So, I keep on hearing about this shrinking middle class thing. Okay, so like, are we all going to become a nation of serfs or what?
I have always been kind of annoyed with the middle class because of their sort of conspicuous consumption. My friend from Serbia said that the shrinking middle class will make people normal, in the sense that people are going to stop buying all of this dumb shit that is leading to our resources being totally depleted. But, here I am, just graduated, and I am ready to make more than ten thousand dollars a year. You know, so that I can not be living like a miser the rest of my life, know what I fucking mean? But now I find that I should have done my homework. So, as I have been going to school, I have found out the way that I want to make a living, and I discover that it is the same way that I always wanted to live my life, to be an adventurer, to actually Live-with a capital L.
Many ideas flow through me. One thing is to be a life coach, a yoga teacher, a film maker, hypnotherapist, media creator, and any and all such similar things. Then I think to myself, well, if there is no middle class to pay for my services, then what good is it to have these skills? But I have to figure that it is not going to be quite as bad as the pessimists say. Also, I figure that what is important is that I figure that these are tradable skills across the board. So, I can trade my services for other services. Lets just take money out of the equation.
I really want to help my family out though, although it seems that they have a tendency to take care of themselves in many ways. I am the one who seems to be having the trouble with making the finances come together. But it would be nice to pay for a plane ticket for them to come out and visit me. Even when I worked at 5.50 and hour or 7 an hour, I was often able to take care of my needs in a pretty good way. The only trouble was my sort of lack of direction that I had. But now I have the advantage of having a better understanding of what direction I am going in.
I figure that with time and the right choices, I can make all of things happen that I want to have happen. I think of the jobs that I might have to get. Well, none of them are permanent by any means. So, it may be a path, transitioning from one experience to the other. I have been through this all before. I pretty much know how it all works. No point being bummed out about it all because I know that I can make just about anything happen with time and the right attitude. Who knows how long it will take. It could start looking up tomorrow.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The One Day Job
What with the recession that everyone is talking about, I wonder if I will find a job. But I finally land a job putting fliers into doors. This isn't a bad gig in itself, except that it takes a lot of time to hit all of these doors with hundreds of fliers in the space of 5 hours. Also, I would have to find my way to random far-flung suburbs by eight o'clock in the morning.
This particular morning, I have to be in Gresham. Planning on riding the bus, but, as usual, I haven't given myself enough time to make it, so I bike down Division street at 7:30 in the morning. The lovely morning sun lights my day even though I am really tired.
When I get to the parking lot where we are supposed to meet, there is a SUV with the hatchback open and stacks of thousands of fliers are neatly stacked. What most surprises me about the group of people who are milling around is that they are mostly hippies. Dreads, beads, goatees and such. The thing about hippies is that they are generally easy going and take it all in stride. I figure that they are probably on the road or crashing somewhere and just making some extra cash so that they can get what they need and not be flat broke.
The guy who is running operations is a friendly fellow. As we are all getting ready to go back to our neighborhoods, he says to everyone, "okay! Don't double flier doors! don't throw them away, I have people who can find out, I know the garbage men around here, they tell me, I got people in the neighborhoods looking out." It didn't even occur to me to double flier the doors, but I'm sure that some people thought that was a good idea. The people who I rode with into the neighborhood had a minivan, and it looked like they had just finished with their paper-route, based on the stacks of newspapers in those little plastic bags piled up in there.
So, I am walking around Gresham and putting fliers on doors. The interesting thing about this line of work is that you can really see what people are doing with their houses. An incredible amount of houses had "no trespassing" signs up, some had "keep out" and some had "private property" signs. The houses with these kinds of signs were usually the dumpiest. Like, why would I want to break into your trailer? Some houses were nice and modest, but some nice houses had piles of stuff surrounding the front door. Talk about bad feng shui. I can only imagine what their garages looked like. God, stuff piled up everywhere bums me out.
When I get back to the parking lot at the end of the day, I still have a giant bundle of fliers that I didn't manage to place on doors. But I have in my backpack. The guy says, "good job, how many did you throw in the trash can, how many did you double flier?" Actually, I say as I pull out the other big stack of un-passed out fliers, I didn't throw any away. He is sort of surprised, and says, "Thanks for being honest." He pays me in cash, about 35 dollars, and I tell him that I think I should concentrate my energy on getting a job instead of making 6 dollars an hour and riding my bike into the suburbs at seven in the morning. But it felt good to actually do some work and have someone hand me some cash instead of feeling like nothing is happening while I email cover letter after cover letter and resume after resume with not so much as even a rejection letter.
This particular morning, I have to be in Gresham. Planning on riding the bus, but, as usual, I haven't given myself enough time to make it, so I bike down Division street at 7:30 in the morning. The lovely morning sun lights my day even though I am really tired.
When I get to the parking lot where we are supposed to meet, there is a SUV with the hatchback open and stacks of thousands of fliers are neatly stacked. What most surprises me about the group of people who are milling around is that they are mostly hippies. Dreads, beads, goatees and such. The thing about hippies is that they are generally easy going and take it all in stride. I figure that they are probably on the road or crashing somewhere and just making some extra cash so that they can get what they need and not be flat broke.
The guy who is running operations is a friendly fellow. As we are all getting ready to go back to our neighborhoods, he says to everyone, "okay! Don't double flier doors! don't throw them away, I have people who can find out, I know the garbage men around here, they tell me, I got people in the neighborhoods looking out." It didn't even occur to me to double flier the doors, but I'm sure that some people thought that was a good idea. The people who I rode with into the neighborhood had a minivan, and it looked like they had just finished with their paper-route, based on the stacks of newspapers in those little plastic bags piled up in there.
So, I am walking around Gresham and putting fliers on doors. The interesting thing about this line of work is that you can really see what people are doing with their houses. An incredible amount of houses had "no trespassing" signs up, some had "keep out" and some had "private property" signs. The houses with these kinds of signs were usually the dumpiest. Like, why would I want to break into your trailer? Some houses were nice and modest, but some nice houses had piles of stuff surrounding the front door. Talk about bad feng shui. I can only imagine what their garages looked like. God, stuff piled up everywhere bums me out.
When I get back to the parking lot at the end of the day, I still have a giant bundle of fliers that I didn't manage to place on doors. But I have in my backpack. The guy says, "good job, how many did you throw in the trash can, how many did you double flier?" Actually, I say as I pull out the other big stack of un-passed out fliers, I didn't throw any away. He is sort of surprised, and says, "Thanks for being honest." He pays me in cash, about 35 dollars, and I tell him that I think I should concentrate my energy on getting a job instead of making 6 dollars an hour and riding my bike into the suburbs at seven in the morning. But it felt good to actually do some work and have someone hand me some cash instead of feeling like nothing is happening while I email cover letter after cover letter and resume after resume with not so much as even a rejection letter.
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