Monday, September 27, 2010
Riple
A brief note on the importance of proofreading your ninth grade creative writing "visual poem" assignment well in advance of the due date.
Monday, September 13, 2010
No Paid Lunches Means Always Getting Lunch
When I pulled into the mall parking garage on Black Friday, I knew that my doom was at hand. And I didn’t mind. Because after the doom, there could be sleep.
I congratulated myself for keeping the job at the Store even when the Hedge-Fund Job seemed in the bag. I had been quite wise, I thought, to hedge my bets. But jiminy crickets, was it tough going when I had to work both jobs at once.
The Store, as I previously mentioned, did not have a lot of work hours to dole out to a poor little noob like me, regardless of how snazzy my footwear was. So they had no problem adjusting my availability and keeping me completely off the schedule until late afternoons. However, this meant that when they did feel compelled to put me to work, they did so until the store closed at 10pm. So I would head down to Santa Monica at 5:30am and work in the cold with no lunch break until 3pm. Then I would go to the mall. On very lucky days, I could sleep in my car in the parking garage for an hour or so before beginning my shift at The Store. Then, I would work until 10pm. Of course, that was only on weekdays. On weekends, I worked longer shifts until 10pm. In this way, I worked something like 20 days straight, often with double shifts, until I went to my friend’s wedding in St. Louis.
But don’t worry, there’s good news too. There was much less traffic at 10pm than there was at 3pm. And because of the mall’s location, I could take Beverly Glen Boulevard instead of the 405 North. Beverly Glen smells like ivy, juniper, jasmine, and rich people, especially at 10pm when the air is cool. It is a delicious drive. Slightly less delicious when you are delirious with exhaustion, but still delicious. So those evening shifts weren’t completely joyless.
There’s also the fact that no retail job will ever let you skip lunch. In fact, nothing made the managers of The Store madder than people who tried to go without a lunch break. The laws in California require workers to clock out within five hours on the job, and if you fail to clock out before five hours have passed, you get a paid lunch break. So if you clock out for lunch even one minute late, The Store had to pay you for an extra hour of work. The Store did not like to pay for extra hours, so lunch was always a sure thing.
And of course, working two jobs means you get paid for two jobs, which was quite a help to me. Especially because I had suffered a Great Mishap.
A week or two previous to my employ at the hedge fund, I went to the DMV to get my California drivers license. Naturally, I got a perfect score on the test. Then, on the way home from the DMV, I ran a stoplight in West Hollywood at an intersection that is monitored by a camera. Because that’s what book smarts will do for you. The ticket that I received in the mail, accompanied by a photograph of me blasting through the intersection in my subcompact, was in the amount of $390.
The total sum of all my earnings at Dodger Stadium that season was $388.
The Great Mishap caused Great Woe. But Great Woe is what credit cards are for, so I survived.
And that’s all I had to do, really. And what better time to go into survival mode than at holiday time? So I went to work on Black Friday and faced doom for five hours. Then I clocked out for lunch.
I congratulated myself for keeping the job at the Store even when the Hedge-Fund Job seemed in the bag. I had been quite wise, I thought, to hedge my bets. But jiminy crickets, was it tough going when I had to work both jobs at once.
The Store, as I previously mentioned, did not have a lot of work hours to dole out to a poor little noob like me, regardless of how snazzy my footwear was. So they had no problem adjusting my availability and keeping me completely off the schedule until late afternoons. However, this meant that when they did feel compelled to put me to work, they did so until the store closed at 10pm. So I would head down to Santa Monica at 5:30am and work in the cold with no lunch break until 3pm. Then I would go to the mall. On very lucky days, I could sleep in my car in the parking garage for an hour or so before beginning my shift at The Store. Then, I would work until 10pm. Of course, that was only on weekdays. On weekends, I worked longer shifts until 10pm. In this way, I worked something like 20 days straight, often with double shifts, until I went to my friend’s wedding in St. Louis.
But don’t worry, there’s good news too. There was much less traffic at 10pm than there was at 3pm. And because of the mall’s location, I could take Beverly Glen Boulevard instead of the 405 North. Beverly Glen smells like ivy, juniper, jasmine, and rich people, especially at 10pm when the air is cool. It is a delicious drive. Slightly less delicious when you are delirious with exhaustion, but still delicious. So those evening shifts weren’t completely joyless.
There’s also the fact that no retail job will ever let you skip lunch. In fact, nothing made the managers of The Store madder than people who tried to go without a lunch break. The laws in California require workers to clock out within five hours on the job, and if you fail to clock out before five hours have passed, you get a paid lunch break. So if you clock out for lunch even one minute late, The Store had to pay you for an extra hour of work. The Store did not like to pay for extra hours, so lunch was always a sure thing.
And of course, working two jobs means you get paid for two jobs, which was quite a help to me. Especially because I had suffered a Great Mishap.
A week or two previous to my employ at the hedge fund, I went to the DMV to get my California drivers license. Naturally, I got a perfect score on the test. Then, on the way home from the DMV, I ran a stoplight in West Hollywood at an intersection that is monitored by a camera. Because that’s what book smarts will do for you. The ticket that I received in the mail, accompanied by a photograph of me blasting through the intersection in my subcompact, was in the amount of $390.
The total sum of all my earnings at Dodger Stadium that season was $388.
The Great Mishap caused Great Woe. But Great Woe is what credit cards are for, so I survived.
And that’s all I had to do, really. And what better time to go into survival mode than at holiday time? So I went to work on Black Friday and faced doom for five hours. Then I clocked out for lunch.
Jumping Ship
The day before my last day at the assignment, I called the Recruiter from the coffee shop across the street to tell her that I didn’t want to take the job. I was informed by the agency Gatekeeper, i.e. the receptionist, that my Recruiter was out for the day. I agreed to call back the next day and scuttled back across the street to endure another day of chilly tedium.
The next day, which was the last day of my two-week temporary assignment, I visited the coffee shop just as soon as Business Hours for Normal People began and called the agency again. The Gatekeeper told me that my recruiter was, again, unavailable. I explained that I needed to talk to her rather urgently, because I did not want to accept permanent employment at my assignment and expected them to offer. “I need some guidance here!” I cried.
“What’s the job?” asked the Gatekeeper. I told her who I had been working for over the past two weeks. “Oh, no one wants that job,” said the Gatekeeper.
“Oh great,” I said. “So you have done this before.” She put me on hold and came back with another recruiter, who is also the president of the company.
“You don’t want the job? Why not,” he barked.
“Because it’s not related to entertainment,” I replied.
“They do film financing, don’t they?”
“NO!” I snapped.
I was instructed to demure as much as possible and tell the hedge fund that I would need to think about any offers, and that they would also need to talk to my Recruiter before I could give any answer. But as the day wore on, I started to realize how dumb this plan was.
So when the Junior Hedger in Charge of Administrative Hires brought me up into the lofty conference room to talk to me about how the job was going, I made bold to tell him I didn’t think it was for me. He didn’t seem surprised. I guess someone had also told him that no one wanted that job. Probably all the dozens of temps from the agency that came before me. So I gave him my parking pass, and headed home on the 405 North.
I didn’t know how I was going to stay afloat, but I was buoyed up by the thought that the very next day would be Thanksgiving. And the day after that, the holiday season at the Store would begin. I tightened my belt, slipped on the Sperrys, and hoped that those extra holiday hours would pull me through at least until January.
The next day, which was the last day of my two-week temporary assignment, I visited the coffee shop just as soon as Business Hours for Normal People began and called the agency again. The Gatekeeper told me that my recruiter was, again, unavailable. I explained that I needed to talk to her rather urgently, because I did not want to accept permanent employment at my assignment and expected them to offer. “I need some guidance here!” I cried.
“What’s the job?” asked the Gatekeeper. I told her who I had been working for over the past two weeks. “Oh, no one wants that job,” said the Gatekeeper.
“Oh great,” I said. “So you have done this before.” She put me on hold and came back with another recruiter, who is also the president of the company.
“You don’t want the job? Why not,” he barked.
“Because it’s not related to entertainment,” I replied.
“They do film financing, don’t they?”
“NO!” I snapped.
I was instructed to demure as much as possible and tell the hedge fund that I would need to think about any offers, and that they would also need to talk to my Recruiter before I could give any answer. But as the day wore on, I started to realize how dumb this plan was.
So when the Junior Hedger in Charge of Administrative Hires brought me up into the lofty conference room to talk to me about how the job was going, I made bold to tell him I didn’t think it was for me. He didn’t seem surprised. I guess someone had also told him that no one wanted that job. Probably all the dozens of temps from the agency that came before me. So I gave him my parking pass, and headed home on the 405 North.
I didn’t know how I was going to stay afloat, but I was buoyed up by the thought that the very next day would be Thanksgiving. And the day after that, the holiday season at the Store would begin. I tightened my belt, slipped on the Sperrys, and hoped that those extra holiday hours would pull me through at least until January.
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