Drudge

On the Riverwalk...taken when I was an hour early for work
(haven't mastered the bus schedule yet).

I had a last lovely few days of unemployment, and last week I started my new job.  Remember how depressed I was when I wasn't busy?  Well, now I'm busy, and feeling uglier than ever.  I always dislike day jobs for their complicated details: learning the ropes, getting to know co-workers, etc.  Usually, I am nervous all the time until I get used to the job, then I settle down into a mild dislike of the hours, the work, the boredom and the lazy or annoying co-workers, I might get into a decent mood and make a couple of friends, but after a while I start to really, really hate the place.  I blame all my problems on it and look for reasons to quit.  Then I do quit.  It's a destructive pattern, but I always tell myself that if I got a "real job"--which, for me, is a full-time teaching job--I would not follow the same pattern.  I don't know whether I'll ever get that kind of "real job."  It's recently occurred to me that my "real job" might be what I've done for the past 12 years: cobble together a few days of teaching college with a few days of teaching lessons and a couple days, or half-days, of a part-time retail gig.  I don't like that.

Anyway.  This is the most complicated job I've ever had.  I'm working in a hotel, with millions of departments and rules--my shop is a glorified convenience store.  I have a uniform which is surprisingly comfy and flattering, but I have to check it out, change at my locker, dump it back in the bin to be dry cleaned and make sure I have a uniform for the next day, when I might get there earlier than the uniform room opens.  I take breaks in a break room where breakfast is free, lunch is $1.50 and is paid for with the same kind of machine that we use to clock in--a fingerprint ID system, and there's always soda and cereal for free, if we don't want to pay the buck fifty.  I have a million little duties and ways I'm supposed to speak to customers and other employees.  The coworkers, so far, are mostly very nice.  I can tell which types they are: the responsible ones, the fun ones, the lazy ones, the call-in-sick ones.  There's one guy who annoys the fuck out of me--he always has to have the last word on everything; if you tell him to stop complaining he complains about that; if the manager tells him to do something, he turns around and tells me to do it, then can't understand why anyone would object, when he's just trying to train the new girl.

It's been forever since I worked for a large company--last time was the summer I spent working in the JCPenney optical department in college.  Also in college, I worked for a couple of regional grocery store chains.  Since then, I've only worked for independent business owners.  Honestly, I considered myself to be unemployable EXCEPT by small business owners--not counting teaching, of course.  I'm not used to having this chain of command, these rules and restrictions and breaks.  Sheesh, I haven't had a job with "breaks" in years--my bosses would say, "get all the work done, then chill out, but make sure the work gets done."  Need to run to the store for tampons?  Put a "back in 5" sign on the window.  Want to sit down and drink a coffee? Hell, what are you waiting for?

And parking!  Jesus.  I can pay $50 a month to park in the hotel garage; I can pay $5-$10 per day to park in a downtown lot, or I can park in the Park-N-Ride lot 5 blocks away and take the bus to the hotel.  The hotel gave me a bus pass sticker for my ID (which I have to show when I enter and exit through the employee entrance behind the valet station), so I've settled on the bus thing for now.  Maybe Santa will buy me a few months' worth of hotel parking.  Maybe I'll get smart enough to figure out the citywide bus system.  Maybe I'll get a visit from the gig fairy.

My feet hurt.  Naturally, I can't wear the comfy-but-hideous crocs that I wore at my last coffee shop--they don't go with the hotel uniform.  Kitchen workers can wear them, but I'm in the lobby with guests, so I have to wear respectable shoes.  I feel so old, complaining about my shoes.

Wah, wah, wah.  I keep reminding myself that I'm grateful to have a job.  It really does pay well.  I think my supervisors like me--I KNOW one of them does.  The little benefits are nice--they have raffle drawings for prizes all the time, and those free breakfasts, and good benefits for full-timers, which I probably will be, if I want it.  It's going to be rough work hours, but it's in a comfortably air-conditioned lobby with good security and, strangely enough, flattering lighting.  I'm just goddamn tired.