Plans Awry

On this, my first full day off work, I had planned to completely clean out the kitchen. It is now just after 1pm, and I have successfully done the last two shelves in the pantry (so I fibbed a bit last night--they were an afterthought, really), the cabinets above the fridge, and the fridge itself.

There are a couple of factors here that are hampering my progress, the first one being that things were a little messier, dirtier, clutteredier (!!) than I had anticipated. The second, and more problematic problem, is that I'm a bit, um, obsessive compulsive on the rare occasions that I *do* clean. My old toothbrush has already been donated to the fight against the grime that collects in every nook and cranny. I took everything. EVERYTHING. out of the fridge, checked dates, reorganized, *CLEANED OFF THE BOTTLES/BAGS/BAGGIES/ETC*, and tossed out the stuff that we should have consumed up to a year ago. Everything came off the front of the fridge as well. The top and sides of the fridge are sparkling, and that grill on the front--down on the bottom there? As clean as it's going to get.

I've done two loads of dishes, and handwashed the meat and veggie drawers that go in the fridge. I've taken out two loads of recycling (aforementioned past-their-prime bottles and such, primarily), and have nearly filled my second trash bag. The garage sale pile has even gotten a few new goodies.

So it's been a busy morning, but I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I had hoped. The one day kitchen project will probably be at least two. But hey--I've got 7.5 more paid days off work, none of which I'd planned on. So technically? Way ahead of the game!

Unemployment starting.....NOW!

When my phone rang yesterday afternoon, I immediately recognised the phone number from work. I assumed they had finally figured out that they had scheduled one manager from 9-5, and the next manager from 7pm-3am (we're having the floors done), and that they'd be asking me to come in for a couple hours.

Not so much.

They basically said I don't have to come back, effective immediately. Seems I have an overabundance of sick time available (over 100 hours) that I will lose if it's not used. And they are WAY over budget on payroll hours. These two items are fact. So, as my "reward" for having such great attendance--read: never calling in sick, and going home early 2, maybe 3 times in the 3 years I was there--they offered to pay out my sick time. I get to stay home and get paid for it and they save on payroll hours. Win Win. Right? So why was I so suspicious and upset about it?

The unspoken bit of it is that they just don't want me around, stirring up the rest of the folks during my last 9 days of work. I am going back in for one final 11-7 shift next Saturday, November 3rd--it was going to be my last day anyway, and they have *graciously* said I could come in and work that day and they'd throw me a party and whatnot. Thing is, as of today, I've only personally told 4 people that I was leaving. Two of those were the GM and AGM, and one of them was as I was walking out the door today. I feel more than a little uncomfortable at not having told anyone myself. I made a copy of the phone roster before I left today, and I'm going to start making some personal calls over the next couple of days.

I also typed up a nice little letter for the boss guys to sign, indicating the reason that I was taking the last 8 of my 9 days in sick leave--specifically that it was not my request. As well it states that I will still be eligible to receive all vacation and float hours due to me, as well as accrue the whopping 3 or so hours of vacation that I would have gotten for working. I tried to cover all my bases because, quite frankly, I don't trust them.

So, yeah. I'm effectively unemployed, barring the token shift to say my farewells. After I dropped by the store today to get my little love note signed, I went to Home Depot to get some stuff for making our lawn pretty. Project time commences! I'm going to take some before and after photos, but I'm not showing you *anything* until I see some improvement. It's a pride thing. And the yard is really gruesome right now.

The pantry though? The pantry is already cleaned out. Like mother, like daughter! :D

Onward!

When I realised that it was not a good thing that the company I was working for was moving out of our sweet sweet office space and into the owner's home--not to mention the fact that he was using money *I* was bringing in by booking bands out to pay the bands *he* was bringing in (instead of paying me and my bands), I started looking for an hourly job. Sound Warehouse it was. Wow. They are still around too. You may remember that it used to be a chain, but in a big hooray for the little indie stores, when the chain started to implode, Rudy and Holly bought out the place and made it their own. Or something like that. The fact that they are still around makes me happy.

When I worked there, it was a combination video/record store. Yes, records. Vinyl. Cassettes. Old school, baby. I discovered Akira Kurosawa there, and named my (best friend's and my, that is) first-outside-the-safety-of-my-parent's-home dog after him. My Akira ate a bottle of blue paint and lived to tell the tale, but that's another story for another time.

I worked with a guy named Kevin Blakely (he played bass for Punkinhead)--the first black guy I'd ever really spent time around. His buddies used to come in and they would start chatting in this unbelievably incomprehensible way; it was utterly fascinating. I was too naive not to express my curiousity, and thankfully he was too well brought up to make fun of me or take offense about it. Thus I learned my second foreign language. The only thing I really remember is "Aight den". Which, of course, means "All right then".

I got a lot of free cd's and a lot more free passes to this or that live show. Mike Watt of Firehose showed up on my doorstep one morning after a show. He'd lost a filling or a cap or something during the show, wasn't going to be able to get to a dentist for some time, and I happened to have had a prescription for Tylenol w/ codeine (I'd recently had my wisdom teeth out and couldn't stand to take the stuff). Sleuth that he is, he got my address off the bottle, and showed up for breakfast the next morning.

And this one time, I got a boot to the head at an Agnostic Front show. Damn crowd surfers (thanks Shanny, for the proofreading!)

The job itself? I don't remember a whole lot about it, except for the part where we used to have to handwrite all the receipts. I used to be able to tell which album and which record label was represented just from the barcode. No joke.

Stay tuned for tales of how I moved on from my life in the music biz. . .

It'sThe Little Things: Witness

I just took this photo after the FOURTH time vacuuming the first floor of the house(the first two were sans belt). I'm shocked and a little embarassed at how filthy the carpet was/is. But I've got the new belt on, and a spare waiting in the wings. I'm ready for it!!

Sent from my iPhone

Vacuum Cleaning and Diagnostics

Add that to my list of jobs?

Well, unofficially. Probably more of a hobby than anything, I suppose. I was wondering today why a simple stray string wasn't playing along with the whole vacuum-suction thing. So I upended the machine and took a screwdriver to it. Turns out that odd sweet smell I've been noticing for...oh, let's just say a rather long time...was a direct result of the belt having melted and fused to the roller brush. And then disintegrating. Turns out two heads of long hair are mightier than the Eureka Power Vroom or whatever the hell it's called. I think I pulled enough hair off of the roller mechanism to donate to Locks Of Love if I'd washed and combed it out. So we're in the market for a new belt in the short term...but high on the wish list is a whole new machine. I did feel rather...crafty...for having dived in and taken the thing apart. Would that I'd have done it months and months ago. Word to the wise: if you have long hair or other sorts of windy (wine-dy) stuff on your floors, clean your vacuum from time to time. I am available in the Phoenix markets if you need such a service performed.

What's that you say? How can I digress so boldly when I've neglected the completion of my epic saga of past employment. A-Ha! It was a lead in, don't you see?

So yeah. Jobs after college.

Booking agent for Rock Solid Entertainment and Supersports. I had a lot of nerve when I got out of college. When I moved to Fayetteville, I started calling around to all of the hot clubs in town and asking for jobs. Amazingly enough, Chris King of JR's Lightbulb Club knew of a guy who needed some help booking bands and events. I gave Beau Whalen a call, and he gave me my first job in the real world, although you could hardly call it that.

I was fresh out of college, sharing an apartment (and soon after, a house) with my best friend, booking the hottest bands in NW Arkansas. Don't laugh. There was a pretty hip music scene in Fayetteville back in the day (still is, for all I know). I worked with Punkinhead (omg, they're still around! amazing!) The Faith Healers, Gypsy, Cosmic Giggle Factory--several others whose names escape me. I worked part time, at best, rolling out of bed late in the morning, working from no earlier than 11am--usually going in after 1pm (the clubs we booked into weren't generally open before then, anyway) and staying only until 5 or 6 at the latest. I got paid cash commissions off the bookings, and got into free shows almost every night of the week. Oh, and we lived about 3 blocks from where I worked, so I walked every day. The primary clubs the agency booked *into* was less than a mile from where we lived, so we walked there as well. Ah, the good ole days.

Still to come: The realisation that a regular wage is better than commission only.

But first...sleep.

Working Title

I did it. Last Friday I put in my notice at work. I gave them one month to replace me, given that A) it's the holiday season and they'll want to get someone in to train pretty quickly (although I've seen no movement to that effect) and B) I'll be hard to replace. :P

Of course I've been thinking about what I'm going to do next, aside from spending a couple days cleaning the HELL out of the house and perhaps hosting a garage sale to unload some of the stuff that's been boxed up for 3 years with nary a thought.

Thinking about what's next invariably gets me thinking about what's in the past, so I thought I'd share a rundown of my illustrious working history.

1. Babysitter. I don't know how old I was, but I know I was barely old enough to be left alone myself. I used to stay with my mom's friend's boy Ryan a lot. It was more like an unsupervised playdate than anything else. After Ryan there were a lot of in betweens, but the main other kids I sat with were Chris and Kyle Corbin, and the Lane boys, whose names escape me. I don't really recall ever babysitting little girls--at least on a regular basis, and I now find that odd. I always got along better with boys, anyway...

2. Video Store Clerk. I once made an error on a receipt that made it look as though we were $2,000,000 short at the end of the night. I didn't get fired!

3. Lifeguard. Yep. I worked as a lifeguard at a country club. Once, a friend of mine from school walked up to me and asked what the writing was on my hip. Turns out stretch marks don't tan well, and look like a form of writing from far away...

4. Disc Jockey. I was an unpaid DJ in college, and then one summer got a real live paying on air job at a local radio station. Power 105.9FM Northwest Arkansas' Best Music! I was the overnight weekend DJ. There are some freaky people up late at night, and they are not afraid to stalk the dj booth.

5. Baby Chicken Processor. Somehow I had in my head that this job would look good on a Peace Corps application. I debeaked and innoculated baby chickens, among other horrible, horrible things. It was godawful work, often for 16 hours a day. I saved a baby chicken from becoming chicken food once (oh how I wish I were kidding). Any "off coloured" chicks were tossed into the grinder, so I stowed a tiny black chick in my shirt pocket and took him home. He lived in a box in our front room and hung out with me on the front lawn. His name was Little Moufette.

6. College Radio Station Manager. After I was a dj for 2 years, I managed to become Station Manager. This entailed mainly making schedules, reading CMJ, and creating and booking a lot of live shows, including but not limited to: The Mongol Beach Party, Bunnies of Doom, and Sweet Baby. Ah the good old days of bands sleeping on the couches and floors of the house and getting their tour trailers stuck in the back yard. Good times, good times.

So that's the jobs up through college. Post college forays into the world of work will be for another day.

This green behemoth is the last place I lived in Lawrence, Kansas. The window(s) just above the porch roof? Mine. I had a fantastic 2 br/1bath apartment, with the smallest kitchen known to man. My cookie sheets wouldn't even fit into the oven, it was so tiny. If I had owned a microwave at the time, it would have had to sit in my spare room because there was absolutely no place for it in that kitchen. Literally, I'd say it was probably about 7-10 square feet. And that's probably being generous.

But that wasn't the only quirky thing about this apartment, oh no! As you might have guessed from the exterior, it was an old house, and as we all know, things tend to sag as they get older... My apartment ran the length of the entire house, and if you stood at either end of it and put down a spherical object of any kind, it would roll to a point roughly in the middle of the apartment.

And then there was the fact that all of the utilities were included, but communal. What that means is that although I had purchased a spiffy window air conditioner a few years prior to moving in, I was not allowed to use it. That would have shifted the electric bill rather a ways up, but everyone split the bills, so no go. The house did have a/c, but it was woefully inadequate. My "scrape-the-freezer-ice" trick was put into play again, but I also cleverly parked my self in the main hallway of the house on the hottest nights. There was a vent at either end of the hallway (there was but one in my rather large room, which happened to sit over the open entryway of the house, so was bordered on three sides by hot hot air), so I hung blankets to keep the cold air in, and slept between them on the floor.

Ah, the good ole days! I lived on a brick street, the photo of which I can't show you because Blogger apparently hates me just at the moment. But I had always wanted to live on a brick street, from the very first time that I visited Lawrence (thank you thank you thank you to my good friend Kevin Waddell for moving there and inviting me up--and introducing me to the guys that sold me my very first mountain bike too, btw!), and this house gave me that dream. And let me tell you...it's no picnic, especially in the little pickup that I was driving at the time. Or on that mountain bike. But it sure was pretty.
Ah! Now it works. See? I told you it was pretty.