Look with your eyes, not with your hands.


Such a minute fraction of this life do we live: so much is sleep, tooth-brushing, waiting for mail, for metamorphosis, for those sudden moments of incandescence: unexpected, but once one knows them, one can live life in the light of their past and the hope of their future.



A grad student muses on her life, film, friends, politics, reality televizzle, and music.

 
It was the best of times... and the worst of times.

To quote the ever cool fifth-grader, I haven't been this high on life in a long time. I am going to get it right out on the table that I am crabby and tired and pissed off and hate working, but before I lapse into that inevitable tirade, let's first recall the finer things and why I've ridden high. Yesterday, before the grumble and the groan of work picked up again, I was happily tying up what was left of my little vacation for the soul. Having made it home in one piece and despite that the real being away part of vacation was over - yesterday, ah, what all days should be. I got all dirty and finally planted my tomatoes, cukes, squash, and peppers.. clearing away a new garden spot, potting plants (this reminds me to go to the Miracle Grow webpage for the sure fire easy way to get some early blooming ripe tomatoes before I leave for Madison), but it was a great thing, my Dad and I had fun, and from here on out, I can't wait to tend to my little project and cultivate a little garden and maybe find Zen in salads and watering cans.

Following the dirty work, I cleaned my self off and made a delicious bistro-esque dinner, oh la la. I somehow convinced my lazy sister that she needed to put her nightly card game on hold to come with me to see Spellbound, a recently released documentary about the National Spelling Bee playing at RAW. It took convincing and prodding, but we both agreed that it is our new favorite movie. Having an affinity for mockumentaries, this film comes through with the same charms, the same humors, the same cast of unbelievable characters... The film follows eight very different kids on the path toward the Bee. I was routing for Angela, the sassy black girl from the DC projects who made her way without much to go on. Her mother was borderline iliterate, the girl had nothing and admired Maya Angelou. Kristin was routing for Neil, a Californian from Indian (sub-continent) dissent who was incredibly hardcore in his training - we're talking 4,000-7,000 words a day here, people. He had an official "spelling coach" and his Dad (the real heart of this operation) hired French, German, Spanish and Latin teachers to work with him so he'd be prepared for anything. Rumor had it that the paternal grandfather paid 1,000 people in Indian to pray around the clock for him during the contest and he promised a feast for 5,000 if he won. The cast was rounded out by a range of others - the snobby equestrian girl from Connecticut, daughter of a Mexican immigrant in Texas, loner boy from Missouri, a spazzy (had to be autistic) kid named Harry, and a few more girls. As it turns out, girls tend to be much better at spelling than boys, or so this contest would suggest. It's a nail biter, tear jerker, true comedy. The winner is "a surprise" but it's so damn good, look for it in a theater near you, or watch Oprah tomorrow, I hear two kids will be on. I am sure one will be Harry, he's good like that. Ah, the kids, the parents, and then this real solid theme of how spelling (at least competitive spelling) is really the essence of America.

I was riding high... until today clammered down. For starters, I am pissed as hell at the Gap and will likely pen a formal complaint to my boss's boss. When I signed on for this gig, I was promised between 20-30 hours a week, depending on sales volume. This week I have five hours - all of which I had today, 6am-11am, balancing on a stepstool to mark down all of the men's denim for $14.99. It was a messy, getting up in the 4ams is not cool, and it is even less cool when this is your one sucky shift all week. I was on board for one hour when the store was actually opened and they kicked me in the teeth again by condemning me to the fitting rooms, screaming brats, sloppy trophy wives and all. Whopping 10 hours next week, and before my vaca, I had two ten-hour weeks. In the last month, our store's staff has at least doubled on account of returning college students. Sure, everyone gets a little shift, but no one has what they want. Everyone is screwed and I am getting less than a third of the hours (and the money) I was promised when I took this job some $900 ago.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Even when I was working my max at the Gap, I still felt like I wanted a night job, so I filled out like 15 applications to just about everything under the sun. Perhaps I am way over praising my humble qualifications, but I keep thinking that part-time retail work shouldn't be this hard to get - and that a grocery store would gladly take back a magna cum laude grad of one of the top ten colleges in the United States. I figured wrong, obvi. When the pickings are slim, you take what you can get - and for me that meant going in for a call back at lovely Circuit City. This was no breeze. Interview. 100 question ethics test. Drug test. (Aaron points out the great irony in all of this, everyone in CC is clearly on drugs). I passed my pee screen and I started tonight. This was probably the single worst first day of any job I've ever had. Firstly, I admit that I made a huge mistake and I hope it's not to big to undo. When I had my choice between the customer service / pick up counter or working in a department, I foolishly opted for the job that involves answering the phone for the whole store and consists largely of dealing with impatient screaming customers and continually explaining the return policy. I am going to call my boss tomorrow and tell her that it wasn't the right fit and beg to work the palm pilot section... since CC employees don't make commission, there is far less stress on the sales people, it's just generally a little more of the lax personal shopper game I like. Seriously, I worked with the two most incompetent and unpleasant skanks. They are rude to customers, don't smile, greet, or say thank you. Your typical walking attitude problems with bad skin, bad hair, obsessed with checking their voicemails. They are both the kind of girls that flirt with coworkers by constantly giving them a hard time, and not in the smile and laugh it off kind of way, in that awkwardly serious disparaging kind of way. They weren't even particularly nice to me - neither of them asked me a single question about myself, where I live, my deal, my age... but then I look around the sales area, lots of college kids home for the summer and not just skanked out bitches. The money is actually very good for retail and they have hours aplenty, so it's not like I can walk away from this as August apartments tick like timebombs. But tonight was miserably long (2-9:30pm) and it was the least like myself I've ever felt at a job - it was like a generic worker keying in orders to an old-school system. Really I should be writing reviews in the independent Hartford paper, but instead I am seriously struggling to do menial things. Please let my education in the public and the secret life of stores end soon. This spring has been one test after another, I should be anointed come August. They always say that academics make a lot of sacrifices and part of it must be this need for money and yet this weird breaks and time off where few options exist to pad the wallet in any kind of easy way, instead it's all about being far too educated to sit through a three-hour CD-ROM computer learning course about the four bullet points of the Circuit City sales pledge. After too long of a day and just being dicked around in general (I can't believe how crappy my work situation has been) I was just fed up by the end of today. If I didn't need this, I would have likely quit this job tomorrow and said it wasn't for me. Since no one else is having me, I don't have that luxury. There is something desperately pathetic when quitting an $8.50/hr retail job is a luxury you can't afford. Shudder.
posted by lmjasinski at 12:21 AM