For the Record

“Every breath you take,
Every move you make,
Every bond you break,
Every step you take,
I’ll be watching you.”

~Police (Every Breath You Take)

Should I need a record or documentation somewhere down the road, here it is.

A piece of advice to anyone considering a job dealing with the public, be it as a grocery store cashier, a police officer, or a state office, do not work in the same town in which you live. Or if you take the job anyway, plan on moving when you leave the job.

People recognize me all the time from my last job. I can’t even walk the 1/2 mile to my new job without at least one wave or honk or something. Most times I just wave back even though I don’t have a clue who it was! I am proud of my new job, and when my former customers ask what happened to me, I haven’t thus far had any issue with telling them where I now work and sometimes my primary reason for leaving (more money).

So today, after my band rehearsal, I went to the grocery store before heading home. All grocery stores are crowded on Sunday afternoons, but a girl needs to eat! I was in the bread aisle, which was recently rearranged, so now I have trouble grabbing the loaf I usually buy, and wound up standing next to a former customer, lets call him Glenn (not his real name). I, and my former coworkers, decided long ago that Glenn was a strange creepy dude. I also know where he lives (around the corner from me, and yes, he knows where I live too), what he does for a living, his wife, and their pair of dachshunds. This is pretty much how the conversation went:

Me: “Hey Glenn”

Glenn: “Heyyyy. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

Me: “Yeah, I don’t work for [insert old company name], anymore.”

Glenn: “Where are you working, now?”

Me: “[Insert new company name]. I really like it.”

I see we’ve created a bottleneck situation in the crowded aisle, so I find my bread, excuse myself, and head off down the next aisle. As I pause to open the refrigerator door for some butter, I realize he is rightthere with me, and he starts talking again:

Glenn: “Why’d you leave”

Me: shrugs, “Lots of reasons, better pay”

Glenn: “How much do you make?”

Me: “Ummm…”

Awkward pause. Do people really answer those sorts of questions? I can’t believe people ask those sorts of questions. How rude, although I guess I am partly at fault for mentioning money… lesson learned.

Glenn: “Ok, how much more do you make?”

Me: “I’d rather not discus that.” Time to change the subject. “I see that a new restaurant opened on [insert street he lives on].”

Glenn: “Yeah, and [another restaurant on same street] ripped out all the hedges for some new landscaping.”

Me: “That place has changed so much in the past ten years. I can’t even remember the last time I was in there.”

Glenn: Touches my arm – not a tap or a bump, but somewhere between a caress and a grab. “We should go out sometime.”

Me: Jumps a few steps backward. “I don’t think so.” I turn and walk quickly away. HELLO RED FLAGS!! Jackass is married and creepy and not my type in general. He follows me again and catches up the next time I slow down. He tries to apologize and “I didn’t mean anything”. Whatever.

I hear my name behind me, and see it’s one of the other people in my band. I strike up a conversation with him and we walk away. Around the corner I explained to him what he had just been so fortunate to interrupt. As I was checking out, my band mate was leaving too, and he walked past and asked if I was all right. I was by that point; I have no idea where Glenn went, but I hope he got the message. I’m a little freaked out.

I Suppose I Should Give an Update on that Other Thing

My dad’s cancer.

He went through a whole bunch of tests to figure out where it originated and if it existed elsewhere. The first tests came back negative for other sites and inconclusive for a diagnosis. Later tests showed possible activity in near-by lymph nodes. Then they did a biopsy on the lump they could feel, from which they determined that he has melanoma. The doctors have still been unable to find a primary site on the surface of the skin, which his doctors claim is a good thing. He went for a second oppinion (at Dana Farber in Boston) and both doctors/hospitals came back with the same course of action: surgery to cut out both the definitely cancerous lymph node and a few more in the same area for testing and as a preventative measure. Then he will be on a heavy course of drugs, administered intravenously every day for a month at the hospital, and then three times a week for a year at home. Meanwhile, my dad can now feel more than one lump in his armpit.

My own internet research….granted, I am not a doctor… indicates to me that the prognosis for melanoma in multiple lymph nodes isn’t great. My mother, on the other hand, who had a very small cancerous spot removed from her leg and has been declared “cured”, seems to think “melanoma is no big deal; look at me.” Um, mom, yours was very different. She may be in denial; I’m not sure.

My dad had surgery this morning, and I spoke with my mother on my lunch break. He was out of surgery, but not yet awake. The doctor had told my mother that there was a lot more damaged tissue in there to be cut out than he had anticipated, and the doctors had been afraid to cut much more out, without damaging the functionality of his arm. Sounds to me like they didn’t get it all. And it sounds aggressive. He needs to recover from surgery (a week maybe?) before they can start the drugs, but the drugs are only supposed to clean up a few remaining cells, not whole tumors. If the drugs don’t work, or his body can’t tolerate them, the doctors will put him on chemotherapy.

To me, this situation sounds worse every time I hear about it. My mother is worried about how he is going to work during the treatment (he plans on it) and how their boat is going to get put away for the winter (My brother will take care of it). I’m wondering if I should move back home and apply to grad school in Boston, as he asked me to do last winter, which seems like a tremendous sacrifice. How do I balance my life and my needs with the needs of a family that hasn’t always been supportive of me? A couple people (including my therapist) have said that this time should be used for me (possibly single-handedly) to repair the family bonds. But I’m convinced it can’t be one sided; somehow they need to accept who I am, because nobody could ever live up to the expectations they have set for me. And now I’m whining about me, which makes me sound selfish. Where is the middle ground?

Out of the Frying Pan and into… Another Frying Pan

Or, at least that was my dad’s opinion of my new job.

Yes, you may reread that sentence. Yes, I did say new job! I got the job!! They didn’t even have me go back for a second face-to-face interview or keep me in suspense for a week, as I was told would happen. They didn’t even offer me the part-time position. I start my shiny new full-time first-shift position on October 5. Or, at least that is when I start my month of training. I knew I had to be one of their top candidates.

It is not all rainbows and roses though. They offered less money than I was expecting. I believe this is because I was forced to reveal how much money I make at my soon-to-be-ex-job…and then they hacked some off the starting salary thinking that I would be willing to work for peanuts. “Peanuts” is still somewhat better than the “poppyseeds” I’ve been making. Is it enough to pay all of my bills without a second job on the side? I’ll let you know in January. I also don’t know if I’m going to love the work. It will be educational, but will it be tolerable, or will I get run down listening to people yell all day long? I’m not 100% certain that I am meant to work with people. I like working with my hands (although not when my hands are using toxic chemicals), in part because objects don’t talk back.

But at the very least I’m leaving my current frying pan.

So everybody sing with me!

“You better not try and stand in my way
As I’m walking out this door.
Take this job and shove it.
I ain’t working here no more!”

The Update

Phone interview went pretty well, I suppose. I made the cut this round, and I have a face-to-face interview with the recruiter and managers on Thursday (which I’ll have to leave work early for). There are lots and lots of applicants and a grand total of 11 full and part time positions. I think they want me to say ‘please give me a part-time position!’ but I didn’t. I said I was willing to be flexible, but that full time is definitely preferable.

If I get a part-time position, I will need to hang on to my current position (or my side job…but that’s supposed to end in the middle of October). 40 hours a week at current job plus 20 hours to attend the evening training classes for 4-6 weeks sounds like I’m going to be seriously miserable. And then what? Will I be able to get on the schedule at the new job for 40 hours a week, as they’ve sort of indicated or not? Will I need to juggle two jobs for even longer?

I was going to work on other job applications today. But I’m depressed and spent.

They Called!

I have a phone interview set up for Monday morning. Wish me luck! Yes, I know phone interviews are supposed to be bad, but this is for a call center position, so it definitely makes sense to examine my phone persona.

The man I spoke with said he has two full-time positions left to fill, and eight part-time. He said I would have a better shot at getting my foot in the door if I was willing to start part-time afternoons/evenings, but he also mentioned that after the initial training period, he imagines that if I wanted 40 hours a week, I would be able to have it. (As a side note, does that mean if I wanted 45 or 50 hours a week I could have that too?) I don’t want to settle; I just need to prove that I am one of his top two candidates. And, frankly, the company would be making a mistake by not having me working in the mornings anyway.

I’ve been researching the company, and I have a list of questions. I plan to speak slowly and clearly, and I know to sit up straight and smile. I will not be sipping tea or munching on cereal. I promise not to bad mouth my current or previous employer; I promise to shield my pessimism. I can interview just fine. This company would be lucky to get a hold of me.

As we waited on the sidewalk this morning for our supervisor to let us in the building, a coworker was telling me about how much she regrets leaving her job at a nearby physicians office. She thought she was burned out at that place, but now she appreciates what a good job it was. I told her I know of several openings in the hospital system in the county south of us, that she would be well qualified for. I gave her the web address of my preferred job listing site. I wouldn’t consider us friends, and I may apply for those openings too, but I don’t really consider her the competition. I have a college degree! I’m not from this place! I don’t plan to die here! Which is really why I should aim higher.

Another coworker has a huge crush on one of our customers and plans to slip him her number at some point in the near future, which brought up this whole discussion of ‘keeping your options open’. Never mind that I am more than three years into my existing relationship, my supervisor wants to set me up. Ugh. People come on! Let’s please not engage in extracurricular activities with our customers! We are not that kind of customer service business!

th-THUMP, th-THUMP, th-THUMP

Good lord! In the past two days, I think I’ve checked my phone about 1000 times…then the battery died. And I’ve rushed right over to the library and the internet both days after work to check my emails. I haven’t had a response beyond an auto-reply thank you to the job I applied for.

When I went through this all last winter, I only received one reply of actual interest to the 100 jobs I applied for, so I don’t know why I’m so eager…and then so disappointed every time I check. But I really think I could do this job, and I know they are hiring lots of people. How long should I wait before I go bang on the door?

The job is related to investing, which is something that I am interested in. But then when I spoke with one of my advocates (I’m no longer using the bland word “references”) the other night he put seeds of doubt in my head. He thinks the job sounds too scripted, and that I require a different sort of outlet for my independent thoughts. He might be right. My mouth and my opinions certainly get me in trouble at my current job. I have difficulties acting as a yes-ma’am robot, which is what my assistant manager expects of me. I cannot please her! And I am so frustrated by being made to feel an incompetent fool at every turn. Is it too much to ask to make it through one day without her criticism?

No, I am not complaining. I’m keeping in touch with my motivations. We’re moving on.

I found several job listings today (one company, multiple openings) for a women’s advocacy group. What do you think? I’ve always been ‘one of the boys’, but these sound like positions for an opinionated person. Part of these applications include an essay on my views on domestic violence. Off to do some research.

One Step

The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

Last night (August 31, 2009) I set a goal for myself: I will be employed somewhere else by the end of September, 2009, as my birthday present to myself. I am strong and intelligent, and someone out there will hire me because of that. I know I have something to offer this world, and it’s time to step up and prove it. I used to have higher expectations of myself. Why should I give those up, based on the opinions of people I don’t even like?

And by posting it here, I mean to stick to this journey of 30 days. You are all my witnesses to this journey.

Somehow last night, for a brief window of time, I was able to focus enough to hammer out a cover letter that I feel comfortable, confident, and happy about. Today, I sent that cover letter (and its accompaniments) to a company advertising for a job I know I can do. Consider this my second step. And it is just one foot in front of the other now.

I Feel Unwanted

“Like paper that’s torn up and tossed to the wind.
Like velvet that’s worn out and wearing too thin.
I’ve tried but I can’t explain who I am

Like words in a bottle that drift out to sea
Never to be spoken between you and me.
I’m locked up and lonely,
Is this where you want me to be?

Cause you’re making me feel so uncomfortable in my skin
And I don’t like this place that you put me in.
Now I feel like the shadow the sun has forgotten.
I feel unwanted.”
~Kady Malloy (Unwanted)

At my previous job, for three and half years all I ever heard was, “Why do you work here?” Or, “You hate it here.” Or, “Why don’t you get a job pertaining to your education?” Or, “Are you looking for another job?” Etc. Etc. Etc. The manager made me commit to being there a whole year before he would even consider hiring me, because he didn’t believe I’d stay. Nobody believed it. Then when I was laid off I was told I “wasn’t a lifer”. Whose words were those? No, I didn’t expect to be there forever, but I expected to be there longer than anyone around me thought. Why the disconnect?

Now at this job, I’ve had several coworkers ask “Why do you work here?” Or “You should apply to X.” Or You would be good at [anything else].” I work there because nobody else would give me an interview. I don’t want to be there, but I will never tell any of them that. I plan to be there until I find something different (yeah, that’s not going so well) or they fire me (fingers crossed). But it is insulting to hear it over and over. I feel unwanted, and I feel like telling these people that I wish I didn’t have to work with them either.

Cancer

In the lymph nodes, but probably not of the lymph nodes. Probably a secondary site, meaning the cancer originated somewhere else and spread. Don’t survival rates drop to near zero when cancer spreads? Primary site not yet determined by blood tests or CT scan. Next step is a biopsy on the small tumor found in the armpit on Tuesday. Hope to have more information (how about a diagnosis?) by the middle of next week.

Not me. My dad.

I haven’t seen him since I first heard about this; I’ve only spoken with him on the phone. He says he is reluctant to be too upset yet, because the doctors haven’t really been able to tell him much. I don’t know if he really feels that way or if he was trying not to upset me. I am upset. My mother is a mess (have I mentioned on this blog that she was diagnosed with skin cancer late last year?). My brother, who I haven’t spoken with in months, has become sentimental, not a word I would have ever previously used on him.

Random thoughts:

Cancer runs in both sides of my family. My father’s mother died of breast cancer. My mother’s mother died of liver cancer. My mother’s brother died of brain cancer. I’m screwed, huh? Actually, I’ve long assumed that I someday I will have skin cancer (like my mother, I’m too fair, and have spent too many summers in the sun)

My dad has always been relatively healthy. He is not overweight, he doesn’t drink much, he doesn’t smoke (though I might guess otherwise for the 70’s), he eats mostly healthy food (my mother is a great cook). The town I grew up in (and in which my parents have lived for 30 years) does have higher-than-average cancer rates. This has long been blamed on a nearby power plant. But New England is downwind in general of every single power plant in the US.

Medically, I would have to assume that my mother would die first. Of a heart attack maybe, because of high blood pressure, self-inflicted stress, etc. My father has always been the more even-keeled. Actually, I always figured (and my brother agreed when I spoke with him the other night) that they would live forever just to torture us.

Since about halfway through my first year at McGill, when I almost dropped out, my parents have considered me to be a disappointment. They had big expectations for their “good”, “smart” child, which I don’t know that anyone could live up to. And I’ve never felt that their expectations even considered who I am. I feel that they only want to be able to keep up with their friends and the “fantastic” people their friend’s children turned out to be. That if I were “successful” (in any/all aspects of life) in their eyes maybe they would be validated as “good parents”. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to please them, before I gave up and pushed them away. I don’t want my father to die thinking that his daughter is a failure.

The Sky is Falling!

“And she says, ‘oooh,
I can’t take no more.’
Her tears like diamonds on the floor.
And her diamonds bring me down.
‘Cause I can’t help her now.
She’s down in it.
She’s tried her best, and now she can’t win it.
It’s hard to see them on the ground,
Her diamonds falling down.

…

She shuts out the night
And tries to close her eyes.
If she can find daylight she’ll be alright.
She’ll be alright.
Just not tonight.”
~Rob Thomas (Her Diamonds)

I know I sound like a goddamn broken record, but that’s what depression does to me. I cannot let it all go; it really is just one big spiral to the bottom, and then when I get there, the floor opens and the bottom is even further down than I imagined. There is no light at the end of this tunnel, and there is no way back, because all those doors have been slammed shut. And I have no support network, because nobody wants to keep listening to me complain. Sometimes I try to but on the strong front (fake it ’till you make it), but then I just cry myself to sleep when no one else is around.

My therapist doesn’t offer solutions, he just nods his head and agrees with me. What am I supposed to do? How do I stop this cycle? Why am I paying this man money I don’t have to spend, if I don’t feel better? (For anyone keeping count, this would be strike three in the therapist department.)

I got into a huge fight with my father about a week ago. I emailed him a copy of the “new and improved” resume (version 4868.7), that was vastly different than any I’ve used before, but the old ones didn’t work, so it should be revised. He didn’t even get the concept; he preferred the old unsuccessful one. He’s an engineer, perhaps he needed the more black and white presentation of the same information. Then he proceeded to spend an hour trying to convince me to go back to school and get a masters in engineering. “There are always openings in this field. You could work anywhere you want, in any industry. You already have more math and physics courses than I ever took. There are lots of great schools and programs here in Boston. If you need the money…” Etc.

DAMN IT, DAD!! YOU AREN’T LISTENING TO ME! I hated high school; I hated university. If I thought there was another path I would have taken it. The traditional education system has failed me time and time again. How would another few years of torture fix that? I’d just end up sitting here in the same place collecting my unemployment five or ten years from now wondering why I can’t get a decent job with my “great” education. I already feel like life is passing me by, I don’t want to be in the same place in life five years from now. And why on earth would I ever move back to Massachusetts? The suburban sprawl is too claustrophobic for me. I don’t want to move in New England. If I move it will be to the other coast. But somehow I cannot do that either. And it is not just about the money. I’ll never be rich; I get that. I just want to pay my bills now and maybe have a house with a yard for a dog and a garden someday. Why do you think that by offering me your money, you can make up for the love and support you have never given me? And don’t you dare use this as a ploy to break up me and my boyfriend.

Yesterday at the grocery store I ran into a former customer of mine, who first tried to tell me to quit my current job in favour of the one from which she knows me. I had to explain that the two reasons I left that job are still in effect: it is only a seasonal job, and my back still hurts just thinking about it. The she tried to convince me that what I need is a PhD in nursing (she is a nursing professor in Boston), and I should do it at her school! Her reasoning was, people in academia believe that when times are tough, and you don’t know what to do with your life, you go get more education (and rack up more debt), while you “figure things out”. “There will always be jobs available in nursing. You can work anywhere you want. Your science and customer service background will give you a good leg-up.” Sound familiar? It is so devastating to listen to the repeated advice, when deep down I know it doesn’t apply to me. How do I see myself so differently than the rest of the world sees me? And if I take in all the world’s criticism of me, and if I always follow their path, I don’t think I’ll ever learn to love myself.

Other notes:
Boyfriend is on vacation with the kids. Gone to visit Grandma (who I still haven’t met). My new assistant manager wouldn’t let me have two days off to meet up with them.

A part-time job I’d been promised just fell through, because I won’t work with the chemicals the owner is insisting upon. I could really use that money.

I screwed up at work today. Again. We got a new computer system in the middle of June and I’ve been having huge problems ever since. It’s become a joke to everyone else, but I was so determined that this month be better, that I almost had a breakdown when I discovered another problem today.