Only Nola

And I Got Up Early For That…

Yesterday I went shopping. Contrary to what most of you are probably thinking, this was not merely for the joy that I find in mixing it up with the lovely people at the mall. We all know how I LOVE THE GODDAMNED MALL. Really. No, I went with a purpose, nay, a mission. I was going to get a new Interview Outfit. The Interview Outfit is not to be confused with lesser known outfits like the Barely Conscious or the Age Inappropriate. No, the Interview Outfit is the one, magic outfit that we all rest our hopes upon... the one that we figure will so dazzle them with our professionalism (and fabulous ability to pick good shoes) that they'll offer us a job before they regain their senses.

(...)

What?

I tried to find what I wanted. I really did. Instead I ended up settling, since my choices were either a)spend an entirely indecent amount of money on the slacks and jacket that I was drooling over (yet would have precluded making a car payment), or b)buy something good enough to get by without making me want to hurl myself in front of a bus. This is harder than it sounds, actually. To men, shopping is a simple thing (although at the mere mention of shopping, they'll all act like you just asked them to donate a kidney. With no anesthetic. To HITLER.) ... go in to the designated shopping area (all the better if it combines clothes, hunting gear, tires and/or power tools. Seriously. Men should seek help.), make a beeline for the 90% off rack that is featuring nothing but clothing that is for the entirely wrong season (woohoo! Turtlenecks for $3.96! And it's NINETY FUCKING DEGREES outside. I repeat... THEY NEED HELP.), grab something in vaguely the right color that is in approximately the right size, go to cash register and pay for the aforementioned article of clothing while a)whining about the $3.96 being spent on the turtleneck, and b)flirting with the check-out girl that is too young for them by about a good 15 years, and head home to act smug about the success of their little trip. Add a dose of 'See, shopping isn't that hard! You should do it like I do.', which they direct at their wife/girlfriend/mother (you KNOW some of these men still live at home.), even though it's a remark bordering dangerously close to grounds for a justifiable homicide defense, and the journey is complete.

For women? Especially women who are, like me, built, well... 'short' is such an ugly little word, isn't it?

I have so many issues finding clothes to fit my body type. And don't even SUGGEST that I go to the Petites department. Have you seen the things they try and pass off for clothing in the Petites department? What, do they think all short women have gone collectively BLIND? It's horrible. It's like they stuff the entire department (what there is of it... they must figure there are only like 3 short women in the entire universe, since they only reserve a corner of the store approximately the size of a RITZ CRACKER for us.) with clothes you grandmother would have worn. IN NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE.

*sighs*

I did manage to find one relatively cute shirt. Bad thing is the material, but the cut is cute and the pattern is nice, so... I'll take it. It was also like a billion percent off, so I only paid $13 for it. That right there is the female equivalent of successfully stalking and killing prey with you bare fucking hands. Nothing better than rubbing your friends nose in the fact that you only paid $4 for a pair of $90 shoes. The same shoes she was tickled to get two weeks before for $45. HA!

Amateur.

Anyhoo. I got the shirt. I already had good shoes at home. I found a skirt I could live with. Again, I had material issues (way heavier knit than I wanted, but meh.), but I got another good bargain, so I'm not going to bitch. Much. I love Dillard's and Macy's. Long live the sale rack!

All this because there was a job fair today that I had decided to attend in the hopes of nailing a job. I'd never been to one before and, after hearing the radio spots promoting the event, was pretty excited. Lots of employers! All in one place! Interviewing on the spot! A veritable BUFFET!

Phhhttt.

It was a joke of monumental proportions. It was a bunch of booths with local employers, all right. Handing out applications like circus monkeys and pretty much interviewing... NO ONE. It was depressing. For THIS I went shopping and dragged my ass out of bed at the butt crack of dawn? And let me just tell you about the, um... variety of people wandering around, allegedly looking for employment. This one chick, for example? Sleeveless, black and white, empire-waisted, deep v-necked, babydoll shirt... bright red, patent leather, 4 inch wide belt right under the boobs (no, I'm SO not kidding)... tight black cropped leggings... and black and white zebra print 6 inch platform stiletto heels.

(...)

Somewhere I seem to have missed the hooker booth.

Then there were the many people in sloppy tee-shirts, ratty blue jeans, flip flops, and hair that looked like it had possibly only a passing acquaintance with water, much less shampoo.

Did I miss a memo somewhere that said that there is no longer any need to dress up for job interviews? I've noticed it a lot lately; it was just driven home today. After I left the job fair in disgust, I went to a number of local businesses and dropped off resumes. I ended up at one company based here (HUGE company. MONSTER. Helloooooooooo, benefits!) and was, quite simply, astounded at the lack of care people exhibited with their personal appearance (and hygiene... let's not forget the fucking HYGIENE.) when their goal is to obtain. a. JOB. Do employers really not give a shit about things like that anymore? Or are all these people (most of them youngish, I notice) just totally clueless and likely to be fulfilling their destinies as fry cooks in the near future?

Oh, by the way? I got through three rounds at the HUGE company... including a meeting with a director of a department where there is an opening. I am crossing everything I can possibly cross (as well as some things I probably shouldn't... don't ask) that I get the job offer. I think it went well, but then, I've thought that before.

Karma had better start kicking in ANY TIME NOW.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I HAVE To?

Monday morning I get to go to the dentist. I mean, back to the dentist. For the third time in a week. THIRD TIME. In a WEEK. (...) Does anyone besides me see something wrong with this picture? The first time was the exam bullshit. I TOLD that chick on the phone that I wanted my exam and whatever work done to be scheduled for the same day. I TOLD her it was likely going to be two or three fillings and to book accordingly. Did I GET a nice, big, fat appointment time to handle my exam AND the work I needed done? I. did. NOT. So I had to go in, for the SECOND time (I say that in all caps so that you can keep track. See how thoughtful I am? You can thank me later. Or mail me a check. One of those.), on Friday morning. To have the teeth on the right side of my face scaled (this, for those of you who don't know, is about as pleasant as letting a blind epileptic give you a bikini wax. With bubble gum.) and two fillings done.

Woohoo for me.

First off, I have this thing about needles. I don't actually hate going to the dentist per se, I hate going to the dentist when it's going to involve any procedure that will require any type of injection in the general vicinity of my defenseless gums. So to avoid me possibly slapping someone silly or showing up on the 6 o'clock news as the fruit loop that's holding a dental hygienist hostage, I have them give me happy gas (you have a better name for it?) before approaching me with the Novocain. Works out better for all parties.

I'm pretty sure my new dentist is buying knock-off happy gas.

Seriously! I got not even ONE mild case of the giggles. No sense of euphoria. No niggling urge to bond with anyone stupid enough to walk within shouting distance. (Not that I'd shout. In the middle of a dentist's office. While under the influence. *coughs*) I got BUPKISS. The most I can say is that I felt slightly less like gutting the dentist with a spork when he said 'Now, you'll feel a slight pinch as we numb the gums.' (Slight pinch... gee, if it's just a slight pinch, then you won't mind if I stick that needle right in your balls, now will you? It's only a SLIGHT PINCH, after all. Assbag.)

Slightly.

Anyhoo. Once the Novocain was in, the rest went pretty well. I have to admit that my dentist hurt me worlds less than my last dentist, so I guess I'll be going back to him again. I was able to eat within a couple of hours, which was pretty exciting to me since when I went to my old dentist last year and had a couple of fillings done, I was (literally) sick and horribly sore for two weeks. TWO WEEKS, people! I'm not exaggerating for a change. Much as I adore artistic license, in this case it's not even necessary. TWO WEEKS. I thought the dentist was trying to kill me in the slowest way possible. Death by headache and throbbing jaw pain. Fuckwit.

Oh, but the fun part of Friday? I had so much done, what with the scaling, cleaning, and THEN the fillings, that by the time he'd done the first two things and was about to start the last bit (the fillings... keep up!), the Novocain was wearing off. Yes, that's right, I said WEARING OFF. Doesn't that sound festive? He drilled one tooth, and I made a few interesting noises but managed to remain seated. It was bearable. He went for the second one, and... boy, he can sure move fast when it's required. He hit the middle of that tooth with his drill and I about came off the chair, simultaneously making a noise much like a cat when you step on its tail. Trust me, I KNOW that noise.

The boy moved like I'd actually given his balls that 'slight pinch' after all. Got that drill out of the way before it gave the roof of my mouth a skylight. I may forgive him... for nearly RENDERING ME UNCONSCIOUS.

Needless to say, I got to get reacquainted with the Novocain needle in a hurry. Here comes the festive part.

*insert drumroll here*

Did you know that there is, apparently, a nerve that runs from the gums on the upper side of your mouth directly to your eyeball? No? ME, NEITHER! Guess what? I know now. I discovered this after the work was finished and I'm gathering my purse and keys and heading for the check-out desk. I can't figure out why nothing is focusing correctly and why the right side of my face feels like it belongs in a Salvador Dali painting. Turns out that the last shot of numbing agent mysteriously migrated to MY FUCKING EYE. I looked like Sylvester Stallone. And not in a good way. The girl who took my money had this knowing expression on her face as I kept trying to manually hike my eyelid back up to its normal position. 'Went to you eye, huh?', she asked.

Oh, shut up.

I get to go back Monday for the left side. Have I mentioned that already? I'm just so excited I don't know what to do with myself.

*bangs head on desk*

One Blah or Two?

Well, in my first official week without a job, I'm rediscovering my inner potato. As in couch. GET IT? *sighs* I've watched a shitload of television (which, FYI? The movie (and I'm assuming the play, too) Rent? Highly overrated. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will disagree with me, but I found the songs bizarre, the characters a mess, the plot lines poorly fleshed out... and to top it all off, it's a festive jumble of heroin addiction, AIDS infection, poverty and people DYING! Wheeee! (...) Yeah, if I could turn back the clock, I'd have spent that two hours (felt like two HUNDRED) or whatever it was doing something more fun. Like getting an enema. Or having someone give me a massage with a weed whacker.), eaten my weight in terribly unhealthy snacks/pseudo-food, read all the prerequisite US magazines, and chain smoked my way into sounding like the caseworker in Beetlejuice. (Juno, right? I know I'm right. Spelling is subjective, since I went with the phonetic choice, but her name was Juno. Trivia is its own reward.)

Someone get me a job, STAT!

I'm not picky. (...) Okay, I'm totally picky. But really, my criteria for applying for/accepting a job is not just arbitrary. First, I can only work the regular business hours. No weekends or evenings. Why?, you may ask. Because I'm totally dependent on daycare hours, which suck balls. 6:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night. 'Cause, you know, the whole WORLD can work around that schedule. Right? Not like any employers want people, oh, I don't know... say, AFTER DARK?

Gah.

Then there's the benefits thing. Most jobs, at least in our area, do not offer benefits. This didn't bother me in my 20's. I'm now kissing the back end of my 30's (which, by the way? Also sucks balls. Let's not get started on that.) and am firmly in favor of having freaking benefits. Let's be realistic. After 35, shit BREAKS. And paying for healthcare services out of one's own pocket is laughable. The expense of even the simplest procedures/visits/testing/financing their summer home is, quite simply, enough to put most people into bankruptcy. Or prostitution. One of those. So, this being the state of medical science and billing in our culture, I need fucking BENEFITS. Yeah, me and every other person looking for a job. Competition is an ugly thing.

Now, because of the hours I have to keep, roughly 90% of all jobs that I could otherwise qualify for are pushed out of the picture. There's a T-Mobile customer service center here. They're hiring. Good pay, great benefits, blah blah blah. Problem? The hours, of course. Must be available for evenings and weekends. Yeah, let me take that request right to the head of my son's daycare. I'm sure they'll get right. on. THAT.

I also went to the dentist today. This would have been fine except for two little things... one, when I made the appointment I SPECIFICALLY asked the chicky on the phone to book me PLENTY OF TIME to do the exam, cleaning, and any fillings that needed done TODAY. At the SAME TIME. They do my exam, show me the x-rays, etc., and then? Chicky comes in and says 'So let's see when we can get you in for the treatment plan.'

(...)

Um, how about NOW? Turns out, I get to go BACK... which I had SPECIFICALLY (notice how I'm clear on that... specifically, see... I'm leaving no gray area at all.) told her I didn't want to do, due to time constraints (my benefits through my former employer run out on March 31st, sooooooooo... kinda need in and fixed up IMMEDIATELY. Silly twat.) and all, but gee, guess somehow she just decided to veto my idea and go with what was least convenient for me on all levels. I seriously wanted to poke her in the eye.

WITH A SPORK.

Oh, and two? Two would be the fact that they told me I have to have this planing/scraping thing done. You know, where your gums have become inflamed so they have to go down to ROOT LEVEL and, using a tool reminiscent of the FUCKING INQUISITION, manually scrape and prod any plaque or other suspicious bits OFF the very ROOTS of your teeth. More or less. I'm paraphrasing.

I simply cannot contain my joy at this point.

One Day Left…

Soooo... tomorrow's my last day at my job.

(...)

I may well be cabbage patching through the parking lot at about 4:30, should anyone be interested in taking pictures.

It's interesting how many people suddenly like me now that I'm leaving. I'm not sure how that works. Must be aligned with the whole things-break-the-day-after-the-warranty-expires thing. Cosmic irony, oh how I love thee.

Anyhoo. Still no idea what I'm going to be doing with myself. I went on a job interview yesterday. I thought it went really well. Really. Well.

Until about five minutes before it was over.

My brain has some genetically-encoded self destruct mechanism that works in cooperation with my mouth in times of nervousness/great importance. As soon as my system gets a solitary WHIFF of stress and/or great earning potential, it grabs hold of my lips and proceeds to throttle my vocal chords up to about 78 rpm. Talkative, yes, I am... but suddenly? I'm like the Energizer Bunny... on CRACK. I can. not. shut. UP. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to cut out the middle man and implode at my next interview. There I am, just about every FUCKING time, doing great, seeming all impressive and intelligent and TOGETHER, people! And all at once, out of nowhere... I can't find a functioning non-spastic brain cell to save. my. LIFE. And the worst part is? It's a vicious cycle. I get nervous/tense/some semblance thereof, and the babbling starts. Then, of course, because I'm neither DEAF nor STUPID, I become aware that I'm babbling. Unable to hide under the table to ease my mortification, my brain decides, in a fit of OCD fit to turn Howie Mandel into a poster child for NORMALCY, that the perfect cover for that embarrassment? Is to talk MORE. And LOUDER. Then, needless to say, utter humiliation ensues. Guess what follows that?

Yeah, it's fun being me.

I'm hoping the lady that interviewed me will suffer a fit of spontaneous amnesia and only remember the parts BEFORE that five minutes where I turned into Queen Flake the Almighty. 'Cause that would be SO good for me.

The worst part, in all seriousness, is that this job I was interviewing for? Would be PERFECT for me. Good money, good benefits, blah blah blah... more importantly, though, is the fact the job would let me grow and learn and be actually interested in what I did for a living.

I may go throw up.

What To Do, What To Do…

Well, if this hasn't been just the week of all weeks. I'm not even sure where to start, really.

I guess me giving two weeks notice at my job might be best.

Yes, me (the one withOUT a job offer elsewhere, thank you so much for asking)... walked right into the boss' office and told her I was going to need to move on. I always swore I'd stick it out until I found another job, because, oh, I don't know... maybe we LIKE having money to pay the bills with? Maybe I prefer not to look at my cats as a food source? Regardless, it just got to a point that I had to weigh a weekly paycheck against my sanity and self-respect. I chose the latter, much as the former is lovely and something that the thought of going without tends to cause a bit of a rash.

Now, here's the fun part of all this. I can either continue looking for a job in the same field I'm in currently, which is difficult for a number of reasons (I've added 6 months of valuable job skills to my resume - Excel is my FRIEND!- but for some reason 6 months does not send potential employers into fits of rabid joy. Don't ask me why. Nitwits.); I can go back to doing hair (my ulcers begin tap dancing as I even type that out... oy. I'd almost rather donate a kidney.); or I can try and figure out a new (and exciting! let's not forget fucking EXCITING! I'm all aquiver.) direction to take my life, one with an actual education and marketable skill. This last one is not for the faint of heart. I turn 37 tomorrow, people... not exactly a spring chicken. Not even a mid-summer chicken. The thought of going to school with a bunch of people who just look at you blankly when you mention The Ramones gives me a screaming migraine. Then there's that whole taking-the-ACT (or is that A.C.T.? Whatever, that TEST.) thing. I haven't been in a real, live institution of learning (vo-tech for cosmetology doesn't count. I mean, sure, it was school, but let's be real... we weren't learning about Occam's Razor, for fuck's sake.) for almost 20 years. The image I get of me going into a classroom now involves large bottles of Geritol. And a walker.

Oh, shut up.

Anyhoo. My current job had some aspects that I'll miss, believe it or not, and some of my co-workers are really great people. But then there are those other ones... the ones that like to stand up at my desk and humiliate me in front of anyone in a five cubicle radius for something both NOT my fault and NOT worth throwing a giant hissy fit about. Far be it for me to point out that grown people should, whenever possible, NOT turn a place of business into a reinvention of the elementary school playground. Then there are the people who think that a perfectly appropriate way to pass the time is to make malicious statements in front of a large group of people about the perfectly horrible things they'd like to see done... TO MY 8 YEAR OLD SON. Yep, that's professionalism right there, folks. Take notes. There are other things that helped me make the decision to leave, but due to legalities and all I'm going to refrain from sharing them. Suffice it to say that none of you would be sticking around, either.

I'm doing my best to convince my husband that going up there to give the president a piece of his mind is not the ideal way to deal with any of the incidents that have occurred. Not sure, but I think he's ignoring me. No, actually, I'm totally sure he's ignoring me. I sense bail money in my immediate future. He swears it wouldn't be anything like that, it would just be a calm, rational discussion of the way in which he feels management is failing people such as myself. To that I say HA! Calm and rational is code for my husband, the meaning of which is 'I'll let the other guy speak BEFORE I punch him in the throat.'

My supervisor didn't want me to leave. The owner of the company didn't want me to leave. Suddenly, people I didn't think even gave me a passing thought (other than to question my intake of caffeine) are stopping by my desk to tell me how much I'll be missed, how awesome my work was, how it won't be the same without me, blah blah blah. Ever notice that no one ever likes you quite so much as when they know you're leaving? I'm not sure how/why that happens, but it's bullshit. It's like some mechanism of the universe installed to prevent you from being able to leave a place with no regrets. Your emotions are now yanked around, bathed in belated approval and/or encouragement, causing some small, glutton-for-punishment part of your psyche to scream out 'OKAY, WE'LL STAY! WE LOVE YOU ALL, TOO! GROUP HUUUUUUUUUUUUG!'

Obviously, for me? This is an infinitesimally small part of my psyche. The majority of my brain cells are pretty firmly locked in the 'Where the fuck were you a week ago?' place.

I've had a couple of people tell me that I have a good voice for voice-over work. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I'm considering looking into it. No idea where to start looking into it, but it certainly sounds better than another round of office politics and drama that reminds me of high school. I barely survived high school the first time, do NOT want a round two. A job like doing voice-overs would allow me to pretty much avoid all co-worker situations. That's perfect for someone like me, who can't escape foot-in-mouth disease and is a constant magnet for every assbag within driving distance. It's like the pheromone from HELL, I tell you. Whatever rock they may be living under, they WILL find me.

What a birthday THIS is going to be.