Tag: employment

Weeks Notice

June 24th, 2018

I gave that temp agency a week’s notice working at this soda warehouse. My body is done with this place. 

It’s not a career move and I want to get into tech work. Stuff that I have been applying for months without luck, but do I keep going to this job making almost nothing, working a lot of hours and it’s not part of any upward move career-wise? Or stay, collect $200 a week working 50+ hours and too tired to get my school work done?

I don’t think I’ll be unemployed for long. The ‘just take anything’ isn’t smart anymore. I said this before — until I just needed something. Now that I just ‘got a job’, it sucks and it conflicts a little with school.

Life choices suck for the financially strapped.

Half-a-Zoloft

June 21st, 2018

I took half of a Zoloft this morning. I felt the anxiety coming on last night; dealing with the boneheads at the job, the child support situation mentioned the other day and suddenly memories of my own past stupidity started rushing back to me. I tell you, my mind fucks with me that way…magnifying my awkward life moments like an unwanted home video presentation. Making me very anxious and jittery.

Here’s the thing: I have an acutely accurate memory of the worst times of my life. Almost 360-degree imagery of the same instance from all sorts of angles but I have to work so fucking hard to remember things for exams.

I’m going with the idea that I actually have a very good memory — long-term memory things, I guess. Things that leave impressions. Like I remember a lot of good things, too. Like my first girlfriend and the things I did for her. Not just the emotions and faces. I’m talking full segments of conversations and events 20-30 years ago. 

Odd. If I really stopped to assess my memory, I really do have a solid memory of a lot of things. Why did I ever think I had a bad memory? HAHA…I forgot why I thought that. LOLOLOL. 

I think I have a bad memory when I struggle to commit schoolwork to memory. Or I panic when it is time to take tests and feel I forgot everything.

Then I can go ahead and recall stupid events from when I was a kid that my mother doesn’t remember.

Well, anyway, the Zoloft is to settle me down because I dreaded going to work again today and I want to do a lot of schoolwork and keep studying for the A+ exam. I told my wife that going to work now, with less pay, makes it difficult to swallow the usual shit I was taking at this job. Now it’s all magnified. It’s a mental thing, but seems so much worse.

Taking a full Zoloft would have made me lethargic. Half keeps me on my feet but mellow.

It’s already starting to work.

See? Even a sensible psychotic can get through society if he takes his meds when he’s supposed to.

This Job

May 27th, 2018

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Almost forgot about it being that I slept all day yesterday and today. It’s Sunday and there is so-called mandatory overtime.

There’s a couple of reasons I don’t foresee myself at this job past Monday or Tuesday:

1) It’s hard on my feet. I’m too young to grind my joints down for just being a guy that sweeps fucking floors.

2) My wife has no way of getting home from work while I have the car, forced to take Uber every night. That adds up and it’s bad enough we don’t have extra money. No, it won’t get any better if I quit — but when a job becomes expensive to GO to work, you have to start really doing the numbers. I didn’t even include the gas and more food I’m eating.

3) She has a job-sponsored event to go to Tuesday and Wednesday where she needs the car. I entertained taking the bus but after mapping it out via my usual mass transportation app, it will take me 4 hours by multiple buses and trains to get to a job that I’ll be on my feet for the next 8-10 hours after I get there. 

Call me a lazy American all you want, but that shit isn’t worth it. Plus I have to figure out where to get the bus cards and load it up with cash I don’t have.

4) The job hinted at giving me more jobs to do outside of sweeping. Picking actual orders and what not. My feelings on that is simple: I do not want any further responsibilities that will force me to stay past a time I want to leave. Typically, people at this job have been leaving at 4, 5 or sometimes 6am. Technically, they expect me to stay until the end of the shift — as of now — sweeping the floor.

I’ve been leaving at 1am. Maybe 2am because I was done and sticking around was a waste of time. You might say: fuck it. You’re getting paid. Why not stay the extra couple of hours?

So you’re suggesting I stay on my feet for 16 hours a night? Sweeping and mopping floors. Looking busy when there is, most times, nothing to do?

I need the money. I can’t deny that.

But, as you can agree, I also need my sanity and my sleep is connected to that.

45-minute drive to and from work. At 4am, I am serving on the road exhausted. I chose to leave at 1am to give me ample time to come home, shower, eat, sleep and be well rested for the next day. It’s balanced giving them the work they need and the sleep and rest I need. Keep this also in mind, this is supposed to be a 12 hour shift Monday through Friday. Most 12-hour shift jobs I know have three off – two on days alternating weeks. These dudes working this job are doing five days straight.

Let’s also be clear: they are riding around on electric pallet jacks. Less foot time, but they do lift a lot and have other responsibilities for picking orders. None of which I want to dig into at my pay rate.

Lastly, there’s ….

5) I start classes again this coming Wednesday. I had a week off (some sort of Summer break I guess) and my next two classes are focused on my major. 
Discovering Information Technology and Information Technology and Society.

They ‘sound’ easy stuff. Not so much trouble as, say Algebra coming up after these. But with my goal to not just do well but do OUTSTANDING (fuck Environmental Science and that instructor that fucked my GPA a little), do I have the energy to do this cornball maintenance job, take a four-hour bus ride and still concentrate on what i have to do for class? 

The argument can be made that it’s only two days and I have plenty of time to catch up on all the class stuff over the weekend — possibly.

But four hours is insane.

What I might do is tell them I’m not coming in Tuesday and Wednesday. Leave it like that.

I’m getting ready to go in today. If there’s more talk of me picking orders and doing more than mopping, I’ll consider it but it’s putting one of my feet out the door. You see, I want this job to be simple since it’s already taxing on body and expenses as it is.

That said, I’m reviewing my resume/job search game. I got this one, with a few calls from others, with a particular format that worked. The IT jobs I want, but not getting, are being overlooked by that ‘honest’ resume I had help with from AIU’s career center. As mentioned, lying and cheating works, I need the time to adapt the resume that works into the IT sector. 

It can’t be all lies and cheating because I am ACTIVELY in a major IT Bachelor’s Degree program. I just got to find a place that will take on students and talk up that part of my resume. I’ve seen IT jobs at 18.00 an hour doing things I know I can do even if I wasn’t in this degree program. Might I also add, stuff I can do that the degree program hasn’t touched on yet or even plan to.

I need to make this degree talk the talk these fuckers only want to hear.

This is the American way of working: paid more, less work. Working smart.

Making Money

May 23rd, 2018

You owe me a dollar from a previous post.

The job is still going. Almost quit the first night, but got back on the saddle the second night and now moving toward a third. It’s a really easy job and I was just complaining because my feet were killing me. Just using muscles I haven’t used in awhile.

Essentially,  I’m maintenance. I sweep this soda warehouse for 8-12 hours while guys zip around on electric pallet jacks picking orders. With the summer upon us, soda is big business (apparently) and there is lots of work. No, I mean LOTS of work. People who start this job usually quit and they seek more people all the time. They were surprised I came back but I realize my job is the ultimate in simplicity and I thank God for it. I truly thank the lord for it. He knew this was the job I needed and mentally could do. WITHOUT Zoloft.

You know my aversion to people, right? With this job, I come in and sweep the floor. Maybe even mop here and there. I don’t have to talk to anyone. The full-time workers there have quota’s to make (so many pallets of soda on trucks by a certain time). They get paid per pallet or something like that so they have no time to talk to me. I clean up spills and sweep the broken pallet wood from the floor so they don’t get slowed down.

Easy fucking peesy. $12.00 an hour to sweep floor, plus time and a half for overtime and they often ALWAYS go 12-16 hours a night.

Weekends off.

Like I said, at first, I was going to quit because I was a pussy. My feet were swollen the first night. My legs were killing me. I was looking at getting out at 4am and I was bitching like a bitch. Drove home almost crashing the car I was so sleepy.

After a personal struggle that morning to stop being a pussy, I decided to go back to work the next day and I think it impressed some of the guys. They apparently seen people come and go. I hear them talking about people who didn’t come back. I’m even on a “hi” “bye” thing with some of the guys. It’s social baby steps.

At first, I thought my job was non essential. I’m not trying to make my job any bigger than it is, but I was told by a guy last night that he appreciated the work I was doing because it helps him and the other guys out. When there is soda all over the place and wood and the place is a mess, they can’t get the job done fast as they need.

I walk around at my own pace, sweeping like ‘old Leroy’; mopping when I need to mop, picking up cans, emptying trash. My math is bad, but I think I came up with $150-$160 per night for 11 hour shift (after lunch). That’s overtime (time and ½). Five day shifts and I get paid weekly around $750-800 a week. After taxes and child support (grrr) about $500 a week.

Can I live with that? Fuck yes. It’s free money to walk, sweep and shut the fuck up. I’m working out the leg and foot pains which will turn into firm muscle sooner than later (lugging around steel toed shoes all night).

My first check is next week Friday. It’s already Wednesday of my first week. I don’t lead anyone. I don’t need to talk to anyone. Not even management talks to me. I have no responsibilities other than sweeping a damn floor and I was going to quit???? This is why I keep this journal. I need to document my potential fuckery.

Is it a professional job? Like tech support, or working in a law office? No. My pride was hurting a little in the beginning. But it’s money. Legit, bill paying, child support lowering, cash saving, credit paying off cash flow that I’m getting in my pocket for standing on my feet rather than at home playing video games and bitching about how broke I am because nobody is reading my work. I’m not working on ANY projects so money is just going directly to the necessary things of life. Like my children finally.

Except every now and then. On my second paycheck (around the 9th of June), I’m taking my wife down to Savannah. She liked it down there when I was researching for a book I was writing. I’ll be happy to take her knowing it can be ‘my treat’. I’m off weekends so why not.

Still going to school. Still going to take the paralegal classes. 

I’ll push through and adapt to these long hours for a few months before I start it. I couldn’t do it right now if I tried. Way too tired after work. 

The good news is I’m adapting. The first night was hell. The second night was better. Tonight will be a walk in a sore park.

Back to Lying

April 6th, 2018

Up until now, I have been using a fairly honest resume to look for work. This based on the tools and help I’ve received from career services. I thought this would be the way to go to get the job in IT that I’m looking for. My thinking was, I’m doing well in school and I want to have a clean slate.

The problem with that was I forgot I knew how the world worked. I’m being rejected for the simplest jobs.

Prior to this resume, I’ve lied every inch of my resume to remove bad jobs and time differences. Never had trouble getting work with my falsified resumes until I tried to go legit.

The break is over. I need a job and being honest sucks ass.

I’m fairly elaborate on my resume creation skills. Even down to alibi people/services and prop websites/emails/etc. That’s how I scored the Apple position a few years back. And never kicked out of a job for false information. It’s not like I post that I have a bachelors when I didn’t. It’s all about credible, retrievable information. Besides, I’m not white enough to say I graduated from Harvard and get away with it up to executive level. Like these guys:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/13/technology/yahoo-ceo-out/index.htm

http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-executives-who-have-lied-on-their-resumes-2015-7

Yeah, they get caught, but not after making six figures for a few years. I try something like that and because I’m black, they suddenly have due diligence searches to make sure. Guaranteed.

But at this low level of the hiring spectrum, I play the system I know so well.

So, set the timer. It’s Friday, April 6th. By the end of the weekend, I’ll have the things in place to send out an ‘enhanced’ resume and work this job search the way it works. I’ll have an interview, at a minimum, before April lets out. Better than what I’m getting now of three months of rejections.

You know, at one time, I thought to offer services to others to be that employment gap they’re looking for. Even receive calls to give the appropriate references. Including pay stubs.

By now, I’m sure that idea is already being done.

Applying for Work

April 3rd, 2018

Very much like sending out my book to ask for reviews, I loathe the sending out of my resume for a job. It’s selling of oneself when I hate who I am, really. Or haven’t much positive to say about myself to sell who I am. I simply don’t know how. The energy isn’t there to answer “why should you hire me?” when I can’t truly answer it.

At least with books, I basically want people to judge the work, not ‘me’. I am not my work if that makes any sense. My characters are not entirely who I am. They are smarter than I am. They have different flaws.

One problem I am having is my resume is a jumble of different jobs.

Frustrated to no end. I’m even questioning if getting a bachelor’s degree will even solve anything. I ‘sound’ like I have a game plan, but I still have a rotten work history with three years before getting my degree.

I will not work at McDonald’s. 

I gave Walmart 150% and you read the shit I put myself through. I’m not a people person so customer service is not going to work.

Bottomline: I need to win the lottery, pay all my debts, have the money to position my work in front of everybody and vanish from the public eye. Achieve a Bachelor’s Degree without concern for how I’ll pay for Law School and achieve these things leisurely. 

Cause right now, I’m nervous about my future.

I guess I have to actually play the lottery for that to happen.