The Getting To Know The Blogger Challenge: Work

I’m doing the Getting To Know The Blogger Challenge, started by A Little Unhinged.  As I go on in the challenge, I decided that some questions are easier answered on their own, and some will be put into a post together.  Today I am answering question #6.

6)  Where have you worked?

Oh Soup Nazi, you were so misunderstood. Much like me…

Oh boy, what a question to ask.  Probably because I currently don’t HAVE a job.  I’ve been in the market for a few months, and haven’t worked full-time in almost a year and a half.  I lost my one on one associate job at an elementary school due to a drop in students needing services.  In the dog eat aardvark world of public schooling, there are no promises.  Because I didn’t have nearly the seniority as other ladies that I worked with (some had been there going on 30 years!) I was the one bid adios to.  This was after my part-time job in the after school program (run by a different organization) was eliminated for attendance reasons the previous year. Gosh darn it, what’s a girl to do?  Short of going out and recruiting children to come and be a part of either program, there really wasn’t a whole lot within my realm of control.  Which is really, well, poopy.  The kicker is that I left a pretty good job that I had done for a long time to take that one.  Previously I had been working in childcare, but could no longer afford childcare for my own kids.  How is that for irony?

I really was the Wonder Woman of Part-Time Employment by then, I worked part-time for another organization that I had taught a few classes for here and there.  My wonderful supervisor that I adored offered me a job that was more than I had been doing.  She, however, was losing HER job.  How sweet is that?  Someone who is losing her job thinks of someone else who is pretty much unemployed?  Almost unheard of!  This particular organization is going to remain nameless, because, well, I haven’t exactly had a lot of nice things to say about them.  I did a lot of different jobs for them for quite awhile, that is until they decided to make my job into an on-call position.  After awhile you REALLY start to take that stuff personally.  Other than when I was on maternity leave, I’ve always worked some sort of job since my senior year of high school.  So it is really strange to be unemployed!

I am still Wonder Woman, but not like you’d think…

I’ve been riding the unemployment train for going on five months now.  It feels like a train going nowhere.  I’ve sent off the applications, probably close to 100 by now, and I still spend a lot of time checking to see if the phone really works.  I know it does, because the bill collectors know how to call pretty frequently.  If nothing else, my frustration of looking for a job makes for excellent blogging opportunities.  You can read my tales of woe here:  What I Think Prospective Employers Are Really Saying About Me, Let’s Build Something Together Shall We? Like A Paycheck, The Job Search:  How It’s Kind of Like Dating.

I’m not totally a loser, I make my whole fifty some dollars a month teaching a class for a local youth service provider.  I’ve plead my case to them on a number of different occasions trying to get them to actually hire me on a part-time versus an as needed basis.  They aren’t buying it, which is really disappointing.  Times are tough man.  Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen, nobody knows the sorrow…

But I digress, I’ve done some interesting jobs in my life.  I was a cashier and later a checkout supervisor and service desk associate at Kmart.  By the time I left that employer, I had worked in every department except sporting goods.  I did lots of different jobs at a waterpark, including managing the kitchen and teaching swim lessons.  I’ve worked with every age group possible at several different daycare centers.  And for a long time I worked at Eddie Bauer, which is still my favorite clothing store in the whole wide world.  Sigh… now I can’t afford to shop there.

As for now my job is being Mom, and I’m working on what I hope to be my new career on the side.  I am slowly working my way into being a writer, a PAID one.  Right now I’m blogging and trying to submit different things to some websites that take writer contributions.  So far nothing has been published, but I’m hoping that will change.  Eventually I’m hoping to have my own website where I can show off my stuff.  For now I post each and every day here on this little blog.  I hope you’ll keep reading, because I’d like to think that I’ve still got a little flash of awesome left to show the world.

I don’t think it would be NO work to do what I love. But the kitty is pretty, so I’m using this picture.

Previous Blogger Challenge Posts-This Could Be Fun:  I’m Doing The 15 Day Getting To Know The Blogger Challenge, Where I Grew Up, Favorite Childhood Memories, School