I have tomorrow off. I am going to use it to get my car inspected. Although the merged departments are being separated again, we are still on the stupid randomized schedule. You rarely get two days off in a row, making planning for non-work activities very hard to schedule. You can’t really do anywhere or stay out late, because you are too tired when you get home and then the free day can’t run late because you have to be back at work at 5am.

It will all change on the 20th, tho. I will go back to having weekends off except for optional overtime on game days. Those are not so back. You get time and a half for 4 hours of work delivering barrels of ice.

Despite having to take my car in for inspection, it will only be about $30. Not too bad considering how much I have to pay out this month. I have to pay rent and tuition but I worked it out. My rental company said they would allow me to wait until the 15th to pay my rent with no late fee. So I paid my tuition on the first of the month with that paycheck and then I will pay the rent with the middle of the month pay check.

I did have some disposable income to get some books tho. I know that is is a bit extravagant, but they were on sale.

Besides, I have a method for getting cash. I turn in books to a local shop for cash. I get the books from various departments on campus that give them away. I can sometimes get up to $30 on a load. That might no seem like that much, but it can buy a lot of groceries and can pay my power bill for the month.

Since Sam at work doesn’t know how to make a fucking schedule, I had to work today but the up side is I have Monday off from work. Which makes no sense, since I am technically the only official housekeeper that they have and the only one with enough brains and motivation to do the job properly.

They took my assistants away because one had a bad back and could not do the work, and the other one gets there too late to do the really important stuff and lacks the upper body strength to do the heavy lifting. That meant I had to do everything myself. They then informed me that I was doing such a good job keeping everything caught. I asked if that meant I could have more money. After they stopped laughing, they said that they would take my assistants away and repurpose them. That means I don’t have anyone to cover for me on breaks and I don’t have anyone who knows how to properly do the job when I am gone, so I walk into a disaster area the next day. Fucking idiots. But, soon the the summer session will be over and the two departments will be separated again. And, some sense of normality will return to the hell that is work. 

So anyway, I have planned that I will consign some more clothes and then go the park and try to even out my tan. I have a really gnarly farmers tan. The park should be relatively empty, so I can spare the people the horror of seeing me without a shirt on. 

Yesterday I went to the community college and picked up a packet of information and paperwork to fill out to attend. I have until the 1st of August to register for fall classes. Since I found out that I will not be made permanent until Lazy Ronald retires next April, it has given me a bit more motivation to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I am going to turn it in on Monday and hopefully speak to an adviser on what I need to take. 

Speaking of work, the reason I was able to go because I had Thursday off from work. Since they have consolidated our departments for the summer, which is usual apparently, and it will continue into the fucking fall because their building is under renovation, is that in order to keep things “fair” they make everyone work a weekend day in exchange for a week day off. Which fucking sucks because you will never get two days off in a row. So if you want to go anywhere for more than a day you are fucked! If it where fair, they would not treat the people in our department do that and just the assholes that were brought in. 

Also I got into it with a girl I work with. One of the new positions created during the summer is a doorman like position where a person sits in a chair and waves everyone to the right entrance. I merely remarked that it was a nice change of pace from standing behind a counter for 8 hours and she went ballistic and started accusing me of accusing her of being lazy. I reminded her that she was and that I only knew what her ex-best friend told me and then I walked away. In typical crazy bitch fashion she started yelling at me across the main floor as I walked away. She then went into the head manager’s office and tried to get me in trouble. He did not believe her and knew that I meant no harm. The situation defused. Also, she got in trouble with the other supervisors for not respecting the chain of command and going over their heads. They said she is also on thin ice over snapping at other co-workers, lying about being pregnant and faking an injury. 

I also found out my friend Ms. Ruth got a new position and is moving to another department. I will miss her but she will visit and she will be better off than she was. She has a fair share of assholes to deal with, even more so because they give her hell for being Jewish and Canadian. She is the nicest and most generous person that I have ever worked with there. I already miss her.

And the last time I visited my mom she went on another tirade about the length of my hair and the way I am dressed. She kept trying to rationalize her disapproval by saying that I will be more successful with getting jobs that I am not qualified for and that girls will give me “a second look”. Not just any girls, the “girls at Wal-Mart”. Wow, mom. The number one place to pick up chicks. Especially with no teeth and no fucking future. My whole life I have been the invisible man. No one gives me a first look so why should I go out of my way to impress some superficial moron? Besides… I am happy to some extent the way I am! My love life is none of her God damned business. I barely have a social life because I went to school for five years and worked 7 days a week to keep MYSELF up the whole fucking time. I have only two real friends in this world and I cherish them for that and they are all I really need. 

I want out.

“One of these days I am going to tunnel out of this ocean of shit I’m in.”

So, my first week of being temporarily laid off is going uneventfully. I really don’t know what to do with myself with time off. Once again, going to school and working every minute of free time leaves me not knowing what to do with myself. I wish I owned a bicycle and knew how to ride it. Maybe I could do some exploring.

I got caught up on watching the movies I have back logged. “The Innkeepers” scared the hell out of me. 

They are doing construction at my apartment to get rid of the rotting wooden retaining wall. So I am woken up at 8 every morning by the entire building shaking from the earth moving equipment. If you don’t move your car by 9 they will block you in all day.

I got some texts last night from Hunter. That was a real morale boost. I felt bad because I missed the first one she sent because I slept from 3 to 9 and missed the first one. It was nice hearing from her. 

The unemployment office says that I can draw $175 a week. Not a huge amount but enough to buy groceries and help pay the rent. It makes me want to start attending nursing school as soon as possible. I am sick of squeaking by with my current dead-end job. I saw Dennis at the free clinic Saturday. He told me that before he retired, he was making 80K a year nursing. I want to do that. I just need to apply for the classes and the grants. Why in the hell did I go into political science? It is only practical if you are going to teach, and I hate children anyway. 

Another thing pissing me off is that my computer is running slow. It is that special kind of slow that makes if freeze and the line of text that you were just typing shoots across the screen before freezing the fuck up again. Tumblr gifs make it go crazy. I hate technology. It is wonderful when it wants to work. I also need to get off my ass and get an internet connection. I just have my own weird anxiety things that makes me want to put it off.

Sometimes it is just not worth getting out of bed.

Yesterday was my last day of work until the 10th of June. I hate being a temporary. 

The man who is supposed to retire in June, at which time they will make me permanent, has been saying that he will stay on for another YEAR. I hate that fat, worthless bastard! He is probably just doing it to spite me. He weighs 450 pounds and has me and another guy to do his work for him, so he has it good. He might as well be on welfare cause all he does is sit on his ass and collect checks. I do twice as much work as him, I have not missed a day of work, I follow the rules and that useless lump makes more money than me and has benefits. Maybe when the time comes in June for the option for him to retire he will take it. Every time I think I am going to climb out of the hole, my footing crumbles away and I stay in the dark. 

So anyway, my bitching and venting aside, for the next month I am officially classified as “laid off”. But, all is not lost. With the pay checks I am owed, my rent is covered and I get to apply for unemployment, which I did this afternoon. The first week is waiting as they process me, but they told me that I will be paid about half of my actual wages. That’s not bad. I will be ok. And they told me that I can get a part-time job and still draw. 

I think I am going to do alright.

It has been two weeks since my forced move from my old apartment due to the flood and I have yet to get my internet connection restored. I plan to get the ball rolling on that tomorrow. 

Where to begin. The first weekend was two days straight of moving then I went work started on Monday, then not a lot got done. Then last weekend, Hunter came for a visit and stayed the weekend with me! You have no idea what it does for me to see her and be able to hug her! Its an instant cure for depression. I took her out to dinner, bought her some gifts to make up for how lackluster Christmas turned out and she introduced me to her friends who were all super cool. Since I am terrible at making first impressions, I gave them all some comics, and I gave Scape a couple of books. They seemed to really enjoy them. Its too bad some of the stuff I was going to hand out got ruined in the flood. I have made the decision to stay in my new apartment. As much as I love the nostalgia of living in Hunter’s old building because of the fond memories there, she put it best when she said we can create new memories in the new place. And she is right. Besides, it is just as close to work and it is bigger too. 

On to the bad news. I have a new nemesis at work. An aging old shithead named Sheila. She is the kind of old lady that likes to gossip, lie and talk shit about people and then pretend that she is a good little Baptist woman. It is your behavior that makes you a good person not your beliefs. Her bullshit always gets back to me either through supervisors, sympathetic coworkers or I over hear her, like I did one morning. I got back to me that she said I was afraid of her. The fuck? I called her out on it. I was preforming my usual duties and had to walk past her. I said, “I hope I can do this… YOU’RE SO SCARY!” She flew mad and ran to the supervisor and threatened to go to the Equity Office over it. I reminded her that she is the one talking shit and trying to make other employees scared of her, and that is creating the hostile work environment that HR hates. She back down. The gossip continues, but she knows not to mess you me. So fuck ‘er. 

I want a job. just not one with shitty co-workers.

Today was my last day of work for this year. We are off util the 7th of January. Not that I mind having all most a full month off, but I will miss the money that I am not making. I’m not greedy, but I do have bills to pay. I have enough saved up to get me through. 

Today at work I had a surprise. A cop wanted to talk to me. About a week ago one of my bitchy co-workers lost her wallet. She was convinced that it was stolen. She took a full day off to get all her cards replaced and to file a police report. 

Don’t worry. I never touched it. I am paranoid that no matter how much of a lack of evidence there is, I always get blamed if something goes wrong. There is no evidence against anyone they said. Its just that cops make me nervous. The officer lady asked me all the details of what I did and where I was when it supposedly happened. She brought up that there was a theft in the last department that I worked in. I brought up the fact that only someone with a set of keys could have carried it out and I was not implicated in that crime either. She said that I was not a suspect or that they had anything against me. This is true because I still have my job and I am not under arrest. But when Pam told me that “someone” wanted to “talk to me” in Todd’s office, and that “someone” turned out to be a cop, my heart almost stopped. 

My friend Phil will hopefully be transferring out of the department that he is in. This means his position will come open and it will most likely be full-time permanent position. It will essentially the same job I had when I started. But the hours and pay will be more to my liking and when people are mean to me, at least they are up front about it. 

I had a bad experience at work yesterday. 

My two co-workers, who have been becoming more clique-y and more exclusive toward me, started talking about one of our other co-workers and how great she was. They talked about how hard a worker she was and how they “didn’t have to tell her anything”, and how they could not wait for her to come back. So? Does that mean I am doing a bad job? 

I replaced this girl because she took time off from work because she was surprised to find out that she was 8 months pregnant! How does someone not notice that?!

Anyway, she was gone for and indeterminate amount of time and I could not get along with my current co-worker because he was a lazy, racist asshole. So, I took over her spot. I got along alright with everybody. I made my share of first timer mistakes, but I was praised up and down by my other co-workers and supervisors. They told me I worked much harder than her and kept the work area spotless. 

The two others I work with make me deal with the day to day running of the place and deal with the unwashed masses of humanity that shuffle through everyday while they do prep work in the back… and gab and gossip! They get away with the easy stuff and won’t let me learn how to do it in order to make sure that only they can do. They go on “field trips” together to get supplies and are gone for what seems like hours. They won’t come out to the front to help me, but then bitch at me if it is not perfect. 

Then they pull some shit on how much they liked that girl better, and how much they just loved working with her. I asked outright if that meant I was doing a shitty job and wanted me gone. They didn’t give me a straight answer. I am starting to dread work because of this. But, I brought it up with two different supervisors and a lady who has worked there for close to 20 years and they all said that I had nothing to worry about and that they would not return me to my old position with they douche bag.

On the bright side, two people are retiring and one is transferring. That means that people will be shuffled around and there will be new jobs to be had. I hope that I can transfer back down to the basement. Those people are bitchy but they are upfront about. It is nothing that I had not put up with from them for the last 5 years. 

I just want to get on as a permanent from a temporary. Any hell the give me will be well worth $12.50 a hour with full state employee benefits. I have endured much worse for much less to show for it.