In Most Ways, Life is Better Now

My, how things change.

I have two jobs. Both part-time. I finally got IN at the University—yay me!—and I LOVE it there. Started after Thanksgiving. I'm a secretary in one of the departments and my bosses are professors. I'm immersed in academia and I could not be happier.

Except if it was full-time with benefits, but other than that, I LOVE it.

The other job is a temp job I took at the end of September out of sheer desperation. I was down to $15. I mean TOTAL. Then the temp agency called with a short-term project. Catch: it's a 20-minute drive away. I wasn't sure I'd have the gas to make it up and back for a week. Thanks to the kindness of near-strangers, I was able to make it there and back and survive until the first paycheck. Short-term turned into longer-term, and if I can just make it to mid-February, I'll have fulfilled the 500-hour quota and I'll be able to be hired away permanently.

And therein lies the rub.

My current schedule is, I work at the University 10-3 M-F. I leave the University, swallow a sandwich on the drive to Job #2, and work there from 4-ish to 10ish M-Th. (I was going M-F, but I couldn't hack it. I made the decision to forego the extra net $30 and just have Friday evenings free.) Then I drive home, bleary-eyed and tired, after 10.5 hours of work with no real break, at 10:30 at night. I snuggle with the cats for an hour or so, then sleep, then get up and do it again.

Even with two full weekend days to "rest", I am, in a word, exhausted.

I think about knitting, weaving, painting, dyeing yarn, creating art. But I'm too tired to lift a brush, a heddle or a knitting needle. Even on weekends. If it weren't for needing clean underwear, I wouldn't even bother with laundry. No, don't ask what the house looks like.

My Facebook time has decreased considerably. I skim. Heck, I even quit playing FarmVille. Not for good—I don't think—but I simply do not have time to manage seven or eight or however many farms they're up to now AND work two jobs. And sleep.

The rub is, do I WANT to be hired in permanently at Job #2?

Job #2 is, well, it pays a bit above minimum. Job #1 at the University pays twice that. I really don't NEED Job #2 to be able to live, but my thinking has been, keeping Job #2 speeds up how fast I can get out of debt and regrow my savings and maybe improve my life.

Except, as tired as I am, is that really an improvement?

Job #2 is also hard on me physically. Vocally. I've been assigned to a multitude of projects, but the majority of them have involved my calling people for seven hours straight (when I worked almost full-time there), giving the same repetitive spiel or survey, and we all know what that does to my voice. I am having issues now. I see a doctor Thursday. I've spoken with the higher-ups. Hopefully, I'll move into projects this week that are email-based, not phone-based.

The only reason I'm staying on at Job #2 is because they have a position called proofreading. Which I apparently can't do as a temp. But I've passed the test, so if/when an opening arises, I could be hired. And they get to work from home. Which I could do. Because then I wouldn't have to drive back and forth. It would also save gas money.

I just don't know if I can keep this up until mid-February and 500 hours without negatively affecting Job #1. When I get too tired, I become less effective and my intuition falters. I am not as alert or quick. And as a secretary, with a new semester approaching, I need to be ON TOP of things. And there is no guarantee there will even BE an opening for a proofer at that time. I don't know how long I might have to drive back and forth and do God knows what before the position I seek becomes available.

Never mind trying to play with a horse. Or do art. Or deal with the bank. We won't talk about how the bank changed the locks on my house without informing me of it, and blew the ONE potential sale I finally got. I had an interested buyer, but the lock change made them wonder if I was in foreclosure, and they lost interest. Let it be known: Fifth Third Bank plays nasty games, keeps you dangling, lies about not getting paperwork then backpedals when you point out which page said "missing" paperwork is on, finds endless loopholes to use against you so they don't have to take a deed in lieu, allow you to short sale, give you modification, or work with you in any way. They are cheating me out of MY equity, and they deserve to go down. Let it be known, Fifth Third Bank is a bunch of cheating, lying SCUMBAGS, and they should be boycotted.

Oh, well. Karma's a bitch, and I'm looking forward to hearing about their karma. One day.

But as far as everything else goes, I'm happy. I have one job I love. I have another job that helps. I have healthy cats, one who turned 18 this fall, and a healthy horse, and I'm alive.

I'm not knitting a whole lot, but I'm alive.

posted by Jeanne @ 7:32 PM 0 comments