a little bit of distance...

i have been thinking about this a little bit over the past few days and i am kind of more surprised than i thought i would be. i don't know how to tackle this without stepping on toes or hurting feelings, but the fact of the matter is (and i have said this several times over) the whole point of this blog is to give a voice to the feelings associated with relocating 800 miles from everything you know, and this is a pretty big part of that process.

when i lived up in jersey i very often found myself struggling with the idea of friendship. i mean, i had all of these people that claimed to be my friends and all, but more often than not i would struggle to find someone to hang out with on any given night. i didn't really complain about it much because i felt like it was my fault for wanting to do things last minute so often, and i'm sure that it partially was, but i have been down here two months now and have a very good idea of who my friends back home really were. Not surprisingly, the three people i have really kept in contact with are the three that i would have considered my closest friends when i was up there.

i realize, too, that phones/twitter/facebook/text messages go both ways. but at the same time, i guess to me it feels pretty cheesy to make contact with someone that hasn't reached out to me, because the message would be something like "hey, Nashville is great! i am loving my new life here. my job is great, i am working on friendships with some pretty awesome people, and i am genuinely happy and feeling fulfilled." obviously, that is all great news, and a total 180 from how i was feeling up north, but i think that if i was on the receiving end of that message from someone else, i would be a little put off. maybe i am over-thinking it. i don't know. and maybe i am totally off base here, but this is where i am right now.

simple things are so different. if i was spending a lazy, stretch-pants sunday up north (on a non-eagles game day) i likely wouldn't have left my bedroom. here, though, i spent the day with my beat-up roommates (one has a concussion and the other hurt her shoulder) playing wii and being silly. i mean, i did also fall asleep on the love seat while watching tv and end up taking a five hour nap, but the whole vibe of the day was different.

i guess what it all boils down to is that maybe, with enough distance, it becomes way easier to see who belongs in one's life and who was just dead weight.

like being thrown to the wolves

yesterday i babysat a 21 month old for about 10 hours, and then went right to job 2 and worked another 8. My body hurt when i came home, for sure.

it was my first day on my own in the retail shop, and i was a bit nervous, although more prepared than i thought i was. One thing i am learning about myself is that i am way more capable of doing things than i give myself credit for. I have taken on a habit of setting the bar very low for myself so that i don't fail, but i have been proving to myself that i am more than capable of doing all sorts of things time and time again.

I was swarmed all night last night, and had an order to count and put up (which meant rearranging some things in the store.) Plus there are the regular "keep the store immaculate" things that I needed to deal with. I was sure that I was never going to get any of it done, and every time I would start to make some progress, I would get swarmed again. at the end of the night, though, T (my boss) told me that I did a great job, and that she was proud of me. when we checked the numbers, i understood why i felt like i was going to die; i was busy!

I go back in today. I don't suspect Ill have any orders to deal with, so that will help, but I do suspect that I will be just as busy.

poopy day.

Today was one of those days that quickly became one that I couldn't wait to end, however, now I am prolonging it by deciding to clean my room and blog. Both are poor choices considering tomorrow I am working from 7am until 1am. But anyway...

The day was running perfectly early on. The kid that I am babysitting didn't freak out when I was there to greet her as she woke, which I was pretty sure was not going to be the case. She was confused, but she accepted it.

We were hanging out sometime after her first nap, watching Dora and just relaxing, when I had a little stomach issue that i wont get into because gross. I had forgotten about this, but it triggered a downward spiral for the rest of the day.

Kiddo and I played for a while more, and had lunch, and it was getting late, so i put her down for her afternoon nap. She went down quickly, but was up about 20 minutes later, and was screaming. about 15 minutes after that, she was laying in her parents bed and had one of the most wicked (and full) diapers i had ever encountered.

Of course, because this is a new clause in the baby contract, she managed to get a good deal of that mess on my shirt because she was covered in it. For the rest of the afternoon i thought she needed changed again, but nope, it was just my shirt.

Anyway, I bathed her, dried her up and the rest of the afternoon was peachy, at least with her. However, I had plans for this evening that i had to postpone because no one wants to hang out with a girl who is covered in baby shit. This was especially upsetting because i had plans yesterday that tanked, too, so I was 0 for 2 in the friendtime department. It really is a big time bummer to be looking forward to something for so long only to have it fizzle out last minute. :(

I came home, de-pooped myself, and then headed out to job 2 to pick up my paycheck! Yay! first paycheck from the job that I love. SO EXCITING!!! except when you drive downtown to pick it up and it doesn't exist. it should have been there. the other girl that i went through orientation with had hers. they all kept telling me that it must have been direct deposited, except that I signed up for DD like 20 minutes before I went down there to get my check, and my bank account balance is proof positive that no pay checks have been deposited.

I wasted what little gas i had left to go downtown to pick up a check that wasn't even there.

I called my mom on the way home (hands free, don't worry) and she wasn't as sympathetic as I had hoped, so I decided to go for broke and use my last few dollars on Krispy Kreme. I hadn't really eaten all day and I was miserable, so donuts and coffee made sense to me.

obviously the poop washed off and i survived. I will eventually get this paycheck, or it'll show up in next week's check. My stomach issues are nothing new, and I can deal with them.  We rescheduled the hang out for next week, on a day that I am totally off. I mean, in all honesty I know that none of this is end-times bad, but piled on top of each other like that just makes for a pretty rotten mood.

however, my roomie learned that we have a show-off in our complex, so that was good for a laugh.

welp...

Okay, so I heard back from the boss at Job #1 and his response was not at all what I was bracing myself for.

Basically, he told me that I was brought in because they were looking to phase out the people who are negative about their work environment, and that would largely be those people that I encountered on that first day. He apologized for the warm reception, and was able to peg exactly who it was, and also apologized for my having to be "stuck" (his word, not mine) with her for any length of time that first day.

He said that he wasn't angry with me that day in the stockroom, but rather with another leader in the store who was not as thrilled about working around my schedule. Obviously I am not thrilled about having team leaders annoyed with me, but it is nice to know that I wasn't the cause of the annoyance (directly, anyway) the other morning.

He also mentioned that the people that I have been working with on the truck really like working with me, and have given me glowing reviews, and said that orientation is not something that he is allotted hours for, which seems weird, but that is the company's fault, not his.

I don't know what to do. My plan, since quitting, was to finish up my sub cert and sub on the days when I was off or closing at the Wildhorse. I could easily work something out with boss #1 where I am only working truck and am done by 10am, which would not interfere with job #2 at all. But that would leave me no time for subbing. Subbing pays way better, but I won't be able to start until at the earliest three weeks after submitting my paperwork.

I need to decide what to do quickly, as I am scheduled in at BRU at 6am and if I want to keep this job, I would probably have to show up.

Eff.

and that's that.

I just e-mailed my boss at the first job a letter telling him that I quit. I was going to call, but I figured that as far as paperwork goes, he might need a letter anyway (Wawa did) so I might as well just send him one and tell him how I feel. I thought that it might be childish, but in the end (with the help of my BFFF) it was determined that as a boss he might want to be made aware of some of the things that were going on inside his store that made me feel unwanted, and that the actions of the staff have consequences.

What it all boiled down to was the fact that I did not move down here to be unhappy, so I didn't see any reason to keep a job that was taking me in that direction.

Somehow, though, I still find myself sitting here wondering if it was the right decision.

****

Yesterday as I was walking by some dwelling-challenged kids and their dog, I made the mistake of looking at the dog. One of the boys asked if I could buy them all a slice of pizza, and I replied with the standard, "I don't have any money." This is a true fact. I really do not have any money at all. What the boy said next surprised me, though. He told me, "well, they take credit cards inside." I kept walking back to my car, but something about the entire thing shook me up. Part of me wanted to go back and blast him for thinking that was an acceptable thing to say to me, and kick him in the face for being an entitled little shit, and the other part of me wanted to run as quickly as possible to my car, lock the doors and speed away. I don't know why it was such an unsettling exchange or why I ended up so creeped out over it, but it impacted me enough to make a bunch of changes, including no longer taking my purse to work and purchasing a can of mace and a self-defense key-ring.

I wasn't even that shaken when LB and I got lost in the wrong part of Brooklyn this past summer.

just as i suspected

I officially started in the Wildhorse today. I arrived at 9:15 this morning and didn't even look at a clock until 2:15, so I think that speaks volumes about how much I was enjoying the job. I realize that not every day is going to be great, but I think most will be, and that is perfect.

Yesterday I was in the back room at the other job, and the manager came back to talk to me about scheduling. He was kind of ticked because he had done the schedule already and I had training Sunday, so he had to redo things based on me. I get that. I am ticked because my availability at both jobs is that I am not available, yet both jobs have me on the schedule. At any rate, he told me basically that I needed to hurry and get my availability to him as soon as possible, and that it might be that I need to decide which job is more important to me and then cut ties, knowing full well that the other job was the more important one (the way he worded it confirmed that statement.)

I just compared schedules, and technically I can work both jobs this week as my schedules don't actually overlap, but that means that I will have worked at least two weeks straight and that on Friday I will have to be at work at one job at 6am, and will be closing at the other job, which will likely not get me home til 1:30 or 2 am. If I am scheduled at either job for Saturday, I can see that being a serious issue.

I have "health benefits" through job one, however, they aren't full benefits. It is still better than what I would have otherwise, which is nothing. I am supposed to be part-time at job 2 but was listed as full on the schedule. If that is the case, my mind is absolutely made up, but if I am not offered health benefits, I need to decide what to do. I hate job 1. I went for a good three hours before anyone talked to me on Friday morning. When I would ask questions about what I was supposed to be doing, I was getting less-than-helpful responses. Or no reply at all.

I feel like this is pretty cut and dry. I have a job that I love and one that I hate. The one that I love pays me 1.75 an hour more than the one that I hate (and frankly the perks are killer at the one I love, and useless at the one I hate.) The only hold-up is the health insurance thing, but I just looked and found a decent plan for a decent price, and I don't think that killing myself to work these two jobs is worth some medical, especially when I can finish my sub cert and do that on days off at the Wildhorse. One sub day a month will cover my health insurance. Cut and dry, right?

But for some reason I feel a loyalty to job one that is making it very difficult for me to resign. This is weird, especially knowing that there is no return on that investment, since I was told it might be time to cut ties. I don't know. I know that I do not want to work 16 days straight, or longer, quite possibly. I know that I want to work in an environment where I am happy and where people are nice and having fun, and not one in which no one talks to one another. Someone please explain the loyalty thing to me so that I can move past it and quit, because I don't get it.

******

One of the best things about this new job is getting to talk to people. Today I was talking to two ladies, and one said that she was from Jersey, to which I of course replied "so am i!" When I asked her what part, she said South Jersey, and I said "so am I!" I asked the name of her town, and she made that "you probably have never heard of it" face and said Franklinville. I about shot through the ceiling I was so excited about that. I said, "AHHH!! I'M FROM CLAYTON!!!" She was not nearly as impressed as I was, but it was pretty cool to me.

I want to try to blog specifically about Friday's lunch and walk because I took some pictures that I would really like to share, but I just keep running out of time and energy. Maybe tomorrow, but if not, then definitely Monday. I want to share about other than work :)

its been six weeks

It seems crazy to say it, but I have been here more than six weeks now. 

A lot of people have been asking about my new job, and I have posted it a million times in various FaceBook statuses, but for the sake of having it "on the books" so to speak, the answer is I am working at a place called the Wildhorse Saloon in downtown Nashville. My job will be a retail position, which means that I will be selling tee shirts and shot glasses in the store part of the restaurant, and working the box office. I will be around live music all the time, and some pretty cool bands come through there (Hanson was just there last week. Air Supply and Blue Oyster Cult are set to come in the next few months.) 

I am really excited about working here. I start in the restaurant tomorrow; all this past week has been orientation with the company, which was a lot of fun. The difference between the orientations in the two companies that employ me (ie, I only had an orientation in one of them so far...the other hasn't had the "hours" to have us do the orientation...) has been night and day, and I suspect that the working environment will be the same. I will have a better idea tomorrow, for sure. 

an update feels long overdue.

Things are going just about how I expected they would be at this juncture in the move. I think that this time period that I am in right now will prove to be the hardest, because I still don't really have any friends, and because I just started working I don't have any money, so I am struggling on several different fronts. However, don't take that as my saying that this was a mistake, because I still contend that it was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

Jobs. Well, I have had one for a few weeks. I am not in love with it. I don't know if I mentioned it, but the first night I worked, a few of the girls that were there told me to "run" and "run away while i still can" and proceeded to tell me about how awful the job is. While i didn't take their word for it and decided to form my own opinion, my opinion was based largely on their attitudes and winning personalities. It is hard enough being the new kid in any situation, but they did not really make me feel welcomed or wanted, which made it that much more difficult. No one there overly friendly, really. I have met nice enough people, but no one has really made me feel like I belong, and that bothers me.

I guess I was just spoiled at ACA and Simmons.

On the bright side, I started orientation today for a job that i think i am really going to love. This is based solely on what i know about the venue, which isnt a whole lot, really, and the fact that the company seems to be pretty awesome. We spent the better part of the day underground. Tunnels. I have always loved the idea of tunnels to get from one place to another. They are so mysterious.

We will see if i still love it after i start my actual job, but i suspect that i will. i feel like this is what i have always wanted to do, which is to work in a place that caters to live music. Time will tell.

I have more to say, as I generally do, but it is getting pretty late and I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn for orientation, so I should probably wrap it up. I wish I said something worthwhile. Maybe next time.

so i am working, and i should be happy about that, right? i mean, i AM happy about that. its nice to have a job again...feel like a productive member of society again.

but here is the rub.

i got my schedule for this week. i am scheduled three and a half hours on monday, four hours on wednesday and four hours on friday. how in the world am i supposed to survive on 11 and a half hours, when i only make 7.25. 80 bucks a week before taxes wont even cover rent, let alone my student loans, cell phone, utilities, and living expenses.

i was told a few times by the manager that i might get more hours down the road, but i have to prove to him that i am worth it first. i cant wait around until i am deemed worthy of more hours, if that is even going to happen at all.

i wasn't going to finish my sub application (all i have left is to take the test), and i won't be able to sub much if i keep this job, because this will likely be my "set" schedule. (it's retail, so there is no such thing as a true set schedule, but for the job that he wants me to do, these are the hours that i will work.)

i am bored there, as it is. i am starting to think this job might not work out. there are a few other jobs that i am waiting to hear about, but i need some advice here. what would you do? i mean, health benefits, you know?