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

Job Interview Postponement Hypotheses

I know it says IKEA, but this could happen at Lowes, right? Maybe they ran out of seats for me to try assembling. It could happen, they run out of stuff.

A quick update on the interview:

Someone from Lowes called while I was in the shower.  Apparently the lady who was supposed to do the interview had to go home sick.  So we have rescheduled for the same time, same place NEXT Thursday afternoon.

Needless to say, I was a little bummed because it’s a miserable rainy day and my way out of the house for a bit was pretty much squashed.  I kind of lost all ambition for the rest of the day, and curled up under my blanket with my kid and my dog (because they won’t let me get away!)  Not having a lot to do led me to a few hypotheses as to why this happened:

1)  My daughter does not want me to go back to work. I know because she tells me almost constantly.  Being with me all hours of the day isn’t enough for me to work a few hours and be away from her on the weekend.  Apparently she’s learning voodoo, and made the interview person sick.  I suspect the dog had a hand in that as well.

2)  This is like in the movies, where something glorious and wonderful is going to happen so I don’t have to take the job.  I don’t play the lottery, so I’m thinking I’d better start.

3)  It’s not meant to be, and next Thursday afternoon all of the interview panel will die or be horribly maimed in a horrible home improvement related accident.  I’m thinking something to do with the shade cutter in the window treatment aisle.

4) They’re all liars.  They misread my resume and thought I was someone else.  Or someone else was me.  Or something.  And eyes were bleeding.

5)  The interview lady is really just sick.  She may have kids that use her sleeves as tissues too.  Been there, got sick.

So next Thursday it’s supposed to happen.  I’ll let you know…

I don’t have the fluffiness to fall back on that. I was pretty unmotivated today once I got the news, though.

It’s My First Blog Post! Truths About Me, Scary or Otherwise

I am not a cat… but I like this picture…

Apparently, I amuse people.  I find this quite hard to believe, but at least in print I have been told I am somewhat entertaining.  Not just me, necessarily, but me and the combination my two children, who are as unique as they come.  Somehow the mix here just works.  Time and time again I keep being told I need to blog.  Things that are true about me:

1-I am a Mom.  I guess I just said that.  I have two children, a boy and a girl, ages 7 and 4.  I also have a husband who can be a child.

This is not my family.  But we are very strange.

2-I used to have a life.  Ok, not much of a life, but I used to frequent places that didn’t feature groceries and one stop shopping in them.

There are usually two children crying when I am at the store.  Yes they belong to me.

3-I used to be a teacher.  I even went to school to be one.  The kids were great, it was the grown-ups who sucked.  I think the teacher choice was correct, it was the field that I chose to teach.  Hence the name of the blog, The Sadder But Wiser Girl. A gold star for you if you know what movie had a song in it of the same name.  Currently I am a KOSAHM (not to be confused with KOSAMA)-A kind of stay at home mom.  I work some, my hours and where I work vary greatly from week to week.  I don’t make much therefore I must take my kids to work with me when I work outside the house and attempt to work while I am home with them.  As a start this blog my elementary aged child has been out of school for a week, and I am already nearly nuts.

No this wasn’t me when I was teaching.  I didn’t really have a desk…

4-I live in a very small town in the Midwest.  One of those towns where the streets literally had no name until recently.  One of those towns where every event is done on the same date, at the same time, at the same place.  I am not from this town, not even from anywhere around here.  Therefore, I do not know what is going on.  Ever.

These are all everyday images for me.

5-I would like to be one of those moms who bakes everything from scratch, sews and makes all her own clothes, grows all her own food, and uses only all natural and organic products.  You know, I’d open my windows and start singing and small animals and birds would gather and join in.  Guess what, I am NOT that person.  Instead I am an anxiety ridden, ADD mom who makes a lot of food from a box that people in this house don’t eat, loves the organic grocery store but can’t really afford to buy anything there, and has a garden planted by my husband that I know the location of but really can’t tell you where anything is in it.  I also spend a lot of time clipping coupons and looking at those blogs that the frugal thrifty people have that I never actually use much of the advice on there-mainly because I lose the coupons before I get to the store or the recipe before I make it.  But I try.  What were we talking about again?

This isn’t me by the way.  That isn’t either.  But I’d kill for that hair.

6-Which leads me to this-I’m looking for something.  Really I am.  Most of my time is spent looking for something.  Keys, my son’s glasses, the remote, the box of pasta I KNOW I bought last week.  I’m also REALLY looking for something.  Purpose.  What I want to be when I grow up.  Inner peace. A good nights sleep.

And with these truths I start my blog.  Remember when reading it some important advice-enjoy it if you like it, stop reading if you don’t, and if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all!