Bossman had a friend at the bakery today, a French guy who helped in some way (I'm not sure how) with the Big Competition that Bossman won in 2005. So Philippe is looking at my croissants, and he tells Bossman they're nicer than the ones in Paris. (France, not Texas.) So that was kind of cool. We've also been selling a ton of them--today we even sold out of my red-headed stepchildren, a.k.a. the almond croissants. For some reason, they don't sell very well, and it's a rare day when we sell them all. We also got cool little paper cups for the monkey bread, and we sold a bunch of those today, too; the paper cups also make it much easier for me to assemble and store the damned things.
They're a great solution, too. I'd been putting my dough scraps into the next batch of dough, but that seemed to be causing a problem, or so Bossman concluded. I suggested the monkey bread--how can you go wrong with croissant dough, cinnamon, and sugar?--and then was faced with the problem of assembly. I was using our large muffin tins, but they're a pain, and you can only get twelve on a sheet pan, and so on. One day last week Bossman is cutting up strips of paper and taping it into rings: he'd looked into the sizes available of these paper panettone cups, and we chose the size closest to the muffin tins. They came in yesterday, and they're perfect: they have straight sides, which means they fit next to each other. They're individual cups, so I can (a) fit more on a sheet pan and (b) only bake as many as I want to bake. In addition, I found a deep-sided hotel pan that fits on top of a sheet pan, which works much better as a holding bin than the sheet pan--I just take my scraps, cut them up, and throw them in the bin in the freezer as I go, and every couple of days I pull out the pan in the morning, let it thaw a little, fill as many cups as I have dough for, and throw holding bin and a now-full-of-monkey-bread-cups sheet pan into the freezer. And customers? When they ask what's in the product and hear the answer, they typically Must Have One Now.
Flat Nephew came to the bakery today, too, though Flat Narya hasn't come alive yet. About what, you ask, am I talking? I got a letter from Nephew One last week, complete with a paper doll (hand-made) of himself and a girl paper doll for me to color in to look like me. Nephew One's class read Flat Stanley, and the project they're doing involves each kid sending a flat version of him/herself to someone who lives in another state. I'm supposed to send Flat Nephew and Flat Narya back to him, along with an account of his visit and tales of my state. Today Flat Nephew came to the bakery and posed with Artie, Johnnie, Phil (the Hispanic Phil), Bossman, and a tray of croissants. Bossman posed with his trophy, and with me (the 3-D version). I took down the names of the cities in Mexico from which Artie, Johnnie, and Phil come, figuring the whole immigrant angle would be interesting. I'm also going to take pictures of a statue of Abe Lincoln (it being his land here and all) and some of the interesting sights downtown, seeing as I'm going downtown on Monday. (I'll have Flat Narya colored in by then, so she can appear in some photos as well.) I would have liked to take the Flats to the prairie (we've got a bit of it somewhere around here), but I have no vehicle and not a lot of time. I will get to the lake, it being two blocks away and all--maybe I'll take a break from my marathon editing session tomorrow. I hope the pictures come out okay; I don't have a camera, so I got a couple of those disposable ones.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
I Am NOT a Human Resource, I'm a Human Being
(with apologies to Patrick McGoohan)
Larry's comment below made me realize that I've been particularly lucky: I have had bosses who actively sought out and utilized my intelligence and who appreciated what I brought (or bring) to the table. My boss at the substance abuse treatment place still uses me whenever he can for writing and brainstorming and such, and he's also become a good friend. My boss at the biotech company always valued what I did, even if he couldn't get them to compensate me appropriately. (That's a long, annoying tale that I'll leave for some other time.) My current boss really likes having me around, though I think he realizes, on some level, that he's going to have to pay me much better to keep me for any length of time.
It's had a price, however, in that one could argue that I've been relatively underpaid at every one of those jobs. As I put it to my last boss, what would it cost to replace what I do? At the biotech company, if they brought in someone Bigger than I was, then the compensation would have had to increase significantly--double, perhaps--and someone like that would have wanted an assistant and such. So, right there, more than twice what they paid me. If they went the other route and hired less-skilled people--sort of one per function, or something like that--they would have had to hire several people as well, and, while each might have been had for less than they paid me, the total still would have been higher.
I recognize that part of this is my own doing, in several ways. First off, I absolutely suck at negotiation. Second, I tend to be good at filling in little niches that people didn't realize needed filling, and doing a lot of that, across broad areas of the organization. People who are good at that never get compensated properly, because it's underappreciated as a skill. Third, I have not tried to create a Career--well, I did, actually, which is what the whole graduate school thing was about. You'll notice I am not a professor, however, so that didn't work so well. Point being, while my choices have made sense (to me, at the time, given the options I thought were available), and while my experience and skills are pretty broad, an HR person is going to throw my stuff in the trash.
You or I can SAY that I have great skills, broad experience, blah, blah, blah. But in order to get hired, I have to stumble across someone, in person, who's looking for me, or I have to find a posting where the resumes bypass HR and go straight to the person doing the hiring (and that person doesn't fit Larry's description below). My experience with HR people is limited, and all bad. They hate me. You see why this narrows my options.
I don't really want to write about that tonight, though. I'd rather tell you what's happening at work (though I must go to bed soon). Bossman took a class this week with a French pastry chef guy--a special three-day class at my old school, with a guest teacher they brought in. He brought back all kind of goodies and ideas, and I think we are definitely going to kick it all up a notch. He should be able to expand the bakery's square footage this fall, as the printing shop next door wants to move; Bossman has already started talking about what he'll put in there, and it includes space devoted to laminated doughs. Which is all well and good, except if he wants me to be doing the laminating, I want more money and fewer hours.
In other news, I may be getting a new laptop, which is pretty exciting. (I have one of the old iMacs right now--the half-basketball base, and a small screen.) I decided that I'd go ahead and get it--not least because I can write it off as a business expense--once I (a) got an all-clear from the doc (i.e., no looming medical expenses) and (b) earned enough on the side to cover me through the end of the year. It would be very nice to be able to do the editing work someplace other than my apartment. Part of the reason I want to work fewer hours at the bakery is that I really do want time to do my own writing, too, and that ain't happening if I'm working 55 to 60 hours a week at the bakery, even if I still get my two days off.
Meanwhile, it's after 10 pm, and I have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow.
Larry's comment below made me realize that I've been particularly lucky: I have had bosses who actively sought out and utilized my intelligence and who appreciated what I brought (or bring) to the table. My boss at the substance abuse treatment place still uses me whenever he can for writing and brainstorming and such, and he's also become a good friend. My boss at the biotech company always valued what I did, even if he couldn't get them to compensate me appropriately. (That's a long, annoying tale that I'll leave for some other time.) My current boss really likes having me around, though I think he realizes, on some level, that he's going to have to pay me much better to keep me for any length of time.
It's had a price, however, in that one could argue that I've been relatively underpaid at every one of those jobs. As I put it to my last boss, what would it cost to replace what I do? At the biotech company, if they brought in someone Bigger than I was, then the compensation would have had to increase significantly--double, perhaps--and someone like that would have wanted an assistant and such. So, right there, more than twice what they paid me. If they went the other route and hired less-skilled people--sort of one per function, or something like that--they would have had to hire several people as well, and, while each might have been had for less than they paid me, the total still would have been higher.
I recognize that part of this is my own doing, in several ways. First off, I absolutely suck at negotiation. Second, I tend to be good at filling in little niches that people didn't realize needed filling, and doing a lot of that, across broad areas of the organization. People who are good at that never get compensated properly, because it's underappreciated as a skill. Third, I have not tried to create a Career--well, I did, actually, which is what the whole graduate school thing was about. You'll notice I am not a professor, however, so that didn't work so well. Point being, while my choices have made sense (to me, at the time, given the options I thought were available), and while my experience and skills are pretty broad, an HR person is going to throw my stuff in the trash.
You or I can SAY that I have great skills, broad experience, blah, blah, blah. But in order to get hired, I have to stumble across someone, in person, who's looking for me, or I have to find a posting where the resumes bypass HR and go straight to the person doing the hiring (and that person doesn't fit Larry's description below). My experience with HR people is limited, and all bad. They hate me. You see why this narrows my options.
I don't really want to write about that tonight, though. I'd rather tell you what's happening at work (though I must go to bed soon). Bossman took a class this week with a French pastry chef guy--a special three-day class at my old school, with a guest teacher they brought in. He brought back all kind of goodies and ideas, and I think we are definitely going to kick it all up a notch. He should be able to expand the bakery's square footage this fall, as the printing shop next door wants to move; Bossman has already started talking about what he'll put in there, and it includes space devoted to laminated doughs. Which is all well and good, except if he wants me to be doing the laminating, I want more money and fewer hours.
In other news, I may be getting a new laptop, which is pretty exciting. (I have one of the old iMacs right now--the half-basketball base, and a small screen.) I decided that I'd go ahead and get it--not least because I can write it off as a business expense--once I (a) got an all-clear from the doc (i.e., no looming medical expenses) and (b) earned enough on the side to cover me through the end of the year. It would be very nice to be able to do the editing work someplace other than my apartment. Part of the reason I want to work fewer hours at the bakery is that I really do want time to do my own writing, too, and that ain't happening if I'm working 55 to 60 hours a week at the bakery, even if I still get my two days off.
Meanwhile, it's after 10 pm, and I have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Cha-Ching
I think maybe, in response to Ann's comment, that I should 'splain some things. For one thing, her comment (and reading my old posts) helps me see just how much I yammer about money. I think it's an awkward subject, but it seems to me that I should try to find ways to talk about it, not least because it's important in our everyday lives.
Although my day job is low-paying and physically grueling, it IS a job. I could live on what I make, just barely, if I were willing to live in a tiny apartment, have no social life, and eat as cheaply as possible; doing without health care or health insurance would help, too, as would doing without cable/internet and doing without a cell phone. I'm willing to work a second job so I can live in a one-bedroom apartment, go out to dinner or drinks with friends, eat organic (insofar as I eat anything other than meals out or bakery food), have health care and insurance, have an internet connection and cable TV, buy stuff, and have a cell phone as well as a land line. I don't like debt: my only debt right now is my student loan for pastry school, and I pay more than the minimum payment so I can (a) pay it off sooner and (b) pay less over the life of the loan. (If I paid it on their schedule, I'd pay twice the original loan amount--the loan amount plus the same amount in interest--which I think is insane.) That is, though I have credit, I have no desire to use it for material comforts, not least because interest rates are usurious, and I will do without rather than run up consumer debt. (I am not critical about people who have had to use credit cards to get out of jams and then find themselves in an even harder place; I have a parental safety net that many people simply do not have. I am critical about people who pile up debt for big houses, cars, and other conspicuously consumed items, but I may also be overly harsh about that.)
Not so terrible, really, especially compared to most of the rest of the world's population. Relative to what I have earned in other jobs, relative to what people with my level of education and experience can/do make, well, that's a little different comparison.
The other thing about my current situation, and probably the reason I write about this so often, is that it feels precarious to me. I've been getting enough side work such that I feel like I can breathe a little right now, but it's all built on being able to continue all of this work for the indefinite future--which is simply not realistic or pleasant to consider--or on finding another job that is less grueling and pays more--which, as I've noted before, is much more easily said than done. That's the source of the anxiety, I think, and why it shows up in my writing here so much. That is, it's not the immediate lack of money that makes me anxious--I have enough for my current needs and such--it's that I know my current situation is not one that will work for the long term, and my options seem so limited or difficult to attain that I start to worry about what I'm going to do.
It also brings up old crap. When I finished grad school, I was un- or underemployed for more than a year, as I've said here before. Could I have moved back in with my parents, if all else failed? Yup--and that's not an option that everyone has. But seriously; who'd want to do that, at the age of 36? Yeah; me neither. The fear and anxiety (and grief, for an assortment of losses) stayed with me for much of the last 13 years. It abated somewhat, with the last job; even when the company started to fail, I thought I had a partner who would help me as I made a transition to something new. As all of that blew up in the past 18 months, the anxiety has reared its ugly head again, and the particular choices I've made and circumstances in which I have thereby found myself have reawakened the fears again.
Keep in mind that I don't think I "deserve" this or that--job, salary, compensation, material lifestyle, whatever. I think all of us "deserve" work that is valued, living circumstances that are comfortable and free of anxiety about things like food and health care, etc.--me no more or less than anyone else. I'm closer to having a lot of that, because of the time and place in which I live, and also because of the genetic luck of the draw, i.e., I have brains and skills. And, yes, I work hard, but that is by no means either a necessary or sufficient condition. So it's not that I feel cheated, that I've been deprived of something that's rightly mine or something like that, it's that I don't know how I'm going to maintain. I want to create the time and space to do needlepoint, to write (other than to you guys), to make dinner for friends, to sit in a cafe and read a book for fun, without having to worry about anything right that minute. I've had those things before, and I want them again, and instead I'm worrying about paying the rent--not next month, but next year.
Anyway. I need to sleep.
Although my day job is low-paying and physically grueling, it IS a job. I could live on what I make, just barely, if I were willing to live in a tiny apartment, have no social life, and eat as cheaply as possible; doing without health care or health insurance would help, too, as would doing without cable/internet and doing without a cell phone. I'm willing to work a second job so I can live in a one-bedroom apartment, go out to dinner or drinks with friends, eat organic (insofar as I eat anything other than meals out or bakery food), have health care and insurance, have an internet connection and cable TV, buy stuff, and have a cell phone as well as a land line. I don't like debt: my only debt right now is my student loan for pastry school, and I pay more than the minimum payment so I can (a) pay it off sooner and (b) pay less over the life of the loan. (If I paid it on their schedule, I'd pay twice the original loan amount--the loan amount plus the same amount in interest--which I think is insane.) That is, though I have credit, I have no desire to use it for material comforts, not least because interest rates are usurious, and I will do without rather than run up consumer debt. (I am not critical about people who have had to use credit cards to get out of jams and then find themselves in an even harder place; I have a parental safety net that many people simply do not have. I am critical about people who pile up debt for big houses, cars, and other conspicuously consumed items, but I may also be overly harsh about that.)
Not so terrible, really, especially compared to most of the rest of the world's population. Relative to what I have earned in other jobs, relative to what people with my level of education and experience can/do make, well, that's a little different comparison.
The other thing about my current situation, and probably the reason I write about this so often, is that it feels precarious to me. I've been getting enough side work such that I feel like I can breathe a little right now, but it's all built on being able to continue all of this work for the indefinite future--which is simply not realistic or pleasant to consider--or on finding another job that is less grueling and pays more--which, as I've noted before, is much more easily said than done. That's the source of the anxiety, I think, and why it shows up in my writing here so much. That is, it's not the immediate lack of money that makes me anxious--I have enough for my current needs and such--it's that I know my current situation is not one that will work for the long term, and my options seem so limited or difficult to attain that I start to worry about what I'm going to do.
It also brings up old crap. When I finished grad school, I was un- or underemployed for more than a year, as I've said here before. Could I have moved back in with my parents, if all else failed? Yup--and that's not an option that everyone has. But seriously; who'd want to do that, at the age of 36? Yeah; me neither. The fear and anxiety (and grief, for an assortment of losses) stayed with me for much of the last 13 years. It abated somewhat, with the last job; even when the company started to fail, I thought I had a partner who would help me as I made a transition to something new. As all of that blew up in the past 18 months, the anxiety has reared its ugly head again, and the particular choices I've made and circumstances in which I have thereby found myself have reawakened the fears again.
Keep in mind that I don't think I "deserve" this or that--job, salary, compensation, material lifestyle, whatever. I think all of us "deserve" work that is valued, living circumstances that are comfortable and free of anxiety about things like food and health care, etc.--me no more or less than anyone else. I'm closer to having a lot of that, because of the time and place in which I live, and also because of the genetic luck of the draw, i.e., I have brains and skills. And, yes, I work hard, but that is by no means either a necessary or sufficient condition. So it's not that I feel cheated, that I've been deprived of something that's rightly mine or something like that, it's that I don't know how I'm going to maintain. I want to create the time and space to do needlepoint, to write (other than to you guys), to make dinner for friends, to sit in a cafe and read a book for fun, without having to worry about anything right that minute. I've had those things before, and I want them again, and instead I'm worrying about paying the rent--not next month, but next year.
Anyway. I need to sleep.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Good Times
Well, THAT was fun.
Or not.
I met with Chuck after work so we could exchange income tax forms (he made about $20k more than I did last year . . . and he still can't pay his fucking bills) and divorce forms and such. We discussed the promissory note that he's going to execute regarding the $14k he owes me--he suggested $25/month as a repayment for now, because he's so very strapped for cash (for which I have no fucking sympathy, believe me). He also wondered whether I'd consider giving back his mother's diamond. He said that the question "wasn't from him" but, apparently, from his mother. He was nervous and almost apologetic--as well he should have been, on an assortment of levels. I told him I really didn't want the diamond, but did not have the money to have it removed from the ring right now. (Let's face it, I'm not going to have the money until he pays back the $14k. Which, at $25/month, will take 47 years.) I've been waiting for that request, so I wasn't surprised, and I managed to avoid open hostility, but it took a serious effort on my part.
I've set a task for myself to maintain an attitude of compassion, and I told him that. He of course said he didn't need compassion, and I said that everyone needs compassion, in the buddhist sense or the golden rule sense, which he accepted. I didn't succeed as well as I would have liked today, but it could have been a lot worse. As I said to him--when he thanked me for the lack of acrimony--the last thing either of us needs is more pain in our lives.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to tell you about my flat nephew (it's a class project--kind of cool, actually), which I got in the mail Tuesday. I had three editing projects simultaneously, but I finished one tonight--the one on which I've been working since November. The other two are due next Wednesday, which, for me, means Monday, so my life, except for Tuesday, has been pretty much come-home-from-the-bakery-and-edit. It's fine, though, and I'm happy to have the work; I figured, when I got the last two, that they'd be pretty quick, that it would be two weeks of editing heck--followed by two checks, and that doesn't suck.
Or not.
I met with Chuck after work so we could exchange income tax forms (he made about $20k more than I did last year . . . and he still can't pay his fucking bills) and divorce forms and such. We discussed the promissory note that he's going to execute regarding the $14k he owes me--he suggested $25/month as a repayment for now, because he's so very strapped for cash (for which I have no fucking sympathy, believe me). He also wondered whether I'd consider giving back his mother's diamond. He said that the question "wasn't from him" but, apparently, from his mother. He was nervous and almost apologetic--as well he should have been, on an assortment of levels. I told him I really didn't want the diamond, but did not have the money to have it removed from the ring right now. (Let's face it, I'm not going to have the money until he pays back the $14k. Which, at $25/month, will take 47 years.) I've been waiting for that request, so I wasn't surprised, and I managed to avoid open hostility, but it took a serious effort on my part.
I've set a task for myself to maintain an attitude of compassion, and I told him that. He of course said he didn't need compassion, and I said that everyone needs compassion, in the buddhist sense or the golden rule sense, which he accepted. I didn't succeed as well as I would have liked today, but it could have been a lot worse. As I said to him--when he thanked me for the lack of acrimony--the last thing either of us needs is more pain in our lives.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to tell you about my flat nephew (it's a class project--kind of cool, actually), which I got in the mail Tuesday. I had three editing projects simultaneously, but I finished one tonight--the one on which I've been working since November. The other two are due next Wednesday, which, for me, means Monday, so my life, except for Tuesday, has been pretty much come-home-from-the-bakery-and-edit. It's fine, though, and I'm happy to have the work; I figured, when I got the last two, that they'd be pretty quick, that it would be two weeks of editing heck--followed by two checks, and that doesn't suck.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Così Va*
As I left my building at 5:45 this morning, I saw a text message on my phone from my friend Roberto: "So it goes," it said. I thought, "Hmm. Who died?" First I thought it might have been his grandmother, who has been in ill health, but as I walked to the el, I decided it had probably been Kurt Vonnegut, and, indeed, it was. I gave R a copy of "Player Piano" last year, because he and I have been talking about embodied knowledge, and there's a passage in that novel that perfectly captures the aspects of the notion that interest me.
My father went to the public library in my hometown every week or two, to exchange one stack of books for another. I often went with him, and, when I was about 12 or so, I started wandering into the adult fiction shelves. ("Young adult" fiction made me crazy--the books for girls were always about how the girl who felt like a misfit eventually got a boyfriend after all, so there!, and I knew none of that was going to work in my life, for one thing, and the stories were insipid, for another.) For some reason, I pulled "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" off the shelves and added it to my stack.
Reading it changed my life.
I could no longer tell you any salient detail from the novel--the media has been rife with recountings and quotes, but that doesn't count--except the presence of Kilgore Trout and Mr. Rosewater Although I own a bunch of Vonnegut paperbacks, I don't have that one. But it did, in fact, change my life: I don't claim to have understood completely what I read, but I wanted more--of Vonnegut, of whatever it was. I worked my way through the rest of the Vonnegut that the library had, and for several years I kept my eye open for the latest one. (I didn't find the short stories until later, and I admittedly didn't have the reaction to "Welcome to the Monkey House" that many of Twisty's readers had, though I probably should have.) The thing about it was, he played with language, he told stories that weren't straight lines but still had points, and the point he was often making had to do with the brutality of patriarchal, war-mongering, capitalist society. And to my adolescent, small-town, social-outcast self, it was a revelation. It opened a side door that I didn't even know existed, and the very existence of the door, much less anything I might find on the other side, changed my sense of the possibilities. So, yes, Kurt Vonnegut changed my life; thank you, Mr. Vonnegut.
______
*So it goes. In Italian, or so says BabelFish.
My father went to the public library in my hometown every week or two, to exchange one stack of books for another. I often went with him, and, when I was about 12 or so, I started wandering into the adult fiction shelves. ("Young adult" fiction made me crazy--the books for girls were always about how the girl who felt like a misfit eventually got a boyfriend after all, so there!, and I knew none of that was going to work in my life, for one thing, and the stories were insipid, for another.) For some reason, I pulled "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" off the shelves and added it to my stack.
Reading it changed my life.
I could no longer tell you any salient detail from the novel--the media has been rife with recountings and quotes, but that doesn't count--except the presence of Kilgore Trout and Mr. Rosewater Although I own a bunch of Vonnegut paperbacks, I don't have that one. But it did, in fact, change my life: I don't claim to have understood completely what I read, but I wanted more--of Vonnegut, of whatever it was. I worked my way through the rest of the Vonnegut that the library had, and for several years I kept my eye open for the latest one. (I didn't find the short stories until later, and I admittedly didn't have the reaction to "Welcome to the Monkey House" that many of Twisty's readers had, though I probably should have.) The thing about it was, he played with language, he told stories that weren't straight lines but still had points, and the point he was often making had to do with the brutality of patriarchal, war-mongering, capitalist society. And to my adolescent, small-town, social-outcast self, it was a revelation. It opened a side door that I didn't even know existed, and the very existence of the door, much less anything I might find on the other side, changed my sense of the possibilities. So, yes, Kurt Vonnegut changed my life; thank you, Mr. Vonnegut.
______
*So it goes. In Italian, or so says BabelFish.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Still More Whining!
I am so pathetic.
I've begun to think about possibly maybe embarking on the Find and Get a New Job project, and of course I read job descriptions and eliminate myself from consideration before applying, which makes the "getting" part difficult to accomplish. Sometimes it's because the job requires skills I clearly do not have (I'm not a nurse, for example), and sometimes it's for a part of a university that I suspect would not be a good fit for me (the business school), but just as often it's because I read the description and think they'd never hire me to do that, whatever "that" is. So I read more job descriptions and I get really depressed, because I feel like I'm completely unable to get a job. And then I think about doing more of what I'm doing--somehow staying at the bakery, and doing enough editing and so on--just so I don't have to look for another job, and that makes me nearly frantic. You wouldn't be able to tell that I'm frantic, because I'm being frantic in my head, while I shlep through another 11-hour day at the croissant factory, but frantic I am. On the worst days, like today, I can't even find something else about which I can think, so I'm sheeting dough, or cutting it, or rolling it, or egg-washing it, or whatthefuckever, while I have all these dire thoughts inside my head.
Part of the problem, of course, is those 11-hour days; I end up with almost no time to myself. On a typical day, I get up a little before 5 am, get breakfast, put my bottles of tea for the day in my bag, get dressed, check my email, brush my teeth, and leave for work around 5:45. (I used to shower in the morning, but this week I'm experimenting with showering at night, which gives me an extra few minutes in the morning.) I usually punch in by 6:20 unless I have bad public transportation karma. I take a 20-minute break, usually around 11:30, sometimes later (nearly 1:00 the other day). I've been punching out around 5:15, give or take a half-hour, though occasionally as late as 6:15. I get home by 6:00, sometimes 6:30 or even 7:00. I read my email, I vegetate in front of the computer, maybe do some editing work, take a shower, and go to bed by 10:00. On Mondays I deal with all of the crap--phone calls, appointments, doctors, whatever--that I can't deal with the rest of the week. I do my laundry every other week, usually on Sunday morning, early, and I clean when I can find the energy. I rarely cook anything any more. I don't play handball. i don't practice yoga. On Tuesdays I meet friends for beer and free food, and I occasionally have breakfast or dinner with someone else, but I spend most of my hours in my own head (see above for the pathetic commentary that goes along with that) or working with people with whom I don't share fluency in a language. Even the things that used to provide me with satisfaction--for example, today's croissants were absolutely beautiful, and Bossman praised them extravagantly--provide only transitory moments of pleasure. I'm dreading dealing with the details of this stupid divorce; it's one more slog through a mud field. It occurred to me tonight that I am worse off than I was when I met Chuck, in just about every way you can imagine. I'm older, I make way less money, I have fewer career options, I have more debt (I'd paid off a lot of my student loans), I have less savings, and I have the wreckage of that relationship to survey and the legal wrangling with which to deal.
And then I hear (or read) myself whining, AGAIN, and I feel worse, not least because that's all I seem to do when I try to write here or talk to my friends. Also because there are so many people--including people whose blogs i read and to whose blogs I link--who are dealing with seriously heavy shit (cancer, death of a sibling) and who are doing it with a lot more style, grace, wit, and entertaining writing than i manage to throw up here.
This is a long-winded, whining way of saying that I may be posting even less frequently in the coming weeks. I can't stand it that all i fucking do is whine. I hate it that I try to write a post, because I haven't in forever, and this shit comes spilling out, so I try to think of something else, and my brain just won't go anywhere else. And i don't want to keep on with the whining. And I'm sorry.
I've begun to think about possibly maybe embarking on the Find and Get a New Job project, and of course I read job descriptions and eliminate myself from consideration before applying, which makes the "getting" part difficult to accomplish. Sometimes it's because the job requires skills I clearly do not have (I'm not a nurse, for example), and sometimes it's for a part of a university that I suspect would not be a good fit for me (the business school), but just as often it's because I read the description and think they'd never hire me to do that, whatever "that" is. So I read more job descriptions and I get really depressed, because I feel like I'm completely unable to get a job. And then I think about doing more of what I'm doing--somehow staying at the bakery, and doing enough editing and so on--just so I don't have to look for another job, and that makes me nearly frantic. You wouldn't be able to tell that I'm frantic, because I'm being frantic in my head, while I shlep through another 11-hour day at the croissant factory, but frantic I am. On the worst days, like today, I can't even find something else about which I can think, so I'm sheeting dough, or cutting it, or rolling it, or egg-washing it, or whatthefuckever, while I have all these dire thoughts inside my head.
Part of the problem, of course, is those 11-hour days; I end up with almost no time to myself. On a typical day, I get up a little before 5 am, get breakfast, put my bottles of tea for the day in my bag, get dressed, check my email, brush my teeth, and leave for work around 5:45. (I used to shower in the morning, but this week I'm experimenting with showering at night, which gives me an extra few minutes in the morning.) I usually punch in by 6:20 unless I have bad public transportation karma. I take a 20-minute break, usually around 11:30, sometimes later (nearly 1:00 the other day). I've been punching out around 5:15, give or take a half-hour, though occasionally as late as 6:15. I get home by 6:00, sometimes 6:30 or even 7:00. I read my email, I vegetate in front of the computer, maybe do some editing work, take a shower, and go to bed by 10:00. On Mondays I deal with all of the crap--phone calls, appointments, doctors, whatever--that I can't deal with the rest of the week. I do my laundry every other week, usually on Sunday morning, early, and I clean when I can find the energy. I rarely cook anything any more. I don't play handball. i don't practice yoga. On Tuesdays I meet friends for beer and free food, and I occasionally have breakfast or dinner with someone else, but I spend most of my hours in my own head (see above for the pathetic commentary that goes along with that) or working with people with whom I don't share fluency in a language. Even the things that used to provide me with satisfaction--for example, today's croissants were absolutely beautiful, and Bossman praised them extravagantly--provide only transitory moments of pleasure. I'm dreading dealing with the details of this stupid divorce; it's one more slog through a mud field. It occurred to me tonight that I am worse off than I was when I met Chuck, in just about every way you can imagine. I'm older, I make way less money, I have fewer career options, I have more debt (I'd paid off a lot of my student loans), I have less savings, and I have the wreckage of that relationship to survey and the legal wrangling with which to deal.
And then I hear (or read) myself whining, AGAIN, and I feel worse, not least because that's all I seem to do when I try to write here or talk to my friends. Also because there are so many people--including people whose blogs i read and to whose blogs I link--who are dealing with seriously heavy shit (cancer, death of a sibling) and who are doing it with a lot more style, grace, wit, and entertaining writing than i manage to throw up here.
This is a long-winded, whining way of saying that I may be posting even less frequently in the coming weeks. I can't stand it that all i fucking do is whine. I hate it that I try to write a post, because I haven't in forever, and this shit comes spilling out, so I try to think of something else, and my brain just won't go anywhere else. And i don't want to keep on with the whining. And I'm sorry.
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