Wednesday, March 09, 2011

March Goes In Like A Lion...

Started a gloomy, damp, gray day with a rare early work morning, my first since New Year's Day. Other than some annoying older people, work was on-and-off busy, with no really major problems. Ironically, my relief was one of the older women whom I usually relieve when I work in the afternoon! As soon as she arrived, I grabbed milk and headed out.

After I got home, I changed into a long-sleeved t-shirt. Ran the Bowery Boys movie Spook Busters while making a Cheese-Mushroom Omelet for lunch. Spook Busters is one of the later Duke/Sach tales, and the last of nine East Side Kids/Bowery Boys movies to concern haunted houses. Mike Clancy, the owner of the Boys' new hangout, buys an old house in the country and brings the Boys with him. Trouble is, the place is not only a mess, but may hold a gangster's treasure...and his ghost. The real estate people who sold them the house and the original owner's mob go after the Boys and the house when Sach finds part of the loot!

After lunch, I took a walk to CVS to buy brush picks. I tried to use the pathway across the tracks. First of all, there's still stumps, logs, and sticker bushes blocking the entrance. And now, there's a fence across the entrance at the end of Hillcrest, too. I think that's a good way of saying I'm just going to have to take the long way around West Clinton to get to Dad's and CVS from now on. (Good thing I stopped doing my laundry there last May.)

I did end up going around. Bought the brush picks at a quiet CVS, then headed home. It had gotten sunnier briefly during lunch, but the clouds had quickly returned during my walk. It was getting windy and chilly, too, probably in the mid-upper 40s. I went home as quickly as I could.

I spent the rest of the evening doing things around the apartment. I did the dusting, which finishes this month's cleaning. I put up the general spring and St. Patrick's Day decorations. (Easter's so late this year, I won't put up those decorations until the last week of March.) I did the exercises in the Wishcraft book.

And I learned something doing those exercises. I'm perfectly happy at my apartment. I enjoy my time here. I like living here. I might get a cat someday, and clear out some more junk, but other than that, I like where I live, and at the moment, I don't want to go anywhere else.

The problem is where I work. I like my co-workers, but I don't fit in with them. I don't hang out with most of them. They're either older working parents, single parents trying to make ends meet, teenagers, or college students. I'm none of the above. I don't do anything with my co-workers outside of work.

I'm bored stiff with my job. It doesn't challenge me. It offers me no room for advancement. I used to clean the bathroom, stock items, and round up carts when I worked at the little Wildwood store, but here, they have people to do those things...and it isn't me. My customers have no respect for me. I'm tired of the so-called "flexible" hours, too. I want either a fixed 5-day, 40-hour schedule...or to make my own hours.

Right now, I'm thinking I'm looking at either talking to smaller and medium-sized local businesses or starting my own small business doing something I enjoy doing and am good at doing. I don't entirely buy the economy thing. Maybe that is a problem in the west and midwest, but I think the trouble here has less to do with economy and more with people who have been doing the same job for years and aren't used to looking outside the box.

I do know one thing. I know I don't want to work for a large corporation anymore. I'm sick and tired of being a cog in a wheel. I want to work somewhere where I'll be more than just "that girl at the Acme." I want to help people, to do something creative for them and for me. I want to do things. It's just a matter of figuring out what those things are.

No comments: