Tech support.

Well, I had a lot of problems with technology recently. It started primarily with my supervisors reprising talk of me needing a second monitor if I'm gonna be working from home...and I still maintain that I was given the monitor because they need it and not me. It's been sitting in my room since it was ordered for me in April. The result when I was able to hook it up (both times I tried) is a fuzzy ass screen; thank the splitter I needed to buy because space is limited on the computer.

The instructions for connecting the monitor with the cords I was sent are lost somewhere in my room, but thankfully, I was able to find them online. I was able to get a clear picture on the second monitor. Might've been a loose cord that needed to be pushed in. As it happens, it's likely one of those things I needed to talk myself into.

And just today, I had an appointment to talk to a higher-up manager on Zoom. For some reason, the camera already attached to my mother's computer didn't turn on when I needed it to (and nor did it seem to have an on switch, which...what the fuck?). A trifling thing, but for the fact that the higher-up needed to see my vaccination card, instead of trusting that I have half a brain enough to protect myself against the virus. Even with my profuse apologies, the woman was quite understanding. I gave up on Zoom and she suggested I download WhatsApp to my phone...only for that to take even longer. Eventually, I was able to get her the information she wanted.

Even so, in this modern society, you'd think that things wouldn't have to get so screwed up.

“Aw, crap.”

I've been at my job* (that I'm not quite able to summarize in a few words) for a good nine months now and the money is, for lack of a better word, amazeballs.

For the first time since my customer service days, my income and account have outpaced my expenses. My situation is such that I am but a stone's throw away from paying off one of my credit card bills. I didn’t think this would ever be possible lest I sold a screenplay or one of my vital organs...and to be perfectly honest, selling one of my organs would've been far less of a hassle.

I’m even able to satisfy my soundtrack buying habit, blithely spending on any releases that come out or that I need to catch up on. One of the ones I felt I needed to catch up on was the Deluxe Edition of Hellboy, perhaps my favorite Marco Beltrami score. The Varese Club 2-CD expansion is topped off by lush cover art from the great Drew Struzan.

Oddly enough, Varese would utilize this same cover art for their LP release of the score. As long as I have a CD player, what use would I have for LPs? (What’s more, can you imagine the Venn diagram of people who still listen to LPs and collect soundtracks?)

The other day on eBay, I saw the Struzan cover art of what I was sure was the Deluxe Edition available for a reasonable price. Of course, I snapped it up.

It arrived the other day...and much to my surprise, it turned out to be the LP. One supposes that I could sell this to a record store. While this is, momentarily, a financial drop in the bucket, I think I’ll keep the LP as a reminder to not buy just anything that might catch my fancy...

...then again, I managed to find an online vendor selling the actual 2-CD Deluxe Edition for the not-unreasonable price of $35. Will I ever learn my lesson? Well, what do you get when you cross a rhinoceros with the worst word you could say according to the South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut song, "It’s Easy, MMMkay"? Fucked if I know.

* - I've been working from home since last December and thank the Gods for that. Still, I'd have no problem going into the office a couple days a week if the request were to come up. I figure that, no matter how tough things get at work, I have to grin and bear it. Quite frankly, I'd rather chug anti-freeze than have to work a job where I deal with customers.

And here I thought the only way to claw out of the pit of debt was to sell a screenplay (though I should absolutely be working on that).

Apparently, the people at the top are so impressed with the quality of the work I've been doing that I'm being asked to a permanent position. Good news because Lord only knows - even if I'm vaccinated tomorrow - if I'll ever be up to going out for my job...unless, you know, screenplay.

The collected debt I owe to various businesses recently passed a certain threshold and, if I'm careful for the next few months, I can easily get everything paid off. 2021 is looking up. Weird to think that I can say that and mean it.

Okay, there were a few hiccups that precluded me from actually working at home Monday, but I figured it out today. It's, surprisingly, a very different experience. I don't have to go as far for things I want; if I want to plow through my pile of unheard CDs, who's gonna stop me? If I want to take a little longer than the scheduled break times, that's what's going down.

Shame I couldn't figure this out sooner.

Well, dog my cats. I figured out how to work from home. It took a lot of doing, but thanks to persistence (and the presence of Microsoft Edge on my dear old mom's computer), it was a snap.

For the next two weeks (the contract for the job ends on the 18th...presumably; it's possible I could be kept on beyond that, but nothing is concrete, even with this virus), I won't have to leave the house except for groceries and to satisfy food cravings. Living the dream.

This week, I should’ve been working from home. Our state is in the orange zone, meaning that the virus could strike at any minute. There are two other people that worked with me. One had her problems solved, so she gets to stay home. Myself and the other woman are here in the open waiting for the supervisor to help us with our technical issues.

Something I probably should’ve lead with: Miss Lucky is white. Me and the girl are black. I sincerely don’t want to be that guy, but it is super hard not to read anything into this. The supervisor sitting on her hands has to know that, if either of us survive, her name and ‘lawsuit’ are gonna be the first thing out of our mouths. You wouldn’t think that a company would blithely try to kill its employees, but given the last four years, anything is fucking possible.

And the truly sad thing? If I had to choose between this job and the call center one I quit five years ago this week, I would still pick this one. Despite being furnished with, at best, 40% of what I need to do the job effectively, I’m still confident that I could do the job. I could’ve been furnished with 1000% of what I needed for the call center job and I would’ve still been lost at sea.

What should’ve been my first day of working remotely sees me facing computer problems when I have to come back into the office for my workday. I get a Coca-Cola from the vending machine and it’s room temperature. No one else is in the office. Ominous doesn’t even begin to describe this.

One day at a time.

 Yeah. So....this was basically my day today:

Let me back things up just a bit: that sweet data entry job I had was only for a one-year contract (plus a six-month extension that I agreed to without hesitation). Then the largest mound of shit hit the largest-ever fan. I foolishly assumed that, because of the pandemic, the terms of the contract wouldn't matter and I'd get to stay as long as I desired.

My last day was September 14th.

Since then, I've been bouncing around unmoored and looking for a new job. I applied for a handful of positions in the fields of office, banking and data entry. (I'm too old and too impatient to deal with customers, narrowing my job search considerably.)

As I get home yesterday, I receive a call from the staffing service that hooked me up with the data entry job. It's for a job at a packing supply company. Hemming and hawing were my main reactions to this news, mainly because I would have to start the next day. 

An eight-hour, five days a week job is not something to take lightly in this current society, especially as most people have neither a pot to piss in nor the window to throw it out of. Besides, the facility was a mere 10-minute drive from my home and if I didn't like the one day I worked there, I could walk away no harm, no foul.

I parked my car and went into where I believed the entrance to be. I rang the service doorbell and introduced myself. No answer. The start time of 7:30am comes and goes. Not a good way to make a first impression.

A gentleman comes along and tells me that I'm at the wrong entryway. He directs me to the other side of the property where I need to go. Oh, and he's not wearing a mask. This is a disturbing harbinger of events.

I get inside and introduce myself to my supervisor, a very nice lady. I put my raincoat into one of the lockers - #13. Another harbinger.

She directs me to my work station where I and six other people will be assembling boxes for a candy company. Putting boxes together? Who's up for some cake?

Two of my fellow workers had mustaches that they seemed to be airing out. The one female co-worker had a nose ring. I should not have been able to know these things, but I did.

Now, you'd think that this would have been enough, but this was merely one aspect of misery. Being overweight, my legs are pressured enough, but this brought back bad memories of my customer service job in that I was on my feet all damn day.

"Surely, you'd have time to sit on your break." Oh, we'll get to that later.

The boxes are made up of various parts. One of my co-workers doesn't think I'm moving fast enough, so he adjusts the parts, supposedly to make the work go faster, but his mask is slipping down his face. Does he really think I need his hands all over the shit I'm working with?

I forgot to mention that there were four tables to work at, so two people were at a table, working side by side with barely enough room between them for the Holy Spirit.

Break time rolls around. Mine is not the only unit working in this facility. If I had to hazard a guess, there were roughly 15 people total spread around. Break time is the same for all of them. There's a corner of the work floor reserved for down time with about four booths. Shoddy mask wearing, no social distancing, cramped break room. Jesus H. Christ, it's like the last seven months never happened!

While assembling boxes, one has to be careful not to put them together too fast, lest you risk the heartache of paper cuts, something that I - of course - learned the hard way. Not knowing where the first-aid kit was (and being too nervous to ask), I was forced to MacGyver a bandage out of paper towels and masking tape.

Another couple hours go by. I'm screaming inside. These people are talking and carrying on, their masks slipping down their faces. I really feel I should say something, but too many psychopaths who either wear their masks improperly or just plain go without have turned decent human beings into statistics. As I would later verbalize, it's nice to have a paycheck, but I'd much rather be alive to enjoy said paycheck.

12:00pm. Lunch. No cafeteria, so people are forced to brown bag it. I grab some cookies from the vending machine and retreat outdoors to sit in my car. I scream more than I'd like as I settle into the front seat. I wolf down the cookies and mess around on my phone, deciding right then and there that there's no fucking way I'm suffering this routine a second time.

Back to the grind. The work continues. I'm so tired. At least, they had a temperature kiosk, so they weren't completely unaware of the world outside.

I'd often think of myself as Frank Grimes in a world full of Homer Simpsons. Never was that more true than today.

2:00ish. Last break. I send a strongly worded e-mail detailing that if this job had come along at any other point in my life, I probably would work here as long as I could (and, let me tell you, I could've really used in in the fall of 2014), but given the current health crisis and the incompetence of my co-workers, this job will be a very, very temporary one.

The candy boxes are complete. The rest of the time is taken removing 24 packs of soda from a pallet, placing them in boxes and stacking them for packaging. 

Once again, people were all up in each other's shit, including mine. Ultimately, the job was done, though one of my co-workers had to leave early. He had a headache. So, people were letting their masks slip off their faces all goddamn day and someone ends up with a headache. We might need Sherlock Holmes to crack this mystery.

At the end of the shift, I'm forced to tell my supervisor that I will not be continuing on with the company. Under other circumstances, sure, but 2020 makes fools of us all.

I grab my coat from the locker. It's covered in rust or dust or something. I get to the parking lot. Raining cats and dogs. I fight my way to getting my coat on. My hat which was in the sleeve was now on the ground.

If I still possessed to ability to cry outside of sad moments in animated movies, I would've been bawling the moment I shut my car door.

The only thing keeping me from freaking out about the job situation is that I still have some money squirreled away. Let me tell you: if I wasn't so worried about being dragged into court for not paying my bills, I would never bother with a job for as long as I live.

And let me also say this: if you think leaving a job for not wanting to contract a horribly debilitating disease is petty, then it would be in your best interest to address me as 'Richard Petty, Sir'!

The last few weeks saw me living the dream: an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.

Work is trickling down at my job, leaving me with only a few actual hours of work every day. To keep the work going at a steady pace and to cut down on potential health crises, me and my fellow workers have been reporting in on alternating weeks. (And as a neat little bonus, we've been filling out timesheets so we can collect pay even for weeks we don't have to leave for work. Not bad.)

Apparently, with things opening back up, I'm having to go back to working every week. On top of that, we're only getting paid for the hours we work. From 40 hours worth of cash a week to, at best, 16-20.

I can only hope that rumors of further stimulus assistance are true. I can only get by on so much (and some of that money would really take a chunk out of my back debts; more on that in a future post).

This morning at work, I had to move my workspace to a less comfortable area. This was on top of my new shoes not fitting right* and still feeling the effects of having cut the shit out of my finger with an apple peeler days before.

Needless to say, I was not prepared for a whole day of this. But then, out of the blue, the work started to dry up. Then came the announcement: agency people (hired through an employment agency, not directly through the company) get to leave at 12. The clouds open up, restoring a bit of joy to this dull shift.

After lunch and a trip to the comic book store, I head home where I spend my extra time...wasting it on the computer. Sometimes, you don't need a lot of ambition.

* - Granted, it was the first day I'd worn them, so it would take a while for the shoes to shape to my feet, but still, it only helped make a bad day that much worse.

Yeah, that writing gig I crowed about last month...I decided not to go through with it. Laziness, perhaps. I guess I thought I'd make more than enough coin with my two part-time jobs. Oops.

Still, there's has arisen another chance to write and in an area I'd be awesome at. Don't want to say too much since I'd likely be required to list my blog on my writing resume and I could end up jinxing it. Still, in this area, mainly when it comes to personal favorites, I'm a friggin' Poet Laureate, so we'll see.

Couldn't deal with repeating this day.

Things I've never been too keen on in all my life are games designed to trick the eyes. Hidden pictures, what's wrong with this pictures, spot the difference pictures, optical illusions; hate 'em all. They purport to teach people to be more observant to their surroundings, but they just throw me off-guard when all I'm trying to do is enjoy something I'm looking at.

All of which is to say I lost that sweet job I mentioned at the beginning of the year.

My department was to be checking the reports of field representatives who look at houses and look for hazards. Part of my training was looking at pictures and making sure that the sketches (architectural layouts) of the houses matched the pictures. All too often, when my work was being checked, I missed things. Sometimes obvious, sometimes not.

And, let me tell you, this was a sweet gig: paid every week, casual dress code, sit at a computer entering figures into squares and not have to answer phone calls from fucking psycho- and sociopaths all day.

At the very least, I maintained my dignity when I was told to hit the road. I still have some other ways to make money, big and small. Here's hoping they hit.

And, for now, all I can do is keep at it, even if I fail. Isn't that right:

Can you tell if I'm happy or mad?

Not to drop a big ol' jinx deuce, but today, I turned a corner in my life of 'I'm never gonna get out of debt, much less ever have money to even pay off the stuff I'm dealing with in front of me'.

Going on Facebook, I find a post about how freelance writers are needed to provide a few articles a month...for pay! I get in contact with the person who posted the ad and they sent me an e-mail elaborating on the position.

Now, by itself, that's some pretty good news.

Cut to a few hours later. I interviewed with a company about a job and expressed a desire to work a certain schedule, one that would allow me to work two jobs with (more or less) the same income.

Training begins the week after next. I'm a little excited and nervous, as most people in similar situations ought to be, but - assuming I play my cards right - this may be the last 'worried' post I make here for a while.

No joke. Nothing much to say except I'm on the verge of taking a test that could get me a steady job and a way to get me out of debt. Cross your fingers. I really need this.

"You having a bad day?"

I used to hear this a lot at my grocery job and I heard it in one of the calls I took today. Usually, it's said in response to a snappish tone in my voice that may have been instigated by the ludicrous demands placed upon me by the dumbfuck customer.

'Well, you must be having a bad day because I just know that I, God's perfect little snowflake, couldn't possibly bring misery into another person's life, consciously or otherwise.'

People can be the fucking worst, sometimes. Thank God Monday's my last day.

Well, another birthday has come and gone. Thankfully, I was at home to enjoy it.

Having to figure out what to do and what not to do at my job and feeling nervous about a mistake I may have made on a regular day is fine, but to feel like that on my birthday is beyond the pale.

Still, here's hoping to at least another year of feeling things out. I have no problem saying, bluntly, I need the money.

Today was the last day of training at my new job. It's good to have a steady job again and this one will allow me to rebuild the finances that were eroded after the shaky period I've had over the last few months.

That's the good news. The less good news is that I'm still not 100% sure what the fudge I'm doing. It's a call center where calls come in and I help people understand what's up with their mortgages. At least, that's my incredibly vague understanding of it. It's still early in the process and people tell me not to worry about any mistakes (which I tend to fixate on), but I can't help but get the feeling I'll end up just like this guy:

BTW, I really (genuinely) thought that, when it came to "Kids in the Hall" sketches in conjunction with my work history, I'd be posting "I don't want it now!" about my last day at the grocery store. I even had a post planned and everything.

Update on the phone situation: haven't heard word one from the owners of the kiosk. I can only assume that the phone is lost to the ages...and maybe it's just as well. The contacts I had can always be inputted to a new phone and the pictures and videos I took (save one picture that I took only days before I lost my phone and I can always retake that) were saved on a flash drive. Perhaps, this is the universe's way of telling me to honor my New Year's resolution to let things go.

Also, I applied for a call center job the other day. I expect to hear back from them on Monday and if I'm successful, I'm gonna find myself juggling two jobs. Not easy, I wager, but if I'm able to pay off my debts faster, I'm all for it. I have credit cards, a car note, rent, a phone bill. When does my money belong to me?

On the creative front: I checked Scriptshadow's open thread for the weekend and someone posted an idea that has me excited for writing a script like I haven't been in an age. I'd say more, but there are thieves out there, even if you think the universe doesn't pay attention to you. I mean, look at my phone.

Can I be happy?

I've been working at a department store for roughly the last month. Retrieving orders, ringing out and assisting customers and (mostly) straightening out clothes that have been picked over. Those moments when a customer wants something that I can't locate aside, it's generally less stressful than the last job...so why am I so annoyed with it?

I mean, it's an easy job and I make decent wages (and have an opportunity to do so past the holidays), but if I can't be happy doing a cake job like this, can I really be happy with anything?

What can I do to improve my disposition?

Okay. Either I really impressed the crap out of my interviewer or God is tired of my constant whining (smart money's on the latter), but I have a new (albeit temporary) job. Suck my knob, Bank of America! I'm back in the game!