I am so relieved that NPR’s Fall Fundraiser is over. Listening to the disgintuished radio personalities that I have grown to love and respect as they beg and plead for donations is not my idea of a good time. It kind of feels like listening to your parents beg for money, which fortunately I never had to experience, even though my parents were in also the nonprofit sector. NPR Fundraisers are a demoralizing experience for everyone involved, especially as the days drag on, and the announcers’ voices grow more and more desperate and wheedling. They really start to get punchy by the end of the drive. They start saying things like, ‘PLEASE PLEASE donate so we can reach our goal, end this fundraiser and get back to the news’ in the final days. Oh man, does it guilt me.
See, they’re totally right to ask, and I totally need to pony up. I probably spend at least an hour a day listening to NPR for free. Weekends aren’t weekends without Weekend Edition. I didn’t feel at home in North Carolina until I found WUNC, the local NPR chapter, and breathed a sigh of relief as I listened to The Diane Rehm Show. How can I not pay for all of this informative entertainment? And if I pay, oh, something like $20, because that’s what I can afford right now, how can I not kind of feel like a cheap bastard?
Sigh. NPR, if only I were a wealthy fatcat, I would donate all the money to you. But I would also be less likely to be one of your listeners. It’s a sad Catch-22.
As she scanned the two bottles of $2.97 wine I was buying, the cash register LED flashed, “Customer Under 40?”. The young clerk looked at me. “When’s your birthday?” she asked.
“April of 1981,” I said. She nodded and continued scanning my groceries. “I can give you ID if you want,” I added.
She said, “No, that’s fine.”
A beat later I ventured, “I’m sure glad I look like I’m under 40 years old!” and laughed.
“Yeah.” The clerk laughed too, then smiled uncertainly. She said, “Are you under 40?”
Apparently it’s been a loooooong week.
Up at 6am
At work by 7:15
Who did I piss off?
Twelve hour workdays
I’m getting too old for this
Also too lazy
Broccoli and rum
Don’t tell me that they don’t make
A balanced dinner
Damn it workplaces
Stop giving me free candy
My butt is a shelf
Although I complain
Life is pretty good right now
Just need to add sleep
Apparently spending all day entering data has not improved my typing skills. I tried to go to msn.com and got here:
Sorry, we couldn’t find men.som
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Man, I love coming home to a glass of wine at the end of a long day. Who’s with me? What’s your favorite way to unwind?
There is a certain children’s book author that my company sells a lot of books by who comes out with a new 10 page children’s board book every 48 hours or so. They’re silly, and they rhyme, and they sell like HOT CAKES. I would like to be at that point in my career.
“Hey while I was waiting at the checkout line I wrote a rhyming book about toes. Now I have a billion more dollars! Sweet.”
Sigh.
Boo! It is nearing the end of winter. I am moody. My hands are dry and rough. My cuticles are fringed like a suede jacket from the 1970s. My outer thighs are red and chapped from rubbing against my pants, but I will not do anything to fix this condition because that would require acknowledging it. What I wouldn’t do for some picnic weather.
A Few Things I’ve Learned From Temping Over The Years:
-DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING A TEMP AGENT TELLS YOU ABOUT A JOB.
Temp agents sound breathlessly excited about every job they offer you. It’s THEIR job. When they tell you that the company is wonderful and all the people in it are amazing and they are looking for someone who is a real go-getter and takes initiative and wants to go places, the job is going to be like every other temp job you have ever had: demeaning and boring. With occasional flashes of lousy and soul-crushing. And no room for advancement, not that you’d want any.
-SERIOUSLY. DON’T LISTEN TO THE AGENT.
I have had an agent tell me that a certain company “Is always looking for new people– they really love people”. As opposed to all those companies that hate people? Honestly. What the hell does that mean? It means there is a high turnover rate for temps because no one can stand to do that job for more than a few weeks before they flee screaming into the day.
-A TEMP AGENT WILL NOT LISTEN TO WHAT YOU WANT. THEY WILL ONLY HEAR WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR.
If you tell them you are looking for a small, non-profit office in which you do a job that you feel helps people (because you are an idealist and a fool) they will offer you a job in the call-center of an enormous hospital. If you tell them you are looking to work a temporary job in a field related to publishing (re: idealist/fool), they will suggest a permanent placement in a field where your job is to figure out the best way to ship packages from one part of the country to another. “After a couple months of training, of course. Really, I think that would be the perfect job for you. Shall I send them your resume?”
-IF A TEMP AGENT ASSIGNS YOU TO A PART-TIME JOB, ‘JUST UNTIL THEY CAN FIND YOU A FULL-TIME JOB’, RUN.
They will NOT find you a full-time job while you are working for them part-time. Why should they? They can make more money by keeping you in the crappy four-hours-a-day job nobody wants and offering up the full-time jobs to other people. So, screw you! Even though they’d been calling you three times a day with jobs before they placed you, they will suddenly stop cold. They will not return your calls. When you do get ahold of them, they will tell you they can’t find ANYTHING. This will continue until you either starve to death, or quit the part-time job, at which point they will start calling you three times a day with jobs again.
-DRESS CODES ARE NOT ALWAYS STRICTLY ENFORCED ON TEMPS.
I have friends who have temped at places who have given them trouble for the way they came in dressed for work. But I have sashayed in wearing jeans and cowboy boots and nobody has ever given me any trouble. I suppose this is not as hard and fast a rule as the others.
I Heard Tell 