31 posts tagged “work”

Nothing's changed much except the weather.

The job is... routine. Presently, I'm averaging reading a book a day while there. I've already re-read all of the books I have here and have started scouring the library for new selections. I was asked by the trainer who taught my class to assist in training the class that was hired after mine, and spent a week supervising them as they got acclimated to the business and various lines of service. Also, this past week I've been working on a focus group project and documenting discrepancies in service from partner companies. It's... not what I  want to be doing for long, but as it stands I've already been noticed as someone who pays attention to details and is the go-to for those around me. As my supervisor put it to me, "It's hard for you not to stand out, isn't it?"

My private life may as well be dead. Friday night means having a few drinks at the bar with my friends Chris and Steve. Aside from that, I'm at home reading or watching television. There's been the odd occurrence of company, maybe twice in the past two months, but otherwise my time is spent solitarily.

The holidays are approaching and bringing with them everything I wish I could avoid. Simply going to keep my head down and my "bah, humbugs" to myself.

It is cold and so am I.

As Summer has given way to Autumn, so too has one phase of life given way to another. Three weeks ago I started a new job. Nothing glamorous, but it will keep a roof above my head and let me replinish the savings I lived off this Summer. There's the faint possibility of advancement, but at this time I'm simply glad to be doing something structured.

The redhead from this summer tired of me, ending things with little communication. We remain friends, though I am still a little irritated at her choices in handling the situation. So it goes.

I'm puzzled by memories that have been coming up lately. Triggered by smells, locations, songs. Perhaps it's the time of year or something more, but I've been horridly nostalgic and maudlin. It's not all bad, though. The memories are good and the introspection does no harm.

The only real thing troubling me at the moment is my weight. Over the course of my unemployment and the depression triggered by it, I relapsed into binge eating as a coping mechanism. While I am still far away from the size I used to be, I still see myself in that state and the scant few pounds I've gained in the past few months only exacerbates my negative self image.

I'm turning down a job in the morning.
The offer came in Saturday morning, and I asked for the remainder of the weekend to think it over.
The place is near our house and the pay is adequate.
The scheduling wouldn't be terrible if I had the inclination to stay here for long.
The scheduling would make it impossible for me to return to school this Fall, as it'd overlap both day and night classes.

The work would not be difficult but it would be unfulfilling.
There would be no room for upward mobility and it would not challenge me or exercise my skills.

In the past I would have jumped at the money.
Now it's just not as important.
I'm not starving yet, but neither am I secure.

I don't know what exactly I'm doing except that every action feels right.
It's been a long while since I was this secure in my decisions.
It's been a long while since I have been this honest with myself and others.
It's been too long.

As of yesterday I was laid off and the company I was running has been dissolved.

We are moving (my roommates and I) to a house. I'm leaving for a 20+ day roadtrip at the end of the week. I have to move all of my possessions to the new house early and still keep all of the things I'll need for my trip out so that I don't lose them.

I may lose my mind this week, as even though there's no work I've got to start my unemployment claim, move, prepare for a trip, have lunch with an ex, have dinner with another ex, have drinks with a friend who's in town (and also trying to get me to move to L.A.) and workout so I don't look like a complete slothbeast when I see my mother, Alix, Mike, Nievita, and Kristin.

So much to do but I look forward to it. I've never had an honest vacation and this is the first time in several years I'll actually have time off work. I plan to do nothing but enjoy life during the month of June. I'm only partially considering the financial cost of my trip. I will make things work afterward.

Following three months of wish-washy responses from the parent office and hem-hawing from people who continually passed the buck, it is official. Our company and office will cease to exist on May 31st, leaving me unemployed.

Had a conference call today with my boss and I here and the board of directors' mouthpiece on the phone from NE. No apologies, no explanations. No severance, no thanks.

I'd been looking for other work for about 7 months now so this just means I have to further increase my time spent doing so. The two leads I've had that followed up with me have both gone cold and neither respond to my requests any longer. I've been shooting out resumes across the country, using both craigslist, monster, and newspaper listings but have yet to have another follow up. In this economy, I'm fearful. I already had my doubts but this only acerbates them.

I am really uncertain of what to do at this time. Unemployment insurance is going to cut close or fall short of my car payment and rent and that still leaves me with my phone and food. I do not live extravagantly so there is little I can actually cut back without actually becoming anorexic and resorting to smoke signals for communication.

I'll survive. I always do.

"And when worlds collide," said George Pal to his Bride, "I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills."
- Rocky Horror (Picture) Show

I've been listening to the Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show album (covers of the original film soundtrack by punk bands) on near-constant repeat, specifically Over at the Frankenstein Place. It's about seeing a light off in the distance on a dark and rainy night. Little does the narrator of the song's story know that what he'll find at that "light in the darkness of everybody's life" is much worse than anything in the darkness.

After last weekend, my plan was to give this new deal at work a fair chance to see how things would work out. After four days of it, I'm certain that I need to leave. It's not that the work is difficult (it's not) or that there's a lot asked of me (there isn't). It's the exact opposite. I'm not challenged at all. It's professional masturbation, to be honest.

However, there's an issue when I'm looking for new jobs elsewhere -- I'm either too specifically qualified for entry-level or underqualified for senior positions. I'm in a middle ground where I can't win either way. There's also the fact that I never intended to do technical support or to work on computers for a career... I just fell into it. I have a talent for it but this is not what I wanted to do with my life. Unfortunately, it is what I have the most experience in (aside from management and team-building, but that's a whole other bag of issues when job searching) so it's what I have to throw out there when looking for work.

I'll always write. That much is assured. I have to have something to put food on the table, though, until someone is stupid/crazy/drunk enough to give me money for writing. The computer related fields have been (somewhat) good to me thus far, so I can't be too upset, but I'd be quite happy to jump from technical support or hardware/software troubleshooting to something where I work more with people. The problem is starting at the bottom again.

I'm still sending out resumes and pondering my possibilities, but I'm holding off on making any choices until after my birthday at the end of this month. I'm going to take the time to count what assets I have and look at preparations for possible relocations. I'm also going to continue giving the work thing a shot, but unless something miraculous happens I do believe it'll be best to wash my hands of it.

*Didn't post this when I wrote it last night, as Vox doesn't have an iPhone app and every time I try to post using Safari it bugs out and crashes (only on Vox, though).

The two thoughts that keep running through my head are "if you do what you've always done you'll get what you've always gotten" and "who dares, wins." I have hardly slept since Thursday, the worry over my present situation eating at me. For the time being, I have work, though it is a schedule that prevents me from taking most other part-time jobs as the hours are in the middle of the day and stretched across 6 days a week.

This is not what I want, but at present I do not know how to use what I have at hand now to affect the changes I would like to see. I do not possess enough savings to simply uproot myself and move to where the grass may be greener. While accomidstionz have been offered, I am one who is loathe to ask for help and staying somewhere that I am not paying rent for always makes me uneasy. I should put aside my pride, however that is a hard thing go do

I don't know if I made the right decision to remain with my company for the time being. Parts of me scream that I should have taken the offer to be laid off and used the time to travel. Other parts shout that I will be 28 at the end of this month and that I am a failure to be in this predicament again. There's a lit of anger towards self for being where I am in life now, the fact I have not been more successful. Bad choices, bad decisions, bad luck... all seem to be hallmarks of my career path.

I just feel at this point I'm going to end up as the terrible warning rather than the good example.

Jump

I talked to my father tonight about my employment predicament. Of course, he wants me to move back to the family property and live. It's always his first idea whenever anything happens. I appreciate his offering, but as I told him tonight it's a matter of pride that I support myself. Not to mention that whenever it has come to that the plans always change and I end up staying there without getting what was promised me (help with school, etc.).

The company offered me 36 hours, six-days a week. It would leave myself and my boss as the only employees, covering all aspects of support and maintenance for our service. As it stands, they'll still be advertising longer hours than we will be working (which is something that I really disagree with).

At 36 hours a week, I'll be able to pay my monthly bills (rent, car, phone, student loans) with a very narrow surplus for food and gas. As it stands I've been marking far less than what most people assume and it's only because I am both paranoid and frugal that I have the amount of savings I do put back. I can live off of that for a while but what continues to weigh on my mind is the question of how long will this be worth it? Stretching myself thin so that our home office can continue to run things as they do.

I could take a voluntary lay-off and draw unemployment, but that also puts me in the precarious situation where I am able to pay only my bills and have little-to-nothing left over for gas, food, or other things. The benefit would be having some time off to reassess my position and possible take a trip to one of the locations I have been looking at relocating to for some face-time, as opposed to simply submitting my resume for job listings there. This would eat into my savings but would be more of an investment towards myself. As it stands there are simply no jobs here for anyone who does not want to be a teacher or a fast-food/retail jockey. I'm going to have to move, eventually.

Do I put it off and ride-out my present employment until the home office inevitably cuts us? Do I take unemployment, dip into my savings and hope for the best? I'm torn. I was up until 7:30 yesterday (Saturday) morning going over plans in my head and I'll likely be up again all night tonight going over things as well. I'm so utterly frustrated by this entire situation.

It is 784 miles to Washington, D.C. AAA's fuel estimator tells me it'd be ~$105 for a round trip drive up. It'd probably be my first choice. Seattle/Portland is my second. The drive to D.C. wouldn't be terrible. The flight to Seattle is one I've made before and isn't too bad, either. While admittedly, Seattle is a longer, more expensive trip, I have a few more leads there, as well as Portland.

I'm just undecided about what to do immediately, though. In the immortal words of Joe Strummer, "should I stay or should I go now?"

I get to keep my job.
The trade off is that I get to work less hours, now have to work 6 days a week.
I am also the only remaining employee in our office (our office is set up as a separate company from the parent office) other than my boss.
This means I'll be sitting in our building, alone, 6 days a week.

I'm not certain if I should have opted for being laid off.

Returned home after work yesterday to check the state of affairs at the homefront. Wasn't too bad, all things considered. Cleaned for two hours, then my roommate's ex-wife took all of us out to dinner. Afterward, my roommates and I went to Target and picked up a new vacuum (Alix, I can stress how awesome it is!) since our old one had melted like a candlewax in the debacle. When we got home, I put the vacuum together and then Bliss and I proceeded to clean like a madman(or madwoman, in her case). We managed to wash all of the linens that had been exposed to the smoke, as well as clean our fans and carpets. There's a lingering smoke smell, but I've nuked the carpets with Febreeze several times and I've got my Ion air purifier running on high in the worst of the areas. With any luck, things will settle in a few days.

Everything has hit me this morning, though. My lungs feel dense and heavy and my throat scratchy (from smoke inhalation). My thighs are screaming and my knee where I slammed it against the bar's threshold throbs steadily. It was definitely a four aspirin morning and instead of bringing a bottle of water to work I just grabbed a whole carton of fruit juice from the house. I figure combined with the B12 and multivitamin I take daily, a whole lot of natural vitamins might help out.

Still, on the workfront, I'm stuck in limbo. I know that at the board meeting last week they decicded to make cuts to our office and budget, but as yet they have not revealed the depth or breadth to us. Regardless, I know that should I surivie this round*, the end is nigh. From past experiences and having dealt with this board before, I know that once they start cutting, they won't quit until they've whittled it down to nothing.

*It's not like I work for a large mega-corporation. It's a privately held company, composed of a board of directors who recieve investments from developers and venture capitalists. My office, originally part of that company, was spun-out and created as a separate company to handle all of the technial support and sales for the products we provide (internet access, municipal wi-fi in rural areas, email exchanges, legacy hosting).