I need to find a summer job. Or not. I just can't bring myself to pound the pavement like a high school kid asking for the generic job application at every shop and eatery in this town and the next. There are things I just won't do anymore. I won't wait on people. I spend up to six hours a day working one on one with students who only marginally (if I'm lucky) get what I'm trying to sell them, I'll be damned if I'll take a major pay cut (like one third of what I charge for lessons) to smile and be nice to cranky customers who never will. I won't slice meat in a grocery store deli. That was last summer and it sucked!! Won't wait tables, won't run a cash register, even though I'm very good at both. I want to work in a kitchen where I don't have to talk to strangers and I can blow my cool if I feel like it. Hell, Chef Ramsey has built an empire on that.
Or I might accept a job cleaning up rental properties for seasonal renters. I hear it pays very well and I have an inside connection. I should practice on my own house, but no one is paying me to do it.
The job prospects in the little town where I teach are so glum, I spent the free time I had when a student canceled today 'putting away' the spare granola bars. At least they were small ones. And now they're gone. AND I have replaced the dish of candy that I leave out for the kids to treat themselves to after their lessons with carrots and grapes. One kid had the nerve to complain that I didn't have oranges today!! Baby steps . . .
Maybe someone would be interested in paying me to lose weight. $10 a pound. Per sponsor. Like one of those thing-a-thons, where you sign people up to kick in for every whatever you do by whenever. So kick in a certain amount per pound I lose by August 30 and I'll get to work. When it reaches an amount I can live on for the summer I'll actually publish my weight each week! Any takers?
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8 comments:
the first step in weight control is Self-control. Give you kids BACK their candy and have some will power!!!
Thus Sayeth I
It's not THEIR candy. . . It's MY money . . .
Laurie,
I think the thing is that at some point what you're doing is going to be unsustainable. This doesn't mean that your efforts went bust but that everyone else is too stupid to realize what you're working for. I think you're the only one that can determine when that time is. Did anything happen w/ the summer camp here?
Jessica
"Anonymous":
It's a trade off. As one parent put it (my connection to housekeeping $), lots of people around here do a lot of different things. You paste them together to make a living. The cost of living is low in comparison to other areas and I get to live in the woods.
Regarding the summer camp, I wouldn't have taken it if it were offered--no $$. What I do between September and June is working fine--it's the 2 months in between that gets tough. I'll work it out.
"Lost in the Woods"
I worked cleaning rental mansions in Maine as a teenager -- do you know how many pounds of sand kids can grind into an oriental rug in a week? >20 years ago this paid $20/hr, so it's not bad pay but it's backbreaking work and it wasn't that many hours, for me at least. I worked picking strawberries as my other job. :-P
I dunno... You have a "voice." Why don't you freelance author some articles? Preferably for an airline magazine -- those features pay pretty well. You know, telling people where to vacation in backwoods New England. Which airlines fly in near where you live?
so life is like a quilt, some patches are silk and some are used kleenex
Anne picked up on your verbal ability. New England forces you to work all your talents, whatever they may be. It can feel precarious, but also creatively rewarding. Just about the only way to get rich here is to be rich before your get here, but you can scrape up such disparate jobs as cooking for an archaeological field camp, writing local news stories or toiling in a doomed cafe.
I know you understand. It only makes it marginally easier, but understanding is an experience in itself.
Cafiend, that may be true. But at some point don't you just get tired of it? Won't you want some part of your life to be just a little bit "easier," a little more secure? I don't know.
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