F*** My... Nevermind

(A little bit of art that I made a long time ago)

I created my very first ever F*** My Life on 06/09/2009.

#2744716
Today, my temp agency sent me out for an interview for a great job. The interviewer and I hit it off. She asked if I could start later today. She said she'd call after making up a contract. She didn't call. My temp agency called to tell me the interviewer was fired right after my interview. FML

As of right now, 34,513 people agreed that my life is f***ed. 793 dissenters inexplicably voted "You Deserved That One" (which, based on the comments, may because they inferred from the phrase "hit it off" that I was "hitting on" my interviewer... a 60y.o. woman. Of course, they don't know that she was, because there's a character limit for FML submissions... But whatever...). Not a bad ratio, and clearly a successful submission, I'd say.

As it turns out, my life is not actually f***ed at all, but I'll tell you the whole story.

I was in a lot of pain and in bed for like a week (as you might remember from my last post, if you were brave enough to read it). On Monday, I was in bed all day, but I knew that I needed to trot over to my temp agency with my birth certificate so that they could legally send me out for some money-making. So I threw on some professional-ish clothes, popped an additional 800mgs of Ibuprofen, and put on my best "health and not in pain" face, and pranced in about 15 minutes before they closed for the day. And as I was leaving, the guy I report to said...

GUY: Wait! Did you say you wanted Full Time?
ME: I'd prefer full-time, but I'll take anything. Right now I just want a job. Any job.
GUY: Did I tell you about the jewelry store?
ME: I don't think so.
(i.e. no, he definitely did not)
GUY: Do you have any experience with jewelry? Do you like jewelry?
ME: I have experience with retail.
(i.e. I worked at a store run by crazy Asian people whom I affectionately referred to as "The Crasians" who paid me under the table and kept "forgetting" to put me on the schedule after I was trained, but gave me the employee discount for like a year even though I think I worked there about 3 days total.)
GUY: That's good.
ME: And I wear a lot of jewelry.
(i.e. I spend like $30 a month that I shouldn't be spending on kitschy stuff from Etsy)
GUY: They're just starting and I know they need one or two people. We've already sent a couple, but let me give them a call. Maybe I can set you up an interview.

I got home about 15 minutes later, and the phone was literally ringing as I walked through the door. I had an interview the next morning at 9:00am. Hot dog! This temp agency of mine? Pretty stellar, I have to say. A long term temp interview that fast is insane.

So prayed that I wouldn't be in pain the next day, took my ibuprofen ("Vitamin I"), and I went in for my interview.

I met my interviewer (let's call her "Sharon") at the local Bagel King (yes, it's called a Bagel King). She was about 10 minutes late, and I had been 10 minutes early, so I spent 20 minutes sitting there, not ordering anything, and feeling like a jerk (right before I went, my mother had said never, NEVER eat or drink anything during an interview, even if they offer to buy you something).

I was nervous, but it went well. Sharon was nice, loud, and seemed pretty nutty (just the kind of person who loves me). She took me to meet her boss. She took me to the main office. She took me to the business office to meet the other employees (let's call them Dina and Alana). She sat me down with Dina, who then started explaining to me the entire database system. It was very straightforward (and far simpler than the database that I worked on at my "real job" in Chicago). I said that it was no problem at all for me.

The job, Sharon said, would start with the database work before the store opened, and then they'd transition me into sales. She said she was ready to hire me right then and there, but she wanted to check it over with her boss and my temp agency, and figure out some contractual things. She asked if I could start working later that day. I said absolutely. She was thrilled. She said she'd call as soon as everything was taken care of, and it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

So I went back home and called Guy from my temp agency.

ME: I think I'm a great fit for them. Sharon even asked if I could start today.
GUY: That's great. She just called me and said the same thing. I'll call you back as soon as I hear from her.

So I crawled back into bed, feeling like everything was going my way.

But my phone didn't ring. I waited. I waited. I began to worry, but I knew that the interview had gone well, so I told myself it was probably just because they were busy.

Then, Guy from my temp agency called around 4:00pm.

GUY: Hey Angela. I wanted to let you know, Sharon has just been terminated.
ME: Terminated?
GUY: Yeah. I kind of thought it was coming, but I didn't know it would be this soon.
ME: This happened today?
GUY: Yep. Sharon and Alaina were both terminated today.
ME: So what happens to me?
GUY: Not sure. They just called me and asked what the situation was with getting someone in there. I said, "What about Angela?" They said to have you send a résumé. You might have to interview again. And they might just not take you because they didn't trust Sharon.
ME: Um, okay.
GUY: So e-mail me your résumé. I'll see what I can do.

Clearly, luck was not on my side. (Nor was it on Sharon's side, apparently.)

Wednesday, my dad took me into NYC to see a matinée of this year's Tony Award winning Best Play, God of Carnage, which had just won the Sunday before. (I had been watching the awards from my basement in a formal dress, as I do every year. Tradition!) And while in NYC, I got a call from Guy. The jewelry store wanted me. I would be starting on Monday.

(As a side note, my standards for theatre are getting very, very high. I've gotten to the place where I'm criticizing more than I'm enjoying. It kind of blows. But I guess that comes with the territory.)

Over that weekend, I took a gig as a stagehand for another children's dance recital/show, which is my second time teching that sort of production since being in CT. I can sum up my thoughts from said shows pretty quickly:
1. Glitter is comparable to a venereal disease.
2. Children. Spandex. Sequins. Sexy dancing. Children's Dance Shows = pedophile heaven. (A choreographer requested low lighting when the underaged teens in skimpy clothes dancing were like strippers to "Out Tonight" from Rent, saying "I don't want to get arrested.")
3. I will never, ever get the song "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire out of my head.
4. Being a stage manager can make a person get a delicious power high. Loved it.


On Monday the 15th, I showed up to my new workplace. The store is still under construction, so we're in an unmarked office on the next block. I'm pretty sure that we're the only office in the three story building that is not connected to medicine. (Convenient thing: Quest Diagnostics is on the first floor, so I can get my blood drawn before work if I need to. Fantastic.) The only people in the office are me and Dina.

It turns out that Dina was brought in to "save" things when it turned out that Sharon wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing. She'd been there for a couple of weeks, figuring out what was going wrong, and then they kicked out Sharon. Dina is now in charge. (Still no idea why Alaina was fired.)

My job isn't just putting things in the database. My job is doing whatever Dina needs me to do on a given day. So far, that has been:
- setting up jewelry in a pretty way on the table so that when the Big Boss' wife came by, she could tell us what she hated (she only actually liked about 4 things from the hundreds I displayed)
- spy on smoothie shops (seriously. They give me money, I buy a smoothie. I sit there for an hour and take notes on what kind of people are coming in and what they're buying.)
- checking shipments to make sure we got everything we were supposed to
- make a list of all the things that Sharon bought on eBay (she thought she could sell them in the store as vintage, not realizing that she couldn't actually prove that they were vintage... Hello $6000 liability)
- taking notes at focus groups
- gathering people for focus groups (i.e. getting my brothers and neighbors to come talk about smoothie shops, since the people starting our store are already looking to begin on more projects)
- take inventory of all the athletic shoes that were left behind by the last occupants of our office (which appears to have been a sports store that went under and left five styles of K-Swiss shoes and several kinds of MBT "anti-shoes" behind)
- putting on the jewelry and going to a farmer's market to get people to enter a drawing for a gift certificate to the store
- quality check jewelry and scarves
- pick up/order food for focus groups
- calm Dina down (okay, this one is unofficial)
- keep lists of all the random tasks that need to be done that haven't been done that Dina thinks of throughout the day
- type up notes from meetings

You know what I did today? Put on $450 worth of jewelry at a farmer's market and got people to enter a drawing to win a gift certificate to the store.

Starting Monday, I'm actually going to have an assistant. That's right. I'm a $10/hr temp, and I'm going to be delegating to someone else (a 16y.o. who somehow knows the Big Boss and needs a summer job). Considering that minimum wage in this state is something like $8.25, I think that makes me the cheapest supervisor ever (I'm tempted to track down numbers on how much supervisors get at McDonald's to compare).

It's a fun job. I like it. I really like Dina. And I'm good at it. And I'm going to get an employee discount on jewelry once we open. So all in all, I'd say I'm doing pretty well.

And as for how weird my body is... well, that'll be another post.


May your life be less than f***ed.

~A~