mainsqueeze's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - There are not very many things that can motivate a person like me. Just in general, I mean, I am lazy, and I become complacent, and well, I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge so really everything is fine, right? It goes kind of like that, my reasoning. So I resist change like you wouldn't believe, and getting me to MAKE a change is even more difficult, partly because I have a hard time trusting (and sticking to) my own decisions but mainly due to the above-noted motivation issues. ANYWAY, I'm only telling you all of this to illustrate how very much I loathe my job, because my cruddy, exhausting, thankless, TIME-CONSUMING job has motivated me to make a few very important decisions about my life. Okay, these are decisions I've made before--go to school, stop working at my crappy-ass, miserable job and go for something that makes me happy-- but after I got the job I have now, making the money I make now, well... the boatloads of extra cash kinda diminished my resolve. If you don't remember, up until August of last year, I was working at a job that paid me 28k annually in a city where the average is about, oh, 35 or so. I put in applications at some bigger casinos on a whim one day when I was pissed off and tired of struggling to pay my rent (which, goddamn, was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS LESS than I pay now) and I really didn't think that much would come of it, but THEN! Big Casino offered me a job, and they wanted to hire me so badly that I was able to talk them into not only raising their offer by six grand (which is a nice chunk when you're still in the lower income brackets) but also in waiting three weeks for me to be available to start working for them. I applied to be a hostess, thinking, yay! A return to hourly employee-dom! No more management! But alas, I was hired as a manager, specifically, the manager of a licensed Well-Known, Much-Loathed, Over-Priced Coffee Chain. I'm sure you can guess which one, just think burned, bitter coffee, frighteningly cheerful employees, disgusting ice-blended coffee drinks... got it yet? So I manage two of these coffee shops, and even more than I hate the brand (I'll take It's A Grind or Coffee Bean any day of the week) I hate the ridiculously long hours that I have to put it each week. My shifts are ten hours each, five days a week, but I generally work at least four or five twelve hour days monthly. My employees are rude, mean-spirited, and generally have no sense of responsibility. My boss is actually pretty awesome, but she possesses this sense of obligation that I just don't have-- she works thirteen hour days REGULARLY, and she doesn't seem to mind. She takes a kind of pride in her work and in our stores that really means fuck-all to me, you know, I don't CARE whether we make budget, I don't CARE if the health department dings us on expired product, I cannot muster the enthusiasm to stay fourteen fucking hours to clean the storeroom. I just... don't want that. I said to Matt last night that at the end of my life, I am not going to be looking back and thinking, well, gee, at least I worked 500,643 hours at Star***** before I died! At least I got to make 96,000 lattes! At least I got to blend 100,251 franken-coffee frappu****os! So, for the fifth or sixth time in the five year history of this diary, I am going back to school. This time, I'm taking baby steps. FAFSA. UNLV. Maybe a student loan. I'll take a pay cut to teach. I just don't want to wake up one day and found that I've spent way too much of my life working too many hours at a job that brings me no joy or satisfaction. 11:25 a.m. - 2008-03-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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