give it to me straight

My mom called me at work one day and said a family friend's boss's son needed an assistant for three businesses he was juggling. The family friend put in a great word for me (and they respect her so her recommendation is gold) and he agreed to meet with me. Bam. Just like that. The work seemed decent and best of all, no more working with the public. The only drawback was the pay wasn't great and there were no benefits. But I kept leaning toward no more working with the public.

I kept thinking how it all worked out so well. An office job with recommendation from an insider. And I had a day off from working coming up so I could take that day to do the interview and it wouldn't interfere with my current job. Perfect.

I met the man at his father's restaurant. It was empty because they weren't open for lunch yet. The man, M, was short and overweight, a roly poly kind of guy with a round, young face and closely cropped gray hair. His cheeks and chin jutted out when he smiled. His skin was shiny and ruddy around his hazel eyes. He did not walk but waddled. He wore a shirt and jeans and dirty white sneakers.

We sat down and he told me a little about his businesses. He has three and he also deals with his family's personal finances. His family is rich and they have several sources of income and I guessed he needed someone to help him keep everything in order.

It was apparent from the beginning of our conversation that M wasn't articulate but he was extremely southern. He spoke with a grating country cadence and often raised his voice toward the end of his sentences. He paused several times as if he were trying to collect words from his head before he said them. He mentioned the job didn't necessarily have a title since I would be doing a little of everything. I wasn't worried about job titles, only the duties. Fortunately, they were duties I had done during previous jobs or duties I felt confident I could do if given the proper instruction. It wasn't neurobiology we were dealing with here. I was going to be faxing and using Excel and taking out the trash.

He asked me to tell him about myself and I did and then he sat back, his squat, chapped face stretched into a mischievous grin. He stared up at the florescent lights, again trying to find his words.

"So, tell me this...hm...so basically...well, let me tell you where I'm coming from...what my concern is...it seems to me like you're going from A to Z. You went to college to be an artist and you've got this degree. And now you wanna be a secretary. You see what I'm sayin'?"

I basically explained the best I could, downplaying my crazy, that I had a change of heart after I graduated and wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue art and decided to change my direction. He said he encountered a similar situation after he graduated from college so he understood but he was concerned, if I took the job, I would pack up and leave after two months or so. I assured him I wouldn't do that. I pointed out I've been at my current job for three years now. And if I didn't get that job, I'd probably have to stick with it for another three years because these opportunities rarely come along.

In some ways, I could understand his concern or just curiosity over why I made such a radical change. But in other ways, it made me feel bad, as if he were implying that I was downgrading myself or that the job was beneath me. First of all, nothing is beneath me. The job might be beneath my education but not beneath me. I'm just not uppity like that. And I told him I enjoy being organized and doing office work. It's easy and I don't have to deal with the public and it wouldn't be so stressful that I couldn't work on my writing or even pick up art again on the side.

The problem with my job now is that it's so stressful and dealing with the public gives me such bad anxiety that I'm emotionally and mentally exhausted at the end of the day and have no creative output within me.  I wasn't necessarily aiming to move up as far as a job goes, but just to find something to lower my stress levels.  And that seemed like the kind of job to do it.

And then he said if I were hired, he'd have to get into the mindset of a man doing the job because he envisioned a woman filling the position. I was slightly irritated by that but it wasn't a deal breaker.

The deal breaker came a week later.

simple moves

I have to say, I've been working out consistently and killing it during many of the sessions.  Just like I did last year, I started out on January 1st and got up and put my trainers on and poured sweat and shredded muscle tissue.

It was actually a lot easier this time around, too, because I'm used to it now.

YES.  I'M USED TO IT.

Prior to last year, working out was equivalent to eating dog crap but now it's no thang.  It's weird but kind of awesome.

That's not to say I haven't had my bad days.  I'll get up and go through the motions sometimes.  And I used to feel bad about it because I feel like if I'm going to work out, it needs to count.  I don't want to waste my time flailing around and not burning enough calories to matter.  But I saw a quote on Facebook that said something like the only bad workout is one you didn't do.  Made me feel better.  Made me realize it does matter.  It does count. 

But, as I said, sometimes I really put 110% into the workout and by the end, I'm drenched in sweat and my body hurts and when I wake up in the morning in pain, I like it.  I know it's actually not good for you to be sore like that but it makes me feel like I really did something so I welcome the pain.

new year's evisceration

For the first time, I actually followed through with a resolution.  I wanted to lose weight.  I did.  I didn't lose as much as I wanted but that's no matter because I still did it and consistently worked on it all year.  I have not conquered my weight and I suspect I never will but I do feel I have a better grasp on it than I used to so I consider that a victory.

But I'm not done.  I still want to lose more.

And I want to do more.

For 2013, I want to become more financially responsible.  I'm old now and I literally cannot afford to be so careless with my spending.

I want to finish my book (and get published if possible).  I'm so close already.  I've finished writing it and I've done a first edit.  I need to finish my second edit, write up all the changes, get some "test" readers, take their opinions into consideration, then publish that baby so I can start seeing the ones of tens of dollars roll in.

I'd like to re-discover my passion for drawing.

I want to find God again.  This one is a bit ambitious since a lot of people spend their whole lives trying to find God.  Not sure I can do that in a span of one year.  Maybe I just mean I want to find peace with how I feel about God.  Confession time: I don't think I'm a Christian anymore.  It's not that I don't want to be but I don't think it's fair to the true Jesus followers to call myself one because I would set a bad example to others.  But hopefully I can either come around (still waiting for God to come around) or I will just remain agnostic or maybe I'll go in a completely different direction and become a Buddhist.

I want to accept myself for who I am and who I will never be.

I tried the whole "alive" thing earlier this year and having a pulse hurt worse than withering.  I've retired the resurrection and have returned to rotting.  Sorry to disappoint.  I've made peace with it, though.  I don't have time to worry about a beating heart when I've got bills to pay.  I'll get all that sorted out later when I can concentrate on it.  For now, I'll just continue to coast as a corpse.

Cheers to the new year.

loans & groans

When the store manager called me into his office, I assumed it was for another one-on-one meeting we had every week or so to discuss how my department was doing.  But, when I sat down, he told me that the company was phasing out my position next year.  I was a little taken aback.  He told me it wasn't because of my performance and that he had no control over the decision.  I sat there, trying to process what was going on.

"I'm sure you want to go back to your former department," he said.

I thought about it for a minute.  While I didn't exactly love my new position, I thought back to my old position and realized I didn't miss it at all and wasn't thrilled to go back.  But, if I had no choice...

"Yes, I'd prefer that," I responded.

"I thought so," he said with a bit of a sigh.  "Well, you know I can't really promise you anything.  The only thing I can say is you'll get to keep your rate of pay but as you know, we've already moved everyone around to replace you, so..."

What was he trying to say?

"You still have five months," he added.  "Who knows what could happen in that time.  Some people might find other jobs.  Others will go off to school, so we might be able to fit you in somewhere." 

Might be able to fit me in somewhere?  That was reassuring.  If you'll recall, I wasn't exactly clamoring to take on supervisor of a new department and after only being given one day to decide, I went ahead and said yes.  Then, I went back and told him my concerns about the new position and that I wasn't sure I really wanted it after all.  To that, he told me he had already shifted everyone around to replace me and that I would be "putting him in a bind."  Well, now he was putting me in a bind.  After guilting me into taking the job, he was now saying that I wasn't going to have it anymore, after only two months of doing it?  I felt hot.  I took the job because I felt bad that everyone else had been moved around to compensate for the hole I made when I left.  I didn't want to disturb anyone else's new placement and definitely didn't want to disappoint my boss.  So, I tried to be a good employee and go with it, to ride out the mess I had put myself in.  Once again, trying to be a good person ended up biting me in the butt.  If I would have just told him no when I had the chance, I wouldn't have to worry about where I'd end up, like I'm doing now.  Even though I'm going to get my same pay, he can't guarantee I'll get the same hours.

And if that wasn't a big enough blow to the balls, I got a letter from my student loan provider informing me they are going to raise my payments up three hundred dollars starting this month.  After working nearly ten days straight, I was excited to come home and enjoy my three day weekend.  I was happy to pull into the driveway, knowing that long stretch of work was behind me and I had a semi-long stretch of rest ahead of me.  That is, until I saw that letter.  The next day was spent trying to sort the mess out.  Unfortunately, it couldn't be.  Turns out, private loan lenders are pretty much a-holes who don't work with low income losers such as myself.  I had already exhausted all of my deferments, forbearances, and interest only payment options.  The lady on the phone said my only other course would be to try consolidation.  So, after she patched me through to someone else, the guy on the phone calculated what my payments would be if I consolidated.  The payments would be two-to-three hundred dollars more a month.  Didn't exactly help my situation or provide any sort of comfort.

The worst part was that I tried to get my mom involved and she's just about as clueless when it comes to financial matters as I am.  The first huge mistake was when she didn't get involved in my initial loan application.  Being the typical dumb-ass redneck family that we are, none of my relatives had moved on to higher education.  Hardly any of them graduated high school so the concept of student loans was something that had never crossed anyone's minds.  And being the naive twenty-year old that I was at the time, I had no idea what I was doing.  I knew about checking and savings accounts but that was about the extent of it.  So when I asked Mom to help me find a good place to apply to, her response was, "Just apply to whoever will take you."  Thaanks.

I looked up a couple of companies my college recommended and randomly selected one.  I didn't know it was a private loan company.  I didn't even know there were different types of loans to choose from.  So, I went with the same company all three years I attended college, never truly realizing how much debt I was racking up.  My mom and I always assumed we'd just be able to pay back whatever we could.  Another dumb assumption.  Doesn't work that way.  These people are pretty ruthless and have no sympathy for unemployment or crappy retail jobs.  It's not like I'm not trying to pay back the money.  I've been paying on it for over a year now.  Never late.  Never less than what I owed.  But the increase will drain me of what little money I already have and I can't live like that.  But it doesn't matter to them.

The most frustrating aspect was when I asked my mom to listen in on my conversation with the loan people, just to make sure they didn't rope me into some plan that sounded good at first but ultimately would force me into repaying them with a goat sacrifice and my left testicle.  She ended up doing more harm than good, asking inane questions that served to anger me more on top of my already short fuse after learning there was no way I could back out of the increased payments.  And at one point, when the guy put me on hold, mom said she was going to take that time to use the bathroom.  But she took the phone in there with her.  So, I'm sitting in my room listening to soft jazz when I start to hear a soft sprinkle.

"Mom, I can hear you PEEING.  On the phone!"

Splash, splash.

"Oops, sorry."

I'm surprised the guy didn't come back on the line mid-stream.  That would have made the whole interaction all the more disastrous.  So, I spend the first day of my three day weekend trying to sort out the loan stuff but it was fruitless.  I was left feeling worse than when I started.  And as for now, I'm stuck paying nine hundred dollars a month when I don't even make that much.  I kind of don't know what I'm going to do. 

It just sucks because when I got my raise, I really thought that I'd be able to build my checking account back up and maybe even try to start saving.  I thought maybe I could catch up on my finances and feel comfortable with my money but even with my raise, it was still a bit of a struggle to save.  Then, I heard I'd be demoted and that my hours might be cut and then I hear my loans are increasing.  It's the perfect storm of screwing me over.  I can't see any way to get out of this.  Unless I win the lottery.  Or finalize my death.  But even if I did that, my parents are cosigners so if I bite the big one, they'll be stuck paying for my bad choices.  I'd be responsible for them living under a bridge and eating dirt to pay off my loans.  I don't want to do that to them.  I can't escape it.  Even in death, I can't run from the ramifications of my terrible decisions.  I can't seem to get anything right.