Catching up: The Job

Another long gap. I spend too long away from this thing.

For the last half a year or so I have been working nights 2-3 shifts a week stocking shelves at a local grocery store. It's been a great workout. The pay's alright, and has allowed me to not worry about it while acquiring a number of nice new things, including replacing my phone. Most of my coworkers are pretty nice and I found after a while I was getting along with them nicely, but throughout it my fear of the apparent scorn of my immediate supervisor never completely went away.

It seemed he glared at me whenever he looked at me, and seemed he wished he was doing something else whenever he spoke. I heard variously from other co-workers that he's just like that, but recently I've observed him speaking to some of my co-workers in ways that are damn near respectful... far closer to it than he ever spoke to me so far as I can recall.

It became intolerable for me, and eventually I reached out to a bunch of people around me for advice, and one part of that advice was to talk to the store manager, who would likely seek to accommodate my moving positions in order to keep me there. I am, I suppose, possibly considered a good employee. Just not, it seems, by my immediate supervisor.

How that panned out is that I took the commute across town and back on a day my manager had suggested, and called en route to let her know when I'd be arriving... and she was too busy dealing with the district manager and doing something related to a new phase of pandemic lockdown to speak to me at all, so the customer service rep asked me to write her a formal letter on my position. So I left one, including a footnote asking her to call or email me so we could talk this through.

I left that experience feeling even more impatient and frustrated with the branch manager. Checked on the shift scheduler online to find my shifts for next week had vanished, a little while later, so I called in and asked whether I still had shifts and the online version had lost them (that's happened before)... But I was told, no, the manager asked my supervisor to remove them and was going to try to get me transferred to front-end.

She hadn't told me anything. I appreciate that my complaint is being taken seriously enough to act on, but I really should have been part of the conversation about what to do about it. I feel this is being terribly mis-handled and I am feeling pretty unimpressed about it. I still have yet to actually hear back from her at all.

So I guess I'll be transferring to front end? I don't know how that will go. I bet it won't be as good a work out as hauling the products out to be put away. I can do customer service though, I've done it before.

From this kind of start, I'm feeling pessimistic though. My head is starting to buzz with internal accusations that asking for a transfer was not a good idea. I already asked my friends to back me up on this, to remind me that my dissatisfaction was real and the stress I was under was not something to put up with. That... was in the context of helping me be willing to look for other jobs, though. Maybe I should ask them again, to help me validate the move having made it.

I haven't been sleeping well lately. I moved the topper off my bed (I had been having back pains after sleeping) and it seems firm now by comparison. I don't know if that's why for most of the last week it seems like I can't stay asleep for much more than 3.5 hours.

So. That's the big thing which is happening right now. Maybe I'll catch you up on more later.

How Things Have Been

I meant to come post a bloody story I wrote here. I'm not sure whether I thought better of it or whether I just forgot. For all that I post raw and intensely here, I don't typically post gruesome, and perhaps I should keep it that way.

The situation with another nasty roommate continues to deteriorate. I actually shouted at him last night, then cried and felt sick and tasted and smelled acrid for the rest of the night. There is a potential new tenant coming to see my room today. If she takes it, I will move downstairs and not be next to him anymore.

Friendly roommate continues to be friendly and supportive; friends have been accessible, and I have been doing better for the last couple of weeks at accessing them.

I've pushed some regularity into my medication schedule, taking my pills at 10 each morning. I think I might shift that to 8 now that I've been regularly sleeping nights for a few days. Waiting until 11 to eat in order not to interfere with their absorption is annoying. Waiting until 9 would not be so bad I think.

The new stability feels weird sometimes. Like the world is flatter. Not grey and dull and uninteresting, just more level and approachable. Less shaking around, less steep slopes to climb. It's like every footstep takes a little less effort and is a lot less scary. I didn't realize the schedule would make such a big difference, and regardless I don't think I was ready for it before.

I'm paused in the middle of reading documentation for a programming tool so I can try to rewrite parts of it better and clearer, and work on a portfolio to pursue technical writing work remotely online. In light of the pandemic it seems like a decent move, but actually... I took some time to reflect a short time ago and recognize that I don't want anything to tie me to Kitchener.

I want to go back to my friends in the states. I don't want a job that would keep me here any longer than a few months, and even temporary jobs may be... "sticky" that way, tempting to stay on longer. So it's more about that than COVID, really. It's more that once it's safe, I want to go and be with the family of people who support me, give cohabitation another chance. Give dealing with each other another, better chance, more carefully this time.

It's lonely staying alone inside, far from my intimate companions and uncertain of the future. But then, it always has been, really. Not much has changed for my day to day life personally in the light of pandemic except that I feel like I'm not supposed to go out for walks - and when I go to buy groceries and household essentials, there are long discouraging lines a lot of the time.

In a certain tongue in cheek way, I've been occasionally remembering a Daft Punk song which has never seemed more appropriate. I Remember Touch...

Resume Confessionals

I know I'm not alone when I get so nervous about my resumes. What is too long, too short, too corporate, too personal, too weird? How can I expect or presume to know the culture of the places I'm looking to work? Some online articles remind me to focus on what my audience will be excited to hear... And my sense of the limits of my own understanding of other peoples' priorities and expectations closes in again. It's tempting to throw up my hands and declare myself helpless...
But I am not willing to give up now.

Quantity over quality... I will put forward the attempt and make these applications even if they must be flawed in ways I struggle to judge as well as ways that will seem obvious in retrospect. This is not the time to fear my own imperfection. I will make changes and refine my practice attempt by attempt.

I will push myself to remember why it is that my friends, and sometimes, when I hear them, even I, believe that I am awesome and will be a great credit to the company who hires me. My courage. My insight. My perseverance. My vision. I will find ways to put them into words that fit on a resume, and I will keep doing this until opportune offers come to light and enable me to build plans around them by which I will find my way.

It's exhausting getting over the ugh. It takes a lot of strength and will to fire up my confidence into the blaze it can be.

I steer by the Stars, who help me and remind me. I need to steer by myself when clouds and circumstance come between us.