Muutoksen pelko (1. osa)
Apr. 26th, 2009 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
Generally speaking, people are afraid of change. They are also afraid of isolation.
For the last few weeks I have held my breath and have not written much, because I was waiting for certainty. Not complete certainty, of course. It's never possible to be certain about everything at the same time. But in this case, it was just to be certain that I had employment so that I didn't need to spend all summer with my family and pressured to get some job, please-and-dammit,-just-do-retail. Because I know I can't do that. I don't feel that it's a very honest industry.
I put out something like 10 applications this year and got replies from about half. I had never tried so hard before. But after rejection after rejection (well, maybe I'm just not cut out to be a receptionist or a landscaper or a camp instructor), I really wanted to know if there was something fundamentally so different about me that no one wanted me for anything I knew I could be good at. And it was getting very late - if I didn't have a job before my current lease ends at the end of the month, it was going to be go-home-and-do-retail.
But I guess that sometimes the best things end up being saved for last. In the end I had two final "interviews " - an actual interview with a small furniture assembly business and an info-gathering meeting with an office temp agency. The first was nothing short of a confidence boost: I knew that I had the skills and the experience and I didn't at any time have to twist and evade and invent answers to questions like "tell about how you dealt with a conflict with a customer." I tapped into everything I've done with model-building, detail-work, and putting together DIY -furniture with my dad.
The temp agency was quite impressed with my computer and typing skills too (if only they knew I acquired those at what cost), and they even had an opportunity to do machine grading of high school diploma exam papers, which would be quite relevant for my future as a teacher. But that's only for a few weeks.
And even though office labour pays more than manual labour, and I really was tempted to go for the exam-grading thing, I needed to report certainty, and temping is anything but certain. Even more so in the current economic climate. The wages aren't so important to me anyway. I was then offered the furniture job, so I accepted it. The best part about it is that I'm going to be installing demo furniture at IKEA. I still sometimes wonder if that was the best choice:
Either way, the working hours will mean that I can't chat with Finns except on weekends, but especially so when I may not even get home from work until 6PM. There's no way around that isolation, really. Even if I went home and worked nights at Walmart again, a different set of expectations would limit this in much the same way. Is such a long journey to work and the lesser wage worth the more mentally engaging work? We'll find out, I guess.
Am I just more "suited" for manual labour?
I'm also going to be moving back into a shared apartment this week. It'll be more spacious than the one I had in first year, and I hope that my flatmates are friendly people and that we'll get along and do things like watch movies and cook together. It would make the isolation more bearable.
I complained a while ago (not on the blog) about the interviewer who wrote down that I was "very shy." I think I understand what she meant now. It's that it's really awkward for me to start a conversation with the aim of initiating a social relationship. But once it's initiated and there's interest in either direction, I'm more comfortable.
I used to cook and make weird food every day in first year. I'm not sure if I still remember how to.
While my friends are anxious about moving home after four or five years of school, or what to do with the newly-minted letters after their names (though I maintain that they aren't actually there until you receive the parchment - or, for the impatient, when all grades have been announced), here I am, anxious about having less than five hours in a day to myself and being away from Finns.
You can count on me writing a lot in my notebook while on the bus, if I don't get sick from doing it. And if I remember how to compose writing.
To be continued...?
For the last few weeks I have held my breath and have not written much, because I was waiting for certainty. Not complete certainty, of course. It's never possible to be certain about everything at the same time. But in this case, it was just to be certain that I had employment so that I didn't need to spend all summer with my family and pressured to get some job, please-and-dammit,-just-do-retail. Because I know I can't do that. I don't feel that it's a very honest industry.
I put out something like 10 applications this year and got replies from about half. I had never tried so hard before. But after rejection after rejection (well, maybe I'm just not cut out to be a receptionist or a landscaper or a camp instructor), I really wanted to know if there was something fundamentally so different about me that no one wanted me for anything I knew I could be good at. And it was getting very late - if I didn't have a job before my current lease ends at the end of the month, it was going to be go-home-and-do-retail.
But I guess that sometimes the best things end up being saved for last. In the end I had two final "interviews " - an actual interview with a small furniture assembly business and an info-gathering meeting with an office temp agency. The first was nothing short of a confidence boost: I knew that I had the skills and the experience and I didn't at any time have to twist and evade and invent answers to questions like "tell about how you dealt with a conflict with a customer." I tapped into everything I've done with model-building, detail-work, and putting together DIY -furniture with my dad.
The temp agency was quite impressed with my computer and typing skills too (if only they knew I acquired those at what cost), and they even had an opportunity to do machine grading of high school diploma exam papers, which would be quite relevant for my future as a teacher. But that's only for a few weeks.
And even though office labour pays more than manual labour, and I really was tempted to go for the exam-grading thing, I needed to report certainty, and temping is anything but certain. Even more so in the current economic climate. The wages aren't so important to me anyway. I was then offered the furniture job, so I accepted it. The best part about it is that I'm going to be installing demo furniture at IKEA. I still sometimes wonder if that was the best choice:
| IKEA furniture | Office temp | |
| * lower wage per hour (lower than what I was paid at Walmart a couple of years ago) | * generally better wages (per hour) | |
| * one hour bus ride to work | * mostly downtown and easy to get to | |
| * hours: 8 - 4:30, weekdays (may have earlier days or weekend - would require carpool for early days) | * hours: office hours 9 - 5, Monday to Friday | |
| * don't need new wardrobe - have jeans, t-shirts, work boots | * need to do a bit of shopping to get a few skirts and blouses, dress shoes | |
| * work from May - July | * don't know when work is available and for how long | |
| * requires brain | * data entry and word processing does not require brain | |
| * get exercise | * sit, mostly | |
| * it's kind of Nordic? | * ... | |
Either way, the working hours will mean that I can't chat with Finns except on weekends, but especially so when I may not even get home from work until 6PM. There's no way around that isolation, really. Even if I went home and worked nights at Walmart again, a different set of expectations would limit this in much the same way. Is such a long journey to work and the lesser wage worth the more mentally engaging work? We'll find out, I guess.
Am I just more "suited" for manual labour?
I'm also going to be moving back into a shared apartment this week. It'll be more spacious than the one I had in first year, and I hope that my flatmates are friendly people and that we'll get along and do things like watch movies and cook together. It would make the isolation more bearable.
I complained a while ago (not on the blog) about the interviewer who wrote down that I was "very shy." I think I understand what she meant now. It's that it's really awkward for me to start a conversation with the aim of initiating a social relationship. But once it's initiated and there's interest in either direction, I'm more comfortable.
I used to cook and make weird food every day in first year. I'm not sure if I still remember how to.
While my friends are anxious about moving home after four or five years of school, or what to do with the newly-minted letters after their names (though I maintain that they aren't actually there until you receive the parchment - or, for the impatient, when all grades have been announced), here I am, anxious about having less than five hours in a day to myself and being away from Finns.
You can count on me writing a lot in my notebook while on the bus, if I don't get sick from doing it. And if I remember how to compose writing.
To be continued...?
