Greetings, Mortals!
I'm really on a roll here,
posting once a month. I hereby christen this site as a monthly newsletter for all my
acquaintances in Wisconsin who are still asking me, "What
happened with the trucking thing?"
Y'all.
That was FOUR YEARS AGO. That was so long ago that I don't even remember how to use a jake brake.
I love you all, but why the fixation with a random job I had for only six
months?
Anyway. Today is a first
in that I'm actually going to share something useful. It's a small list of the most helpful websites I know of and read regularly. These are not affiliate links, I'm not getting paid to put these on here, these
websites don't even know I exist. In fact, they probably would be horrified to be associated with me at all. I'm just saying I wish everyone in the world would read these
for the general benefit of humankind.
Succeed Socially – Clear
and accurate instructions on how otherwise normal, functioning adults can be less awkward in
social settings. Where was this site when I was 13? (Okay, let's get
real—where was this site when I was 30??) I have never been able to find anything like this anywhere, since nearly all other social skills books/websites are for a) children, b) people with severe autism, or c) salespeople trying to manipulate others into buying their useless crap.
Ask a Manager – An
excellent advice column on how to be professional and navigate the
working world and all its metaphorical trip wires. I myself have
no interest in being professional, but if I did, I truly would follow
all of this advice to the letter. It's also fun to read for the gossip and weird questions people ask.
Damn Delicious – The most reliable recipe site on the Internet. Seriously, EVERYTHING I
have made from here has turned out mind-blowingly incredible. These recipes are solid, man.
McSweeney's – Sure,
Onion headlines are hilarious, but McSweeney's full paragraphs are
even funnier. And smart. I am so in love with this site.
Current Affairs – Sharp,
biting, high-quality, and bizarrely spot-on political and cultural commentary that launched in 2015.
In other very odd news that is totally out of character for me, I have
court next month. (!) Who knew that you can't drive a Florida-registered
car outside of Florida? Well, I didn't, and that resulted in a long and
complicated series of bureaucratic events leading to a criminal
misdemeanor ticket that's pending on my otherwise spotless record,
which I now have to defend before a commissioner on July 12, even though I didn't
actually commit, you know, a crime. I'm hoping this guy who's listed as the commissioner on that date is reasonable and can
see that this is ridiculous and will dismiss all charges.
A few days after all that [wild circular hand motions] stuff began to happen, I left that awful phone captioning job. Or rather, that great phone captioning job that's fantastic for people aged 18-22, or for people with minor cognitive delays.
I realize that it was an entry-level job, and as I said before, I was
excited on the first day, thinking I would start at entry level and
work my way up to an admin or trainer position. However, I quickly
uncovered the well of despair that is their working environment, and I became concerned.
That working environment, by the way, was a "no talking,
no laughing, no joking, no pranks, no socializing, no wearing
perfume, no pictures on the endless gray walls, no decorating your
fluorescent-lit desk, no crossing your legs, no looking away from your computer screen, no cellphones visible at
any time during the entire workday, no screw-top water bottles, no
having a second job per the employee handbook, and no leaving an open
book or magazine on your desk without covering it with a company-approved paper
sheet" environment.
An "every typo you make is
going to be parsed and reexplained to you until you forget your own
name and what year it is" environment.
And an "every movement you make will be monitored and measured against a
computerized daily and monthly schedule adherence metric, which is
checked against your punch clock times, your computer login times, and
your supervisor-initialed paper aux slips (i.e. hallway pass). Every second must be accounted for. You
must punch in and punch out for all breaks within a very tight
window. An extra minute spent pooping in the bathroom must be accompanied by a doctor's note verifying that you weren't goofing around BECAUSE YOU CANNOT BE TRUSTED" environment.
I wish I was kidding. It
was like a military office but with none of the prestige or
benefits.
So I saw this working
environment, I saw the extremely low pay, I saw my coworkers inexplicably gushing
about how much they loved this place, and I saw the questionably
young and alarmingly disheveled-looking people who were filling the
leadership positions, and you know, I was concerned. I definitely got the
impression that the company was growing faster than it could manage
and was therefore grabbing whoever was nearest and putting them
wherever there was an opening.
And I confess that when the lead trainer drew her eyebrows on with thick black Sharpie every day like so, even though she was blonde, I discreetly hid my face behind my company-provided portfolio and questioned her judgment/competence/sanity. Indeed, I was concerned.
I determined I probably wasn't a good long-term fit for this company and figured I'd just hang in
there for the summer so I could save enough to move far, far away. Until I realized that I can't save anything on
$11/hour. That's barely enough for utilities, student loan payments, medical
bill payments, bare-bones car insurance, gas, and a few Steak 'n Cheese
Chimichangas from Dollar Tree to ration for the week.
One day I came to work
distracted and upset about the aforementioned court date. I didn't
say anything about it to anyone, but perhaps my jaw was clenched or
my shoulders were tense. Who knows. But my very young supervisor
mistakenly thought I was upset that I had made a typo on one of my
captions. “You're a good captionist!” she assured me in a
high-pitched, sing-song mommy voice.
I laughed in amazement at her mistaken belief, a laugh which she interpreted as aw-shucks modesty.
“No, really!” she
sang. “You're very earnest and I can tell you're trying really
hard! Don't worry! You're brand-new, you'll get better, don't worry!”
Omg. Wow. Okay. That's
hilarious you think I give a shit about some fucking typos on some captions that the customers barely read anyway. No, lady. What I care about is this
unjust criminal charge I have pending on my record which may very
well affect my future employment as a driver at more lucrative
establishments such as Jimmy Johns and Pizza Hut. Places that are
actually fun to work, where humans can laugh and talk and establish
camaraderie by throwing dirty mop heads at each other, and where I can make good tips that actually cover my shit. THAT is what I'm upset about.
And that she called me
“earnest.” UGH. As an Anglophile, I have to be insulted by proxy
for all the British people I have known and loved and for whom being
earnest is a cultural sin, and I have to be insulted for myself
because I am not earnest.
I am sarcastic, sardonic, deadpan, tongue-in-cheek, tongue-biting,
eye-squinting, eye-rolling, head-shaking, and laughing under my
breath.
Unless, however,
this supervisor was referring to the earnestness with which I was waking up every morning fighting with myself about whether or not the
comically low wage was worth the long commute and the intellectual
torture of being surrounded by people in their 40s who don't know
what “paraphrase” means.
Mostly I would read library
books in
between phone calls and try to ignore the working environment, the mind-numbing monotony, the
Sharpie eyebrows, the creepy floor manager (see below), the total lack of trust and subsequent punch clock fetish, the lack of access to kindred spirits, but sometimes I
would sit there and just hate.
On breaks I would Google things like “how to not hate your job” and “how to have a good attitude at work” and “how to survive a menial job” (from whence I got this post's title). I took a lot of screenshots from Ask a Manager.
On breaks I would Google things like “how to not hate your job” and “how to have a good attitude at work” and “how to survive a menial job” (from whence I got this post's title). I took a lot of screenshots from Ask a Manager.
Every time I'd clock in, there he was. “Hi Hope.”
Every time I'd clock out, there he was. “Hi Hope.”
Every time I'd walk by to pick up the supplies we needed for the day, there he was. “Hi Hope.”
And every time, I so badly
wanted to whip around and holler, “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DO
YOU KNOW MY NAME??”
He had never introduced
himself, we had never shook hands, and I STILL have no idea what his
name is. And if I had a question, he would mansplain with the maximum amount of condescension possible for the human voice. Man, he gave me the serious heebie-jeebies. His presence made the
hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. Raised my hackles, as
it were.
There was a guy on the city bus
who used to say "Hi Hope" to me all the time when I was in college, before
I had a car. The first time he did it, I asked him who he
was and he claimed to have briefly been my next-door neighbor when I was 6 years old.
I had no recollection of him ever being my neighbor, but he continued to say hi to me like we were fucking besties every
single time he saw me around town, for YEARS, even when I repeatedly,
firmly, clearly asked him to leave me alone. "Hi Hope."
Even when I completely ignored him for months. "Hi Hope."
Even when I repeatedly screamed at him in front of other bus passengers telling him to stay the fuck away from me. "Hi Hope."
Every time, he insisted. “Hi Hope.” Every single time he saw me out in public. “Hi Hope.” As much as I tried to avoid him, he was just everywhere, strolling the streets, riding the buses all day long in this small town.
Even when I completely ignored him for months. "Hi Hope."
Even when I repeatedly screamed at him in front of other bus passengers telling him to stay the fuck away from me. "Hi Hope."
Every time, he insisted. “Hi Hope.” Every single time he saw me out in public. “Hi Hope.” As much as I tried to avoid him, he was just everywhere, strolling the streets, riding the buses all day long in this small town.
It makes my skin crawl just
thinking about it. But some men don't think that behavior is harassment. They think
they're “just being friendly” and that women are “emotional
bitches."
I love having a car. I would rather have a car than eat. A car is a mechanical burqa that protects me from deranged perverts with bloodshot eyes. Ideally I would just be in a locked bubble all the time.
Happily for me, neither Uncle Fester nor Pervy Bus Guy are in my life anymore, and I've returned to Uber
driving for the summer, which I enjoy. It's obviously not as busy here
in east central Wisconsin as it was in Tampa, but the fares are
higher here. Keeping my fingers crossed that the EAA AirVenture show
in July will be a profitable Uber time.
I was just thinking of all
the ways I've raised money in a hurry over the years, and how many of
those are no longer available. For example, a number of times I've received a very handsome check for being a human guinea pig for Covance medical experiments, but a few years ago they changed their rules and now 99.99% of their studies
only accept post-menopausal or surgically sterile women. That did not used to be the case.
I've also sold my plasma on and off for years,
which pays well if you keep your protein intake way up, but
all the centers in this region are having a massive shortage of
anticoagulant, which apparently is unprecedented, so they've been shut down for two weeks and are now
severely limiting the number of times people can sell for the next two months.
Food delivery is an easy job to get into quickly and come home with cash every day, but like I said, if court doesn't go well next week, I'll be barred from pretty much every driving job for five years. I know because I've called local delivery restaurants and asked. DUIs are fine, they said, but paperwork issues? No way! Inexcusable.
The big money-maker is, of course, stripping. I've worked at a number of
strip clubs over the years, usually any time I needed a huge amount
of cash quickly, but for some reason I got rid of my Lucite shoes two years ago, and new ones are always ~$100.
Y'all, I got the start of a damn turkey neck.
That's hot.
I haven't worked in any clubs since 2011. I mean, older strippers exist, but they're rare and they often
fall into one of two categories: a) the haggard old women who've
spent decades smoking and drinking and snorting coke and look like
they've been rode hard and put away wet; and b) overweight retired porn stars
with giant square fake tits, spray tans, acrylic talons for nails, Botox fish
lips, and insanely brash and aggressive personalities (even by my
standards) who can't imagine making less than the $10,000/month or more
they're used to making in the sex industry. They've built a lifestyle
around that and what are they going to do now? Work at Subway for
$7.25?
I dunno. Still considering
buying the shoes, as being a stripper certainly has its own
hazards, but the pay is definitely worth the hustle. The
ROI is phenomenal.
Maybe I'll create an
Internet video channel of me doing mundane things like ironing and
reading Shakespeare while wearing lingerie in soft lighting, and charge $1 per view. I hear that
videos like that, and of women simply eating, are big in China.
So why do I need a lot of
money before the end of summer, you ask?
Because I am heading
EAST!!
Holy hell, I am SOOOOO
excited. You may recall my 2013 road trip to Boston and how much I
loved it there. Probably because I know subconsciously that New Kids
on the Block are from there.
I cannot WAIT to hear real
people talking like this:
“Rec Depahtment” . . . “Human Resauces”
Love. Love. LOVE this. I
especially like that accent on women. It makes me think of a leather jacket.
I hope to make some friends who talk like that.