More than a little awkward...

Today one of my former students caught me working a menial temp job. It felt like I was caught stealing cookies or watching reality tv marathons, except those things would have at least been more fun. Basically, I signed up for a weeklong assignment at a college bookstore to make some extra cash. I figured working a cash register in a place where books and education are valued would hit a little closer to home for me than the sadistic office jobs I'd attempted earlier this summer. Everything was going swimmingly at the bookstore for a while, and I was surprised to find myself actually having a good time. The work was easy, and I had fun chatting with customers about their book purchases ("Oh you're going to love Bradbury's short story collection. Good choice!" And so on...). I was even joking around with my fellow temp employees and laughing at how finicky the register is when processing ATM transactions. I should have known that I wouldn't get away so easy. Ever since I left teaching, I've been plagued with strange and horrible work experiences. Today turned out to be no exception.
After completing a sale with a girl who was buying books for her teaching credential classes, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had given her some solid advice about which books to keep close at hand in the classroom and which ones to sell back right after passing her classes. She was grateful, I felt important, and everyone was happy.

Then I looked up to wave the next person in line over to my register. The smiling customer walking toward me was Anna, a student from my first year of teaching. That was the moment that my body temperature rose several degrees and my red face contorted into an unnatural and strained grin. Suddenly my little blue bookstore apron and nametag with a smiley face on it seemed to be burning my flesh through my clothes. I was of course happy to see Anna again, but the first words out of her mouth were, "Uh, Ms. W-, what are you doing working here?" I tried to explain that I was making some extra cash while waiting for my writing career to take off, but it all sounded contrived and unrealistic because I felt so out of place. I started to mention my night classes as a second attempt at an explanation, but I just ended up trailing off because her transaction was actually very complicated and I had to focus. She had rental books which require additional forms and supervisor sign-offs, and it was only my first few hours on the register. I started fumbling through the process and dropping things while trying to ask Anna in a cheery voice what she's “up to these days?!” Anna has a way of smiling at you that lets you know she thinks you're being strange. I recognized the look right away, because the last time I saw that look from Anna, I had just tripped over my podium at the front of the classroom and sent papers and pens flying. Anna once told me that she thought my clumsiness was endearing. This not only made me feel a little better as a person who cant seem to avoid being awkward, but I was also proud because "endearing" was one of our vocabulary words and Anna had used it perfectly.
In any event, Anna was finding me particularly endearing at the bookstore, because the smile on her face just kept getting bigger as I kept talking, fumbling and stuffing her books into her bag. The crowning moment came when I tried to staple her receipt to her book-rental agreement. I must have approached the paper at the wrong angle, or maybe it was just the Staple Gods screwing with me, but the stapler got stuck and I ended up mangling an entire corner of her paper. It looked like a large woodland creature had decided to munch on Anna's paperwork, but wasn't really that committed to the idea and gave up halfway through. Anna actually laughed out loud as she watched me try to flatten the shreds of paper, then said, "Thanks Ms. W-. It's fine like that". In a last attempt to redeem myself and show Anna that I'm still her teacher even though I'm working the register, I said, "Have a great semester Anna. Study hard!!” It would have been ok, but the "study hard" part came out a little too loud and several people around us turned to see who the "yeller" was. Anna left smiling and chuckling, and I needed a few moments before I could call anyone else over to my register.
The best part is, I've just realized exactly how many of my students mentioned this college as their future school on graduation day. I could be having this much fun all week!

The Trouble with Dreams

Last night, I had a dream that I was on the Oprah show. I know you're starting to think, "Oh dear God, is she really going to talk about Oprah?" The answer is yes. But bear with me. I have a point.
In this dream, I was on Oprah because I had won some sort of award for my work. Apparently I wrote something that had to do with Elie Wiesel's novel, Night, and whatever I wrote was being recognized as excellent work. Elie Wiesel (who has been on Oprah before) wanted to congratulate me on my success and meet with me to discuss my work on the show. Pretty incredible right?
Now, there are at least two different ways to dream. In the first, everything is fuzzy and confused. You are supposed to be you, but you look different and everyone around you is different somehow. Your mother is Susan Sarandon instead of your mother. And maybe you're supposed to be a woman but you're a man with a beard instead, and before you can ask the guy next to you for the time, he turns into an elephant and skates away on rollerblades. With dreams like this, you wake up wondering if you need therapy or if it was just something you ate the night before.
But the OTHER kind of dream is the dream that is so realistic, down to the finest detail, that you wonder if it actually happened; or if it will happen in the future. My Oprah dream felt like the latter. Now I'm not saying I'm going to be on Oprah and meet Elie Wiesel, but something about this dream struck me as significant. Everything about it felt incredibly real. I was wearing an outfit that I have in my closet now and would probably think appropriate for Oprah's show. I was walking through the studio with the production manager, checking every mirror that we passed to make sure that my hair still looked ok (which I would definitely do in real life) because I was so nervous. When we got on the set, Oprah was introducing the topic and was about to invite Elie Wiesel on stage. The plan was to catch up with Wiesel first and discuss the success of his “Foundation for Humanity”. Then she would invite me out and we'd all talk together about the novel and my piece. People had started suggesting that Wiesel was going to ask me if I would like to add my work to his novel as a supplemental piece to appear at the end of the book. They said that was why he wanted to meet me here and have the public stage. I decided not think about that possibility, just in case they were wrong. It was already amazing just to meet him (and Oprah!) and be able to talk about my work on television. But on the side of the set, I couldn't help imagining what such an offer would feel like. It would mean that students all over the world would read my work and discuss it along with Wiesel’s novel. It would put me in a completely different league as a writer and mean everything to me. But I tried not to think about it and worried about my hair again instead.

Seeing the audience and all the cameras had my stomach in hysterics and I thought for a moment that I was going to collapse. But then I saw my family in the audience. They took up an entire row and they were all waving and smiling like it was the first time they'd seen me in years. They were close to where I was standing on the set, so I asked the production manager if I had time to run over and say Hi. He said yes, as long as I was only a minute-we were on commercial break. I ran over to them and immediately felt better. My Mom told me I just needed to remember to breath and speak slowly and clearly. My Dad said I looked beautiful and very important. My brothers made fun of me, as they do, and all was right with the world. I went back to the side of the stage with the production manager. Wiesel and Oprah had started talking about my work and I was going on in less than a minute. When I heard Oprah say my name and the audience started clapping, I took a deep breath, just like Mom said, and started to walk onto the cozy living room set.
There is another thing about dreams that I know we've all experienced. Everything you've ever wanted is about to happen for you...and then you wake up. Usually this happens when you're about to kiss Brad Pitt or whoever. Or maybe you just won the lottery and you're about to start the engine on your new Porsche. Whatever the dream is, nothing feels more disappointing than the moment you wake up and realize you wont get to see what happens. I was about to meet Oprah and Elie Wiesel and have my work publicized on national television, and I chose that moment to wake up. As we're all well aware, I don't have a job at the moment and don’t have any reason to wake up at a particular time. There was no alarm clock or startling sound to stir me, so this was nothing more than the Dream World messing with my head.
Still, the whole thing felt so realistic, that I have to believe there is something in it. I have a hard time thinking seriously about ever being on Oprah or meeting Wiesel, but perhaps I'll write something someday that will have me recognized in some sort of forum. I think one of the most important things about the dream is that I was about to be made hugely successful, but I still felt like me. Even more important, I had the tremendous support of my family there with me. That part felt more real than anything else, and it's the part that I like to think about the most. Many families would call me a fool for leaving a teaching career to become a struggling writer, but not my family. They've been nothing but supportive of me and my crazy dreams, and I know they'll be there in the audience cheering for me if I ever make it to any stage to be recognized.
So I'll keep on dreaming.

False Alarm

Well, I was employed for a day. "A" meaning one (1), as in singular. My first day of work at my new receptionist job started today at 8:30am. At around 10:30am, I decided to end it. By 5:00pm I had successfully terminated the whole affair and jumped the company ship. What happened? I made a huge mistake. I thought that an office job might give me the financial stability (along with health benefits) that I need in order to be a writer and a student of writing full time. So I signed up to answer phones, thinking I could do some work on the job when things were slow. This was the mistake. It was not just the overall office environment that was a concern, but also the never-ending, horribly tedious, rip-your-hair-out-and-jump-in-front-of-a-speeding-Prius kind of work that they expected me to do for eight hours a day that had me running for my life. I spent the morning scanning, filing and answering the phone. Then I entered some figures into the company database. After that, there was more scanning to be done, so I was back at the machine that I was convinced hated me. It would work beautifully for everyone else in the office, but would jam and spit out bits of paper whenever I used it. You'd think with all this fun the day would have gone whizzing by, but time actually seemed to have turned against me as well and wasn’t moving AT ALL. I could see hours and hours of staring at the clock and yelling at the scanner in my future, and it was only 10:00am on day one.
I also must add that the girl training me for this position was 19 and leaving the company to go to college. It felt like one of my old students from the class of '07 was training me for the job she was discarding. She had the sense of mind to get out of there and get an education, so what was I doing working there as a college grad and a credentialed ex-teacher? But even as the feelings of self-loathing started settling in uncomfortably, I still had to be amused at the situation. Here was this very nice girl with pink tipped, swirly flower acrylic nails who could be my student telling me, "As you get more experienced at this, you'll start to notice like the details and get comfortable with it.."
My favorite bit of advice from my sage trainer was,
"Once you've answered the phones more and you have, like, some experience, you'll learn to recognize the names of like the clients and stuff. For example like that was Michael on the phone before, but I just called him Mikey. You can call him Mikey too once you've been here longer.."
Oh boy! Someday I can call him Mikey too?! And what was this girl doing talking to me about experience? I started getting experience in the job force long before this girl even learned how to spell "experience" or "acrylic".
Anyway, at lunchtime a nice man named Bob delivered free Mexican food, so I thought maybe things were looking up. But then I learned that we were all expected to sit at our desks and continue working while eating. This would of course allow the Mexican food smells to permeate the entire office. I just love smelling burritos all day. Everyone seemed fine with the idea of never getting a break, so they were definitely shocked by my announcement that I would return in 30 minutes after I had finished my lunch. I know they all watched me leave in judgment as they stuffed more guacamole down their throats, but I had to get out of there. I clocked out and almost ran through the door.
When I got outside, I could see that the sun was still shining, the wind was blowing, and all around there were signs of life. I started to relax. When I was inside, it felt like my soul was dying along with everything good and positive in the world. But the fresh air calmed me down and reminded me not to be so dramatic. I made a call to a friend and asked her if it would be totally out of line for me to quit a job on the first day. She told me I have good instincts, so I should do whatever felt right. I went back to the office feeling confident and ready to end the misery.
But before I could sit down to tell my new boss this job was a no-go, the lady with the cookies showed up. The lady was my staffing agent who had worked hard to place me in this horrible job. She bounded into the office with a huge pink box full of fresh cookies from the bakery.She startled all of us with her freedom of movement, cheery attitude and loud announcement that the cookies were a welcoming gift for me. With a smile that pierced my conscience, she said, "Just wanted to welcome you on board and say we're so happy this business relationship worked out so well!" I knew she was only that happy because she wasn’t the one who had to stay here. My boss came out of his office to shake her hand and the two of them started thanking each other for placing such a WONDERFUL person in this WONDERFUL position. They both looked at me with their arms crossed thoughtfully and talked about how my English-teacher resume was a little scary at first, but they were glad they had given the ol' teacher a chance. I looked back and forth between them and truly hated my life for a moment. Every cookie in that pink box mocked me and my uncomfortable situation. I had decided already that it was ok to quit a job on the first day if it's this bad, but can you quit when there have been cookies and handshakes exchanged on your behalf?
I decided to give this whole thing another go and try a fresh attitude. So what if I don't like my job? I'm just doing this to make money and then at night I'll do the writing I love, right?
But only half an hour later I was back to my original decision to leave as soon as possible. How can anyone be creative after work if the nature of your job is to turn off your brain and SCAN, COLLATE, FILE, SCAN, COLLATE, FILE. The only people to talk to in the office already didn't like me because I had the audacity to take a lunch break. That only left the phone to give me interaction with other living forms, but "Mikey" and the other clients only wanted to be transferred. I would die in this place if I didn't get out soon. I asked to take a five-minute break (gasp!) and walked outside again to call my staffing agent. Her voice definitely lost all its cheeriness when I told her this would be my only day on the job. She charged me with explaining the situation to my boss and asked that I try to keep the relationship between the company and the staffing agency alive, despite my conduct. I was fine with this. In fact I might feel a little less guilty about giving up so quickly if I could explain myself to the boss-man. I walked back into the office and asked to speak with him alone for a moment. The others in the office didn't know what to make of this. I could sense their ears perking up and the keyboard tapping sounds subsided for a moment. I tried not to look at the pink cookie box as I walked through the office to the boss’s door.
I took a deep breath, then told him I was sorry, but this just wasnt going to work.
For a moment he seemed insulted that I wasn’t overwhelmingly happy in his office, but then I gave him the boyfriend break-up speech: "It's not you, it's me..." and so on. I explained that it was hard for a mere English teacher to adjust to this kind of work and apologized profusely for taking up the company's time. He seemed to be ok with this. "Eh, no big deal", he said.
For the first time all day, I breathed easy and smiled. I decided to finish out the day so that the company wouldn't fall behind in the scan, collate, and file cycle that was so paramount to their success. It's much easier to do that kind of work if you know there is a very near end to it.
So it seems that my previous announcement of employment was a false alarm. Apparently I'm going to need to find a different way to pay the bills and still keep the writer in me alive.

Ah, Domesticity

Today Kevin and I practiced being married and domestic. We are not married, and normally not very domestic, but we live together and sometimes have glimpses of the married life. Today we dealt with a toilet overflow. This particular toilet situation was rather special however, due to the fantastic spraying action displayed. It started when we noticed earlier this evening that water was dripping from the top of the toilet and the bowl had taken up a suspicious whistling sound. We decided to take off the lid and investigate. Kevin and I both felt responsible and involved in this project, so we both leaned our heads close to the toilet so we could better see the source of the problem. Kevin thought he should give the toilet a good flush to see what triggered the issue. The moment he applied pressure to the handle, water began spurting dramatically in our faces and all over the bathroom. We both stuck our hands out in front of us to shield our eyes from toilet water, then tried to block the source of the spraying. With four hands, we finally managed to keep the water inside of the tank and away from our faces. Still, we could see that our fabulous Bed Bath and Beyond' shower curtain was drenched and the floor mat could not be saved. When we looked at each other, we were both wet, disgusted, and laughing hysterically. The bathroom was soaked from top to bottom. We were dripping ourselves, but the whole situation sucked so much that we had to keep laughing in disbelief. Once the water subsided, we discovered that the problem was a loose tube(I think it was the "refill tube"-see very helpful diagram above) that merely needed to be plugged back into place. The simplicity of the issue only added to the overall shitiness of the experience and had us laughing more. Once we had mopped up the mess and thrown the dirty towels in the washer, we decided to jump in the jacuzzi with a couple of cocktails. After all, what else can you do?

Back in the Saddle

As it turns out, money is necessary in order to pay the rent and buy groceries. So I went out and got another job yesterday. This time, instead of grading papers and creating lesson plans, I'll have the all-important job of...answering the phone. At first, my future employer thought I might not be qualified for the position since I've been a teacher for the last 2-3 years. But I cited all of my previous experience with picking up the phone and greeting the voice on the other end, then demonstrated that I do in fact have the ability to speak. This seemed to inspire confidence, and I got the job. I'm so thrilled about this job, that I almost forgot about it already. I booked a flight to Sacramento to visit a friend and couldn't figure out why I had a nagging feeling about my Friday morning flight out of Long Beach. I knew there must be SOME reason why I couldn't leave on a Friday morning. Then I remembered the job. Apparently I'll be expected to go and answer the phone Monday through Friday from 8-5. I suppose I've been on summer vacation for too long and forgot how people who aren’t teachers or students live between June and September. Why don’t we ALL take a month or so off in the summer like the Europeans do? Americans would be so much happier and more productive. I'll never understand the need to keep going to work EVERYDAY of the year. Some things can just wait while we take a moment to live our lives.
Anyway. This job is going to be perfect. Yes it's going to make me want to throw myself in front of a bus at times with the monotony of it, but there will be NO ESSAYS TO GRADE and no weekend work. I'll be free in the evenings to go to class, study, write, watch Project Runway and drink wine, among other important things. So this could work.
Another company offered me a receptionist job yesterday, but the office where I interviewed had me running away as quickly as possible in my interviewing heels. The whole place smelled like sweat and chicken wings. There were questionable stains on the carpet, and piles and piles of mess all over the place. The man hiring looked like he was probably Jabba the Hut in another life. I hate to sound so mean, but that is the best and really only way to describe him. He wore an old black T-shirt with holes in it, shorts, and a grungy pair of flip flops that looked like they could run out of the office themselves. I tried to leave the second I got there, but I had already made contact with Jabba and I didn't want to be rude. I also figured any interview is a learning experience, right? So I sat down (after wiping down the chair) and waited for my turn.

My competition was a girl in silly shoes with trampy make-up. It was her turn to go in, but her phone rang. The best part is that she actually answered it in front of all of us! She picked up and started explaining to the person on the other end that she was in an interview and needed to go. I wondered if this was a ploy to demonstrate her phone-answering skills for the job, but it went on for too long. She argued with the person on the phone for almost a full minute before saying, "You're making me look really bad here". I almost got up and yelled at her to hang up the phone and get her ass into the interview so that some of us could hurry up and get out of here, but her shoes looked like they doubled as weapons, so I stayed quiet. The first thing this girl said when she met Jabba and shook his hand was, "So, I do HAVE a resume, but I thought it was in my car...and it's not...so I don’t really have one..." I didn't hear the rest of this because the door was closed after that. But it's these moments that really make me worry about the future of America. How does that girl survive? No one will hire her, and they certainly wont keep her around for long with that kind of professionalism. So how does she pay the bills? But whenever I start to worry about the future of America, I remember my students and how incredibly smart and professional they are, even at 15. So I think we'll be ok if we have them in the mix.
Anyway, scary shoes girl obviously didn't get the job, because it was offered to me. I very kindly said no thank you and thanked Jabba for his time. He really was a nice guy and I hope he finds someone that'll do a good job for him. In the interview I sensed that he was really nervous and just isn’t comfortable around people. He kept pointing out the holes in his shirt and saying he would have dressed up if he'd known he was going to conduct interviews today. I was going to suggest that he must have known, because he's the one that called everyone in to interview, but I decided to keep quiet and keep smiling instead. In the end I guess it was a good experience, because I got to practice pretending to want a job that I don’t really want. I'm convinced it was this practice interview that got me the job I actually ended up taking. The office I'll be working in is clean, bright, fragrant, and I didn't see any holes in anyone's clothes. I also didn't see scary shoes, so I think I'll be comfortable there.

However, I can sense that I'm going to need to hurry up and become a rich and famous author so that I dont have to work in any of these places. I can't handle working for other people in the first place, but I especially hate working for people that have less than a complete brain (see image).
Maybe someday I can hire someone to answer my phone for me...