I've had 25 jobs and only got fired from 1.

That's right, 25 jobs in the last 15 years. A few friends and I were talking about crappy jobs we've had recently, and I figured it was high time I got this down and really examined my employment history. Gladly the job I have now I like very much. Crissy used to be amazed at the range and variety of positions I've held, and looking over the list, it is pretty impressive--I am proud to say I am self-made and hard-working. So, join me on a jaunt down Employment Memory Lane, won't you...hope you have hiking boots.

1. Corn Detassler--what? Yes. I'm from Illinois. Here's a good description, a la Bob Wallace's blog: "Corn has to be detassled so it doesn't pollinate itself. If it does, you get weaker corn that isn't so sweet. The detassling itself consists of walking up and down rows of corn for eight hours a day, doing nothing but popping the tassels out of the corn and dropping them on the ground. If you've ever seen a row of corn, you'll find some of them are half a mile long and five to eight feet tall. Imagine eight hours a day, pop, pop, pop, in the heat and humidity of a Midwestern summer, sweating and sneezing and twitching and getting "corn rash" from brushing against the leaves, for about three weeks." We'd pile on the school bus at the ass-crack of dawn in long sleeve shirts and jeans to sweat buckets all day in the 100 degree summer sun, braving gigantic grasshoppers and an occasional corn smut attack. Sidenote--corn has a fungus on it called corn smut. It looks like green playdough. It is gross when thrown at you. Hey, $6 an hour is a lot when you're in 8th grade.
1. Marina--I worked at a marina on the Mississippi in my hometown when I was 14 with my older sister. This is like a floating gas station attached to a dock. We sold gas and snacks and bait, which meant digging night-crawlers out of a tub of dirt. I learned how to tie good knots to hold boats to the dock.
2. Red Apple--this was around 16 years old, a mom and pop diner run by a dirty Albanian who sexually harrassed his waittresses. Not a fun job, not a good time in my life.
3. Blockbuster--slightly more fun, I got 5 free movies a week. Unfortunately the store was in a horrible part of town and I worked til 11. I shrink-wrapped random objects like staplers and phones when I was bored and worked with an aspiring "actor" named Brandon. I wonder what happened to that guy...
4. Gas station 1 and 2--when I went to Northwestern for college I got a job at 2 of the 4 gas stations in the tiny town. Not at the same time. 1 was when I was a sophomore, the other when I was a senior, and after I returned from a year's stint in Texas. They were across the street from each other, and the radio station that played every night I closed always played NKOTB. I was working at the 2nd one the day the screwed up election results of 2000 came in. I also remember a sunny Sunday afternoon when I spotted about 7 of my male friends flying kites in their underwear in the soccer field across the highway.
5. The Hatchery--1 of the very few restaurants in Orange City run by a guy who was a dead-ringer for Archie Bunker and his wife. It was a tiny joint, and I usually walked with $60 most nights. I walked about 12 blocks from campus to it. Archie was the kind of guy who had no problem asking people to move to another table if he needed to push some together. There was a bartender who would smoke at the bar and I swear, she'd not exhale any smoke. It's like it just stayed in her wrinkly little body.
6. VIP Steakhouse--a "sports bar"/restaurant about 9 miles away in Sioux Center, Iowa, run by an angry Vietnamese man I could never understand who yelled a lot. Also about $60 a night. There would be a regular crowd of Nascar fans who'd show up with their gear on and pretend they were watching a real sport with athletes.
7. Product spokesperson--yeah. When I got sick of Iowa and moved to Arlington, Texas, one of the jobs I held simultaneously while also going to school was being one of those sample people you see in supermarkets. You get paid $10 an hour but it's the most mind-numbingly boring and demeaning jobs available. I hawked hair products and Swiffer. Quite often I'd smile my prettiest smile to the manager on duty and give a convincing excuse, and leave early.
8. Caravan of Dreams--a sweet job. In the heart of downtown Ft. Worth, this place had 500+ seating for live music where I spent the majority of my time cocktail waitressing for the likes of Rev. Horton Heat, Pantera, Mingo Fishtrap and other local sensations. The middle level had a theater for a regular improv troop as well as a reception/party venue with a terrace and a music room. The top level was a double level rooftop bar with a cactus garden and a waterfall. I met Harrison Ford there. He's quiet. After a tornado in 2001 or so, the Banktower building across the street shed 2 inches of glass all over the rooftop and blew out most of our windows, and the Riata people bought it from the Bass brothers and turned it into a fancy restaurant.
11. Refrigerator factory--one of many summer jobs. Probably the most intense. I was the hottest chick in the plant, simply because I still had all my teeth. I learned early on that it got so damn hot in there that underwear was a deterrent--too much sweat. I moved to graveyard shift after a few weeks of nearly dying of heat exhaustion from 8-3. I slept in my parents' dark, cool basement and they tried to be quiet during the day. There was a hole about the size of a walnut in the wall that I'd watch--when there appeared to be some light coming through that hole, I knew it was nearly time to go home. Sad. Everyone there encouraged me to stay in college, speaking from personal experience.
12. Nuclear power plant--another bullshit summer job. Another girl and I cleaned up in various areas of the plant. One time we entered the male shower area after dutifully knocking and thinking we had the all-cllear, only to come upon a naked man obliviously drying his chest hair under the hand dryer. We made a hasty retreat. It's an image I'm still trying to erase from my mind.
13. Hotel maid--you want pee-low? You want towel? Yeah, that. Lasted 2 weeks at 6.50 an hour, maybe 2 hours a day. Total waste of time. Leah and I did this together while at Northwestern. This was the one job I just never showed up again and never called in. The owner finally called me and asked if I was still working for her....uh...nah.
14. Rastrelli's--another mom and pop place. They're mostly the same. I always thought it was pretty decent Italian food. Free pizza. Not that bad, for waitressing.
15. Substitute teacher--if you can do this, you can do anything. Trust me. All grades, all subjects.
16. Cheesecake Factory--Cripes. Nazi Germany. This require completely white shoes, a white long-sleeved shirt (which sucked when you have to walk a half hour to work in the Texas heat), white pants and a white apron, which, if it wasn't properly ironed, management would make you clock out and go to the back to iron said apron to get the proper crease. I didn't really try at this job because I was so miserable, so I was lucky to get 100% rating on a secret shopping one Sunday morning. Lots of snobby N. Austin folk.
17. Real teacher--2 years in East Austin. Webb Middle School, 7th and 8th grade English. Made a lot of good friends here, but couldn't see eye to eye with administration in the light of NCLB and the heavy emphasis on TAKS testing. Honestly I probably might've been fired if I hadn't left, it upset me that much.
18. Alamo Drafthouse--possibly my favorite job, at least in the service industry. Some of the sweetest cash and best shows I've ever seen, and it was fairly easy work. I can't even go into all the good times here, it'd make the post too long.
19. Summer school teacher at a juvenile detention facility--contrary to logic, this was one of the best teaching experiences I've ever had. About a dozen high school boys, doing time from anything to robbery to rape, sat in my room and talked about literature and poetry for a few hours every day. They wrote some of the most painful and raw texts I've ever read, and were hungry for knowledge. I ate lunch in their cafeteria with them once, and offered a kid my pudding--he refused, citing possible manipulation. I ended up doing a lot of research about juvenile facility education--it's an overlooked and vital area of research. Damn my ADD--I should've done more.
20. Long term sub for a juvenile offender--Shauna spent a month in jail after beating the living shit out of a classmate. I was hired to be her bodyguard/teacher/friend for about 2 months at the end of the school year. Half the time she didn't show up, and about a quarter of the time she'd leave campus, so belligerantly crazy and angry. We did have some good conversations, and I like to think I did help her...
21. Facilitator for UT--this consisted of supervising 25 college student doing their student teacher for 2 semesters. I got the call while teaching for IRD, minus an interview--just a new instructor at UT looking for help, within the same week of being let go from the Alamo (I was out of town the opening weekend of Pirates of the Carribean, thinking I had wrote the thing on the schedule--turns out I hadn't. Boo hoo. So I guess technically I've been fired from 2 jobs.) I got to observe student teachers in kindergarten and elementary classrooms and conference with them and their teachers, trying to make them better teachers. Great job.
22. Institute of Reading Development--yet another summer job, and a good one, starting with almost 2 weeks of training in Chicago. For 10 weeks in the summer of 2007, I drove to Killeen, Waco, and Corpus Christi to teach reading courses for kids from 4 to older than me. Good fun. I especially liked the nice hotel on the beach they set me up with . Lots of work, but fun.
23. Summer Institute for the Gifted. Att UT. I taught 4 classes--Pirates Past and Present (seriously!!), Biology, Self-Defense (where my Krav Maga came in handy), and Zoology. More good fun. On the demo night, I used the UTPD dummies to show what my kids in Self-Defense had learned when it comes to kneeing an attacker in the groin, etc, and put a picture of Bush on the head area. FUN.
24. Sylvan--I'm currently at Sylvan as a director of education, so this set me up to know the job in . Tutored math and reading.
25. Director of education at Sylvan. I'm a progress manager for 77 kids currently, have regular progress conferences with their parents and sometimes classroom teachers to best help them, and handle inquiry calls, initial testing, and daily stuff. I love it.

So that's it. What have you done?

In junior league with the devil

Call me stupid--I didn't know what Junior League was til fairly recently. Same goes for Ladies' Auxiliary. Such concepts are lost on a neo-girly tomboy from a small town in the midwest where the richest folks have just multiple cars and newer houses. I still shave my legs and everything, I even enjoy an occasional pedicure or pretty skirt, but this is just out of my realm. In case you're as ignorant as me, such organizations function as a sort of social group hiding behind ridiculous boots and empty wine bottles and talking about how much they do for the community for the real-life well-off white wives from the next town over from Stepford. Maybe that's unfair--just my take.

A few nights ago, I had 2 hours to kill between work and the staff meeting and was planning on spending birthday money on a coat at Kohls (since I lost all of mine in Austin--that's another blog). My boss's wife begged me to go to the Holiday Happening, sponsored by the Junior League of Lubbock. Oh yeah, I said--I remember when that girl came in at work and gave me the tickets to give to you and gave me the poster to put up advertising for said Happening. I deliberately threw that poster behind a desk in the corner. I didn't want to go, but it was my boss's wife, so I did. She lured me with the promise of good food and promised to not be "one of them." The HH has the same basic concept as First Thursday in Austin. It manages to be completely different. For one thing, I have never in my life seen so many things made of pink fuzzy material. Secondly, I do not understand the purpose of live models--in this case, perfectly still women standing on top of big cubes wearing ridiculous and ugly clothing. We know they're not mannequins. The whole concept makes me uncomfortable, and I had to fight off the urge to mess with them. Sidle up and talk about something itchy. Rip an inappropriate noise in close proximity. Something to break up the monotony.

The food was good, I'll give them that. There was a Greek stand, an Italian, Mexican, German, Chinese, and good ole snotty rich people American food. The only people of color I saw at the shindig were those working these stands. Everyone else (mostly women plus a few married shmucks whose ball-lessness led to their being dragged to the function) was deliberate to the point of pain. Deliberate hair, deliberate makeup, jewelry, outfits, boots, manicures, everything. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I had not spent enouh time attempting perfection. It was a like a huge and indiscriminate sorority for those who were too old for such nonsense. I'm not saying these women aren't nice--I'm saying it's hard to tell under the fakery.

A few days later, a phone confirmed the irony of me being at such an event. Tiffany or some such name said some numbers had been transposed on the silent auction (which was kinda cool--mischief at the Holiday Happening?), and had I bid on a tea kettle? A quilting session? A gift card for Chili's? Clearly, madam, you don't know me.

I did end up winning a 3 month membership to Premier Fitness, but didn't claim my prize, as I didn't have enough money after going out for drinks last night.

Why I set off store alarms.

Oh friends. Where have I been?

Did you know Old Navy jeans set off CVS and Walgreens alarms? I've been setting them off for the last two months, which leads to the obligatory shrug and smile, after which I sometimes throw in a "I'm stealing stuff from outside." It's gone from puzzling to annoying. Tonight Honey and I went to get some chocolate ice cream (it makes us feel better about being broke), and again--beep beep beep. The frumpish cashier said she could think of several reaons why I set them off. As we continue towards the frozen foods, I thought, hey. Wait a minute. What the hell is that supposed to mean? And yes, I had had more than one glass of wine. Mark also thought it was an odd thing to say, and he often accuses me of giving the stink eye unprovoked (it's always provoked). Anyway, when we checked out, Mabel tells us that Old Navy jeans, no kidding, tend to set them off. So do certain kinds of keys. As I was wearing some ON at that very moment, I had to acquiesce. Now I know. Finally. As we were serenaded out by beep beeps, I laughed. It made my night. Fuckin jeans, man.

The job, it's good. The man, he's good. The house, it's looking a lot better. As the old joke whose punchline I can't remember says, "We might be livin on love, but we're killin the chickens."

Happy.

I could do a whole political post, but the wine and the long day are getting to me. 19 days?

Trying to get pics uploaded, we've been at 10% done the entire time it's taken me to type this. It's fall here, rainy and cloudy and sweatshirty.

BRB.

cause Momma said so

Recent thoughts

1. People with Wii's: don't sue Nintendo for busting your new fancy tv's because you can't hold on to your gamepiece. Just hold on tighter.

2. If the amount of documentation, paperwork, and frustration needed to travel abroad were necessary to get married and people could travel as easily as they could get married, we'd all be a lot better off. Think about it.

3. Wipeout--you piss me off. You're a horrible excuse for an American version of MXC which should never have been touched. On MXC, the games are clever and funny, the contestants are authentic and casually-dressed (and arranged in ironic teams, such as the Organ Donors vs. the Recovering Addicts), and the commentary is rapid-fire English innuendo-laden frivolity that fits seamlessly with Japanese-inspired behavioral hilarity. You just have an impossible, uninspired obstacle course and idiotic contestants with no soul. The play-by-play is unnecessary at best and insulting at worst. Jim Henson, I'm especially disappointed in you.
See the difference?


4. Not to sound self-righteous, but there may just be an 8th circle of hell for those of us who peruse celebrity gossip with the zeal that Rachel Ray attacks her food. There are a lot more important things going on. I'm not saying I'm an expert on these things, but I did say "wow" a few times while Crissy explained the conflict between Palestine and Israel to me, and what might happen if she moves there soon given the US's pendulum swing back to being a non-war country. In a related story, we're running out of land to grow food for all of us on. If we keep going like this, we're gonna be cutting into more rainforest and opening a big can of land ownership issues, in addition to the already-present concern of oxygen supply. 2/3rds of the world's violent conflicts are over land issues. Lot of politics involved. Seems like we have an awful lot of dance/talent/singing/whore competitions going on media-wise (watching my non-cable tv, it seems that way)...

5. I found a sweet little house in L-town for me and honey. Less than 3 weeks til I move...

6. The question of mercy--Does Susan Atkins, killer of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and others in 1969 under the possible brainwashing of Charlie Manson, deserve early release after 37 years in prison, longer than any other female prisoner? She has a few months to live, brain cancer, one leg amputated and the other paralyzed. It costs an awful lot to house a prisoner--1.4 mil so far. Nephew of victim Jason Sebring said, "To sum up these murders in terms of cost efficiency trivializes the victims' lives, and the lifelong impact on the victims' families...there's discussion of dying with dignity.... the notion of dying with dignity is not determined by circumstance, but determined by choice," he told the panel. "Mrs. Atkins should die with dignity while serving out her sentence. My uncle died with dignity in the worst possible situation." It's a tough question. What do you think?

7. Baseball, I hate thee. You are pre-empting my Simpsons. They're playing the first season.

A conversation with Josh, of the Iowa Student Loan Liquidity Group

Josh: This is Josh, may I help you?
Me: Hi Josh, hey I'm getting hassled to start paying my student loans already and I just graduated a month ago. Can you people give a girl a break?
Josh: Hm, ok, let's see what's going on there.
*typical identity and account verification process*
Josh: well it seems that you have a consolidated loan.
Me: Uh huh?
Josh: So when you consolidated loans, you forewent the grace period of 6 months post graduation.
Me: I did?
Josh: Yes, I'm afraid so.
Me: I forewent it?
Josh: It's foregone.
Me: Damn. Well, here's the situation, Josh: I have a buttload of money coming to me later this month, but right now I'm making 10 smackers an hour for 10 to 25 hours a week.
Josh: Ooch.
Jen: Yah. I just finished my masters last month, and I have a big girl job, but I'm not starting until Aug. 3 or 4. And I'm moving. And I have another job, like for 3 weeks, a summer job, in July for this company _________________. So like I said, a buttload of money, but none right now.
Josh: I see. And are you receiving any government assistance?
Me: I wish.
Josh: Ha ha. Ok. Let me put you on hold while I run some numbers and see what kind of assistance we can offer.

* seven minutes of hold music, during which I again lament the stupidity of the bunion commercial. "Do you have a bunion?" "Would you even know if you did?" "A bunion is a painful, bony bump on the foot." Well then, yes, I think I would know if I did in fact have a bunion. The painful boniness would give it away.*

Josh: Thanks for being so patient. It looks like we can do a governmental hardship deference for 4 months, but then you'd have to call back again then to change the program...."
Me: Yeah, I just can't pay this month. Next month, totally.
Josh: Ok. We could also put the account into forebearance for a month and you can start payments after that.
Me: Let's do that then.
Josh: Ok, let me just read this statement to you...
*statement read*
Me: Neato.
Josh: is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: Paying off that loan would really help.
Josh: Ha ha, oken then. Have a nice day.


Dry bastard, that Josh.

In the meantime, I work 2-5 hours a day for $10 an hour about 5 days out of the week, leaving me plenty of time to think, plan, pack, clean, write, watch, swim, hike, laugh, growl, shop, smoke, nap, talk, and so on. If you're in my same boat, I will try to periodically recommend a random movie suitable for lazy afternoon viewing. Today: Ghostbusters 2. Surprisingly awesomely. Seriously. Sigourney Weaver is more manly and less hot than in the 1st one, but she attempts to make up for it in her bathtub scene. Bill Murray is my hero. Half-way convincing special effects be damned, this movie has psycho-reactive goo, Peter McNicol with the best accent ever, and some Wilson Pickett. I'll stop here before you start thinking I'm obsessed.

In School Suspension of disbelief

(the pictures are from Kate Eric's collection, Stories for Bad Children)

As luck would have it, I got me a gig. It seems my willingness to take on the most bizarre and inhumane of jobs (refrigerator factory worker, nuclear power plant janitor, waitress, gas station cashier, middle school teacher) and my networking skills have paid off. Instead of sleeping too late and goofing around for the next two weeks, I'll be an ISS monitor at a middle school down the street, where a friend is an AP. Cush, I thought--read a book and babysit the bad kids. I kinda like the bad kids, as frustrating as they can be. Thank God, cause I have $17 in my checking account.

Yesterday a boy said angrily, "you're a bad teacher" when I wouldn't let him turn in half-done homework. My pulse quickened and I replied quickly, "yeah, well, I hear you're not the greatest student." The other kids laughed, and I felt ashamed. I had shamed him, reinforced the label put on him for years. I don't even know these kids, I'm a sub, there's no established rapport to fall back on in order to excuse sarcasm. These are kids who are here for getting busted with pot, who had been in fights or threatened to kill their teachers. They swear, a lot, and talk about hip-hop, sex, and gangs. I'm no angel, but I worry about them. A lot of them have learning disabilities, and have learned to hide their embarrassment behind a billy badass attitude. I'd be an asshole to assume I knew them, knew what they were all about, what their parents are like, their home, their experiences, their history.

The ISS routine in place was to copy down definitions of 50 words, such as "integrity" and "honor," then do homework. (If you knew why I'm a long-term sub, i.e. where the old guy went, you'd find that very ironic, but mum's the word. Watch the news.) Screw that noise. Determined they would learn something before they continued down the path to the ALC and eventually TYC, I decided to promise them extra credit in Language Arts if they would write about what they wanted to be when they grew up, or about who they look up to. I thought if I could make them think about things for themselves, not for their peers or their pride, wisom would somehow ensue. So far this week no one has taken me up on it. I procured books from the library, thinking a good read would make their day of sitting silently go faster. This was difficult, as the library would only give me the throwaway books, concerned the kids might rip up good books. I offered them the option of drawing or reading the newspaper, in addition to their classwork. No sleeping allowed. As the AP described, they were not supposed to have a good time in ISS--they were not supposed to want to come back again. That means I have to be bad cop all the time.I'm not really a confrontational person by nature--I don't go looking to start shit but I don't take it either. Shit, that is. And when you are the one in charge of making 8-10 juvenile delinquents who have not been taught manners, don't know how to play nice with others, and wouldn't read a book for free food and video games, you are doomed to be unpopular. I can deal, I thought. I've got a good teacher voice. I can be intimidating, stretched out to my full 5'11''. I can verbally demolish these kids, whose best burn is "shut up," or "you're gay." After a day or two though, I realized my approach must change.

I forced a softness into my voice, made myself think of them as just emotionally-confused and immature kids who are trying to find themselves, and offered help upon help when what I really wanted to give them was a sharp kick to the side of the head. Graduate school and ivory tower-type jobs make education seem easily student-centered. In real life, some students don't want your help, don't want to write, don't want to read, don't want to be here. I don't blame them, hearing the way some teachers (including myself at times) talk to them, pulling power plays over things like gum, talking, whatever. They're kids, they will break rules, they will push buttons. The bottom line is, it does matter what you say and how you say it. I'll be damned if I turn out like Principal Vernon:


I realize I'm not a savior or a martyr. I can't turn a kid around in a few days of ISS. I'll be disappointed a lot. It's a tough job that someone's gotta do, someone that isn't going to make things worse. So I focus on small victories. Larissa will be with me until Christmas. I'm not sure exactly what she did, but it must have been pretty bad. She is 14 but could pass for 26, her clothes too revealing for 8th grade, her makeup caked on. She worked hard all day but around 2pm she got very grumpy with me and refused to do anything else. After engaging in a brief and pointless power struggle, I dared her to read a book. It's 3:14, and she's still reading it. Danielle is also a frequent flyer, with the worst mouth I've seen in a while. Despite the fact that she has dropped the F bomb 6 times and hit another kid in the head, she has worked on her assignment all day, talking to herself, writing, reading. Kenny has brought his science worksheets up to me four times, each time returning poutily to his desk after I point out that he has not answered all the questions. This last time, he kicked a chair and threw down his book as I explained how in real life, you can't half-ass things, that you see them through to the end like a man. Only nicer. He told me to shut up, defeated and frustrated. Several zingers bubbled up in my mouth, but I said nothing. A few minutes later when he looked at me, I mimicked his big lower lip, and after a few seconds' standoff, he cracked a smile. The two sixth grade girls, imprisoned for fighting (each other), admitted they didn't know what the fight was really about, just that some other kids had said one was badmouthing the other.

What doesn't bend, breaks. TJ is sleeping at the corner desk, but oh well. I just caught Larissa's eye as she glanced up from her book. She smiled back at me, and kept reading.