It was odd. I was in Mexico City, I had travelled back in time to the revolution. Diego Rivera was dropping objects--paintings, sculptures and the like--from this balcony. It was a huge mansion and the revolution was occurring on the grounds of the mansion. There were certain alliances being made, but some dictator found my alliances amusing and attempted to persuade me to join his side. He gave me a letter that detailed a loop hole that would force me to show a display of solidarity with him. Although there were aspects of his views I found appealing, there were also aspects that I found reprehensible. I claimed to not be able to read the note because it was in Spanish. I was lying, I knew exactly what it said. He laughed and said that he was just pulling my leg anyways, and he hadn't found a loophole.
Weird.
I also dreamed that I was at some big convention. But it wasn't a business convention, it was this battle between good and evil. It came time to leave. I had to get on the tour bus to take me back home, but I couldn't find my suitcase. I went into this tent. It was lost and found. All of my stuffed animals were there. I asked someone for a bag. They gave me a tiny bag, not big enough to fit even one stuffed animal in it. I asked for a big bag for all of them, and they gave it to me. I also walked down some weird assembly line of people, looking for my suitcase, but I couldn't find it. Someone told me that it was evil that had planned the conference and it was fixed from the start. When I woke up, I still hadn't found my damned suitcase.
Weird.
So, back when I was dancing, I always hated the end of the month.
There were always a lot of dancers trying to make their rent. Business was slower, too, so the customers tended to be a bit sleazier. They knew that the competition was fierce, and would feed off of the obvious competition.
Moving to motor city amidst literally thousands of auto lay offs is kind of like that.
Looking for a job is a real bitch in Detroit right now.
I applied at two jobs the other day. First, I went to the mall to look for something. There was not a single help wanted sign in the whole place. So, we drove around Michigan avenue. I saw one greasy spoon was hiring waitresses.
The owner took me into the kitchen. He asked me if I'd had waitress experience. I told him that I had. Then he asked my age, followed by whether or not I lived alone. When I said that I had a "fiancee" (it sounds better than boyfriend) he became standoffish, handed me a tiny piece of paper and told me to write my contact info. Then he told me that he would "call me".
I then went to Breadsmith. I filled out an application. I was told that the day manager left at noon, but they'd give him my app. After he had collected all the applications, he'd see who he wanted to call for interviews.
At Breadsmith? At Breadsmith?
It's a counter job. What do they need to think about. Do you have a pulse? Yeah. Do you bathe regularly? Yeah. Fine, when can you start? I mean, seriously. You slice bread, put it in bags for customers, and take their money. It's not brain surgery. It's not a career job. It's a fucking counter job.
Anyhow, I got a call from Quicken loans. I hadn't heard back from them when I had a phone interview for a customer service position a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, I hadn't been hired for that but they wanted me to come in for a position in the escrow department. I was pretty excited about it, despite the fact that the interview is two weeks away and despite the fact that it's really far away.
Today, I went to the Monster board to look up more jobs. I found the escrow position listed, so I checked it out. The woman on the phone hadn't brought up the question of pay, so I wanted to see the ad in case it was listed.
It was listed. Now I see why she didn't mention it.
The range is $8.50 on the low end to $10.50 on the high end.
To handle escrow accounts as well as collections? You have to be kidding.
Okay, $10.50 would be something that I might consider taking, but in my experience no one ever pays those ranges. The high end is just listed to make it look good, and generally you always get the low end, maybe a little bit more if you're willing to work some funky hours.
The worst part about the economy sucking, is it really brings out the parasitic side of employers. They know they have you in a bind, there's not a lot of jobs out there, so they really take advantage of it because there's always going to be someone desperate enough to take what they're offering.
It sucks.
Another thing that sucks, is all the unsolicited advice. As soon as someone hears that you're having a little trouble finding a job they have all these opinions about it. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I've done it, too. People want to help, and you always want to give people leads to stuff. And that's not bad. When it gets annoying is when they just won't shut up about it, or when they assume that it's actually really easy and you just somehow are missing the obvious.
This happened again last night, until I finally started making fun of the people doing it, saying things like "I know! I'll work in one of those 'massage parlors' on woodward" and "I'll get knocked up and sell the baby on the black market." This bit of humor sort of got the point acrosss.
I might be unemployed but I'm not stupid.
Everyone wants to be an expert. I guess it's human nature. It makes people feel good about themselves to have some insight to make your life better. And sometimes, they genuinely want to help.
Again, a parallel to when I was dancing: I'd have everyone from my local barista to famous cartoonists "explaining" to me why what I was doing was "bad for me", and how I could "get a better job if I tried". Like waitressing, or working in a coffeehouse. They'd tell me how that was so "me" and what I was doing wasn't. I always wondered how they knew what was "me" so well. For that matter, I never understood why how you earn a paycheck determines what you are as a human being. Everyone wants to treat it as some real defining thing. God forbid you would rather work as a bartender than as a web designer. Suddenly, you're throwing your life away, even if you have gallery showings or work on all these awesome animation projects, or have really insightful articles published in gay porno mags.
Frankly, I don't understand this. Maybe it's a lack of originality that determines a person's worth or success by the job that they have. Maybe it's some desperate clinging to an identity. But for so many people, their sense of worth is determined by who issues their paycheck, or how much they get paid for what they do, and this really makes no sense to me. I know that I have to earn a paycheck to do my projects, but I don't think I could ever resign myself to some idea that going into a job would be the defining criteria of my potential. What a depressing concept! I could work as a copywriter or journalist and be good at it, make good money doing it. I might even find it fun sometimes. But that wouldn't make me a writer. What makes me a writer is my novel, my screenplay, these diary entries. Just like working as a designer wouldn't make me an artist. What would make me an artist is these huge wood slabs from my broken table where I'm doing my zombie paintings.
I think if I thought that these boring jobs were the ultimate measure of my success, I would probably jump off of a bridge because it would mean there was nothing worth aspiring to.
On another note...I've been meaning to write about my reflections as of late, now that I'm living in what's got to be the most segregated city in the country. Definitely the most segregated city that I've ever been in. I was struggling for a way to articulate this, without much success. Coincidentally, a friend of mine wrote something that I thought was right on the nose. Read ithere.
That's all I have to share for today. Move along, nothing to see here...
