24, et al

Sunday was my 24th cycle of the Earth around the Sun, and sadly, I was really not feeling well enough to party or do much in the way of celebrating. I took the day off of work at the bookstore/kiosk because of my car crash, and relaxed most of the day. My singular indulgence, my family took me out for dinner at the Olive Garden, which I really love to do annually. It's kind of my personal birthday tradition. My mom also made me a delicious white peppermint cake with minty frosting and crushed peppermint. Yum!

The following day, I was scheduled to work, until I got a call from my boss telling me I wasn't scheduled to work, but could I come in anyway because another employee was having car trouble (I resisted the strong urge to say 'Worse car trouble than mine?'). So I went in with the understanding that I would not be doing any heavy lifting during the shift. Once there, I was bounced around between the kiosk and department all day, and my shift-that-wasn't-really-a-shift was cut from 9:30-3:30 to 9:30-2:00. My neck was aching, and I was starting to get frustrated. (Them: "Andrew, go work the cash register." Me: "Okay, sure. Are you going to train me to work the cash register?" Them: "Um... never mind. Go help this lady with the online ordering system." Me: "Okay, sure. Are you going to show me how that works or give me a password to log in to the system?" Them: "Um....")

So after that lovely day of disaster, I talked with my folks and made the determination that I no longer wanted to work for a company that was going to treat me unfairly. Mom and Dad concurred, and they want me to go back to school and take some online classes in something so I can get a second degree. I don't really want to do that right now, especially since I'm already in debt by about $50,000 for the first degree and have no idea how I would pay for, or pay off, a second degree. I would love to just find a decent job in my field that is going to last more than 2 months, but that still seems unlikely. So I'm basically back to where I was a month ago.

Yesterday, I found out that my manager at Borders flew out to Washington for management training (WTF?) and wouldn't be back until Saturday. I got kind of fed up with this whole "waiting" thing, and told the supervisor on duty (who has no power for anything hiring-firing related) that I was making Thursday my last day, and that I needed her to pass the message along to whomever needed to know. When asked why, I said I had found a job in my field for better pay and I was taking it. A lie, I know, but I didn't think it appropriate to tell this supervisor what I was really thinking, since it wasn't her problem to begin with. That, and I don't like to cause unnecessary drama if I don't have to.

So, yeah. Now I'm out of work again, this time by choice, and looking for a better employer. I'm trying to avoid medical bills (which I can't pay and have no insurance to cover) by doping myself up on Advil until my neck gets better, and it's the Christmas season and I have no ability to go out and find gifts for the few friends I still have left after this Hell of a year in which I've been kind of a cynical asshole. Still, I suppose things could be worse. I'm not sure how, but they could be.

I'm still trying to bug Jeff Flake's office into giving me a job, but it seems very much like that's not going to happen. The guy does very few events around the district because he's going to win any election he's in here in CD-6 by double digits, which means he doesn't have to do much in the way of campaigning, which only means there are few opportunities for people like me to get involved. I need to start going to more LD meetings again to see what opportunities are out there, so I suppose that's the next order of business.