. I know he will make it out in the world.
The BC has a part-time job at school working for a home decor store. He has found that working for The Corporate Man can wear a man down. He told me about one of his supervisors who makes a big deal out of EVERYTHING, like it’s life or death. Very hard. Very intense. Full attention needed. To move Christmas ornaments from one end cap to the other.
Because I knew exactly the kind of person he was speaking of, and because I like to crack The Boy Child up, I said, “You should tell her that the crap you took this morning was ten times harder than anything you’ll ever have to do on this job.”
And we sat in the car laughing until we cried because it was true, and even though we think this kind of stuff all the time, we don’t say it out loud. We may suck at tests, and couldn’t give a speech without an Immodium chaser, but when it comes to smarts needed to get through an eight hour shift at a dead-end job, we’re way above average.
Boo
Perspective
In a season of enormous wheel spinning, nights laying awake asking God to give me a sign (BIG please, as I always ignore the small ones), and general hand-wringing, I seem to have wandered off my path. From the time I was 16, I have earned money. Since January, I have made very little money, and therefore, not contributed much to paying the bills around here. Do I stick with writing and hope it takes off? What exactly do I mean by “take off”? I can’t even answer that, but I can say that most of the time I am proud of what I’ve written here.
I was reading a blog at 2:00 in the morning that has almost 800 followers. I went back to the beginning and read and read and read. The writer profusely thanked all twelve of her followers, especially her sister who put the squeeze on her friends to join. Two years later, those 12 became 800. She did not quit. She did not throw in the towel. She did not stop writing.
This week, I picked up two more followers, and today reached 10,000 hits since I started. To those two people who signed up this week, and the 10,000 who stopped in along the way, (plus a sister, friend and husband who put the squeeze on everyone they knew to take a look) you have made me cry and I am not a crier.
You are my sign.
Fitness 101
I need to lose 10#. I need to do something about losing those 10#, besides walking a twelve year old dog every morning. I came across a fitness routine that I thought I could commit to on a daily basis. It consists of:
50 jumping jacks
5 pushups
20 situps
20 mountain climbers
30 second plank
7 burpees
Repeat two times.
Well, that I could do. That I could commit to. That was going to lose me 10#. Day one went pretty good, and my heart was beating like a rabbit. I must have lost a pound or three by the time I got to the plank.
Day two. Those jumping jacks were easy peasy when I was ten, but 50 times 2 at 54 is no walk in the park. Which is what I should have been doing real slow with my old dog. By #20 I decided to close my eyes and Just. Do. It. Cuz I’m an athlete now. I Jumping Jacked and kept counting, except in my darkened state, I was careening all over the bedroom like I’d knocked back a 5th of Jack instead of jumped one. First I ran into the bed, then I brushed up against the door. I went in reverse with the peeperless Jacks, and ran into the vacuum cleaner that is out every day except Christmas.
I kept at the Blind Jacking until I reached #50, then went back for round two. Have I been sore? You betcha, as a half-term, former Alaskan governor would say. I’m determined to get fit and trim, but all this exercising sometimes causes me to get the Low Sugars. I’ll tell you, when that happens…….I could swear I can see Russia from my window.
Taking It To The Streets
Mallie Bee turned 17 in July. Mallie Bee should be driving by now, but because of a lack of ambition on the part of her and her parents, she is not. She wants that to change. Now.
We started lessons this summer in the parking lot of a nearby church. All the Fisher kids have started in this parking lot. I am good with parking lots. The road? Not so much. The road is where my Anxiety Disorder shifts into high gear.
Merge anxiety. Drivers backing into me anxiety. Big intersection anxiety. Chemical spills on the road anxiety. That one I’ve never personally had any involvement in, but I’ve read about them. Things in the road that may cause me to swerve into oncoming traffic anxiety. That’s never happened to me either, but it could. Blind spots and blinding sun anxiety. I am the Old Country Buffet of behind-the-wheel anxieties.
I took The Beester on a little neighborhood drive and proceeded to clutch the passenger door and slam on pretend brakes. I made her a nervous wreck because I Am A Head Case. After Fright Night brought to you by Neurotic Mom, I told The Big Daddy that this is now his job. I am incapable of doing it and not turning her into a young version of myself.
That the world does not need.
The Rules
The Big Daddy and I were eating at the local burger joint when I started telling him about walking the dog that morning. Oh, I’m a fascinating conversationalist, for sure. Seventeen years, I’ve walked two different dogs through the park and in the hood. I see the same people every day, and we give a little wave, a good morning and keep moving. All of a sudden these days, we have non-regulars in the park with their dogs unleashed running around getting their freedom on. Which is what happened to Henry and I the other day, when the owner said “Don’t worry, he’s friendly.”
The Big Daddy said I can top that. This parent parked their friggin SUV directly in front of the door at the dance studio waiting for their Little Primadona to come out, causing every car to have to maneuver around them to get their kid and get out.
The world is one big Idiot Parade right outside the door I told The Big Daddy, so we ordered another round and decided to take a cue from the dog world next time we encounter somebody who thinks the rules don’t apply to them. We’ll give ’em a good butt sniffing, and tell them not to worry cuz were friendly. But that might have been the beer talking.
Taking Stock
The Big Daddy starts out the day watching CNBC. Or as he calls it, CNBS. He was yelling at the t.v. more than usual on a lovely fall morning, disrupting my face time with Matt Lauer on the other t.v.
After dropping multiple Eff Bombs, I asked him what had him so fired up. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. The question of the day is…….If you could only pick one stock to take with you in the afterlife, what would it be? Facebook or tweet your answer. Now what kind of dumbass question is that?” Pssssst, Big Daddy, you’re one of those 99%ers. They’re not even talking to you.
But I did have to agree with him. Those morons on CNBS must have had one slow news day to come up with that one. What they should have been asking is………….What morning news anchor would you take with you in the afterlife?
