Job Clarity

(Wiping JoAnn Fabrics off the table for good)

I may love roses because of their similarity to books: they have to open up to unfold their story.

This rose is called "Variegata Di Bologna" and is a sport of the old rose "Rosa Mundi". Cultivated roses have traceable parentage, like people. Sometimes enormous spiders lunge out from the layers and give me heart attacks. People have been known to do the same thing.


Yesterday I applied for a job at the local cookie factory: graveyard shift cookie packager. I realized that I keep holding JoAnn's fabrics up as the bench mark for how low I've gone and how desperate I am. I thought I was already there. Then I realized that I would rather work the graveyard shift shoving cookies in packages than work in a fabric store.

I've spent the last twenty years making use of my $20,000 education and I'm done. I didn't become a famous designer. I didn't become a career swatcher. I could have. But I didn't. I've worked in fabric stores, done costume design, been a production artist, and had my own business. I can't say I made a success of many of those ventures (I was a kick-ass swatcher though) but I don't still have the same dreams I used to have. I'm not looking to break into fashion design, or fabric design, or pattern design. If I haven't done it in the past twenty years of working my ass off, it aint gonna happen.

What I found out in this big adventure of my life is that what I really want is to stay home, be an urban homesteader, and write about it. On my terms. In my way. I am happiest and healthiest doing and learning all those homesteading activities like baking bread, making cheese (a cheese post is coming soon!), and growing food.

But that's not in the cards right now. At thirty eight years old I know exactly what I want but I have to reframe* those desires somehow into a scenario that will pay the bills until Philip can make enough money that I have the choice to stay home again. That day may never materialize. Working at a library is the one career move left to me that I could get up every day and be excited about- it's the kind of job where my enthusiasm, my skills, and my passions would be well used. If I get an opportunity to work at my local library I will snatch it up. Maybe another position will come up and if it does I will try again. It's the one job that might make me change my mind about coming back home when the money situation is no longer dire. I feel in my bones that I would love it. Thrive on the challenges it would afford me.

But that is not an actual opportunity for me right now. I didn't get an interview. End of story. It's time to look at what I don't feel willing to do for work, what would destroy my spirit, and then look at what is left:

• I don't want to work at JoAnn's. (The only fabric store I would work at- because it is AMAZING- is our local quilt shop. I will see if I can put in an application there...but they rarely seem to hire new people because the employees like working there and rarely quit. That's a good sign in a business.) So, today I have decided that I simply WON'T work at JoAnn's.

• I don't want to try to crab a living together with freelance jobs. Either hire me or don't hire me. Having to spend fifty percent of every day trying to convince people to give me a scrap of work is depressing and wears me down. Some people can be very successful this way. I'm not one of them. It depresses the living crap out of me to have to convince people of my capabilities, my skills, and my worthiness. It taps into very dark places in my psych and isn't healthy for me. So no freelance.

• I don't want to write articles for magazines. Again, the freelance life isn't a good fit for me. More than that, I've been spending hours and hours reading submission guidelines and most of it is a load of self righteous crap. I'm not interested in distilling information into easy bites or taking on a journalistic tone. I could do it. I'm an excellent researcher (again, perfect skill for a librarian) and I could mimic any magazine's voice, but then I'd have nothing left to give to my own writing. I would like to write useful informative pieces on urban homesteading, but I want to do it my way. I am the ultimate self righteous editor. I edit Dustpan Alley and I'll use swear words like real people do.

• I don't want to work in a retail store. I have no patience for pandering to the whims of the spending public. I wouldn't get benefits, I'd barely make enough money to make it worth all the hard work, and I can't sell crap to save my life. Being a cashier in a grocery store is a whole different potato. More on that later.

So where does all that land me? There are two camps of options, as far as I can tell. The first one consists of possible serious career moves. The difficulty in this camp is convincing someone to take my excellence on (see Monica, you slap me around enough and I start listening) because I refuse to go deeper into debt to return to school for a job that, once I have the proper education, will require that I have already put ten years experience under my belt. I need to find an employer who is smart enough to recognize the trainable, intelligent, powerhouse of potential that I am.

Here are careers I would be willing to put my heart into and to work my ass off for, the list is short:

• Librarian- The environment is one I love, I am already adept at using library computer systems, I am an excellent researcher, I am great at helping people find information because I love doing it, I would love to be buried in books any day of the week, and I have EXCELLENT organizational skills. Not a skill I've applied to my own home very often...but in my work experience I have excelled in any part of my jobs requiring organization.

• Editorial job- working for a magazine as an editor or an editor's assistant, working for an online website or actual magazine makes no difference to me. A place with energy, quality work, great team, and great pay. I believe I would enjoy this work but would love to hear from the two editors I know who sometimes visit my blog (Mary and Cindy) to find out what their take on that is. I am great at streamlining work methods. In an editorial capacity I can offer my writing skills without being the author pleading for a listen...I'd be on the other
  

• Professional Blog Writer- only if it pays well, is full time, and is a blog I care about. I would be excellent at this. In fact, ideally I would have loved my own blog to be my career. Like Heather Armstrong's "Dooce" which pays all her bills. I won't spend time beating myself up over not being Heather because she's way too skinny anyway. Plus it must be obnoxious to be a person who's always so funny.
  

Then there's the other camp. It's the camp I'm more likely to land in. And really? Maybe that's just fine. It's the unglamorous world of jobs for the everyday Jane:

• Grocery store work. Grocery stores, especially large corporate ones, have great benefits and often pay well. There are quite a few of them in town and I'm at the very least qualified to be a stock person or a cashier. It's not a creative job, but the kind of work you go to, do it to the best of your ability, and then leave it in the parking lot when you go home.

• Office work. I am qualified for some office jobs and could easily train for most of them. They are plentiful and although not all of them pay well, there are some good paying opportunities in this field. I'm great at filing, organizing, greeting people, and I have a very good phone manner.

• Factory jobs. Let's face it: I've always wanted to learn to drive a fork lift...why pass up such a chance?** Or how about picking bad cherries off the fruit conveyor belt? How about stuffing cookies in packages? This is the kind of work that legends are made of. Great writer's fodder. It's like working inside the very heart of our nation because when it comes right down to it America isn't really about lofty ideals like freedom and happiness, it's about the dollar and the pillar that holds that dollar up is our great tradition of mass producing crap.

*Mom and sister- see how I'm using your lingo? See how I'm using the methods on myself?

**Although the truth is, no one wants to train anyone how to use a fork life...they always want you to already know how. Bummer.

Jobs and Whores
And what they have in common

This is my eye candy for today. Kaiserin Fredrich rose.

I'm swimming with words tonight. I am pretty sure I have become the most lost and ill fitting person. I think it may be time to get arrested in a brand new red Porsche for picking up a prostitute. Because I've tried almost everything else. I'm not good at much. I heard my fortune told when I was very small, over and over again, how I wouldn't ever find success because I'm too undisciplined, not smart enough, and as though that wasn't crime enough I'm a god-damned bleeding heart liberal. I'll never be good at business, my fortune teller accused me, because I'm too soft.

I feel pretty hard right now. The fortune teller turned out to be correct. Trying to get a job is the best way to find out how much you suck as a person and to find out how much more education everyone else has, how much more experience they have, and how good they are at writing resumes. It's a demoralizing business to know how perfect you would be at a job and then not even get an interview over and over again. I am only at the beginning of it. I saw Philip go through it for a year. I understand better why he was so deeply depressed all that time.

Trying to write a tantalizing resume is like a whore trying on the tightest shortest skirt and wondering if she should go with the leather cutouts or the see-thru lace? Should she go for that MAC lip gloss that makes her look like she's got wet voltage for lips or go with something like dark velvet smoke? What will shimmer and attract the most prospects? It feels dirty. Come and get my nectar...I'm really good at following orders directions...

It's got me wondering what the hell I'm doing. I'm too tired to really hike the skirt up for job prospects. I'm too tired to prove myself. I've never gotten the dream job without selling my soul first. Why should it be different for me now that I'm older, fatter, and apparently just as unqualified as ever?

I keep trying to make my blog into some recognizable success. Maybe if I get enough traffic I could make enough money to stay home? People do it all the time. I have a very smart and helpful friend who keeps giving me the recipe over and over again on how to get more traffic. She tells me everything I need to know. I've followed some of her advice and thanks to her I have been enjoying taking photos more than ever before and they are improving in quality all the time. But there is a wall between me and taking the steps to do what people do to get more traffic. Single topic? Yeah, I do that really well. Don't lure people in with pretty crafts and then shock the crap out of them with deflating posts like this one. Eye Candy!! Optimism! Focus!!

It is thanks to her that I got an opportunity to fund much of my trip to Scotland by doing some technical writing.

It's easy to get sucked into the desire for a high traffic blog. I've been looking at writing jobs and all the professional blogger ones want (obviously) a writer who has already written for high traffic blogs and knows how to play the search engines like a high rolling gambler in a Vegas casino. I can say that I have some very loyal readers but the most I've ever had in a day is too embarrassing to report.

Everyone wants what I haven't got.

Now I'm afraid to go to JoAnn's Fabrics to ask for an application because it's the one job I have been certain I could get. Why should I be so sure? What makes me so special that I should automatically qualify for a minimum wage sales job in a fabric shop? I'm terrified to find out that I can't even qualify for a job there. The place it all began. My professional life. Fabric store sales clerk. I was hopeful then that that's not all I would achieve.

I'm going to pick up an application tomorrow.

I'm crashing fast. This is American life. In case anyone was curious to know, I spent $20,000 dollars to get an associates degree in Fashion Design so that I could end up jobless and penniless at forty. All the extraneous things in my life are going to have to be shed. Hopes, passions, community service. I will have no spirit left for anyone but myself and my family. I won't have time to give to others. I think about all the commitments I've made and I feel regret.

I think I can't breath.

I'm peeling off a layer right here. I don't care if I get traffic on this blog or not. I can't keep trying so hard at everything. It hurts too much. I'm full up with disappointments in myself. I don't need one more thing to make me feel like a loser. I don't care if anyone comes here. This is my club. My secret fort. I will eat cheese and I will tell the truth even if it drives every last person away. I almost always feel alone anyway.

There is no air left.

I suppose better days are ahead. That's what everyone likes to say. I'm not so sure. I kind of think this might be it. I had a tarot reading once that said I would never get rich or famous. I would possibly have just enough, maybe even an adequate living, but I would never lead a couture life.

I'm going to go watch as many episodes of CSI as I can before I fall asleep sitting up with a beer in my hand and don't bother telling me that this isn't the answer to my problems. Of course it's not. But until the answer presents itself in very clear language I am going to do what I can to salvage my very tenuous grasp on my sanity.

Here are a few things I'm thankful for:

• That I'm not missing all my limbs from a freak accident with a weed whacker.

• That lettuce is in season and available to me again.

• That I'm not dying of cancer, yet.

• That I haven't stuck my hand in my food processor.

• That my friend Chelsea is still my friend and seems able to put up with my crazy.

• That Sid and Dennis will always sit down to dinner with us.

• That Philip is learning to brew beer.

• That George Bush Jr. will be out of office in seven months.

• That my old rose "Kaiserin Fredrich" is so beautiful.

• That I don't have a bladder infection right now.

See, I'm still capable of seeing the bright side. I just need to put an end to this prolonged (just about three years now) period of extreme stress. It's really worn down my kid, my husband, and me. I can work a sales job like the rest of this country, be glad my hand hasn't been pulverized in a blender, and live out the rest of my life just working the forty and losing my teeth like the rest of America.

Life reminds me of reading Steinbeck novels. That is why I stopped reading Steinbeck.

Cover Letter
The unwritable letter

To Whom It May Concern,

I have to figure out how to tell you, without sounding the least bit desperate (or insane) within the scope of one page, why it is that I am the ideal person for the job you are aiming to fill. I have to tread that delicate almost impossible line between modesty and confidence. I have to hit a note just south of arrogance with no hint of mousy retreat. Nothing lands me in a hopeless word stew like trying to say something without seeming to say it.

I propose to come right out and say it: I am the person you are seeking for this job. I have never worked as a librarian though I have developed all the skills that seem to be desirable in one such as the research capabilities of a blood hound: give me the subject and let me hunt, I have a tenacious need to find every last shred of information I can from a variety of sources such as books, the Internet, and from experts in the field. I once needed to know all about the fault line my house was built directly on top of because I didn't sleep for three weeks after we had a "mild" quake and I didn't rest until I had actually contacted a geologist at the USGS website. Needless to say, the information I received was disquieting and I had to move to Oregon.

I have spent my whole life dying to get behind the reference counter of every library I've ever been in because I feel sure that if I could only get my hands on all those sources of information I could uncover more than anyone else. I have spent so many hours of my life in libraries because I am in love with them. Public libraries are the ultimate source of attainable knowledge. For no money at all (if you don't incur late fees that is) you can learn about almost anything. you can visit almost every corner of the world. You can crawl into almost every human mind that has cared to imagine the world as it might have been, might be in this minute, or as it might become.

I have a deep respect for education through college, but I don't think anything compares to the knowledge you can uncover for yourself amongst the shelves of a public library under the steam of your own hunger to learn more.

I have been breathing words since I was a very small child. My Grandma Shirley actually scolded my mom for teaching me to read before Kindergarten, saying that my teacher would be displeased to see me getting ahead of myself. I don't remember life without the written word. I have been writing since I was ten because it fuels my body as well as my mind. I don't have a formal education but I have a feeling for language and through an extensive reading habit from the time I was small (most of the material coming from my public library) I have an instinct for language both formal and colloquial.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if you set me to the task of learning the dewy decimal system I will do it. I will meet all of your expectations. I will exceed them because if you hire me you will be hiring my passion for information, books, and making it accessible to the people who come in on their personal missions of curiosity. I will learn everything you need me to know and I will come in with impossible enthusiasm because I will be released from my financial worry. I will be free to live my life swimming in words.

You will not regret hiring me because I am smart as a whip but there is no moment in the day when I am not acutely aware of the fact that someone always knows a little more, that I always have more to learn, that I am far from perfect. You will not regret hiring me because I will shine for you.

I have always secretly wished I'd studied to become a librarian. It is as natural to me as breathing. Teach me this discipline and let me draw more people in with my enthusiasm and my friendly nature. If you hire me you will be inviting me to come home at last. I will come full circle with all of my lives.

Sincerely,
Angelina Williamson