Schlep Wisely, Children

Two years have come and gone and I’m writing this entry from the coffee shop where my mother once suggested I apply to work http://chewtoy.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/femme-blaspheme/ 

I’m happier. I’m thinner. I have two really kick ass jobs. And best of all, I get to sit here on my ass and write when I wanna instead of schlepping coffee. Albeit, I did spend six months schlepping coffee, just not here, I schlepped for people who mattered. 

Listen closely youngins. If you’re gonna wipe asses and schlep coffee, make sure its for people who count, people who have the jobs you want, people who will someday poke their nose above the steam of their triple skim mocha chunk frappa-latte-cinos and notice you…. Don’t degrade yourself behind a counter, schlepping house coffees for the neighbor who always throws loud parties, the guy down the street who always steals your paper, or the woman upstairs who flushes the toilet 23 times a day, ESPECIALLY while you’re showering.

Schlep smart.

Screw you, and you, and you, and I Really Wish I Had The Spine…

I’m researching a medium-profile civil rights/murder/public relations FRENZY/case and have encountered a smattering of D-bags which I thought were reserved for cubicle life.

Exhibit A: Oober rude PR rep from a local organization. He refused to grant me information and interviews that he gave to others, treats me like shi*, hung up on me once, oh and he thinks he’s cool cause he sold out, gave up on being a real journalist, and wound up writing press releases and covering corporate ass. I wonder what that feels like. He’s two clicks away from schlepping coffee like the office snack-bitch. 

(What I wish I’d said: Google yourself you bi-atch! See what comes up:  several “famous” people who share your name, and YOU AINT ONE OF EM, HA. You’re just mad that you wasted two decades on podunk news and only made it as far as PR for one of California’s most failed transit systems. Want a cookie, pat on the ass, pulitzer? 

Exhibit B: High profile attorney aka just a glorified ambulance chaser with a really cheap neck tie. You think you could get just a tad spruced up for the press conference buddy? Nope? Ok. He cut me off in the middle of our interview to ask if I watched the news. Well, I AM the news… and while I pay attention to it, I don’t stalk it, sleep with it or rely on it because I’M TRYING TO WRITE IT. Anyhow… he got pissed off and said I was asking a question that could be answered by going online, or watching T.V. (What I wish I’d said: REALLY? I hope to god I can relay that information to the family you’re representing you indignant POS. )

So I retorted. “Yes Mr. BLEEEEEP, I understand this gets a bit redundant, however, It is my job to represent the facts of this case as accurately as possible. I’m sure you can understand, you are after all a lawyer. I cannot plagiarize quotes and information from my counterparts…that would be about as air tight as if you were to base an entire argument on CNN.Com and Youtube videos. That wouldn’t hold in court now, would it? So I’m sure you can understand.”

He shut up and was pretty “polite” as far as ambulance chasing SOB money grubbing attorneys go. He even researched some of the things I asked him about and used it to form his criminal case, which he filed today.

(What I still wish I’d said) You’re welcome, ambulance chaser. Yes, I’m taking credit for that. No, I really don’t think you could have come up with those ideas on your own… not while you had your head that far up your own arse at least.

Tenks God for the Tanking ECONOMY

I should have left my snot driveling job when I had the chance. Now that the economy has outright turned to a pile of (insert noun here) I have no choice but to keep it, keep writing about local sports, the man selling pieces of the moon down by safeway, selling myself like a 2 bit whore on the corner for answers to the weekly “neighborly poll” (which by the way, unless the question is about stuffed animals or colors or mac DONALDS, no one has the brain power to answer). 

No one in this god forsaken city knows a lick about what is happening around them. Not a bit about politics, history, shit even current events. WHY? Because they have their nose stuck in a local paper that tells them absolutely nothing. No wonder. It isn’t their fault. It’s ours.

On with the  moaning.

So, now that I’ve had a job it’s been difficult to write about my deep, dark, hatred for the “hunt” and for those stupid ass recruiters, bimbo “office managerssss” who just got hired cause their boobs are too big for their oxfords (and they don’t know what an oxford is but BOO HOO TOO BAD)…. Like I was saying, it’s hard to complain. I’ve been keeping my disdain for my present form of employment in hiding. Maybe because I’m afraid that someone there might find this and read it and then i might get fired or laid off which would actually be a blessing in disguise because then i could file for unemployment and collect checks but still sleep in on mondays. 

If you would like a running commentary of some of the funny, yet , “oh my god give me a grapefruit spoon so I can eat my own brain away,” conversations…read on.

Michael is the ad guy. Very sweet. Mormon. Has four kids and one on the way. Li-Anne is a customer who comes in to place ads, she runs a duty-free shop at the airport or something, I forget, doesn’t matter cause she’s having a “GIGANTIC SALE.”

Li-Anne: Gigantic SALE!!!

Michael: (instantly knows whats going on and goes into work mode) Oh, ok, yeah sure okay, super yea, uhuh okay. What about, instead of gigantic (puts hands up into the air as if to project something) “SU–PER”

Li-Anne: (who just may be three, or thirty-five sheets to the wind) Aw what the hell (she looks and talks just like the principal’s secretary from ferris bueler’s day off) Yeah lets do it, SUPER. YEah.

Michael: Yeah yeah you like that? YEah I think it kinda spruces it up, somethin new ya know? Cause look see, here, look. (pulls out adds from current week). All the ads got Gigantic but none of em got “SUPER.” Yeah that’ll stick out ya know? Ok great. I mean. SUPER! (ha ha)

Li-Anne: Yeah, ok bbyeee now ok bbyeeeeee.

 

Michael and Steven [steven is the office manager, nice enough guy, bit of a HUN if you get my drift...(atilla the HUN) younger than the rest of the staff, lives at a frat house since graduation last year].

Steven: Michael, come here please. Yeaa, (walks up to him, waves him over with his hand) come here. 

Michael: Yeap uhuh whats up, yea sure ok, yeah uhuh, (saunters over on his toes, cotton candy hair flowing in the “wind” )

Steven: Now, Michael, what is this? (cocks head up to the side and points to a moldy sponge hanging from the ceiling out of a heater vent)

Michael: (Turning kinda blue…or maybe red, definitely feeling caught red-handed and embarassed)
Uh yeah I don’t knowwwww

Steven: (Looks at Michael condescendingly) Oh, really? Uh…..huh. ok so who put it there?

Michael: Yeah I don’t know Steve, eh ah, uh, yeah I think they put it up there, (picks food out of his tooth with his index finger and checks it out) yeah I dont know. I think they put it up there, yah know to like, stop it.

Steven: Wahhuh? WHOS THEY? They? Like.. a mouse just like put it up there? Or maybe a construction crew like came in and decided oh yeah lets put a moldy sponge above Steven’s head???

Michael: w w wwell uh

Steven: ITs OVER MY HEAD, AIR IS BLOWING TRHOUGH IT AND ITS LIKE JUST LIKE HANGING U KNOW… OVER MY HEAD!
And WHO IS THEY?

Michael: Uh, like Charlie and all them… you know (Charlie is the CEO, funny guy, Croatian.)

Steven: So what you’re saying is Charlie put a sponge in the ceiling vent. YA uhuh

Michael: yeah you know, like uh (spinning on his heels and fidgeting) You know how they come through here and uh mess with thangs ya know…they came in just the other day and were playing with all thah light bulbs and stuff.

Steven: Ya? WHY would they shove a sponge up there?

Michael: (who has been timidly answering this whole time, finally snaps) SO ITS LIKE A WEDGE TO HOLD THE VENT UP!

Steven: Its falling off, so…they thought oh the vent is falling out lets shove something up there so it keeps falling???

Michael: ITS A WEDGE. You put it up there so it keeps it from falling…its like…it catches onto the screws where its fallin out ya know, so it has somethin to hold on to, thats my thought….it can grip on to somethin’.

Steven: ME? You said YOU so you mean ME? I didn’t put it up there.

Michael: OH GOD STEVEN you know what I mean. I mean. You. no NOt YOU in GENERAL YOU. As in… someone put it there.

Steven: But you said CHARLIE put it there so why didn..

Michael: (interrupts) I SAID MAYBE he put it….what in the sam hell are you doing?

Steven: (gets up on his desk and ripps the sponge out of the ceiling vent and parades it around the office)
(goes into the kitchen and starts washing it ) … 

Michael:  (now seated at his desk). Ya know Steven..thats uh…ah ..a uh… very .. thats uh perfectly good sponge ya know….(clasping his hands together over hs desk) You could use it to was your cofffee cups in the morning.

Steven: (Looks back at Michael in disgust and then walks back through the office to his own desk

Michael: yeah well uh, merry christmas Steve-o!

Michael: Heya Lucy (me), did you uh put that up there? (whispering) Cause uh, I know if I did it I wouldn’t say nothin heh heh heeh

 

My Kind of Guy

I have done things very similar to this. But now, I think I’ll do exactly this. Not only does it prove the guy is intelligent, but he is a hard worker. You go guy

 

Courtesy Spencer Platt/Getty Images, posted in NY Times

  

 

Beware

I would like to take the chance to post a public service announcement. This is a sort of follow up from a previous post. I had applied for a job and interviewed extensively with people from company “A” only to be told that the people at company “A” were merging with company “B” so I would soon be an employee for company “B.” Then, I am told, (three weeks into the process, mind you) that company “A” is contracting the position from company “C” and that I would actually be employed by company “C” not “A” or “B.”

On the first day of the near fourth week of my interviewing and negotiating with them, I am told that the benefits, which were boasted in the initial job posting, do not exist. I went to their site this morning only to receive an error message stating that the posting had been removed by the user.

Fools Gold

 I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I left a voicemail with them stating that they were engaging in false advertising. Lucky for me I took a screen shot of the posting. I am usually wary of recruiters or recruiting agencies, but this particular company assured me that they weren’t recruiters that they were in fact the outsourced HR department for the company. I’ll give you a hint about the company…it is highly related to something that rhymes with schmorgage blending.

Finding Solace at Costco

All is not lost. Right next to the “wonder balls” (back massaging balls) at Costco, I came across this bible of the minuteman.

oooh, intimideratiming.

 

According to one border patrol website, an individual working at the San Diego border could make as much as 150k/year. My boyfriend says that one of the distinctions between middle class and upper elite/wealthy, is that the middle class talk about money, whereas the wealthy talk ideas. If I was sitting on my butt all day in San Diego watching for people the size of ants from some patrol tower……making 150k a year, I’d have plenty of room in my brain for ideas.

Oh C-Net, you too?

 I declined an offer at a large financial institution today. It turns out that although I had applied for said large ( and large I mean big 4) company, it was another company who represented them, and below that, yet ANOTHER company which was outsourced to them by the representing company, which was advertising the job. Sound confusing? It was. I dealt with these immoral idiots for three weeks before they basically told me that everything in the job posting was a lie. There wasn’t a competitive salary, and the “generous benefits package” which they boasted, it was a lie. I found it so ironic that after a year of working full or part time here and there, after finally getting a job offer, I turned it down. Ironic but utterly invigorating. Anyhow, so I came home today after work to find this timely e-mail from Cnet (please, no more), and yet another “JOB OFFER” from a man named Doctor Henry Martins who says he will pay me $7,000 a month to take care of his payment schedule. I do not know what “payment schedule” he is talking about but, as long as I “get the income” and “transfer the income” from and to the appropriate people, I get a 10% cut. This one wreaks of pyramid schemeeeeeee. Once again, in case it has not become antagonistically apparent, I hate corporate america.

I wish this was a bad joke

If I have a job, then why do I feel like I am cheating when I go on craigslist to look for another job? This e-mail from AP turned 

the guilt into anger. The people who wrote the algorithm that matched my UC Berkeley degree and experience with a job as a security guard should be tarred and feathered and then fried and served with waffles….

Divine Intervention

It seems the gods of irony took a break today. I was offered a paid position at the paper i’ve been interning at. Does this mean my disdain for the job hunt or memories of bad interviewing experiences will fade? Not really. I’ll keep it all in mind, and definitely be able to relate to those who are still hunting, but its hard to be angry when something you’ve wanted is finally in front of you.

I’m on Borrowed Time

the last post was pitiful….

Some recent happenings have got me pondering the meaning of a JOB. Sociologists would argue that a job is defined by paramaters which, in one aspect or another, include some sort of material compensation, aka a salary. A career, however, as my sister would rightfully argue, entails the act of doing something, sometimes without material compensation, ex. Motherhood/child rearing, or as Schwartzenneger does, Governing without pay. I have been told so many times in the past few months not to doubt my own self worth because I am being productive yet it is not for pay…I recently started working, although unpaid, for a paper. I love it. I can’t get enough of it, I can’t wait for the weekends to be over so I can talk to new people and expand my base of contacts, learn new things about the trade, and write articles, even if it is about a local toaster club. I have the option, however, to work at a bank, for money, of course. There is no choice. Well, there is. My choice would be to stay at the paper and get offered a paid position. Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice. I have to take the paid position, i’m on borrowed time…although I live at home, i’m racking up a sort of debt in my brain. Even with the bank position, I won’t be able to take care of myself completely, but its a start. Working at the paper is a start in the direction that I want to go; working at the bank, however, is a start in the direction of financial stability. Unless I want to live in a tent and have flies following me around to interviews, I have to let my desire to be a writer take a back seat. Something i’m sure will be smiled upon by my peers, and my bank account.