Fall Semester, Tightly Packed For My Inconvenience

When I signed up for the Fall semester, I made sure my classes were in a morning block on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so as to maybe make myself more employable.  The "employable" part didn't actually happen, really, apart from this temp job at the textbook store, so now I'm stuck with two really intense mornings per week.

There are downsides to this, obviously.

• I have ten minutes between classes.  This works out fine between the first two, because they're down the hall from each other.  It's the time between the second and third classes that makes it tough - they're in different buildings.  And the professor for the third class will totally lock you out if you're consistently late.  So I haul ass between Algebra and Government like it's my job.
• There is no time between classes for me to write this blog, so I have to do it when I should be doing other things, like homework.  So, upside and downside.  I can't write about things as they happen, but I can totally write about things as a distraction from doing actual work.
• There was a third negative, but I can't remember it right now.

An interesting thing happened to me in my Government class yesterday, though.  The professor asked for volunteers to take notes for a hearing-impaired student we have in class named Jason.  Jason actually has a team of interpreters so that he can do regular college classes with everybody else.  The interpreters are almost hypnotic.  I watch them sometimes while the professor is talking.  I especially like their facial expressions while they're signing.  They work on a tag-team sort of deal.  It seems like they will do their interpreting for awhile, until their hands get tired, and then they tag out and are replaced with the backup, who signs until their hands are tired, and then rotate again.  It's a pretty cool system, especially as it leaves interpreters with only half-tired hands at the end of the class.

So, the professor asked for volunteers to take notes for Jason.  Nobody raised their hands.  Then she said "They'll pay you!"  It turns out that CCC will pay $100 to you at the end of the semester if you agree to take good notes for your hearing-impaired classmate.  I probably don't have to tell you, I jumped all over that shit.  I take strong notes with good handwriting, and I was already going to have to take the damn notes, so why not get paid to share?  (Here's the part where I expose my lack of money-making sense: I would have done it for free, because I was already taking the notes - it's not like I was doing anything extra.  But yes, CCC, I will take your hundred dollars.  Good day to you, sir!)

So, anyway, the packed schedule is indeed packed.  It's a high-intensity college morning twice a week.  It's almost like high school - that part where you're weaving through the throngs of people, trying to get to class before the bell rings.  Only we don't have bells.  We just have the walk of shame that comes if you're late.

So That's Why They Call It 'The Fall Rush'

I have been at work every day this week.  While it's supposed to be a part-time job, the completely predictable phenomenon of "The Fall Rush" has rendered my week completely to My Corporate Overlords at the textbook store.

There's a lot to say about this.

First, I am not a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old.  Working at a textbook store means endless walking, standing, bending, squatting, cartwheeling, somersaulting and other gyrations that make my body ache right down to my very bones.  Last night, after six hours standing at a cash register, trying to work my way through the line of customers that wrapped around the entire store and threatened to escape the front door (no kidding - it was really that bad), I left at about 9:45 (forty-five minutes past when I was supposed to leave).  My lower back was absolutely killing me, for about the fourth day in a row.   Improbably for Texas, my car has seat-warmers in it.  I'm not sure why it has seat-warmers, but I really, really appreciated them last night, because I used them like a heating pad while I drove home.  This could be applicable for senior citizens as well, so tell your grandma.

The main negative of this job, other than the minimum wage, is the body pain.  Since The Rush is all rush-y, I haven't had much in the way of boredom, so that's good.  I tried to explain to the manager that the body pain was a consequence of being a) elderly and b) fat, and he told me these were not valid excuses and to quit leaning.  No, just kidding, he let me get a stool.  Which then made my ass go numb.  But numb is better than hurting so much that I want to pass out, so that was good.

There are other positives to my week-long stint at this job:

• I can now find a textbook, any textbook, for any class, faster than I can find a pair of matching shoes in my home.  (I don't want to examine too closely what this means for my home.)
• I totally had a conversation with a literature grad student about literature and held my own in the discussion.  I am as well-read as that particular literature grad student, possibly as well-read as most literature grad students on the planet.  That somehow makes me awesome, though it's a very difficult awesomeness to define.  And yes.  The grad student was ten years younger than me.
• I keep getting compliments on how I follow through on projects, which I have discerned to mean that I don't just give it a half-assed try and then throw the list in the trash like other people.  This is positive and negative.  Positive in that: go me!  My Puritanical work ethic can be good sometimes!  And negative because: I weep for the species.
  
  And here's my favorite positive:
• Over-Achieving Girl hates me.

Well, I think she also hates this job, but not with a fiery passion.  More like she hates this job with a soul-crushing whimper, because not only has she completely stopped speaking or smiling at work, but she got into an argument with our manager because he scheduled us all so many damn hours this week (I'm working an almost full-time week this week, for instance).  Turns out she would prefer to work the four to five hour shifts that she was promised when they lured us all in here.  She left early one day because her soul is a delicate snowflake that is slowly melting in the heat of her disappointment with this job (not to be confused with the heat of our unrelenting Texas summer), and you can tell she's hanging on by a thread.  There are no children to play with here!  There is nothing remotely creative about this place!  She hates this job.  But she also hates me. 

I know this because she has given me two big clues.  Both of these clues happened within a four-hour window of time yesterday, which was the worst day of The Rush so far. 

First, she called me jolly.

Well, specifically, she said to me "Your jolliness is contagious!"  This was said to me without any trace of a jolly smile, so clearly it was not contagious.

You may think this is not an insult.  And if you think that, you are skinny.  Fat girls know, instinctively, that "jolly," when used in connection with us and not, say, with an elfish-looking man dressed all in red with a sack of fucking toys, is in fact an insult.  If you don't understand this, I'm not actually sure I can explain this to you.  Apart from the fat-girl dig, this was also a passive-aggressive way of saying that my interaction with customers (I'm sorry, "guests") was loud and annoying.  Now, I have to say, nobody likes standing at a cash register for hours on end.  So I make my own fun.  I try to make sure people have a smile on their faces when they leave the store.  Sometimes, this is impossible.  But I always try.  And I have a loud laugh.  I may have mentioned this before.  Once, my brother echo-located me in a big, crowded convention center using only my laugh as his guide.  True story.

So, the second insult was more blatant.  I mean, a lot more blatant.  The manager asked me to help her sort some receipts and file them.  She looked right at him and said "Is there nothing else she can do right now?"  In point of fact, I could have gone home at that point, because it was already half an hour past the time I was scheduled to go home, but I was trying to do my part to help close the store and everything.  Being a team player and whatnot.  Over-Achieving Girl apparently hates team players.

I go back there this afternoon, and then again tomorrow, and then I have Sunday off!  I am looking forward to that more than I can actually say, which is funny because I'll probably end up spending Sunday doing homework.

This brings us to the new semester, which brings us to a new post.

I Have Joined the Ranks of the Gainfully Underemployed, Part Two.

Here is why this job will be a doozy, requiring all of my limited social skills for a solid month:

• The manager keeps eyeballing me, like he knows that there is sarcasm welling up in my soul, and he's just waiting for the moment when that sarcasm bubbles up uncontrollably and I start shrieking one-liners laced with incredibly foul language at the customers.  Who are not customers, you know.  They are "guests."  I get the uncomfortable feeling that maybe he has seen my kind before and he does not appreciate us.
• The people who were already working there before my little gang of four got there.  More on this later in this very post.
• These words came out of the managers mouth as he explained my incredibly uncomplicated job as a cashier:  "You'll probably have to help them write a check.  Lots of these kids have never written a check before."

Please allow me to pause a moment so that you can let this soak in.

I understand not having a checking account prior to the age of 18.  Lots of banks do this, and it's not a big deal.  I myself did not have a checking account until the age of 18.  I do not consider this odd.

However. 

The check.  There are two factors at work here.  First, the check itself literally tells you what information in requires, and where to put it.  The only reason for not being able to fill out a very, very simple form, is that you do not read or write English.  This is appropriate, and it's the only possible excuse a person may have for being unable to write a check.  I have helped people write rent checks before because of their limited grasp of the English language and it is no big deal at all.  These people have an acceptable excuse.  There is no other acceptable excuse.  Excepting a total lack of hands or fingers or something.  In which case it is permissable for you to write your check using your special tool that you've been using to write on things with since whenever you lost your manual abilities.  I don't judge.

The second factor is this: even if you have never written a check in your life, you have probably received one.  Even if it was just a $5.00 check from Grandma on your birthday, you have received a check.  If you ever once looked at that check, you would see exactly what information the experienced checkwriter put in what fields.  They've laid it all out for you.  It's right there for you to learn from.  If you get a $5.00 check from Grandma every year for your birthday, you would see it at least annually for the duration of your life (or hers).  Does this not sink in?  Have you never watched your mom write a check at the grocery store?  Maybe not, considering that you were probably eight years old on 9/11 and you have no idea who the Beatles are, apart from iconic images on those posters that you're buying to decorate your dorm room.  (Semi-related: if you can't sing one single verse of a Bob Marley song and you are wearing a polo shirt tucked into your jorts, I am not selling you the Bob Marley poster.  I am not.)

Come to think of it, I actually don't mind teaching college kids how to write checks.  It's a valuable lesson I can impart to younger generations before we all devolve into vaguely sentient beings that may or may not gnaw at each other's faces when we meet on the street.

So.  The people who already worked there.  Pardon me for a second, while I dust off my fingers. I am eating puffy Cheetos right now and I have no idea why.

We seem to have several categories of people within this small group.  We have:

• The manager.  As I mentioned before, he appears to be wise to my kind and I don't think I made a favorable impression, despite my outward show of docile willingness.  Just think about it a minute, Mr. Manager.  It would have been a total lie for me to say that I'm passionate about helping other people balance the books.  Nobody is passionate about Accounting.  It's like saying that people are passionate about the Dewey Decimal system.  Not even librarians are passionate about that. 
• The "Team Lead."  He's been there for three or four years and he doesn't make eye-contact with you.  Chances are, he won't even learn your name.  Because you are one of the Faceless Warm Bodies that corporate sends in when it's Rush Time.  It's remarkably efficient if you think about it.
• The Blond Girl Who Is Also An Athletic Somethingorother Major.  She shares my name, but not my mostly good nature.  And how dare you ask her a question.  How dare you, sir.
• The Artistic Dude Who Might Be Nice or Might Just Be High.  I liked that guy.  If he was working while high, he's damned good at it, because he knew where everything was and didn't giggle once.
• The Girl Who Has Only Been Working Here Three Weeks.  She's disillusioned (probably on account of that psychology degree she has, yet she's working at a textbook store), she's grumpy, but she is a goddamn workhorse.

Speaking of which, I was a workhorse, too.  I spent an hour and a half lugging textbooks around and figuring out where to shelve them, which is an excellent way to learn what's there and where it might be.  Kudos to the manager for having us do that, even though it was probably just a matter of needing those damn books on the damn shelves as soon as damn possible.  Hilariously, he practically forbade all of us from speaking to actual customers.

You will not be surprised to hear that Over-Achieving Girl volunteered for the first shift on the cash register.  It was at that moment that not a single customer darkened our doorstep - at least not any that wanted to check out.  So, she contented herself by straightening up merchandise that didn't need straightening.  She'd been doing that all the way through the orientation, refolding shirts that were perfectly folded in the first place, and doing it very obviously, so that Mr. Manager could see that she was Taking The Initiative.

Here's the part where I tell you that I'm absolutely not bitter about doing this job.  I'm actually really glad to have the opportunity to make some money, even though it's probably only going to be for a month or so.  I've got these dreams, see, and I'm pretty much willing to do whatever to make them happen.  It doesn't matter to me that this job makes not only my head but my tired old bones ache.  I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it to the very best of my ability, for as long as it lasts.

Plus this is going to be an excellent story to tell at my fancy parties on my yacht in another ten years or so.

I Have Joined the Ranks of the Gainfully Underemployed, Part One.

So, I knew going into this that my employment was going to be kind of sketchy and weird while I went to school.  But, I have been in business for myself for the last couple of years, so I just figured I'd be scheduling clients around my school schedule.  Sadly, the economy claimed my last two clients, and I wasn't able to secure any more by the end of the Spring semester.  So, I had to find a job that would work around my school schedule.

Unfortunately, the job that found me is in retail.

I don't want to say too much specific about this job, because I sort of need it and I don't want them to fire me for writing a blog.  Not that they'll ever find my blog unless I do something stupid like friend one of the children I work with, which is about as likely as me sharing clothes with Lady Gaga.  Suffice it to say that I work at a textbook store.

The first interview was a "group" interview, at which the general manager of all the stores told us what to expect.  Which is - this is a temporary job for the Fall rush, and it's minimum wage.  This is how far I've fallen, people.  Minimum wage.  I haven't worked for minimum wage since I was sixteen.  Our situation is such that there is no room in this for pride, so I decided to suck it up.  There was no real speaking on the candidates' part in this interview, except for the part where we all told the GM our schedules.  Later that same day, I got a phone call offering me the job.

I can only imagine that I got this job based on the following:

• I showed up.
• I did not appear to be drunk.
• I did not smell bad.
• I smiled encouragingly at the GM at the appropriate times.

That last one may not have mattered. 

There was a girl in that group interview for whom I would have sworn this was her first job interview.  She asked what she clearly felt were insightful questions, and beamed at the room full of silent people as though she had just given us all a cherished gift: the gift of her obvious competence.

An example of her questions:

GM:  Textbooks represent 80% of our total sales.
Over-Achieving Girl: What represents the other 20%?
GM: (completely deadpan) The other merchandise.

I can only imagine that this girl had read every available piece of advice on the internet on How To Land A Job or How To Ace An Interview or even possibly How To Make Everyone Else's Ass Twitch.  Because she is Over-Achieving, she is succeeding in all of these things like a boss.

The first day of work comes and lo and behold, Over-Achieving Girl was hired.  And put in the same team as me.  In the same store.  Now, she's a very nice girl, but she has some things working against her for me.  To wit:

• "I used to work at the Disney Store because I love kids.  But then they were really pressuring me to sell things instead of playing with the kids.  And I just wanted to play!"
• She likes to use everybody's name a lot in a single sentence.
• She will look around on your person or in your office to find some clue about you and then ask you personal questions purely for ass-kissing purposes.  The HR guy was humming while we were filling out paperwork.  She said "HR Guy, what kind of music do you like, HR Guy?"
• She introduces herself to everyone and then beams at you like she did you a personal favor.

In short, she is perfect for this job.

They send you into this job telling you that they're hiring a huge amount of people for the Fall Rush and then they will keep the best ten percent on a permanent basis.  This is an incentive to get the best possible work out of you without actually offering you a goddamn thing.  I thought that by virtue of the fact that I will likely be one of the only people there with a solid work ethic who knows her ass from her elbow, I was a shoo-in for this.  Do I want a minimum wage job for longer than a month?  Well, no.  But I need a job, and if this is all I can get right now, I will absolutely fucking take it.

I realize now that I will be the first person to go. 

There are many reasons for this, some of which I will list for you now.

• I literally cannot stand still for an hour and a half listening to the manager of the store explain to me the incredibly simple concepts behind the cash register.  I fidgeted.  I yawned.  I briefly contemplated wilting to the floor gracefully, as though I had swooned, just so I wouldn't be standing in one place anymore.  I asked to go to the bathroom before he was finished talking.  (I've given birth to two kids.  I pee when I sneeze.  Sue me.)
• I am absolutely older than everyone in the entire corporation.  Probably including the CEO.
• They all know this and they not-so-secretly feel superior to me because of it.
• They also feel not-so-secretly superior because they go to The Big School, and I go to CCC.  I did not try to explain to them the financial advantages inherent in my plan, because then I've officially become a Geezer Who Would Rather They Save Their Money Than Spend It On Beer.

The icing on the cake came when the manager asked everybody what their major is and why.  Over-Achieving Girl said, enthusiastically, "Psychology.  Because blah blah help people blah blah blah."  The manager said "That's great!  So-and-so who has been working for us for the last three weeks just graduated with a degree in psychology."  Ooooh, burn, Over-Achieving Girl!  See what he did there?  He just intimated that you're not going to find a job other than this one, even with your fancy degree!  (No, she did not see what he did there, by the way.)  Then there was the Girl I Can Stand, Because She Seems Smart, who said "Athletic somethingorother" that appears to mean she will one day be a personal trainer, thereby undermining my original assessment that she might be smart.  The tall guy said "Music Performance" and we had a brief sidebar about it because I was a music major the first time I went to college.  He's a guitar performance major.  (WHY OH WHY do parents let their children DO that??  You're practically ensuring that your child will one day become a busker for food.)

When it got to me, I said that I was an Accounting major because I have been a bookkeeper for a number of years and the difference between having a degree and not having a degree in that particular field is the difference of several thousand dollars per year.  They all looked at me as though I had perpetrated a huge faux pas, and then the manager dropped into the silence: "Well, good luck with that."

My only guess about where I went wrong is that I did not say I want to help people.  I didn't say I want to help them with their emotional issues, personal fitness or provide them with soothing music by which to shop for high-end clothes.  Because I don't.  I want to make buckets of money doing something I like, that I'm relatively good at, and that's it.  And one day, I want to travel the world.  I don't ask for much.

Upon my pronouncement, everybody shuffled a few extra inches away from me and we got on with our day.

Coming up, Part Two.

I Cut My Own Bangs Again.

Apparently, it's that time of the semester, because about a week ago, I cut my own bangs again.

It's not as disastrous as last time - I might be getting better at this.  But I think it points to deep-seated mental illness that keeps me from going to professional hair-stylists and instead, hacking at my own hair with kitchen scissors somewhere around 5:00AM once a semester.  It's a very specific mental illness.  It's called So Little Sleep and So Much Stress That Home Haircuts Sound Like a Great Idea Once Every Three Months Or So syndrome.  Only really awesome people have it.  It results in bangs that look like Bettie Page bangs, if you tilt your head to the right and squint a bit.  Pure awesomeness.

So, remember the boulder from Spring semester?  That was a teeny-tiny little pebble compared to the summer semester boulder that has flattened me.  The stress over the summer was so enormous, I lost twenty-five pounds in about eleven weeks.  Go ahead and ponder that for a minute; I'll wait.  Twenty-five pounds.  That's one-third of my seven-year-old.  I'm pretty sure it's because I have convinced my body that it can live on Diet Dr. Pepper and maybe a tuna salad sandwich at around 2:00.  I like to call it the "Holy Shit I Can't Do This" diet.  At completion, you can fit your newly skinny body into Bad Idea Jeans.  It's a beautiful thing.  (Not that I am anywhere near skinny now, but this is a good start.)

Speaking of my seven-year-old (as I did in the paragraph above, however fleetingly), I have been at home with my children for the bulk of the summer.  Just me.  And them.  And Phineas and Ferb.  And a lot of homework that they would rather I didn't do.  It's a lot of togetherness, and starting Friday, we'll have two weeks of ultra-togetherness, because I won't even have the option of going to class twice a week to get away from them.  I start my Fall semester the day after they do.  Which means that on August 22nd, I will have from 7:30AM to 3:00PM full of quiet.  I may just sit there, in the quiet, doing nothing all day until I have to go get them and bring them back.  I may weep from the beauty of it.  Just the idea is making me a bit teary.

Other news and notes:

* Thanks to my Environmental Science class, I may start doing my level best to ruin the environment singlehandedly.  It would serve it right for giving me the boringest class of my life.  (Boringest is indeed a word.  I just made it up.  English is a fluid language, people.  Changes everyday.)  I plan to buy a Hummer and drive leaded gas on the highway, chucking fast-food wrappers out of the window every three miles.  I also plan to contribute heavily to the hole in the ozone layer.  Maybe I can hire an airplane and take a run up there to jab it with forks or something, creating more perferation.  I also plan to take a blowtorch to Antarctica and melt the ice caps a little more.  Just doing my bit.

* It is so hot outside right now that my sunglasses, which were on top of my head momentarily when I went outside earlier, burned my face when I put them on my nose where they belong.  Burned my face.  I yelped and everybody stared at me.  It's almost as awesome as that one time, the first time I went to college, when I completely buckled for no apparent while walking to class through a completely crowded commons.  I fell right on my face.  That was awesomeness.  Not because I was self-aware enough to laugh at myself at the time (although whenever I think of it now, I can't stop laughing, because somebody falling down and busting their ass for no apparent reason is funny, even if the falling-down person is eighteen-year-old me), but because it was a complete and total failure of my legs and everybody in the entire school saw it.  It was epic and would have been on YouTube, had YouTube existed at the time.  And digital cameras.

* The excruciating heat is not helping with the kid-and-mom togetherness.  You can't just send your kid outside when it's 107 out there with a heat index of 115.  You can't say "run your energy off" and send them out there, because if you do, that's child abuse.  They will immediately melt into a puddle on the porch, and there is just no amount of hosing that will make that pavement clean again.  Besides the fact that CPS will then show up, load the amorphous blob that used to be your child into an unmarked van, and take it away to live with nice people who would never do that.  This may sound like a good deal, but I'm betting there's a lot of paperwork involved and maybe also police, who I promise you, you do not want to tangle with during a summer as hot as this.  Because it's this kind of heat that will make usually normal people try to jump off the Wilson-Riggins Hardware Store wearing nothing but a Speedo with the British flag on it, black trouser socks, and water shoes.  So they're a little busy right now and do not want to deal with your kid puddle and everything that comes with it.  Trust.

I'm supposed to be doing algebra homework right now, but I can't summon up the energy for it, given that I just took my last Environmental Science test about fifteen minutes ago.  And studying for that test made sure I only had about four hours of sleep last night, so I'm fucking giddy.  I'd also really like to go home, but staying for class and working on my review sheet is probably the better idea.  Fucking adult-level responsibility.  You're always screwing up my sleep