I'm back, bitches

It's been more than a year since I've written one of these. I had decided to give the blogging a rest, because it felt like screaming into the wind; I had no indication that anyone was reading, or that anyone even cared in the first place. And if no one is reading, what's the point of writing?

But I was wrong.

Not about people not reading; there was not a single word from anyone about the sudden lack of blog posts. No, I was wrong about there being no point to these. I realize now, after a year of not writing, that these little inconsequential scribbles have been a useful method of grounding myself, of venting and bouncing ideas around. The fact is, my blog was actually contributing to my mental health in subtle ways I wasn't aware of until I stopped doing them. The past year has been one of the most difficult of my life, and in my adult life, I cannot remember a year that hasn't been so.

So I decided to start up again, and who cares if no one but me actually reads these things; the blog is for me, as a journal of my admittedly banal day to day life. In other words:

Hi!

Just kidding! Anyway, to business.

I am no longer at my former job, the one I was complaining about in my last post. In fact, I have only recently-- a week ago-- found a new job, and that was after six months of being unemployed. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

The stint at the UPS store was not good. The fact is, it sucked fat, hairy ass. The source of my discontent was both boss and supervisor, with my supervisor being the biggest issue, because she was there all the time, while the boss was thankfully scarce.

My supervisor was, for lack of a better word, repulsive. And I don't mean just physically-- her personality, habits, and lack of intelligence were the driving force behind everything that was wrong with that little hellish shack of a store. Her interactions with customers were rude, condescending, and lacked anything resembling empathy. Don't get me wrong, I loath customers as much as the next retail drone, but she took it to extremes that had even me shocked.

Beyond that, she seemed to take a vindictive delight in attempting to turn her underlings against each other. Not a month would go by where she wouldn't casually mention some made up conversation she had with one employee that involved said employee talking shit about another employee. The funny thing was she was too obtuse to realize that all of us had each others backs and didn't fall for it. We all got  a kick out of her efforts, however.

The very worst part was the fact that she was terrible at actually supervising, either teaching a job function inefficiently or just flat out not at all, leaving the poor new hires at the mercy of the raging store owner when something that should have been done wasn't done because the supervisor failed at training us-- something that happened to myself the very first week I was hired.

Beyond the piss poor management, the store itself was a mess. It was a tiny, cramped little closet that often ran out of walking space and left even the stalwart of heart feeling more than a little claustrophobic.

A little help!

And then there was the customers. Oh ye laughing gods, the customers.

For every 10 customers, 5 would be average, 4 would be raging, entitled assclowns, and 1 would be cool. That is a terrible ratio, and I honestly don't know why it was the way it was; I've worked more than my share of customer service positions in my life, and I've never had to deal with so many assholes on a regular basis. I don't know if it's geography, the business itself, the light of the full moon, or something in the local drinking water, but that store was a magnet for the pushy, self absorbed, and snobby. I cannot recall a job that has infuriated me so much in so short a time; it took three years at my previous job-- a high stress job in a high stress industry, no less-- for me to reach the level of FUCK THIS that I hit in a few short months at that store.

But, despite all that, I didn't quit. Not out of some perverse sense of loyalty for my employer. No, I was grounded by the harshest of realities: I had no back up plan, no savings, and no safety net. If I quit, I would not be able to pay my rent or afford such basic creature comforts such as food.

I think that was the tipping point to my depression. I was helpless, trapped in a job I hated with no means of exodus. Nobody likes feeling helpless, to feel powerless and unable to alter your circumstances.

Ah, capitalism.

All avenues of escape were out of my reach; I didn't have any qualifications for a higher paying, higher quality job. I had no money to go to school to learn a trade or skill set; I was drowning in student debt, and could not get a loan to save my life. Short of a big bag of money falling from the sky at my feet, I had no options. And so I grit my teeth, clenched my fists into tight little balls, and faced each day assured that it would never end.

But it did end. And not well.

The choice to leave or stay was taken from me by my boss. A week before I was booted, the supervisor announced that all employees of the store would be required to become a notary public. Now, I have nothing against that in itself; it's a useful skill to pick up, and looks good on a resume. But I didn't have any desire to become a notary-- the boss made sure of that. I overheard him bragging to the supervisor when he thought no one was within earshot that the stores notary services would had another 200k to his personal bank account each year.

"Raises? Fresh out. But I have plenty of Fuck You left."

Did I mention that my boss was a notorious cheapskate? Well, he was. He refused to set up direct deposit because, he admitted, he didn't want to "waste" the money doing so. What business doesn't have a direct deposit set up these days? It's 2018 for fucks sake! So instead, we had to sit around and wait for him to hand write the checks, which, depending on how busy he was, would take all day on pay day.

So I think I was quite reasonable when I asked if we employees would be getting a raise to reflect that we were all being required to learn a new skill set. Now don't get me wrong, despite the harsh tone of this blog entry, I was polite and professional with my inquiry. I asked, not demanded, and made sure to point out my reasons for asking.

My supervisor nodded her head and told me that she would bring it up with the boss to see if a raise was possible, or at least some form of compensation for the increased duties and responsibility we were being asked to undertake.

The next week, I was fired.

Near the end of my shift, I was pulled into her office, where she informed me that I was being let go because "I refused to comply with the new policy and become a notary." She then told me that they would be willing to keep me on if I took a reduction in pay and went ahead and became a notary.

I refused, naturally.

That was on June 4th. I went home, promptly spent and hour freaking out, and settled in for some frantic job searching. "It will be fine," I told myself as I updated my resume. "It shouldn't be too hard to find something simple. Besides, unemployment will help pay rent in the meantime."

The universe must have thought that was hilarious.

My bid for unemployment was denied. It seems that they only counted 2018 in calculating my income, and I didn't make enough to qualify. Well shit. But it was fine; I had a little money in my savings, and there were plenty of jobs to apply for.

Ha ha, ha ha ha.

As I said, I just got a job last week. It is currently November 19th. Thanksgiving is three days away. So how did I managed to survive the past six months?

Carefully. And with a lot of help from friends and family.

My main source of income came from two places. The first was through Plasma donations. There is one in Everett that pays for my sweet delicious plasma, no doubt for down and out vampires too lazy to go out and suck people dry themselves.

That covered about half of my portion of rent. The other half came from doing Postmates deliveries. For those not in the know, Postmates is kind of like uber eats, except you can walk or ride a bike to do them. The downside is that it takes place downtown, so I had to commute there and back, and then spend hours walking about making below minimum wage; each delivery nets you about $4 before tips (If they tip...) and depending on delivery locations, you might get one or two deliveries per hour. Yeah...

Sadly, the universe gave Bad a rare candy and evolved that bitch to Worse. Around September, Postmates became unreliable. More and more people signed up to do deliveries, and the jobs became scarce; I would frequently only get one or two deliveries in a 5 hour period, and some days I wouldn't get any. I found myself short on rent by hundreds of dollars.

For all your evolution needs.

My saving grace was my mom, and a few awesome friends who donated the missing funds to me. These wonderful people saved me from homelessness, and I'll always appreciate them. Of course, I felt like a bigger piece of shit for needing the assistance as well as costing them money.

But me feeling like a piece of shit is a common theme in my life, so I'll deal.

My new job is, from a financial viewpoint, worse than the UPS Store. I make minimum wage and work part time. A downgrade, to be sure. But I'm hoping this marks the beginning of a new era, one where I get my shit together and stop living like a broke college student. I'll be able to make enough to pay the rent and bills, eat food, and hopefully revivify the desiccated husk that was once my savings.